PART TWO – Long Shadows

Harry knew something was out of the ordinary when there was screaming from outside his door. It was probably Petunia, judging from the shrillness, though Harry had heard Dudley emit equally high-pitched noises once or twice over the years. Harry had not actually seen Dudley at all since he was confined to the cupboard, and even then it was only glances of a round body and blonde hair plastered to a wide head. He was not to be trusted around Dudley, according to Petunia, who'd had Vernon belt him the one time he dared to ask about why he never saw the other boy.

The screaming was abnormal for precisely the same reason that Harry wasn't to be trusted on his own out in the rest of the house. The others in the house hated drawing attention to the family. Supposedly the knowledge of Harry's presence would do that. He was sure that shrieking would do so as well. For this reason, Harry was curious, though he tried to stamp the feeling down. Vernon had once told him that curiosity killed something-or-other. Harry couldn't remember exactly what it had been, but he'd had a terrible feeling Vernon might have really mean him.

There was a shuddering beneath Harry's feet far greater than that made by Vernon or even Dudley when they walked past his cupboard. Yet, he felt certain that it was footsteps, for each tremor was slightly bigger than the last, and seemed closer to him. Harry wondered who or what could possibly cause something like that. He had always assumed that Vernon had to be one of the largest people in the world, for he was so much bigger than Petunia. Though, he supposed, Dudley must be bigger than Vernon, for the floor shook more when he ran past, and dust floated down from the stairs onto Harry's body when Dudley went up them. One day Dudley would get so large he'd just pop like those big round colourful things Dudley had had scattered all about the house for his last birthday. Harry hadn't much liked the noise when those had burst.

Harry turned his eyes down, as was expected, when the door to his cupboard was opened, amidst lots of yelling and threats to 'knock it off its hinges' if it wasn't unlocked immediately. He wanted to look up, especially when the light from the doorway was almost entirely blocked off as something – someone – stepped in front of it, casting a large shadow over the room.

"Harry!" a loud voice boomed. No one ever used his name to his face, though he knew what it was regardless. He was usually just 'that boy' (or sometimes 'brat', if he was being directly spoken to). The shock of being addressed in such a manner caused him to look up. And up. He had to lean forward slightly to see the face of the stooping man, who could barely stand up straight in the house, let alone get through the low-set cupboard door without bending practically in half.

"There yeh are! Now come out so's I can get a look at yeh!" the large man ordered.

"Come… come out?" Harry repeated uncertainly, his voice scratchy from lack of use. He looked at Petunia and Vernon for confirmation that he could do as the man said, but they were both more interested in glaring at the man himself – and trying not to appear afraid of him, if Harry wasn't mistaken – to care about Harry's worry that he'd be punished.

He wasn't given a real choice, though. Before he could steel himself for the feel of Vernon's hand clipping him behind the head, or worse, and step out of the cupboard, the gigantic man reached forward and grabbed the front of Harry's shirt with a hand – no, a paw – twice the size of Vernon's. It didn't hurt as he pulled Harry out, exactly, but that didn't slow Harry's thundering heart.

"Yeh look just like yer father," the man claimed. As Harry couldn't remember having ever seen his father, he couldn't comment, not that he would have. He didn't dare question what such a large man said. If he hit Harry with a belt, he'd probably take half his skin off. Or maybe just cut Harry clean in half. Harry winced at the mere thought of it.

"My father?" he eventually breathed, his voice low so that there would be some chance that Vernon and Petunia wouldn't hear, and thus couldn't punish him. He wasn't supposed to question things or speak unless told to do so, after all. He half hoped the large man hadn't heard either, just in case he upheld the same rules of silence as the others.

Luckily, even as he spoke, Vernon was talking over the top of him in a much louder and more insistent voice. "I demand that you leave!" he shouted. "You've barged your way inside my house without so much as an introduction –"

"Introduction, yeh say?" the man boomed. "Well, tha's easy to fix. The name's Rubeus Hagrid. I'm the groundskeeper at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." He looked down at Harry in what he could only describe as a friendly manner, though he couldn't imagine how a man that large and imposing could be all that friendly. "Jus' call me Hagrid."

Witchcraft and wizardry? But he'd heard Petunia tell Dudley once that there was no such thing as witches, or magic. Petunia didn't often lie to Dudley, from what Harry could gather. She didn't need to. Anything she said, she would do, regardless of effort or expense, where her 'little Diddydums' was concerned. And a boy of Dudley's size would hardly need to be protected from the bad things in life. If a witch attacked him, he could probably just sit on her.

"Hogwarts," Petunia practically squeaked. "But he's not… he's never… he hasn't done any strange things, like she used to do."

Harry wondered, in that moment, if Petunia knew that magic was real after all. But then, those whispered conversations his keen ears had picked up on once or twice over his time in the cupboard made a lot more sense if that was the case.

Hagrid looked almost sheepish at that. "Well, yeh see… we know all tha'. But young Harry 'ere's been in the books since he was born, and there's other things tha' should've meant... well, Headmaster Dumbledore's curious as to why… Anyway, he needs to see the boy."

Ah, there. Back to familiar grounds, being called 'the boy' rather than 'Harry'. It was a little frightening to realise that he by far preferred the usual form of address to his real name. He didn't think that was very normal, though he could hardly be certain based on his own experience with the rest of the world thus far.

"So you'll be taking him for good, then?" Vernon asked, sounding quite pleased at the prospect.

"Er, well, Dumbledore's orders were jus' to bring him to Hogwarts," Hagrid replied doubtfully. But then the giant seemed to remember where he was, and what had just happened. "But I bet once he hears of yeh lot keepin' him locked away in a cupboard, he'll take him in righ' away. He's a great man, Dumbledore is."

"If you take him, we won't take him back," Petunia said decisively. "You'll put ideas into his head, and I refuse to have to look after the little brat if he's going to be running about waving sticks at us and the like! He's trained to be quiet for a reason!"

"Trained!" Hagrid roared. "Brainwashed, more like, I'll jus' bet. Wouldn' put it past yeh lot. Tha's it. Harry, yer coming with me. Even if yeh turn out to be a squib and the school can't take yeh, I'll take yeh in myself!"

With that, he grabbed Harry by the collar of his threadbare shirt – one of Dudley's cast-offs, he was fairly certain, for it was very large on Harry, and the boy standing off in the corner was very large as well – and practically dragged him away.

Harry stumbled terribly as he approached the front door of the house. It had been years since he'd even been near it, and he'd never been actually through it, that he could remember. Surely Hagrid couldn't mean for them to…

But apparently he did, for just moments later they were outside. Not just outside as in out there, out in the parts of the house that weren't the cupboard, but outside the house itself.

It was brighter outside than in. Even when the curtains were open, the sun didn't shed as much light inside the house as the air outside seemed to be bathed in. Harry squinted against the glare. He didn't understand why people would subject themselves to that, if they could help it. It made his eyes hurt. But then, he supposed, it might be worse for him because he'd never been out here before.

Eventually it seemed to grow a little less startling. The next things he noticed were the large figures standing stationary around the area. They had thick brown bodies, topped with green. Harry had caught sight of one for a moment through one of the windows in the house. He hadn't known what it was then, either, nor had he been stupid enough to ask about it. He hadn't realised that there were lots of them, in all different shapes and sizes. He wondered whether they were animals. He knew a little about animals. But then, he'd been sure that animals would move more than that. The large things seemed to sway just a bit up around their green areas, but their bodies stayed stiff, as if rooted to the ground.

"What are they?" Harry whispered, pointing. He silently wished that Hagrid wouldn't hit him for asking the question.

But Hagrid didn't hit him. Rather, he didn't seem to know what Harry was talking about. Harry described the things he was pointing at.

"Trees?" Hagrid asked incredulously.

Harry frowned slightly, attempting to imprint this new knowledge in his brain. "Trees," he repeated.

"Blimey, Harry, yeh can't mean yeh've never seen a tree before? Haven't yer aunt and uncle ever told you 'bout 'em? Haven't you seen 'em before?"

"Aunt and uncle?" Harry asked, more confident in speaking now that he'd evaded punishment once already.

"The Muggles in there, the ones yeh live with."

"Oh," Harry said. Vernon and Petunia, then. They were his aunt and uncle, whatever that meant. But then… "What's a Muggle?"

"Folks who can't use magic," Hagrid responded.

Harry didn't quite know what a folk was, but that didn't seem to be the most important point at hand at that moment. "Am I a Muggle then?" he asked. "I didn't even know there was magic until today."

Hagrid seemed uncomfortable. "Er, tha's what Dumbledore wants to find out. But Harry, back to wha' yeh were sayin' before. Yeh can't mean tha' yeh've never been outside before?"

Harry shrugged. "They kept me inside because I wasn't to be trusted," he responded automatically, gesturing to the house. The house itself caught his eye, and Harry turned slightly to look at it. "Oh," he breathed. "So that's what a house looks like from the outside."

Hagrid's eyes seemed to bulge away from his head. "Tha's it, I'm taking yeh to Dumbledore. He'll be better equipped fer this."