Harry Potter was more than a wizard. He was an idea. A symbol. He represented hope for the future, that evil would not triumph and that ultimately, good prevails against all odds.
Harry Potter was selected by Prophecy to tilt the course of humanity–muggle and wizard alike–away from certain destruction.
Harry Potter was a hero, and he didn't even know about it. In fact, the ten-year-old boy was brought up by his muggle aunt and uncle as a second-class citizen; clothed in garments that didn't fit; housed in a cupboard meant for things; ignorant of his heritage.
Wizards, or humans with high magical potentiality, live hidden amongst their distant relatives, the muggles. Muggles, on the other hand, are humans almost entirely separated from the realm of magic. For centuries they have been robbed of even the knowledge of its existence except in rare instances. Muggles, of course, have the smallest drop of magic in them: the spark of life. This is why muggles can be used as sacrificial material in Dark Arts rituals, and occasionally can even produce magical offspring.
Ironically, most wizards–even those of esteemed heritage, and in possession of far-reaching records and well-endowed libraries–are ignorant of their true heritage as well.
Atlantis, the first home of the wizards, was destroyed many millennia ago. As the glorious civilization collapsed, most of its inhabitants perished alongside it. Some wizards escaped to the muggle lands. These scattered survivors struggled to etch out a life for themselves without the infrastructure they took for granted for over a thousand generations.
These few surviving wizards turned to the muggles and tried to forge new civilizations with them. In some corners of the globe, wizards successfully united with the muggles and escaped the darkness in which they lived, teaching those muggles what they remembered of the ancient arts: the written word, numbers, herbology, astronomy, and more. Some wizards and witches even began interbreeding with the muggles in order to strengthen the bonds between each other.
Thusly the muggles learned of Atlantis, the great civilization that existed long ago while they lived in huts and caves. To this day, muggles still remember Atlantis, but very vaguely, only as something belonging to myth. Sadly, most wizards know little more of Atlantis than it being the birthplace of their ancestors. Some families still possess ancient relics from the apical wizarding civilization, their origin forgotten.
In other corners of the globe, unspeakable atrocities were committed against the helpless humans bereft of magic. Human sacrifice was en vogue in the Mesoamericas for a very long time, replacing the amazing technical knowledge of the ancient Atlanteans with Blood Magic of the Darkest Arts.
By the time Harry Potter was ten years old, the wizards of Britain did not even remember the secrets of staff-crafting, the pinnacle of magical foci, and few were those who knew how to craft wands. Knowledge was being forgotten, and those who had it deigned to share for the sake of some small advantage. In Britain for example, Voldemort caused more knowledge to disappear than the previous two millennia combined. You-Know-Who, the Dark Lord He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Tom Marvolo Riddle, the aforementioned Voldemort, single-handedly killed hundreds of wizards and witches and burnt down their houses. His followers killed hundreds more.
Unfortunately for the state of collective knowledge, wizards tend to keep their libraries in their homes, and as such, tens of thousands of manuscripts, many scrolls and irreplaceable relics were destroyed during Voldemort's reign of terror.
This was the state of affairs in the Wizarding World of Magical Britain when Rubeus Hagrid, the Keeper of Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, announced to the young child of Prophecy:
"Harry – yer a wizard."
To say that the little boy was shocked was not right. He was relieved. He always knew, deep down inside, that he was not like the rest of the children from his school. His adoptive family had always called him a freak, and now he knew why he always felt they were somewhat right.
"Happy birthday Harry. Here is yer Hogwarts letter of acceptance," the bearded half-giant presented the boy with an official looking letter and a sat-upon box with a cake. Harry asked a few more questions and boy, was he surprised by the answers.
Unaware of how to handle such news of life changing proportions, Harry opted to stay quiet, a skill he learned in the Dursley household at a young age, and simply let the information sink into his being. Soon after, Harry's meager blanket was replaced by Hagrid's magical coat and everybody in the Hut-On-The-Rock went to sleep. Eventually, everyone but young Harry was asleep.
Thoughts were swirling around in the child's mind: Magic. Murder. Dark Lord. School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Magic! His parents weren't bums at all, and they didn't die in a car crash because of alcoholism. They were heroes and they were murdered. Someone tried to murder him when he was a young boy. He was a survivor. His scar was a curse-scar and that's why all his life it has never healed properly. Those were mice in the pocket of the coat.
Harry smiled while petting the little friendly mouse that came out to meet the curious human who wasn't Hagrid.
Although it most certainly was not the proper thing to do, little Harry could not help himself but to go through the huge man's coat pockets. After all, he was the one wearing the coat. His mind was blown. Several of the pockets were larger on the inside than on the outside! He could put his arm all the way down to his shoulder into some of them while others simply refused to let him in. Magic!
There were many interesting things in the pockets beside mundane objects like kettles and pokers, and he did not recognize most of these. He spent quite a while staring at some coins that he did find. A few bronze ones, a decent amount of silver ones, and some golden ones. He could feel a tingling in his skin when he was holding them. In fact, during the hours he spent in silence that night (if one discounted the snoring coming from all the males of the shack) he realized he could feel a certain something emanating from the coat and some of the objects. He decided then and there it was magic he was feeling, and he closed his eyes and tried to feel that same something inside of him. He focused on his breath and tried not to think.
Thoughts came, and he let them, and they left, and he let them. Young Harry spent the rest of the night silently observing his feelings and his breath, quietening his mind, refusing to let anything disturb him out of the blissful state of peace he found himself in. He had found that same tingling inside him that he felt coming from some of the objects, but it was somewhat different.
A sudden rapping noise shook him out of his reverie, and he realized it was the morning already. Even though he did not sleep at all that night, he felt more rejuvenated than he ever had in his short life. Like he had come home after a long journey.
"Uuuhmmm, Mr. Hagrid?" The boy looked to the couch. He heard some grumbling. "There's an owl at the window." The half-giant rubbed his eyes and blearily looked at the scarred boy before rolling away from the light. "Giv'im five Knuts–the bronze coins," Harry heard and obeyed. The owl flew away and the snoring restarted.
The little boy unrolled the paper and went through it. Harry didn't get a chance to read very often, but he did try when he could. He's been wanting a library card, but he would have to wait and see about that. He focused on the articles in front of him.
He tried to read, but he kept getting distracted. The pictures were moving. More magic!
Harry smiled, opened his hands over the newspaper and closed his eyes. His palms were facing down and after some time he could feel it, the tingling. His hands were getting warmer and his torso was swaying lightly.
"Whatcha doin' ter, Harry?" the booming voice of the half-giant shook Harry out of his trance-like state. The bearded man had been watching the child with his hands over the newspaper for a couple of minutes but when his body started swaying, he decided to intervene.
"Oh," blushing, Harry picked up the newspaper and brought it to the big man who was sitting on the squashed couch, "last night I felt a tingling from your coat and some of the things in it, like the coins, and I figured it was magic I was feeling, so when I saw the pictures moving I realized the paper must be magic too, and I was trying to see if I could feel the same tingling. Is it magic, the tingling, I mean?"
Hagrid took the newspaper from the boy and spread it out in front of him on the floor, getting on all fours to do so.
"I dunno, let's find out yeh?"
And so Hagrid sat cross-legged and put his garbage-lid sized hands over the papers and focused all his attention on his hands. It never occurred to him before this moment to try feeling magic this way, but he loved it deeply, magic that is, and would go to the furthest corners of the world to get further acquainted with it. To his greatest shame he never finished his education, and never had gotten a proper wand after being expelled. If he could have a more personal connection to magic, he would try.
"What is going on here?" yowled Vernon Dursley after having left the bedroom in a reconnaissance mission. In front of him was his good-for-nothing freak of a nephew and the beast of a man that turned his son into an oddity, sitting on the floor with their eyes closed and their hands open in the air in front of a newspaper—were those pictures moving?!
Harry struggled to find an answer for his magic-hating uncle, and simply turned back to look at Hagrid. The bearded man was seemingly in a trance, only his eyes were open now and turned up, making them all white and eerie. Not helping the situation, his body was swaying gently, and his huge hands were spread over the newspaper like a fortune-teller's.
Harry turned back to his purple-faced, prune of an uncle and the rest of the spiteful family that was hidden behind the fat man, and shrugged in the guise of an answer.
"Well then. We are leaving. Good-bye," and with that the family stormed out the hut and into the boat and away they rowed.
Harry followed them and watched his family row away from the Hut-On-The-Rock and asked himself how Hagrid and he would leave. With the carefree attitude that only a child could have, Harry shrugged it off and forgot all about the issue of logistics, and walked back to the Hut.
Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds, was still in a trance-like state by the looks of it. Harry looked around the room and spotted some sausages on the poker. The fire was still going, even though there was nothing for it to burn, and so Harry warmed up the left-over sausages and ate quietly while re-reading his letter and list of supplies. Every now and then he would spare a glance to Hagrid, who was still in the same trance, and then find something else to do to keep busy.
Very casually, Harry walked over to the corner of the room where the shotgun that was twisted into a knot rested. He looked at it, debating whether to touch it or not. Well, like they say, curiosity killed the cat, and so Harry reached for the shotgun to better examine it. He tried to bend it back into shape, but alas, his feeble little arms couldn't do it, no matter how much he tried.
"Whatcha doin' ter, Harry?"
Startled, the boy dropped the shotgun. The shotgun, hitting the ground, went off.
BANG!
Harry fell back, his ears ringing wildly.
Hagrid roared with laughter.
"Bwahahaha! Like a dragon's fart!" Hagrid was slapping his knee. "These muggles, oh dear, hehehe…" The man was wiping his tears with a spotted handkerchief. Harry was silent, he wasn't sure if he heard right what Hagrid had said. His ears were ringing loudly.
"Excuse me, did you say a... a dragon's fart?"
Hagrid, seemingly under control once again answered in the positive while nodding. "I visited a dragon reserve once, hehehe, out in the mainland, and a small dragon had gotten into the camp's kitchen, hehehe, and ate a bunch of foodstuffs not meant for dragons you see, and he, ahahahaha, he had a terrible stomachache! hahaha!"
The half-giant broke out into laughter again, and eventually he calmed back down. His grin was obvious beneath his beard as he finally managed examined the burst shotgun, and then Harry, who had miraculously not been injured by any shrapnel. The giant shrugged, and lifted his coat off the ground.
"Harry, ehehe, it's time ter go purchase yer school supplies," the giant said while still grinning and wiping another tear from his cheek.
