It has been a few weeks since the incident in the great hall. Most of the school had moved on or rather are distracted with their own personal life, some students still seem to be treating him like a Dark Lord in the making. The most prominent being Longbottom and his cronies.
We all know how Longbottom claims that it is his duty to eradicate Dark Wizards from our society. With Malfoy not picking fights with him anymore it seemed that he had focused all his attention on Harry. They had gathered quite a large support for their cause and tried to limit Harry's interaction with other students. Well at least among the Gryffindor.
The other houses didn't seem to have lost interest after a few days. Harry being the cheerful self he generally is, was able to cool down many rumors that were spreading around. The Slytherins didn't care about the boy-who-lived and his campaign. The ravens and puffs though cautious were still accommodating of Harry especially with Astoria forcing him to sit with her in the Ravens table for dinner every night.
The Gryffindors however were a different story all together. We all know how blind Gryffindors are and adding it with Longbottom being the self-proclaimed leader of the light after Dumbledore. Harry was treated as an outcast in his own house. Those who did try to be friends with Harry would be scared off with Dark wizard stories and other baseless rumors while the persistent one's would be tagged as Harry's minions in training and had a choice to between Harry or the rest of the Gryffindor. Harry obviously told his friends to choose Gryffindor.
Harry however didn't seemed to care at all. He was back to his usual cheerful self. Though he did start spending a lot of time Astoria now as most of the students seem to be afraid to approach him. Which wasn't a bad thing in itself. Astoria knew Harry and as he was her best friend she made it her goal to keep Harry distracted from all of this animosity. Astoria did a fabulous job too. The two of them could be seen most of the time laughing or sniggering at something they had said or done. Their also helped cool down some animosity.
"Why are you not doing anything about Longbottom or his gang Harry? Doesn't it bother you, being exiled from your own house? Surely you can't allow them to treat you like this." I finally asked. It was odd how Harry could tolerate so much of Longbottom while he exploded at Malfoy for so little.
"You see Daphne, Neville and I are playing a little game. He is playing the hero while I play the villain. It's been a while since he hadn't gotten on the spotlight so let him enjoy it when he has the chance."
I look at him incredulously. He is looking at this as a game. A GAME. "You have been exiled from your house and you think it's a game. You have been ridiculed and belittled in-front of the whole school for 3 weeks now and you think it's a game. You have been hexed at least a thousand times by those morons and you think it's a game. Do you know how ridiculous you sound right now." I screamed at him. How dare he take this as a joke.
"Breathe Daphne. Yes get it out of your system. Take out that frustration."
"Shut up Potter" I snapped at him.
"Why are you so angry about this whole thing Daphne? It's not like it's affecting you?"
"I am angry cause I care about you Potter, you are my friend. For three weeks you have been treated like some criminal. I see the sadness in your eyes Harry and I can guess at how much those idiots have hurt you. All those kids that used to look up to you and think of you as a big brother are scarred to even look at you. How could you let that-that man child treat you like this. The Longbottoms and Potters are supposed to be friends, like brothers in all but blood. Not like a hero and villain as you see it."
"That's not all is it Daphne. Why are you taking this so personally?"
"I am taking this so personally because I know that you could have shut Longbottom up ages ago. I know how in-tune you are to our rules. Longbottom squandered your name and reputation to the ground. He may be the Boy-Who-Lived but you are a freking Heir of two ancient and noble houses. Alliance be dammed you could have challenged him for an honour duel for his wrongful accusation Its not like you were going to loose to him. In 3 seconds you could have wiped the floor with his ass with just an expelliarmus. Its fast and powerful, Longbottom wont even know what hit him. You didn't give Malfoy as much leeway as you are giving Longbottom. So Harry I ask you again Why?"
"It's complicated" he was trying to avoid it but I wasn't going to have any of that.
"So explain it to me Harry. We got time. It's not like we could go the library with Granger hanging around there all the time.
"Alright then. Lets start it from the beginning shall we."
"For 6 months after the Halloween incident of 1981, I was admitted to St. Mungo's as I had a severely depleted my magical core. Nobody knows why it was depleted though. So after 6 months of healers trying to reenergize my core they gave up. They had declared me a squib with the possibility of gaining my magic in the future."
" At that time, I did not have any place to call my home. The only family that I had left was my godmother. My parents were dead and so were my grandparents both from my father and mother's side. Sirius Black, my godfather had been sent to Azkaban. However my godmother was not able to take me to her home, as you see my godmother is non other than Alice Longbottom."
I gasped.
"Yah. She really is. She tried you know, to take me in and raise me as her son but Dumbledore wouldn't allow it. Because I had been declared a squib he had proclaimed that it would be best if I would grow up in the muggle world. After all a squib would have to live with muggles and it would be a crime to tempt children with something that they could never have. Plus he wanted to make sure that Neville have undivided attention from his parents. Dumbledore had convinced Mr. Longbottom that I would be but a hindrance while raising Neville so there was no-one that would listen to Mrs. Longbottom's pleas."
"There for on 31 July while the world celebrated Neville's birthday I was discharged from St. Mungo's and taken to Number 4 Private Drive by Dumbledor. At 4 Private Drive there lived a family known as the Dursley and I was left there because Mrs. Dursley is my mothers sister. The Dursley's did not like me and I did not like them. For them I was a burden that they were forced to take upon and they made sure that I knew about it. They may not have abused me physically but for a child to be called worthless has a different psychological altogether."
"I craved for their affection. They would shower my cousin, their son with love and affection while I was but an insolent attention seeking brat. I tried to do everything that I could to get some affection. I would strive to get the best grades in class only to be accused of cheating. I made sure to help my aunt on all her household work only to be told that it was but a form of payment for their hospitality. The worst par about it was that I didn't have friends. My cousin Dudley was the local school bully and he thought I should be taught a lesson for being an 'attention seeking brat'. What Neville is doing now is pretty much the same Dudley did to me now."
It was really hard to stop my tears but I have to be strong.
"So I did whatever I could do to keep my mind occupied. I buried myself in books. I took up extra classes, anything that could keep me away from school. I learnt dancing, music, art, writing, martial arts, first aid. Now I am really glad that I took those lessons as I have learned skills that I would not have picked up anywhere else. But that's a story for another day."
"Now the reason why I was pissed of at Malfoy was because Andromeda Tonks was the first person to give me home after my parents died. You know how Tonks and Tonks have clients in the muggle world too?"
I nodded.
"So one day my uncle needed a lawyer for his firm and who else do they hire but Tonks and Tonks. It was a really big case for his company and Tonks and Tonks had a stellar reputation as corporate law. Now I know that is because they gather information using magical means to fight muggle cases which give them an unprecedented advantage. Anyways my uncle's firm won the case for which he was overjoyed. He invited them over for dinner to celebrate their victory."
"Now my uncle always liked to present a fake picture about how big a heart he had boasting about how he had picked me up as a good citizen that he is, raised a child who had no future and what ever bullshit to show himself as my hero for giving me a home. He would bad about my parents just to show how I had no future had I stayed with them. I think it was his favourite story to brag about after all who doesn't like a good story about a kind man helping a futureless kid and raising him as his own son."
"The night was going fabulously till the story ended. Everyone was having a great time. It was during dinner where everything started to go south for the Dursleys. You see I am an exact a replica of my father except for the eyes they are my mother. So when Andromeda saw me for the first time she seemed to have recognized me but just to be sure she asked me my name. by the time I had finished Harry Potter I had apparated to the Tonks home."
A/N: Sorry for the late update today and leaving you on a cliffhanger.I know, we finally get to learn a little bit about Harry's past and you don't get to read the whole thing in one day. its just that I didn't expect this chapter to become so long so I had to cut it down. the next chapter will be about harry discovering his magic and his life with the Tonks. Now what I want to know is do you want the relationship between Harry and Alice longbottom to be have a chapter of its own or should I mix it in with tomorrows chapter. If I do it as a separate chapter it would be like a filler that would explain from Alice's point of view of Harry and his life. Thank you all for the support you have shown for this story. hope you are enjoying the journey and please leave your comments and recommendations for the story.
I know some of you wanted to know about Harry and sirius and I am really sorry it became Harry Andy. It was initially Harry Siri but then I this seemed to be the best opportunity to do Harry Andy. This way in the Halloween chapter I can concentrate more on what happened when Harry died and the Champion selection. I don't know when I will bring Sirius into the picture for now.
