Author's Notes: Sorry this took so long to write - writing Harry in this fragile mental state is not easy for me, and I only have luck with it when the right mood (a bad one) strikes. Unfortunately for the fic, my life's been going well of late. And I've been getting distracted by amazing things, like Worm, and rereading Shinji and WH40k, and...you know how it goes. So, to spur my writing, I'm going to commit to a biweekly update, every other Saturday.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Harry Potter and the Pursuit of Happiness: Chapter One

Harry planned to spend the rest of the day hurrying through chores and avoiding eye contact with the Dursleys. This was his normal strategy, but today there was something different - he actually did have something to hide. Something...magical. The thought made his stomach twist with fear, and he had to wipe his sweaty palms off on his second-hand jeans.

There was no way it was real. It had to be some sort of prank, or an elaborate chain letter. Still, Harry had read the letter a half dozen times before emerging from the cupboard. The letter felt like something that would be delivered to somebody Important in the grand scheme of things - somebody destined for storybook greatness, like Merlin.

Merlin, the wizard. A wizard like Harry, according to the letter.

Harry knew he wasn't that person - he was Nobody Important to anybody, much less the wider world. The Dursleys took great care to remind him of that regularly. He'd used to argue with them - used to disagree - but had learned to keep those thoughts to himself long ago. These days, he didn't even have the thoughts all that often. The only thing vaguely interesting about him was the lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead, which Aunt Petunia insisted he cover with his bangs anyway.

Still, the thought that somebody thought he was more than nothing brought a warm feeling to his chest. After all, even if the letter were a fake, somebody had taken the time and effort to study him for the details. The letter had been clearly addressed to the cupboard under the stairs, and Harry didn't recall telling anyone where he slept.

The letter in question was stuffed up inside a hole in the bottom of his mattress in said cupboard-under-the-stairs. The Dursleys never went into his cupboard and avoided speaking to him as much as possible, so there was absolutely, positively no way the Dursleys could know about it. None.

"You!" Aunt Petunia said, voice accusing.

Harry turned to face her, and saw that her expression was harsh and angry. His mouth dried and the warm feeling in his chest turned to a painful tightness. How did she know already?

"There's some sort of bird crap all over the porch!" she said, ignoring his dumbstruck expression to continue berating him. "I almost slipped and fell in it when I went to get the mail, which is your job, you worthless layabout."

"But I got the mail already," Harry answered reflexively, finally finding his voice. "I put it on top of the telly."

"Don't talk back to me," Petunia shot back, ignoring the way Harry flinched. "Now get outside and clean that filth off before your uncle hurts himself on his way to work."

Harry bowed his head and mumbled something that sounded like agreement before finding the mop and bucket and bustling back towards the porch.

Once outside, he took a moment to rest his forehead against the handle of the mop and take a deep breath. His heart was still beating against his ribs, and his knees felt weak, like he couldn't hold himself up any longer. He used the mop as a brace to wait it out until his heart slowed and his breath steadied.

Everything was okay. This was how Aunt Petunia always acted. She'd have been worse if she knew.

'She doesn't know about the letter,' he told himself. 'She doesn't know.'

He inhaled, and held the breath.

There was no way she knew about the letter. If she did, she would have taken it away, because it was important to him.

He exhaled, feeling his chest and shoulders relax as the breath left his body.

Harry knew he couldn't really exhale the fear out of his body, but pretending helped. At least now he was calm enough to continue with the cleaning.

He dipped the mop into the bucket, then strained most of the water out of the mop head and back into the bucket with the ease of long practice. If he didn't, then he'd just be slopping water everywhere, and he would have to spend even more time drying it.

The bird (owl?) droppings cleaned up quick enough, but Harry kept on. The gentle sounds of water slopping in the bucket and the mop sliding over the brick of the porch absorbed him as the sun began to peek over the horizon. He continued for another few minutes, letting himself become absorbed in the task.

But he'd never been any good at ignoring problems, not for long. And he would definitely have a problem if he didn't get inside and start working on breakfast soon.

He stowed the cleaning supplies back in their proper place (his cupboard), and paused there in thought. He could try and rush a shower before beginning breakfast, but it would cut things close. He could skip the shower and begin cooking immediately...but then risk being berated for his poor hygiene.

He heard Aunt Petunia's voice shriek out from the kitchen. "Boy!" she snapped. "The eggs won't cook themselves!"

Well, there went that dilemma. "I'm starting now, Aunt Petunia," he called back, hurrying towards the kitchen. Breakfast would be eggs, sausage links, and bacon, like always. Uncle Vernon was a strong believer in a normal daily routine, and Harry knew better than to tempt fate by deviating from that routine. Routine, ordinary events let the Dursleys carry on with their lives and ignore Harry's presence. Unusual events provoked interest and suspicion, which inevitably fell on him.

He'd just finished with the last of the eggs when he heard the sound of wood straining under a great weight behind him - Uncle Vernon must have just sat down at the kitchen table. The rustling sound of the newspaper being opened confirmed it. That gave Harry about three minutes to set the table while his uncle finished reading the front page.

He scooped the eggs onto the plates - two big portions for his uncle and cousin, with a smaller one for his aunt, and carried the plates to the table one at a time. He had plenty of time to set the table, and a mistake at this point would be bad. He finished just as Uncle Vernon looked up from the paper, acknowledging Harry with a glance and a grunt. Harry looked down, avoiding eye contact. Aunt Petunia peeked in from the living room and called out to Dudley that breakfast was ready.

Harry hurried back to the kitchen counter as he heard Dudley thundering down the stairs. His cousin had a habit of "accidentally" bowling Harry over when the opportunity presented itself.

Harry ate some buttered toast and a few of the extra sausage links between trips to the cupboards to fetch various and sundry items the Dursleys wanted for their breakfasts - ketchup, pepper, sauerkraut (an unusual request from Dudley, who predictably despised it, leading to Harry cooking up another batch of sausages). Nobody attempted to engage him in a conversation beyond demanding things, so in Harry's opinion breakfast was a smashing success.

It was not to last.

As soon as Harry finished putting away the dishes, Uncle Vernon barked, "Boy!"

"Yes Uncle Vernon?" Harry responded, eyes directed at the floor.

"We need to discuss your...school," Vernon said from the table, putting noticeable distaste into the word.

Harry blinked in surprise and looked up at his uncle. His...school? What would make Uncle Vernon think about Harry's school? His grades were mediocre - enough to not get into trouble with the teachers, and enough to not make Dudley look too bad by comparison. The only interesting school-related thing...that had happened recently...was...the letter, he realized, thoughts freezing to a halt. Panic began to set in, tightening around his throat.

How did he know? Uncle Vernon would have had to deviate from his daily routine to find out, and nothing upset Harry's uncle more than deviations from the routine. Harry had no idea what Uncle Vernon would do - but his imagination had no trouble conjuring a series of horrible events.

"You're going to be at Stonewall High this Fall," Uncle Vernon continued, oblivious to Harry's anxiety. "It's a public school, and they don't tolerate nonsense from their students. Your Aunt has generously offered to dye some of Dudley's old things gray for your uniform." He paused here, beady eyes peeking out from beneath the thick fat of his face to give Harry a meaningful glare.

Harry managed to work out, "Thank you, Aunt Petunia," around the slowly easing bite of his fear.

Uncle Vernon nodded, though Harry's eyes were directed back towards the floor and he didn't see it. "Make sure you know how long it takes to walk to the bus stop in the morning - I don't want to be called in to hear about any truancy. I'll be driving Dudley to school at Smeltings in the mornings, and that leaves no time to be carting you about. Understood?"

Harry nodded slowly.

"Good. Off with you then," Uncle Vernon said gruffly, face already buried in the newspaper again.

He bolted out the back door. Normally he'd be called on for gardening or cleaning at this point, but Aunt Petunia was going to be spending the day with some of her more gossipy friends shopping in town, and she didn't trust him to handle tools without supervision. Uncle Vernon would leave for work soon enough, which meant it would just be him and Dudley left at the house.

Harry thought about reading the letter again while his aunt and uncle were gone, but...Dudley would still be here. In theory, Dudley was going to hang out with his friend Piers Polkiss at Piers's house until dinner - Dudley wasn't supposed to have guests over while his parents were out. In practice, Dudley would mooch lunch off of Piers's parents, and then both of them would come back and play video games in Dudley's room.

Technically Harry still hadn't taken a shower either, but Aunt Petunia would insist he get one after spending the day outside anyway. She was sort of a clean freak when it came to him, like she thought he was perpetually dirty or something. Dudley probably needed constant bathing more than Harry - his cousin was always sweating, what with all that blubber.

Not that Harry would ever hint that he'd so much as had the thought, and even now it made him feel vaguely nervous. He looked around him, making sure that he was alone. The feeling lingered in the pit of his stomach.

He hurried outside before one of the Dursleys could materialize. The park would be open today, and he could climb up a tree and be left alone there. The kids at the park wouldn't know him well enough to be mean to him, but if he messed around on the swings then there would be other kids running around him and yelling. He'd also have to worry more about drawing the attention of their parents, who might notice that Harry was there alone, and that hadn't gone well at all the last time it had happened.

Uncle Vernon had not been amused when the police had called him at work.

Then there was the fact that he was getting a bit old to hang out at the park. He'd have to find a new place soon enough.

He rushed to the park, but he couldn't run fast enough to leave his worries behind.

==========Page Break==========

Several hours later, Harry found himself trying to ignore how ridiculous he must look to the neighbors. They were accustomed to all manner of "ridiculous" behavior from him - Aunt Petunia had made sure of it. At least they recognized him well enough to not call the police while he snuck into the Dursleys' house.

He crouched on the porch, thinking through his entry. He was small enough that he couldn't be seen through any of the front windows, pressed up to the door as he was. By his sense of time, it was half past five. Aunt Petunia would be in the kitchen, preparing dinner - a meal that required the occasional bit of variety, and that he was not trusted with. Today was a Monday, which meant shepherd's pie - probably with pudding. Vernon and Dudley liked their pudding.

Wait, today was Monday, the 24th of July. That meant…

'My birthday is in a week,' Harry realized. He wasn't sure how to feel about that - you only turned eleven once, after all - but he'd forgotten about it entirely.

It would pass unremarked by the Dursley's, like the ten before it, but he didn't care. He'd even, sort of, gotten an early present. It was, at the very least, the first thing that he'd owned that had been made with him clearly in mind. There weren't any other Harry Potters living in the cupboard under the stairs that he knew of - and the space was quite small, so he rather thought he'd have noticed if there were.

He heard the clatter of plates from the kitchen and shook his head, clearing his thoughts for the moment. That would be Aunt Petunia, which meant she wouldn't be in a position to see him open the door. Harry began to slowly twist the knob open (it creaked if you moved it too quickly) when he heard a flutter of wings, and the light of the setting sun behind him vanished.

Harry felt something hit him in the back of the neck. He yelped in surprise and collapsed to the ground, instinctively curling into a ball, arms held defensively in front of his face, knees tucked up to his stomach.

After a few seconds of silence, Harry peeked out from between his forearms. He thought he saw a glimpse of some large bird flying off over Ms. Figg's house, but when he blinked it was gone. More importantly, at his feet…

A large, rectangular envelope made of yellowed parchment, with an address in familiar, handwritten, emerald green ink. Harry blinked, slowly, staring at it. Then he reached out with trembling hands and snatched it. He clutched the letter to his chest, ignoring the way the paper crackled as it bent.

He lay there for a full minute, letter clutched to his chest, trying to work out what exactly had just happened.

Then he realized, 'I'm on the front porch with a letter delivered by another owl. If the Dursleys find out -'

He rose to his feet tentatively, then put his ear to the door. Silence. Good; the Dursleys hadn't heard his moment of panic. He eased the door open inch by inch before poking his head through the door. The hall was empty.

He ducked inside, shutting the door as quietly as he could manage. He made it to the door to his cupboard as quietly as possible, and managed to make it inside without being detected.

The cupboard itself was nothing special, but Harry felt better once inside it. The closeness of the walls, the low ceiling and the familiar scent of sawdust and cobwebs - it was very much a space that most people would want to avoid.

And Harry deeply loved places that people would avoid. Solitude was much better than having to deal with people. Especially whenever something...strange...had happened.

He looked down at the letter. It looked the same, like it had been photocopied - except the ink was too thick for a copy, like it had been written with one of those fancy fountain pens that Uncle Vernon sometimes got as gifts from clients. With great care, he eased open the letter, trying to be quiet. The walls of the cupboard were very thin.

The letter was the same, word for word, including today's date. Same heading, same acceptance letter, same list of school supplies - where exactly was he supposed to purchase spellbooks, anyway - and the same prohibition against first years possessing broomsticks or performing Thaumaturgy.

Harry shivered as he put the letter back in the envelope. Who sent two letters to someone on the same day? It was like they'd expected a response within twelve hours...and had noticed when he hadn't given one.

He sat in his cupboard thinking about that for long, quiet hours.

At eleven, once the Dursleys were asleep, Harry emerged from the cupboard and crept into the kitchen. He'd thought about bringing one of the letters with him, to read in the dim illumination provided by the streetlight through the window, but it was too risky. He made a quick cheese sandwich, with some pickles for flavor, and scarfed it down.

He cleaned the plate as quietly as he could before heading back for his cupboard.

Lying on his bed, it felt like the two letters hidden beneath the mattress were huge rocks, putting uncomfortable lumps in it. Why were there two letters? What if there was a third?

As it turned out, worry about a third letter was unnecessary. Harry should have been worrying about the thirty-seven letters that found their way into the house over the next week. Only three had bothered to come through the regular morning post.

On Wednesday, seven letters had been stuffed through the small window in the downstairs bathroom. Harry had had to fake horrific diarrhea to get the Dursleys to abandon the area long enough for him to sneak the letters into his cupboard.

Thursday had been fairly normal - one, quickly hidden letter stuck in with the rest of the morning post - and Harry had started to relax. Surely it was expensive to mail that many letters, with that much parchment, especially considering how they were all handwritten.

Apparently, the letters weren't too expensive to make six of them into paper airplanes, which drifted in through the open windows shortly after lunch - one of them landing right behind the telly that Aunt Petunia was watching soaps on. Harry's silent prayer that she not notice had been answered, and he'd retrieved the letter later that night.

Saturday saw one letter folded up and hidden beneath each of the two dozen eggs delivered by the milkman, who appeared completely oblivious. Harry would have been more impressed by this particular trick (the space the letters had been folded into was rather tiny, given the size of the letters) if he hadn't been frantically tossing the folded-up letters into the cupboard. Thankfully Aunt Petunia didn't notice the delay, and the rest of the day was letter-free.

Harry held faint hope for reprieve on Sunday. After all, there was no post on Sunday.

Yeah, like that'd stop "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

He'd considered writing back to the school, but how was he supposed to do that? "We await your owl" wasn't exactly the clearest instruction he'd ever gotten. Even if some of the letters were delivered by owls, he didn't exactly have a giant bird of prey handy to send off with the post. And he could just imagine how well trying to send off a letter with the simple address of "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," would go. The postman would return it to the front door with a laugh...straight to the Dursleys.

Sunday morning, as had become his habit, he woke early and sat by the mail slot in the front door to await the post. Twenty minutes later, the mail came through the slot. Harry tilted the slot open and peered out, wondering exactly what sort of mailman delivered the post at 6:15 in the morning on a Sunday.

The street was empty.

Harry shivered.

He looked down at the mail - and sure enough, there was another letter addressed to him. Only...this one was different. It was smaller, and less weighty. Harry retreated to his cupboard, where he could read the letter more safely.

The heading was the same - Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, list of awards Harry had never heard of...but the actual text was much shorter.

Dear Mr. Potter,
It has come to our attention that you have received, but not responded to, your acceptance letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We understand that this is an important decision, and one of our teachers will stop by to discuss your educational opportunities tomorrow, July 31, at 11 o'clock sharp.
Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Minerva McGonagall,
Deputy Headmistress

Harry dropped the letter and fell back onto his bed, doing his best to ignore the way the letter-stuffed bed crackled. He closed his eyes and groaned, mashing the heels of his hands into his forehead in frustration. For once, the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead wasn't enough to distract him. This was...bad. The Dursleys would find out for sure.

Unless...unless he waited outside? And dealt with whoever it was before they got to the house. Yes, that would be the way to do it.

"Boy! I don't hear breakfast being made!"

"On it, Aunt Petunia!" he called back.

But first, he had to get through another day with the Dursleys. Sundays weren't so bad - Uncle Vernon and Dudley went to church after breakfast, and would stay out doing "guy things" until returning for dinner in the evening. Aunt Petunia would go to Mass around the same time, and spend the next several hours out with friends.

Harry spent the free time rereading the letter and carefully planning out what to do tomorrow. Aunt Petunia would stick to her usual routine and make lunch at eleven. Dudley had talked about some action movie he wanted to watch that came on at ten in the morning for some reason. None of Dudley's friends would be over - Piers Polkiss was sick with something, and he wasn't all that close with any of the others. Uncle Vernon would be at work.

He could do this.

The Dursleys returned later that evening. Aunt Petunia, as usual, was in a bad mood. Harry wondered why she spent so much of her free time going out places with her friends (who Harry had never met and secretly doubted the existence of) if it always upset her. Uncle Vernon and Dudley, by contrast, were in a great mood - and had, as expected, brought home pizza so that Aunt Petunia wouldn't have to cook. He could hear the faint sounds of voices, the ebb and flow of conversation as Aunt Petunia cheered up by watching her family eat food she hadn't had to cook. It happened every week.

After they'd gone to bed, Harry snagged a slice of leftover pizza from the fridge and a doughnut from the pantry, washing it down with a glass of Dudley's soda. It was a bit too sweet for Harry's taste, but certainly better than water.

He went back to bed, firm in his plan to keep the Dursleys from finding out (and freaking out) about the letters.

Monday morning started off completely normal. He made breakfast, and Uncle Vernon headed off to work, the day's paper clutched underneath his pudgy arm. Dudley immediately headed for the living room and set the tellie to the channel for his movie, which wasn't due to start for an hour.

Harry even had enough time to watch some of the movie from the kitchen. It was some American production about robbers taking over a skyscraper in Los Angeles. After about forty-five minutes it was really starting to pick up - the cops had showed up, and the main character guy trapped in with the robbers was starting to get into gunfights.

But Harry needed to go and await the "school official," so he headed for the door.

"Boy!" Aunt Petunia called from the downstairs bathroom. "Come here!"

Harry winced. Couldn't exactly pretend he hadn't heard her, not when Dudley could see him. He obediently trotted over to the bathroom, where an unholy stench awaited him.

Aunt Petunia was stirring some sort of...concoction...in the bathtub with a measured, practiced air, like she did this all the time. Harry had no idea how the reek of it had been contained to this one room. He stood on tiptoes to get a better view. It looked like those videos of horrifically polluted ocean waters that sometimes showed up in the nature documentaries Aunt Petunia liked to watch.

"What is that?" Harry asked, lifting up his arm and covering his mouth with his sleeve.

His aunt turned to scowl at him, and Harry noticed that she was wearing a surgical mask. "It's your school uniform. I'm dying some of Dudley's old things; it should look the same as everyone else's when I'm done." Her voice was a bit muffled by the mask, but Harry could still tell that she had no confidence in that statement.

Neither did he.

She shoved the broom handle she'd been using to stir the mix into his hands. "Now, I've got to run some errands. Keep stirring this for another hour or the color won't be even and you'll look like a zebra. When you're done, make some sandwiches for Dudley." She pulled off her surgical mask and dropped it in the sink before leaving the bathroom. "And if you mess up that batchI won't dye another!" she called out.

He took the broom and started stirring mechanically. He was supposed to be waiting at the door. Maybe, if Aunt Petunia left quickly enough, he could still pull this off. Dudley certainly wouldn't get off the couch to get the door, even if his movie was at a commercial break. This was actually a good thing. Dudley wouldn't bother to question why Harry was outside in the front yard for a few minutes.

The grandfather clock in the entrance hall struck 11.

The doorbell rang as the 11th note was struck.

Harry leaned the broom handle against the corner of the bathroom, then raced towards the front door, trying to rub away the itching at his eyes on the way.

He heard the door open. Strange, Aunt Petunia was paranoid about always keeping the door locked.

When he rounded the corner, he saw the stuff of nightmares come to life.

A sallow-faced man with lank, greasy black hair that matched his robes stood in the doorway. His expression was pinched, like he'd knowingly bitten into something sour.

And standing in front of the Hogwarts teacher was his aunt.

The man's lip quirked upward in a disdainful sneer. "Good morning, Petunia. I'd say it's been too long, but I think we both know that's not true."