AN: I'm sure this idea is played out, but I wanted to add my two cents. Each chapter will be from another character's POV. I've outlined the entire first year and I'm really excited about it! I'm sure you will be too!

I hope you enjoy the chapter! A lot is happening very fast right now, but I promise it'll slow down once I'm a few chapters in. After all, the beginning of the school year is quite hectic.

I don't own Harry Potter!

Harry unpacked his belongings carefully. He still couldn't believe he was here. More than that, he was finally away from his dreadful aunt and uncle. While his cousin, Dudley, had been sent to the finest university that would take him (Uncle Vernon's alma mater), Harry had been sent to the least expensive state college the Dursleys could find. Hogwarts College wasn't much to brag about. It was the smallest state school in Vermont, and the athletics program was garbage, but Harry didn't mind much. The buildings were old and resembled a collection of castles spread out in the middle of a National Parks-protected forest. The food was rumored to be great. The professors had close relationships with the students because of the small size.

Harry had never had a close relationship before.

High school was difficult for the orphan. Harry had lost his parents seventeen years ago in a tragic car accident. His closest relatives, the Dursleys, were forced to take him into their home. They had treated him like a houseboy his whole life. He watched in envy as his cousin grew fatter on the food they refused to feed Harry. While Dudley received piles of presents each birthday and Christmas, Harry received hand-me-down clothes of Dudley's. He always had more chores than Dudley (who received no chores), and was always more harsh punishments (who received no punishments). It wasn't that Harry was jealous of his cousin; It was that Harry didn't even feel like part of the family.

Not only was Harry's home life a wreck, but Dudley made sure that Harry's school life was unpleasant as well. He was ostracized from his classmates because no one wanted to be on Dudley's bad side. He suffered in silence for years, always looking forward to when he could finally move out. His parents left him enough money to go to college, something he supposed was important to them so it became important to him, too. His parents weren't millionaires or anything, but they had left him a sizeable amount of money for him to claim upon his high school graduation. Nothing fancy, but enough for him to get by. He wondered if they would be proud he was finally at college.

He set his textbooks on the bookshelf he shared with his roommate, Ron Weasley. Ron hadn't arrived yet, but Harry left him enough room so he could stash his books on the shelf as well. Harry took the bed furthest away from the window. He was used to sleeping in small, dark spaces. He had slept in a broom cupboard most of his life, only upgraded to the smallest bedroom in the house (the one with no windows and a door that wouldn't open fully because an exposed pipe blocked it) when he could no longer stand upright in the cupboard. He felt safe in small spaces.

The door to his room opened, and Harry thought for a moment that a circus had blown in. Half a dozen redheads barreled into his room, each holding a duffel bag or piece of furniture. Harry backed against his bed so as to not be trampled.

"Ron, there's no time to unpack it all. You have to be at orientation soon. It says right here on your schedule." A plump redheaded woman pointed harshly at the pamphlet in her hand. She was focused on a tall, gangly boy with freckles and a long nose, who sighed in response.

"We wouldn't be late if Fred and George weren't such idiots," the boy said. Harry assumed this was Ron, his roommate. Taken aback by the mass of activity - family members were zooming in and out of the room, each with a bag in their hands that they dropped on Ron's bed - Harry sank against his bed.

"Hey! We were just trying to liven up the breakfast table," a cheeky voice shot at Ron. Harry tried to search for the source of the voice, but couldn't find it.

"Molly, would you look at this light?" an older man said, pointing at the blinking fluorescent light above them. "I think it must have been here since we went to school. Do you remember your freshman year room number?" He turned to the older woman who had been nagging Ron earlier. She looked at him gruffly.

"Arthur, this is not the time for reminiscing," she chided. She rounded on one of the other redheads, and Arthur turned to face Harry.

"Oh, you must be Harry!" the older man said. He strode towards Harry and put his hand out. Harry shook it slowly.

"Y-yeah I am," he responded. "Nice to meet you."

"Arthur Weasley, Ron's dad," Mr. Weasley said. "That's my wife, Molly. Ron is over near the window. The twins, Fred and George, are the ones helping unpack. Our other son, Percy, is settling into his RA suite upstairs. And Ginny, our daughter. She'll be coming to Hogwarts next year!" Harry's eyes darted back and forth, trying to discern each person. The twins were like blurs, running in and out of the room.

"Very nice-" one began saying.

"To meet you," the other finished.

Ginny didn't say a word to Harry. In fact, she didn't even look at him. Harry wondered if he had offended her somehow. Mrs. Weasley was fussing over Ron's belongings, intermittently checking the time on her wristwatch. Ron was looking gloomily at Harry, as though he was trying to apologize. Harry smiled back at him and shrugged.

"Ron, you had better get going," Mrs. Weasley said. "You too, Harry. It was nice to meet you, but we'll have to have a proper introduction some other time. Oh, Ron! Why don't you bring Harry over for dinner some time?"

"Okay, let's leave these two be," Mr. Weasley said, shooing his wife out the door. Ginny followed them. "Have fun and don't be stupid." Mr. Weasley directed this at Ron, but Harry felt it may have been for his benefit too.

Then, the door closed and Harry, Ron, and the twins were left in the room. Ron jumped up onto his undressed mattress and reclined against the wall.

"Sorry about that," he said to Harry. "The family can be a lot. Especially Mom."

"It's okay," Harry said, still standing stock still against his bed. The whirlwind that was the Weasleys had left just as fast as it had come, and Harry's head was still reeling.

"Listen, if you two ever need anything-" one of the twins said.

"- we're just upstairs," the other twin finished.

"Try not to bother us, though," they both said in unison. Then they were gone too.

Harry looked after them. "Do they practice that?" he asked Ron. Ron chuckled.

"I wish I could say yes," he responded. His hand closed around the pamphlet his mother had left behind. "Do we have to go to this 'orientation' thing? Like, is it mandatory?"

"Not sure," Harry said, finally sitting on his own bed, which was made up with sheets and a dark blue comforter. "But I bet they'll give us food. So...we should probably go." Harry grinned at Ron.

Ron grinned back. "I think we're gonna be friends."

"The professors here seem pretty strict," Harry said as he and his roommate trekked to the Student Building for a quick meal before heading back to their dorm. Their stomachs rumbled in anticipation.

"Percy doesn't shut up about them at home," Ron said. "He thinks they're the best professors in the country. Fred and George have a different opinion, though. They think of them as obstacles."

"Obstacles?" Harry asked, imagining an academic-themed obstacle course full of failing grades and impossible riddles.

"They're pranksters," Ron said. "Always in trouble, always trying to one-up each other. Their worst pranks are when they work together, though. Those are the ones that tend to loud, bright, and life-threatening."

The roommates walked into the Student Building. Harry stopped in his tracks. He had expected a cafeteria, complete with plastic benches and lunch trays. Instead, there were food stations, each boasting a different type of cuisine. He smelled a mixture of flavors in the air that made his mouth water. Harry vowed right then to eat his way through the whole dining hall menu before the end of the year.

He turned to see if Ron was just as spellbound as he was, but saw that Ron had already gotten in line for Italian food. Harry joined him.

"My stomach leads the way," Ron explained.

After getting their meals, they sat at their dorm's designated table. Each dorm had their own table, mostly used during special meals like Thanksgiving, the Welcome Feast, and the End of the Year Feast. Harry and Ron sat next to the other people who lived in the Gryffindor dorm, electing not to sit at one of the smaller satellite tables. They wanted to make friends, and sitting at a small table would have others thinking they preferred to be alone.

During orientation, the Gryffindor Dorm Advisor, Professor McGonagall, had explained that each dorm has its own reputation. Students were asked to take a personality test the summer before their freshman year to determine their housing for the remainder of their time at the college. The thought process behind this was that the louder, extroverted people would be placed in one dorm, the studious group would placed in another, and so on. It was meant to "encourage intellectual stimulation among peers," but Ron explained that it was to keep all the troublemakers away from people who actually wanted to work.

From what Harry gathered, Gryffindors were the troublemakers - brave, loud, and always seeking danger. Harry didn't think that description exactly applied to him, but Ron told him that his whole family was in Gryffindor and not all of them were like that. Hufflepuff was for people who wanted to make long-lasting connections. They were loyal and hard-working. They used their interpersonal skills to help their future careers. Ravenclaws were dedicated to their studies above anything else. "Witty and wise," was how Ron had described them, "like that one kid in class who knows all the answers, but also has you laughing at some really smart joke." The final dorm was Slytherin, who were full of ambitious and cunning students. Harry had seen a few Slytherin students walking out of their dorm earlier that day and noticed they seemed quite arrogant.

Harry looked across the dining hall, surveying the different tables to confirm the stereotypes he had formed in the past few hours. The older Gryffindors were laughing loudly and yelling across the room to each other. The Hufflepuffs flitted across their table, saying hello to old friends and making new ones. The Ravenclaws were either focused on reading - what could they be reading? The semester hadn't even started yet! - or had their heads bent together, talking quickly. The Slytherins looked coldly at the other tables. Harry met eyes with one Slytherin boy with white blond hair. The blond Slytherin sneered at him, and Harry turned away from him quickly, looking at Ron instead.

It was then that Harry saw a football flying towards the back of Ron's head. Without thinking, Harry jumped up and caught it in his chest before it collided with Ron. He wrapped his arms around the ball tight.

An older Gryffindor boy came rushing up to Harry. "Ah fuck," he said. "Sorry about that. Should've warned you." He grabbed the ball back from Harry and turned to walk away, before swiveling his head around. "That was a good catch."

Harry grinned sheepishly. Ron looked furious. "Thanks," Harry said.

The older boy turned to face Harry and Ron again. "I'm Oliver. Oliver Wood," he said. "I run the Campus Sports Leagues around here. Are you into sports, uh... What's your name?"

"Harry," he said. "I mean, I've watched all types of sports. And played some in gym class."

Oliver looked him up and down. "Well, you're not really built to play sports," he said. Harry instinctively tried to make his scrawny frame bigger. "Listen, I'm graduating in May. I need someone to take over my job for me. You want it?"

Harry laughed incredulously. This boy whom he had never met was just throwing him a job for catching a football? He looked to Ron for reassurance, who was just as shocked.

"Um...what?" Harry asked.

Oliver grinned. "I'm looking for a freshman to replace me," he said. "And, honestly, I'd rather it be a Gryffindor. Call it pride, or whatever, but it's good work." He paused. "Here, take my number. Text me if you want it."

He typed his number into Harry's phone, then looked at Ron. "Hey, aren't you Fred and George's little brother?" Oliver asked. Ron turned red.

"Yeah, they work with you," he replied.

"Great guys," Oliver said, still grinning confidently. "They'd love to see you in the program too, I'm sure." He turned back to Harry. "Offer won't last long, so you'd better make a decision soon." With that, he left.

Harry sat back down next to Ron without a word. The two began eating again as though none of it had happened.

Later that night in their dorm room, though, Harry laid in bed thinking about Oliver's offer. It seemed too good to be true. He'd never had a job before, but he was certainly hard-working and would need the pocket change.

"Should I text Oliver?" Harry asked Ron in the darkness.

Ron grumbled, which Harry took as a 'yes.' He got out his phone and texted Oliver to tell him he wanted the job.

AN: Thoughts? I THRIVE off criticism, so let me know. I really hate writing from Harry's perspective (I can never live up to JKR), but next chapter is Hermione, which is more my wheelhouse. Review, please!