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A Fairy Tale

The inability to see. If only he could accompany it with the inability to hear. Then he wouldn't have to put up with Dudley's insistent wailing and Aunt Petunia's verbal abuse of himself. For it was all his fault after all.

Harry lay in his dingy, dusty cupboard, glasses firmly planted on his face, but still as blind as a bat; Uncle Vernon had removed the light bulb from his furniture as punishment for ruining Dudley's special day.

He had really not meant for all of this commotion, even if it was quite amusing. It was Dudley who had pushed him on to the floor, and it was Dudley that had squashed his chubby face against the glass and ordered the snake to 'Do something.' But in the end all the snake did was leave its little swamp of a box and was replaced with a toppling fat boy.

So Harry lay in his little room, pondering how he had made the glass vanish into thin air. It was all very unusual, but he was not a freak as Aunt Petunia would put it. He was just special. Different. Something in which he knew the Dursleys would not understand.

And over the next month, they showed their misunderstanding of Harry's abnormality. Harry found himself working ten times harder than usual, for far less food than he would like. He would wake up to a stale, dated slice of bread; he would then spend the day completing tedious chores like clipping the already pristine bushes in the front garden, or cleaning Dudley's second room just for him to wreck all over again; he would sometimes be interrupted by lunch, usually some fruit and a glass of water; and then, in the evening, he would be serving dinner to his loving family, surviving on scraps of leftovers. If he was lucky, Uncle Vernon would forget to lock his cupboard and he would sneak out at night to raid the fridge. Harry wondered if it was possible for him to become any thinner.

It was a blazing July morning, and Harry had just finished his laughable excuse of a breakfast. The rest of the Dursleys had barely even started. It was whilst Uncle Vernon was rambling on about his incredibly boring business strategies that the slap of post falling through the door attracted Harry's attention. With everyone too busy pretending to care about Uncle Vernon's latest deal with an opposing firm, Harry slipped away to the front door. He picked up the post from the floor and flicked through, hoping for a food voucher of some sort. There was a post card from his dear Aunt Marge and a couple of envelopes. Disappointed, Harry was about to put the post back on the floor when he noticed something out of the ordinary. One of the envelopes, which were usually plain white and generically produced, had instead been handwritten in green ink and had been sealed with a blood red crest decorated with the letter H. He turned it over, and to his surprise the letter had been addressed to:

Mr H. Potter,

The Cupboard under the Stairs,

4, Privet Drive,

Little Whinging,

Surrey

Harry had never received a letter before, and how anyone could know he lived under the stairs was beyond him. He retreated to his cupboard, the envelope still in his hand. He broke the seal and pulled out the letter, using a small torch to read the words written upon the yellowed parchment.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

Harry stared at the words on the parchment blankly. He then read them again. And again. And again. Eventually, they would sink him. Or maybe it was just some sort of joke. Something for the Dursleys to laugh about. But if it was true…

He pulled out a second piece of parchment from the envelope.

UNIFORM

First-year students will require:

1. Three sets of plain work robes (black)

2. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear

3. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)

4. One winter cloak (black, with silver fastenings)

Please note that all pupil's clothes should carry name tags.

COURSE BOOKS

All students should have a copy of each of the following:

The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)

By Miranda Goshawk

A History of Magic

By Bathilda Bagshot

Magical Theory

By Adalbert Waffling

A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration

By Emeric Switch

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi

By Phyllida Spore

Magical Drafts and Potions

By Arsenius Jigger

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

By Newt Scamander

The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection

By Quentin Trimble

OTHER EQUIPMENT

1 wand

1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)

1 set glass or crystal phials

1 telescope

1 set brass scales

Students may also bring, if they desire, an owl OR a cat OR a toad.

PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS

ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICK

Yours sincerely,

Lucinda Thomsonicle-Pocus

Chief Attendant of Witchcraft Provisions

"Oi! Boy, where are you? Petunia wants you cleaning the dishes!" came Uncle Vernon's gruff voice. Hastily, Harry shoved the letter under his pillow and emerged from his cupboard, completely confused. He had no idea what to think.

Harry spent the rest of the day sweating over the lawnmower in the back yard, a task he would normally have found the spirit to complete by continuously cursing the Dursleys under his breath, but today was different. He kept his mind focused on the letter, accepting him to a school of magic. It seemed quite absurd. Hogwarts, it was called; it sounded like some sort of medieval disease. And apparently he wasn't allowed a broomstick, because he would definitely have had so much fun sweeping the floor. Besides, where would he find all of the things he needed? What on earth was a wand?

By the end of the day, once Harry had been locked into his cupboard, he had come to the conclusion that Hogwarts was in fact some sort of stupid joke that Dudley had probably thought would have been funny. The letter didn't even give him an address for the school, and somehow he was meant to reply with a bloody owl. He dug for the letter under his pillow and searched for something more: a little hint that the place could actually be genuine. But all it told him was that he was in, accepted to a school he had never even applied for.

Frustrated, he scrunched the parchment into a ball and chucked it angrily, watching it ricochet off the wall into his feet. Him, Harry Potter, a wizard… The world wasn't a fairy-tale.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

Harry woke with a start.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

It sounded like someone was trying to break the door in.

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS THAT?" roared Uncle Vernon, trudging down the stairs. Harry heard him walk over to the door and yank it open. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE-" but he stopped abruptly. Harry thought he heard a little whimper. "Petunia," he called, a lot more timidly. "Get down here now."

"What is it Vernon?" she replied halfway down the stairs, but then she let out a gasp of shock and stopped in her tracks.

"I'm here to collect Harry," came a rough voice. It was rather intimidating.

"Harry?" asked Uncle Vernon, his voice considerably higher.

"Harry Potter of course. He lives 'ere, dun' he?" It was more of a statement than a question. "Where is he?" There was a slight pause where no one said anything.

"Why yeh pointin' at that cupboard?"

"He's in there," whispered Uncle Vernon. He sounded terrified.

There was a scurrying of footsteps as Uncle Vernon backed off. The whole house seemed to shake as the intruder entered.

"Yer a dead man, Dursley," he growled. He stomped right over to Harry's cupboard and wrenched the door open, breaking it off its hinges.

Harry could make out a rather large figure as he reached for his glasses. Hurriedly, he plonked them onto his face and allowed his eyes to adjust. It turned out that the rather large figure was a lot bigger than Harry thought; in fact he was impossibly humungous.

All Harry could see was a large pair of torn leather boots and the gangly ends of a brown, blemished coat. The man bent down to reveal the rest of himself; his coat was scattered with pockets, zips and buttons of all sorts, and his red, plum-like face was almost completely hidden by his bushy beard and tangles of black hair. Given the circumstances, Harry thought he should have been a lot more afraid, but the man wore a large beam on his face and his shining eyes sparkled a truly merry feeling into Harry's core.

"Blimey Harry, yer still so small- and yeh look just like yer father. But yer eyes, those are yer mother's eyes." His tone was a lot friendlier now. The giant of a man reached into the cupboard and cupped Harry in one of his hands, gently lifting him out and putting him onto his feet. He looked at Harry proudly, like he was an old friend. "If I were yeh, I'd 'ave some breakfast. Long day ahead of us, yeh see."

Harry stared back blankly. "Who are you?" he asked.

The giant looked like he had prepared for that question. "Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Ground a' Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Yeh got yer letter didn't yeh."

Harry nodded, causing Vernon to jerk violently. Hagrid turned to Vernon, who immediately seemed to deflate. "Behave yer self Dursley," he warned.

Harry, meanwhile, was numb with shock. His head was spinning and he was pretty sure the butterflies in his stomach were having a party. It had been a week since Harry had received his acceptance letter, and he had already erased the fantasy from his mind. But now he was discovering that the fantasy was reality… That wizards and witches and magic and cauldrons were all genuine, not the fabricated fallacy that he had assumed it to be. It was all happening too quick to sink in.

Hagrid turned back to Harry. "Well, yeh'll 'ave seen the list then, for everything yeh'll need for Hogwarts, and I bet yeh were wondering how yeh were going to get everything."

Harry nodded.

"Well that's why I'm 'ere. Dumbledore trusted me to take yeh to Diagon Alley, and that's where yeh'll get yer stuff."

"Hang on a second!" exclaimed Vernon, who had plucked up the courage to challenge the intruder. "You can't just take the boy off to buy all of this bollocks for your wacky school! We chose not to send him there. We chose to stamp it out of him. If he's to sleep under my roof and eat from my table he will not be learning how to become a madcap magician!"

Hagrid's face had scrunched up in offense, and he was gripping his pink umbrella rather ferociously. He looked Vernon straight in the eyes and replied, "This is Harry Potter. Every witch and wizard in the whole ruddy country knows his name. When he was a child, a little baby, he stopped You-Know-Who and ended the bloody war. If anyone deserves to go to Hogwarts and learn how to do magic, it's him, and if yeh think yer going to keep him locked up in this little cupboard, yer an idiot."

There was a pause as Vernon's brain ticked away, trying to figure out the best possible move. He appeared to be tongue-twisted, so instead of coming up with a retort he looked up the stairs to Petunia for support, but she was pale enough to be presumed dead.

"What do we do?" Vernon wailed to his wife, almost pleading for a change in fortunes, but Petunia had given in.

"Let him go," she spat venomously, a daunting doppelganger of her usual stern self. "He was always just like them: strange, like he didn't belong. Let him be like my sister and her little group of friends. A freak."

Harry was angry at his guardians for not telling him the truth of who he was. He wanted to yell at Petunia for being such an awful aunt and an even worse sister to his mother, but he did not want to look at that ghastly face any longer. Vernon just looked like he was trying to impersonate a tomato with his colouring.

"I think we should leave," Harry told Hagrid. "Don't worry about breakfast, I'm not very hungry."

"Alright then. Sooner out of 'ere the better."

Hagrid let Harry in front of him, escorting him out of the house. As he slammed the door shut, Vernon yelled, "BUT WAI-"

Hagrid shook his head, muttering some foul words under his breath. Harry pinched himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming. They walked underneath the inky sky as it slowly diluted into a pale blue, the stars fading into nothingness, and soon they found themselves boarding a train into London.

The few morning passengers stared at Hagrid as politely as possible, which was rather difficult. Harry was bubbling with questions to ask, but was too nervous to say anything. According to Hagrid, he was famous for ending a war. He didn't think it to be true though; it was probably just something he said to convince the Dursleys to let him go.

Hagrid glanced at Harry before reaching inside his cluttered coat, pulling out a chocolate-chip cookie.

"Yeh need some food down yeh," he said. "Here, eat this."

He handed Harry the biscuit, which had looked quite ordinary in Hagrid's hands, but as soon as it was in Harry's he discovered that it was in reality the size of his head. Hungrily, he bit into the cookie, but it was so hard that Harry was sure his teeth had sunk into his gum.

They left the train and stepped onto London Victoria, Harry handing the cookie back to Hagrid having barely made a dent on it.

"Come on," Hagrid said. "I wanna get there before the muggles are up and about."

"Muggles?" Harry asked.

"Non-wizarding folk, like yer aunt an' uncle."

They waded through the people and workers of London, many stopping in their tracks in an attempt to figure out whether the giant was actually some sort of stunt. Hagrid just ignored them, constantly stopping and searching, trying to remember the right direction through the big streets. Harry thought they had been trekking for an hour before Hagrid stopped suddenly, appearing to sigh with delight.

"The Leaky Cauldron," he said, staring at the bend between two streets. He walked up to the dark corner, pushing open a door Harry didn't even realise was there. They entered, a strong whiff of alcohol and cigars filling Harry's nostrils. Though it was morning, the place was bustling. People were talking and choking on smoke over their breakfasts, laughter and chatter spiralling through the sooty bar.

"Hello Tom," Hagrid greeted to the barman, a cheery-looking man covered in wisps of greying hair.

"Hello Hagrid," the barman greeted back. "The usual then?"

"No, no, sorry Tom. No can do today. Here on Hogwarts' business, yeh see," he replied, eyeing Harry.

One man had paused his smoking, choosing to gawk at Harry instead. He stepped a little closer before saying, "Blimey, is that Harry Potter?"

For a split second, the chatter continued as normal, but the flame was quickly put out by a sudden gust of shock. Everyone turned around, first to look at Hagrid, then to ogle at Harry. And before he knew it Harry was shaking the hand of every which and wizard in the bar, accepting a great deal of gratitude he thought was much undeserved.

"Alright, alright. That's enough now, we really must be on our way." The excitable crowd heeded Hagrid's words and shrunk back, allowing the pair to exit through the back door.

Harry looked up at Hagrid, a strange smile on his face. "Did I really end a war?" he asked.

Hagrid made his way over to a brick wall in front of them, observing it for a moment. "That's right, yeh did," he said, tapping the wall almost rhythmically with his umbrella. "I'll tell yeh about it later, now's not the time for that."

The giant stepped back as the wall split into two, the bricks folding inside of each other fantastically, moving apart to reveal something spectacular. Beyond them, the first thing Harry noticed was an incredible feeling of life and colour, soon matched by the bubbly noise of the magical folk. There were shops selling everything the imagination could possibly think of: bubbling potions, and custom robes, and armour made of dragon skin, barrels with frothing beer, totems of mandicore hairs, books with endless chapters, bubbles that never popped, quills that wrote themselves… It was never-ending.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley, Harry. It's here we'll get all of yer stuff," Hagrid said, looking down at him happily. He patted Harry on the back, propelling him forwards a couple feet too far.

Harry looked around in a captivated state, unable to believe what he was seeing. If Hagrid wasn't proof enough, this place sure was. He wanted study everything he could see, which of course he wouldn't be able to buy; the Dursleys never gave him an allowance.

"We need to go to Gringotts," Hagrid said.

"What's that?"

"The bank, yer not gonna be able to buy anything without no money, are yeh?"

"Hagrid, I have no money."

Hagrid stopped to look at Harry funnily. "I forget, yeh really dunno anything."

"No, I really don't."

"Harry, yer father and his father and his father before him, they were all purebloods, and highly respected ones."

"Pureblood?"

"No muggle blood, purely magical. Anyway, they were famous and quite powerful, one of the oldest wizarding families around, yeh see. And with all that power, there comes a lot of money as well."

"So all that money… It's mine?"

"That's right. Yeh have a trust fund though, until your 16."

Harry nodded. He wouldn't know what to do with all that money. Maybe buy a Nintendo or something, to make Dudley jealous. But then Dudley would just break it.

They walked down the alley, Hagrid buying Harry a jam doughnut to make up for his poor excuse of a breakfast. He noticed the wizarding folk dressed very differently to normal people, wearing robes and hats of all sorts. A wardrobe change was needed.

You could see and tell Gringotts from a mile away, even for someone who didn't know what it looked like, such as Harry. The marble building was tall and wonky, but stood strong and proud, towering over the other smaller shops nearby. Perched on the roof was a statue of a large dragon; it appeared to be roaring over the shoppers in quite an intimidating fashion.

"The goblins are the ones yeh should be scared of," said Hagrid, completely restoring Harry's confidence.

They walked up the set of white stairs leading to the entrance, walking though the burnished bronze doors. Inside, they found a long marble hall, with polished counters extending down its length. Sitting behind these counters were the goblins Hagrid spoke of. They were short creatures, with long, pointed noses and a curiously devilish grin. Their dress sense was very muggle-like, wearing suits of the highest class; Uncle Vernon would have been impressed.

"Stay behind me and don't say anything," Hagrid said. "Yeh don't want to mess with these lot."

They walked up to a free goblin who was cleaning its unusually long fingernails with what looked like a file.

"I wish to take Harry Potter here to his vault to collect some money," Hagrid announced.

The goblin looked up, first at Hagrid, then darting its eyes at Harry, lingering on his forehead for a second.

After a moment, it spoke. "Key."

"Of course," Hagrid said, as he began to fumble at his pockets. Hastily, after a few failed attempts, he managed to find the key, placing it on the counter.

"Very well," the goblin said. "Griphook, take Mr Potter and his…"

The goblin paused, looking Hagrid up and down. "…friend here to his vault."

Another goblin, whom Harry presumed to be Griphook, emerged and took the key. "Follow me," it said.

They walked past a door leading to one of the many vault passageways. Griphook grabbed a flaming torch from the wall to ward off the darkness ahead, though their trip remained cold. Soon, they reached a cart, the track it was on seeming to head deep into the caves beneath.

"In," ordered Griphook.

They complied, Hagrid's size making Harry's seat a tight squeeze. Without warning, they whizzed off along the track, the twisting and turning almost knocking Harry out of the cart. The journey didn't take much time, though it was long enough for Hagrid's face to change shade to a sickly green.

"Never gets better," he croaked.

They got off the cart and approached a large vault, the metal was patterned in carvings and symbols.

"Runes," Hagrid explained. "Makes this place practically impenetrable. Nowhere safer to keep something I'd say, apart from Hogwarts of course."

Griphook unlocked the vault with the key, running his hand along the stone as he did so. The goblin dragged it open, revealing to Harry an incredible sight. Stacks upon stacks of gold, silver and bronze coins, glimmering magnificently at him.

Griphook handed Harry a pouch. "Take what you wish."

"Thank you," Harry said. Unable to help himself, he rushed forwards towards the money. His money. If only the Dursleys could see him know.

He grabbed at the coins, pouring them into the pouch. It was after a couple fistfuls that Harry realised the pouch wasn't getting any heavier, nor did it look like he was running out of space. Tentatively, he reached into the pouch, his hand sinking far deeper than he expected, but he could feel the coins at the bottom. This was magic. And it was awesome.

Harry pulled his hand back out and plunged it back into the money. However, this time, instead of wrapping his fingers around the coins, he gripped something entirely different. It felt large and rough. He dragged it out and looked at it interestedly. It was a book. Aged and dusty. Upon it, written in golden words, was the title:

My Heir ~ The Bravest Of Heart

"Hagrid," Harry called. "Look at this book."

"What book?" Hagrid asked.

"This one," Harry said, holding it up for Hagrid to see.

The giant looked at Harry oddly. "That ride must have done yeh head funny as well, I keep telling them to sort it out. Come on, I need to collect a package. Then we can get yer stuff."

Harry looked back down at the book, on which a crest was printed, red and gold with a lion standing proudly in the middle. Beneath it read the name: Gryffindor.

He opened the book to its first page, where it read: Only you can see.

He flicked through the rest of the book, but the pages were blank. So only he could see an empty book. Great. He'd bring the book with him though, Harry decided. Anything in the vault belonged to him after all. And the book was different. There was something about it that made Harry want to hold on to it, but he wouldn't be able to tell you what. What a good choice that would turn out to be.