A/N: Hey! Thank you so much for stopping by, and particularly to old friend Bonbonnett who also broke the ice and left a review! This is surely not going to be the most exciting story ever, but I wanted to put Harry in a personal dilemma rather than have him have adventures. I hope you enjoy this journey too, and I'm all ears to your comments!

The moon reigned supreme among a sea of glittering stars and he could always see it in the patches of night sky over the treetops. There was a cool breeze but Harry wasn't cold, and he kept his leisurely promenade in the woods at night. Everything felt familiar and comforting, and while Harry knew the closest he had ever been to the woods was a botanical garden in daylight, he wasn't afraid.

He could hear the night creatures going about their nightly lives, running and perching and creeping upon the branches, hooting, screeching, squeaking. The trees responded by softly flapping their leafs in the wind. Everything was calm and pleasant. He wished he could take night walks more often.

That changed, all of a sudden. Something that wasn't there before, something threatening and dangerous rose from the earth somewhere in his proximity. Fear shook the leafs and the noises from the animals turned nervous, hysterical in Harry's ears. But they didn't cover the rumble that soon became a laugh, a cold and cruel laugh that chilled the blood in his veins. The woods faded and it was just him and the laughing creature.

And then, it came. The green lightning aiming at him, not from the sky but from something at his level.

oo0oo

Harry woke up with a start and rubbed his forehead, his little bolt shaped scar that now, he could almost swear, hurt. He was in his bed, at the Dursley's home in Privet Drive. His watch marked 2:27 AM. Outside his window, an anemic waning moon was barely noticeable among all the clouds. He fell back onto his back and attempted to ease his breathing and the mad beating of his heart. Eventually he slipped back into sleep, though this time it felt more like falling into a deep black well of tar.

oo0oo

The smooth and carefully planned transition into letting Petunia and Vernon know that he intended to learn more about his parents was not meant to be, however.

A letter arrived for Harry right on his twelfth birthday, and in spite of Vernon and Petunia's efforts to intercept it, it did reach Harry. The Dursleys' efforts were so worthy of mention and description that one night, an incredibly large man wearing a coat of fur showed up and handed the letter to Harry in person. No matter how large Vernon Dursley was, this man, Hagrid was his name, was larger and more intimidating. But that was of little consequence.

What matters is that this is how Harry Potter found out that he was a wizard, and a good one at that. Because he had been accepted to a school of magic he didn't know it existed and had obviously never applied to, a place his parents had attended before him; James and Lily Potter, who didn't die in a car accident as he had been told, but had been murdered by an evil wizard one night when Harry was just one year old. What is more, not only had he been present then but he had been harmed too, and this is how he got that scar in his forehead in the first place.

It was quite a lot to digest. Many things started to make sense - so this was why sometimes amazing things happened - like when he had wanted so badly to have the alcove under the stairs that he had made everything fit under his bed. Oh, right. Or like the time when someone who was bothering Dudley had ended up on top of a chimney. Oh, no. Or... But this was interrupted by another thought. So this was why anything related to witchcraft and wizardry was a taboo at the Dursley home.

Because Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon knew.

Harry's eyes went to his guardians; his uncle was side hugging his aunt, her face of horror, Harry understood now, was not so much for the stranger's enormous boots staining the carpet with unnameable fluids but for him, because in spite of all of her and Vernon's efforts, he was full of magic and was going to leave them. Or was he?

oo0oo

Harry had been aware for a long time that his adoptive family's members, to whom he was a close blood relation, were not exactly bright. Most of the time it meant that they were superficial and a little foolish, but sometimes that made them ignorant and rude. They behaved terribly with the newcomer, who soon demonstrated to know more about Harry than Harry did himself.

In spite of every misgiving he knew he should have had he found himself warming up to the stranger very quickly. Probably during the first fifteen minutes of their acquaintance or so, and he understood that this very furry man had surely met his parents and would be better inclined to answer his questions than the Dursleys.

Before the door opened to let him in Harry would have chosen to stay, with eyes closed and no more questions. But this certainty faltered as another one grew inside of him. This is was the first step to find something akin to the truth, to the person he really was and had nothing to do with Privet Drive. This was on his mind until he met Uncle Vernon's eyes.