Title: You Must Be A Weasley

Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, Obviously Jk Rowling owns Harry Potter.

Author's Note: I saw a tumblr post about a Harry Potter with red hair and hazel eyes and I wanted to read a fanfic about it, but when I couldn't find one I decided to write my own. This is my first ever fanfiction and I apologise for any mistakes I may make both due to it being my first time or due to poor writing. I also apologise for posting the title first without a chapter, I didn't actually realise you could do that.

Edit: I wrote this on my Ipad and something happened with my spacing causing huge chunks of writing to just disappear. I think I've fixed it but if you notice anything, please let me know!

Chapter 1 - A Very Normal Family

Petunia Dursley was proud to say that she was perfectly normal, thank you very much. Yes it was true, she had not always prided herself on it quite that much, but No. Damnit! She would not let herself think like that. She was perfectly normal, and that was that!

Still... As she found herself picturing straight red hair she began to feel the smallest of twinges in her heart. Of course, then she saw those bright green eyes that she had always envied, and even as the name 'Tuney' began playing across her ears, she felt her heart harden. She had moved on from all that.

Of course at that moment an owl simply had to fly straight past the window. That was just like her sister. Finding ways to taunt her without even trying. She closed her eyes and turned away from the window to go pick up the milk from outside. However, she hadn't even finished opening the door before her scream pierced the neighbourhood. Sitting there, wrapped in blankets, was the exact red hair she had just been thinking about!

But how? How could this be happening? She began to turn a deathly pale colour before she managed to snap herself out of her shock and looked about to see if anyone had noticed. Good. It seemed she still had a few moments to haul the baby inside and figure out what was going on. She picked up the mass of red hair and blankets, and began to quietly bundle them inside. It would not do to have the neighbours thinking she was anything less than perfectly ordinary (she could be perfect at some things at least!) But before she could get inside, she noticed a small letter with Mr. and Mrs. Dursley scrawled across it. She paled even further than she had previously as she very nearly screamed again. She recognised that hand writing far too well, she had seen it every day for nearly a year when she was younger, and had learnt to hate it very early on.

She came to hate that moment later in life, thinking back on it she sometimes wished she could spare herself the pain seeing that hair every day around her house had caused. But she wasn't to know that, sitting at the table with the baby. In the few moments before her husband came lumbering downstairs to discover the source of her screams she did begin to feel a sense of foreboding however, as she started to read the letter that the horrible old man had sent this time.

Harry James Potter didn't have the easiest life, but he didn't have the hardest either. He was teased at school for his red hair and his secondhand clothes, and he did get chased by his cousin quite frequently. But he was good at running away, and his clothes were usually only slightly secondhand, his cousin Dudley grew horizontally, at a frankly, alarming rate. He got an average-sized-dinner most days, and if it was sometimes a bit small, it was made up for by the desert his Aunt Petunia would occasionally bring to his cupboard. And yes, he lived in the cupboard under the stairs for now but last year when he was five his Aunt Petunia had said that he could move into Dudley's second bedroom if he was good this year, when she caught his cousin hitting him hard in the stomach. He thought it was probably a punishment for Dudley more than a reward for him, because she did bring it up frequently, whenever his cousin did something bad, but that just meant she hadn't forgotten about it. All of this was rapidly going through his mind as he approached his aunt, a few days past his sixth birthday, and began to ask if he could move rooms today.

The words tumbled out in a rush that was almost a squeak, "Aunt-Petunia-can-I-please-move-into-Dudley's-second-bedroom-today?" He saw her face shift and began to flinch back, but forced himself to stand still and continued, "whenever anyone walks of the stairs dust falls on me and I can't breath." He stopped and took a deep breath, thinking about the courage that had taken, preparing himself to look up, and expecting a scolding for being too selfish. He was incredibly surprised as she merely began to lead him upstairs.

Petunia wasn't stupid, she'd always known he would find out what had happened to his parents eventually, but she had never planned to tell him. When he was very little they had begun to feed him the lie that his parents had died in a car crash. Looking at Lily's hair every day had been hard though, she had always relied on her sisters eyes to be mean, she felt that they just seemed (and she shuddered to even think of the word, but,) magical. Harry's eyes weren't green, however, they were hazel, and his face had all the things that she had loved about her sister. The red hair, the soft features, and the small, cute, slightly-upturned-nose, it was like her sister was still with her. And that was why she had started planting the idea of a new bedroom in his head.

She knew that she was a little soft on the boy, and she knew that both her husband and son were a little too hard on him. That was why she let herself occasionally be nice to him. His hair brought back mostly happy memories, but seeing him bullied by her son brought back some rather more painful ones. And maybe it was out of guilt, but she had a hard time remembering the fear in her sisters face the last time she had seen her and knowing that she was seeing it again now in her nephews whenever he looked at his cousin. The exact same look, it haunted her at night, and that was why she decided she had to tell him what had happened to his parents. The truth. Because if he knew he had survived worse, than he wouldn't be quite so afraid, and she wouldn't feel quite so guilty, and she could stop brining him desert after the rest of her family went to bed on the nights when Dudley stole some of his dinner.

And if she had perhaps found a way to punish her son, and make him believe her threats and stop eating so much when she told him to, then maybe that wasn't the worst thing.

Harry was stunned as his Aunt Petunia sat him down on the spare bed in Dudley's second bedroom, and began to speak;

"Harry, I'm afraid it's time I told you..." Her eyes began tearing up, startling Harry, and as she pulled herself together he hesitantly asked "Yes Aunt Petunia?"

"It's about your parents," She began again, softly, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but, they didn't die in a car crash" She looked up at him, "they were killed. I think you're old enough to know about this now." She stopped and looked as if she was waiting for him to ask something before she continued.

Harry felt a ringing in his ears and felt rather like he was falling, but he managed to croak out, "why?"

"Harry when you were born there was a man who hated your parents and he hunted them down and killed them. She paused for a moment before continuing. Her voice growing harder and more natural. "Then he tried to kill you, but he only managed to leave your scar," Harry felt his hand reach up and touch it, "before he disappeared."

He forced the words out of his throat, "what happened to him?"

"He died, somehow." Petunia replied. "I'm telling you this now because I think you're old enough to know what happened to them. And so that you know not to be afraid. You survived something terrible, you can survive a bit of dust."

She stood up suddenly, "You can still have this bedroom because you are getting a bit big for your cupboard. I want you to bring your belongings up here and settle in, while I go and speak to Vernon. Then get downstairs and clean the kitchen." She had a hard look on her face as she said this, and he knew that was the end of this. He doubted he'd ever be able to bring it up again.

"Yes Aunt Petunia," he said, then hesitated a moment before saying, "thank you for telling me."

She walked out of the room and Harry paused a moment before following her. He hurried downstairs to his cupboard and was halfway done collecting his blanket and clothes before he heard Vernon shouting "What?!" From down the hall, followed by sounds of soothing. He started to hurry, knowing he only had a little while before Dudley found out, but oddly happy, in spite of everything he'd learned. He'd gotten what he wanted. And even if Dudley made his mum give back his room, he would always know what he knew now.

Harry's life continued in much the same way as it had before after the events of that day. He now knew what had happened to his parents, he had a real bedroom, but he was still chased by Dudley and teased at school. He didn't always get to eat enough, and the desert stopped but it became less and less often that he didn't have enough to eat. Weird stuff did start happening but it wasn't that often and aside from what happened on Dudley's birthday at the zoo, his life wasn't that unusual.

He was happy as he finished cooking breakfast, and when Uncle Vernon sent him to go and get the post, he wasn't worrying about anything other than running away from Dudley's gang later. It had been nearly five years since he changed bedrooms but that didn't mean anything to him, at least, not yet.

But as he collected the post and had the stunned realisation that someone was writing to him all of that was about to change.

He stretched out on his bed the night after his birthday in stunned bliss, he was a wizard! He'd had the best day, he'd gotten a wand, books, robes, but best of all, he'd made not one, but two friends! Hagrid, his first friend EVER was amazing, Harry still couldn't believe what he'd done to Dudley, but then, better than that was; Hagrid had introduced him to, and even bought him his second friend! A snowy owl who was absolutely beautiful. Harry had named her Hedwig after someone from his history of magic book. Never before had he been so glad for his hair either, it blended in fairly well with his scar which made it less noticeable. After what happened in the leaky cauldron and Hagrid explained what'd happened when he was a baby he made sure that no one could see his scar. He got a few weird looks after that and heard a few people muttering something about weasels, but it really was the best day. And now he just had to wait until September before he could take his new belongings and go to platform nine and three quarters.