A/N: So, this idea has been floating around in my brain since I started re-reading/watching Harry Potter, and replaying the Assassin's Creed games simultaneously. This first chapter is plain, simple, and follows a similar vein to every other HP Fanfic on this site, but it lays the groundwork for me to go anywhere with the rest of the story and allows me to gauge interest in a story like this.

I'll probably continue regardless, as this idea won't leave me alone. I've got a lot of interesting ideas for the magical mirrors of the Assassins and Templars, and am excited about the prospect of a Hogwarts branch of the brotherhood. Due to time constraints, I can't guarantee any kind of set update schedule just yet... but once a week (or every two weeks) doesn't seem unreasonable.

Harry Potter had always been different - he'd known even at the young age of eight that some things in his life didn't add up. Oh, nothing so mundane as the fact that he thought his name was either 'boy' or 'freak' up until he was enrolled in school, or that he knew very well that a normal child wouldn't ever live in a cupboard under the stairs, or that his alcoholic parents died in the same car crash that gave him his abnormal scar. No, he was a much more exciting kind of different – he was magical. For as long as he could remember, things around him seemed to bend to his will; toys taken from him reappeared in his hand, bullies chasing him ended up tripping on tied-together shoelaces, animals responded when he spoke, almost as if they could understand him – and he was almost certain he could occasionally understand them – all these things together convinced Harry that he absolutely had to be magical. But then, that begged the question of why his Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and Cousin Dudley never seemed happy for him to perform these feats. In fact, they seemed downright distraught whenever he managed to summon a toy or command a garden snake... and today was no different.

Harry, with all of the enthusiasm an attention-starved eight year old could muster, called for his aunt to come out to the back yard. Petunia Dursley, loathe as she was to have this freakish child in her home, opened the back door just to make sure the neighbors wouldn't see anything... not normal. As her eyes roved across the yard, her mouth opened in a shocked, silent scream. There in front of her nephew was arrayed what must have been the entire neighborhood's squirrel population... and they were enraptured by the chittering noises coming from the boy's mouth.

Voice filled with venom, Petunia shattered what little hope for praise Harry maintained, "You horrible, freakish boy! Get away from those this instant!" At the same time, she stepped forward and yanked Harry back by the shoulder, scattering the critters gathered in her garden. As they ran, she called for her husband, "Vernon! Get out here; the boy has done it again!"

With great, lumbering steps, the whale known as Vernon Dursley stepped out the back door. Upon seeing the army of vermin, his face purpled with rage. He grabbed his nephew and yanked him back into the house, and proceeded to tear into him with his belt. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times! We! Will! Have! No! Freakishness! In! This! House!" each word punctuated by a carefully placed strike, so as to leave few marks. As Vernon finished, the now teary-eyed – but not crying; Harry had long ago learned that crying was perhaps the worst thing he could do – child was prepared to be flung into his cupboard and left there for the remainder of the summer. Vernon had other plans, however.

"Listen to me, you abnormal menace. For the next two weeks, you will be in the attic. I don't want to see you come down from there until the summer is over and we can be rid of you most of the day. If you're lucky, and we don't forget about you, you might be fed each night... but that's only if I don't hear the slightest of sounds from the ceiling. Do you understand?"

Harry, pleasantly surprised that the cupboard wasn't his prison for now, nodded quietly in agreement. In a rare moment of feeble intelligence, Vernon realized that the boy though he was getting off easy... and there could be none of that.

"Oh no boy, you'll be working up there! By the end of the summer I expect every loose item to be placed into a box, and the boxes to all be stacked neatly to one side. If not, I can promise you that I'll be able to think of a much worse punishment. Now, go!"

Harry, realizing that this was most likely the best deal he was going to get, proceeded to climb into the oppressively hot, dark attic. As his uncle closed up the ladder behind him, Harry looked around. The sheer number of old toys and loose nick-knacks scattered about proved that this was going to be a hellish two weeks.

Three days.

Harry had been in the attic for three days now, and it felt like a week had passed. He had completed the task set forth by his uncle within a few hours of being confined to his makeshift prison, and had even organized the boxes by contents simply to give him something to pass the time and ignore the heat – two boxes contained Dudley's old toys, three contained clothing, and six contained an amalgamation of tat that a young boy had no idea how to further atomize. The problem with being done so early came to light when he realized that he had to spend another eleven days in the attic... with nothing to do, and nothing to distract him from the midday heat of the uninsulated storage space.

As Harry crept around the attic barefoot – his uncle slamming on the ceiling (floor?) with a broom handle the day before had taught him that his ratty, hand-me-down shoes made too much noise – looking for something to pass the time, he came across a box he hadn't noticed while cleaning. This box however, unlike all the others, caught his attention immediately, for written across the side was a word that filled Harry with excitement: "Potter."

Throwing all caution – and attempts at silence – to the wind, Harry rushed over and tore the box open. His enthusiasm dulled for a brief moment at the sparse contents of the box... but his attention was immediately drawn to a very old book; rather, it looked like a journal. Embossed on the cover of this journal was a phrase in a language young Harry couldn't read, and a strange silver symbol that looked like a very ornamental 'A'. Realizing this book had to have belonged to one, or both, of his parents, he reverently opened the cover.

The first page contained the title which would change Harry's life, and the lives of all of Magical Britain – The Creed of the Brotherhood.