He's Not Broken! He's Just Different!

By: Half-Pint01

Posted on:

A/N: I do not have autism and did not know much about it before starting this story… but before you get on me, know that I did my research but if something is wrong or sounds out of place with what Harry is doing please correct me. Also, would you rather have short chapters that come out less frequently or shorter chapters that come out quicker?

Disclaimer: I. Do. Not. Own. Harry. Potter. Or. Any. Of. It's. Characters!

Summary: When an autistic Harry gets adopted by the Grangers, he finally gets to start his life but, 6 years later Harry and his sister Hermione get letters saying they have magic! Join Harry and Hermione on their journey in Hogwarts!

Harry Potter was not an ordinary child in more ways than one. The first was getting adopted by the Grangers when he was five years old. The second being that he had autism.

Yes, Harry has a case of autism not severe enough to be considered low-functioning but also not low enough to be considered high-functioning (if there is a better term to use instead of this please let me know). It could get quite tiring at times, but the Grangers always pushed through it.

Harry went through the day on a schedule, he would wake up at 6:30 and take a shower. From there he would pack his lunch for the day and then get dropped off at school by his mum with Hermione, his only sister and best friend. He then would go to the classroom for the 'special' kids Harry hated that word, despised that word but that is what everyone called it, so he just tried to ignore it.

He would sit through the first three hours of school which were always extremely boring and then he would go meet up with Hermione in the library to eat. You see, both Harry and Hermione love to read. You could call it an obsession, but they prefer to call it a lifestyle.

After lunch Harry and Hermione would head their separate ways. Harry's class straight after lunch was by far his favorite, art class. Harry loved to do any kind of art he could get his hands on from pencils and crayons to paints and markers. Harry would spend hours in his room listening to music and doing some sort of medium, this was also the one-time Harry didn't follow his schedule and if someone interrupted him, they would face his wrath or have a meltdown on their hands.

But then right after art Harry had math. Oh, how Harry hated math, he would do everything he possibly could to get out of it. He personally thought it was useless since he wanted to be an artist when he grew up, something that didn't require math.

"Harry! Harry, are you paying attention?" Asked Ms. Thomas, his math teacher. Shoot I must have zoned out again. Harry thought. Harry kept his eyes just below eye level with hers and answered softly "Yes."

Ms. Thomas huffed and turned away. She liked Harry and thought he was a sweet kid but knew Harry would never care for anything related to math. She went up to the front of the classroom and asked a different student a question.

Meanwhile in the back of the classroom where Harry sat his aide was helping him through whatever this teacher was saying. But there was a very irritating ticking noise coming from somewhere Harry could not locate and did not particularly care where as long as it stopped.

He started rocking back and forth in an effort to try and block out the stimuli, but it wasn't working so Harry put his hands over his ears and started naming the colors to himself. The class didn't even bother to turn around as they were so used to this type of occurrence happening in their classroom.

Harry's aide Emily immediately turned towards him and asked him what was wrong to which Harry replied with "There is a ticking sound" and sure enough when Emily listened, she heard it. She proceeded to pull out Harrys noise cancelling headphones and a math worksheet that would most likely get drawn on at some point.

"Here Harry," Emily smiled when Harry snatched the headphones from her and immediately put them over his head along with soothing his rocking to the point where it was barely noticeable. Emily then set the math sheet on the table and Harry got about halfway through it before he started to draw on the side of it, but by then class would be over in 3 minutes so Emily didn't bother to stop him.

The bell rang so Harry and Emily walked to Harry's next class, history which was a class with Hermione in it. They walked into the classroom Harry still having his headphones on went to go sit in a seat in the back corner making sure to save 2 even though it wasn't necessary with only a week left of school everyone knew who those 3 seats were for.

Hermione then came in and sat next to Harry with Emily on the other side. Mr. Brewer, the social studies teacher, came through the side door in the classroom that led to his office and started teaching. All the students liked Mr. Brewer because he rarely assigned homework and he always made sure that his teaching was fun.

Along with that he let Harry do his own thing as long as it was related to the class. One of Harry's favorite assignments was when Mr. Brewer had him paint the entire world in map form instead of having him do the boring test on the different Continents and Oceans.

"Alright class" started Mr. Brewer "Today we will be working on a bit of reading," the class groaned collectively at that though Harry did not hear him since he still had his headphones in.

"I know, I know you don't like reading but it will help you in the long run" Mr. Brewer said and with that he got everyone started on the reading and then walked over to where Harry, Hermione and Emily sat.

"So, Harry" Mr. Brewer started once Harry took off his headphones "do you want to do the reading, or would you prefer to do a drawing of what we are doing today?"

Harry looked at him but never looked in his eyes and said, "can I just read?" Mr. Brewer then nodded and handed Harry a book that was labeled 'Harry's Book' because Harry often drew drawings next to the words he was reading.

"Alright Harry start reading" Mr. Brewer said while getting up. Harry did read… for about 10 minutes before he decided to draw better pictures than the ones in the textbook. Emily was on a bathroom break so there was no one to stop him and by the time Emily got back he had filled up half the page, but he had also retained a lot of information.

Then the bell rang, and everyone filed out of the room. Hermione went to her locker to get her stuff while Harry and Emily filled out his progress sheet and get his stuff.

Hermione and Harry met outside and waited for their mum to pick them up. Harry and Hermione were off in a corner talking about what they were going to do with only three days of school left and what they were going to do on them when their mum showed up.

They got in the car and their mum asked them how their day went to which Harry responded with "good" and Hermione went into a long tirade about how one teacher wouldn't let her read ahead in the book they were reading in class.

When they got home Harry and Hermione ate a quick snack and started in on their homework. Once that was done, they went to go watch some television and they were in the middle of watching Home Improvement when Mr. Granger got home and 20 minutes later, they were eating dinner which consisted of, chicken, green beans, and a caesar salad.

After dinner was done, they played a game of monopoly which Ms. Granger won and then Harry and his sister went up to get ready for bed. Once they were ready for bed in their Jack & Jill Rooms (for those who don't know it is 2 different bedrooms connected by a bathroom that they share) the Granger parents came in to tuck in their children and they were off to sleep.