Harry James Potter did not have what most people would call a normal childhood, and if you asked Harry himself, he would say he hadn't had any childhood at all. A surely depressing sentence to hear from an eight year old, but horrifically accurate for the young boy. Born to chronic drunks who died mere months after his birth, Harry did not have many advantages when he started his life in this cruel world, and he only gained detriments as time went on.
One such detriment was the family that currently "raised" him, if such a term could even be used for what his Aunt and Uncle Petunia and Vernon Dursley actually did. In reality they provided a nice cold, cramped prison for the young man in the form of a splintering and spider filled cupboard under the stairs which he was constantly locked inside. In lieu of meals he would often receive table scraps, and in place of friends he had the lovely whale of a cousin named Dudley who liked to see how much of Harry he could hurt without being punished.
The answer to that question of course was "Nothing that can be seen by the neighbors, Dudder's dear."
Harry chuckled at his own grim sarcasm, before wincing as the action agitated the bruises hidden just underneath his ratty and oversized shirt.
"Light breaths there, Potter." he mumbled to himself, turning gently on the pile of rags he called his "bed" to relieve some of the pressure on his right side.
Dudley had given him a decent bruising today, not his best work but certainly something Harry would be feeling for the next few days. Though Harry had gotten his own licks in, he thought as a viscous grin began to spread over his lips. Not in the physical sense of course, no he had learned long ago that even if he could hurt Dudley, it was never worth the punishments he would get from the older Durseley's.
No, Harry's revenge had not been physical in any sense. Instead it had been purely psychological, the only form of attack he could perpetrate on Dudley without leaving anything for him to complain to his parents about. Harry had long ago learned that if he left the hints of ideas and new fears in his words to Dudley, the stupid oaf would quickly assimilate an approximation of the things he hinted at into his mind. Harry knew such a thing didn't work on anyone much smarter than Dudley, but so long as he provided a few other stimulations it worked wonders on the intended target.
In this case, his extra nudges hadn't even involved words, only small rigged encounters.
Harry smiled a softer smile when he thought of how he'd pulled off scaring Dudley so badly he didn't want to go back outside anymore, he owed it all to his secret friends. That, and being a Freak, of course.
Freak was what the Dursely's called Harry right before he was punished for something that was entirely out of his control, or occasionally because of some weird unexplainable thing that happened around him. Like when his hair regrew in a single night after Vernon shaved it off, or when he miraculously ended up on top of his elementary school when Dudley was chasing him for another round of "Harry Hunting".
Harry shivered at the thought of the horrid game, and let his mind wander back to his secret friends.
These friends were of the scaled variety, snakes specifically. Harry always seemed to have an affinity for the small slithering creatures. They had always seemed to seek him out specifically, sometimes slithering out of the grass at the edge of a playground or park to curl around his outstretched fingers. He had called them his "secret friends" when he was even younger than now because he had no one else who liked him. But just a few weeks ago, right around the time his downright wonderful dreams had started, his secret friends had become actual friends. Courtesy of the first bout of "freakishness" he had ever had any true control over:
Harry could talk to the snakes, and he understood their replies.
It sounded like a fairy tale, but it was real, real and the first thing that was entirely his.
Today, he had asked his three best snake friends to pop out of the grass every couple hours, and hiss loudly at Dudley, following him for hours but staying hidden and slithering away when he got too close. This had eventually made Dudley go bawling to his parents screaming he was "too scared of the slithers" to go outside anymore.
And the best part was the Dursely's didn't even think to blame Harry because he had been locked up in his cupboard for being impertinent all day. A fate that Harry had intentionally received so that the fat family that tormented him wouldn't even consider that their hated freak of a relative was responsible.
Now if only biting the fat jerk wouldn't put his only friends in danger of Vernon and Dudley's wrath, Harry mused idly with a smile on his tiny lips.
A loud bang from outside suddenly startled the poor malnourished young magical from his delightful plots of vengeance, and he could hear screaming from the otherside of his cupboard door. And it wasn't just Petunia screaming at Vernon about some inane thing, no, these were strange voices. Petunia and Venron were screaming of course, but there were other voices deep and thrumming, and the other young but somehow….solid. Strong.
Harry put his ear to the door to actually make out the details of the argument as Vernon and Petunia's voices were quelled by the deep man, and younger child.
"...-illemency? Jacob what the Bloody hell! How do you even-" the deep voice seemed distressed, though Harry only started listening halfway through his sentence.
"Remus! Focus on the important parts, dammit! Didn't you just hear me? They're keeping Harry in the thrice damned cupboard! Now give me your wand so I can hex these bastards!"
"Shit! No, Jacob you're not getting my damn wand, how do you even-? You know what? Later, dammit.:
That was the clearly younger voice, then the older again. What on earth was going on out there? Wand? Hex? The only part he actually understood out of any of that was that these people, whoever they were, were here for him. He didn't know what to think of that.
Rushed footsteps pattered quickly towards his cupboard, and soon something was tugging on the door like it was the barrier between heaven and earth.
"Jacob, it's locked, let me" the deep voice, Remus? Said, before he intoned a deep, sonerous word that seemed to ripple right through Harry's spine:
"Alohomora" the man intoned, alongside a soft tap of wood on wood, and the door swung open on creaking hinges.
"Harry!" The spitting image of Harry, only much, much healthier, barreled into the small raven haired boy.
"Ribs!" the orphan managed as the hug accidentally pressed hard against his tender side(and wasn't that a surprise? A hug that wasn't intended to hurt him.).
"Oh! Sorry!" the clone of Harry said, nervously, setting him down "You ok?"
Harry opened his mouth to reply, only for Uncle Vernon to snap angrily from behind Harry's double and the gruff, scraggly haired man who stood at his side.
"Now wait just a minute! You can't just unlock a man's private property! I don't know what rights you freaks think you have, but we regular people have plenty of protections! You get away from our…ward before you spread anymore of your freakish-er-freakishness to the poor lad! And then get your dirty arses out of my house!" the obese whale of a man thundered angrily.
This seemed to be the wrong thing to do, because the scraggly and unkempt man, who Harry now realized had been looking at him with…sympathy? Flicked a stick he had been holding in his hand at Vernon without even looking, and a bright white light slapped the man in the chest, sending a rigid and pale Vernon Dursley thumping into his brand new shag carpet.
"What did you do?" shrieked an enraged and frightened Petunia.
"He's just petrified, Petunia you ugly hag!" the man snarled without turning around "It''l ware off in a few hours, now shut your ugly cosmetic stained mouth or you'll get something worse for what you've done to my Godson!"
"Godson?" Harry asked, eyes already blown wide from the blatant display of, for lack of a better term, directed and controlled Freakishness.
"Yep!" the replica of him chirped, who was still hugging the stunned Harry to his side gently "He's your Godfather, Remus Lupin! And I'm your twin brother, Jacob! We-" the young boy faltered "We haven't been able to get to you until now, but when we realized what was happening here,and where you were, we rushed to get you out as quickly as we could."
"And-and your like me? Your both freaks too?"
Jacob flinched at those words.
"We're not-"
Remus interrupted him, kindly kneeling to look Harry in the eyes. He saw only warmth and kindness their, mixed with deep regret and guilt.
"Yes, Harry. We're special. Just like you, and we're here to take you away to a place that's safe for special people. Safe from people like your Aunt and Uncle. I'm sorry it;'s taken me so long to rescue you, but will you come with me? Give me and your brother time to explain ourselves?"
Harry nodded, to many thoughts spinning in his head to articulate words.
"Excellent" Remus clapped "Then we're leaving! Right now! Pack your things and we'll go!"
"I um…" the confidence Harry sometimes showed, that beyond a normal eight year old, evaporated in his embarrassment and for just a brief moment he was like a normal child.
"I don't have anything besides some of Dudley's old clothes."
Remus snarled like a dog, and Jacob's grip got a little tighter across his shoulders.
"It's fine Harry, we'll, we'll get you better clothes soon. We'll leave now, Petunia" he said, directing this to Harry;s aunt with a snarl "If you try to stop us, or contact anyone about what happened here today, on our side of the veil or yours, I promise you you'll regret it more than the time I caught you trying to ruin Lilly's wedding. Do you understand me?"
The woman nodded, pale as a sheet.
"Right! Gather up pups, we're leaving!"
And just like that, Remus took the children's hands, and a loud crack sounded in the house as they were ripped away.
A/n
Well, that chapter certianly felt longer when I wrote it, maybe it's just all the plot threads that both terminated and sprung up from the chapter? Who knows! Anyways, finally enter our REAL protagonist: Harry Potter! Tune in next time as Harry discovers who these two idiots who rescued him really are, and we get to see exactly how wide open Jacob just blew his cover by forgetting when he was and giving orders and showing off complex spells to an already suspicious Remus!
Tata for now! Stay safe friends!