ash-shaytan
. ... .
You think you have read this story before, but this is not that story. There is no heroic, self-conscious boy, and the bossy Mudblood never does have friends. The freckled boy never comes out of his brothers' shadows, and -
But that would be telling.
It was a typical English day when the world changed. The sky was gray and overcast, and the pink shirt of a little girl running by stood out sharply against the drear of the neighborhood.
A little boy sat on the curb outside Number 4 Privet Drive. His green eyes were staring at nothing, and he flinched as a voice rang out.
"Shelley! Where are you? I don't wanna play hide-and-seek anymore. Let's play tag!" It was the little girl.
No one hopped out of the bushes. The girl stomped her foot.
"I'm serious, Shelley! 'Snot a trick. Get out here, now!" Still, Shelley did not appear. "Fine, then. I'm going home."
Scuffling sounds emanated from the foliage, and Shelley appeared from the bushes of Number 6.
"Mary!" Shelley called. "Don't go home. 'Sides, your mum'll just get mad at you for gettin' dirty."
"Fine," Mary replied in a very dramatic, self-sacrificing tone. "But I wanna play tag."
"Aww, tag's no fun with just two people!"
"Too bad! It's tag or nothing."
The little boy had by this time stopped staring into space. He raised his head a bit, and his green, green eyes glimmered hopefully.
"Um, I'll play with you," he said hesitantly.
The two girls whipped around, startled. Their eyes focused on the source of the interruption, and Mary lit up in recognition.
"You? No way. You're not playing with us. Mummy said that you're bad 'n' that I shouldn't play with you," Mary said scornfully before scrutinizing him in a sharp, strangely adult way. "You have a funny scar. Where'd you get it?"
The boy hunched into himself even more as Mary spoke. He mumbled, "Got it when my mum and dad died."
"Huh." Mary thought about that for a second, and then shrugged. Shelley was still hiding shyly behind her, and Mary glanced at her before continuing contemptuously. "Well, it's funny, and you're funny. Go 'way. I don't like you, and Shelley doesn't like you neither."
The strange boy simply looked at her, and then he looked at the foreboding house behind him, and then he gathered what was left of his courage and said, "You go away. This is my house."
Mary sniffed (a habit she had picked up from her mother that would serve her well in her years of spinsterhood) and said, "Fine. We don't want to play here, anyway. Shelley, let's go get some lemonade from your mum." Mary stomped off, a silent Shelley trailing behind her.
The little boy was left sitting quietly on the curb. His lower lip trembled, but he was used to that kind of attitude. The thing was that he didn't know why everyone disliked him. They would take one look at him and turn their noses up. He tried so hard to be a good boy, but no matter what he did or didn't do, everyone still treated him like a disgusting pile of puppy poop - something to comment over in disapproval and try to exhort someone else into taking care of.
As he stared at the gray sky, he thought, Everybody hates me for no reason.
In another world, the thought ended there. In a fairytale, the outcast six year old kept striving to reach impossible standards, kept trying to make everyone - anyone - love him just a little.
This is not that fairytale.
In this story, the little boy gave up.
In this story, Harry Potter thought, Everybody hates me for no reason. Maybe...maybe I should give them a reason.
And the world was royally fucked.
A/N: ...So, what do you think? Oneshot or continuation?