Ordinary To Extraordinary

(One-Shot)

Disclaimers: I don't own anything apart from some DVD's/books for this series.

AN: This is a short standard prompt for 'The Houses Competition" for Harry Potter.

House: Gryffindor

Class: Herbology

Category: Standard BONUS

Prompt(s): (Scenario) Good Dursley! A.U. - The Dursleys aren't abusive or neglectful towards Harry. Suggested characters: Dursleys, Harry, Severus, maybe Evans' grandparents; (Object) Photo album

Word count: 1,669 according to AO3 (3 pages)

Summary: Big things are about to happen to little Harry. (An A.U. of Harry Potter.)

Harry thought he was an ordinary boy. He had an ordinary life in which he went to an ordinary school. He lived with a mostly ordinary family. Mostly because, well, his family were not his real parents. He lived with his aunt, the sister of his mother, her husband as well as their one son who was about Harry's age. They had always told him that his eleventh birthday would be very special.

He knew that his parents were dead. He was not yet told how, only that they were murdered. He was also told that he was living here in Little Whinging for his own protection, but from what, he did not know yet. All he was told was that everything would be revealed in just a few days.

As one could imagine, Harry could not keep still, waiting for this extraordinary eleventh birthday coming up soon. Just what was going to happen to him anyway? He could not eat the day before, neither could he sleep the night before. By the time dawn came, Harry was already bouncing down the stairs excitedly. Well, excitedly for the first few bounces. He landed on his cousin's turtle, sending both of them rolling down the rest of the stairs. The turtle pulled itself into its shell, scared to death, as Harry gingerly sat up, rubbing bruises.

Of course, the whole fiasco made everyone else wake up abruptly. Harry was standing up by the time they had come running to see what the fuss was. He picked up the turtle. "Alright, who forgot to lock his cage door, again?"

"Um," Dudley gulped. "Sorry."

"Are you alright?" Aunt Petunia asked.

"Never better," Harry shrugged as he handed the turtle to Dudley who hurried to lock it in its tank once more. (Properly, this time, of course.)

When Dudley came back, he said, "We know it's your birthday, alright. You always have a stumble on every one of your birthdays. Remember last year?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "I sat on the swing, but it crashed to the ground. The year before that, I walked right through a spider web while eating an ice cream cone!" Both boys laughed as Uncle Vernon came down the rest of the stairs.

"Well," Uncle Vernon yawned widely. "We are all up now. Might as well get breakfast. Your first gift ought to be coming through soon. Oh, we should probably sit outside for it."

"Yes, that would be a good idea," Aunt Petunia agreed, shuffling them all out to the back porch.

Harry glanced at the row of photos along the wall as they all went through the hallway. He wondered if he should ask about making some copies to make a photo album to carry to school. As he followed the others outside, he inquired, "Could I make up a photo album to bring to school?"

"Perhaps later," said Aunt Petunia. "Right now, we have something important to discuss."

As they sat down to a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs pulled over toast, with sausages on the side, Harry opened his mouth to ask why they had to be outside when all of a sudden, a flurry of feathers plopped into the bowl of punch. It dropped an item from it's beak into Harry's plate. The owl puffed up its chest to shake itself off before flying away. Harry stared at the letter in his plate. He had never seen an owl behave this way before.

"GO ON! OPEN IT!" Dudley urged at last, tired of watching Harry stare at the letter.

Harry gingerly picked the envelope out of his eggs. He read the letter once to himself before reading it once more out loud for all to hear. After he finished, he put the letter aside before looking at each family member one after the other before asking in surprise. "Wait, what?"

"You're a wizard, Harry," Vernon said.

"We couldn't tell you all at once," Aunt Petunia added. "You get it from your parents. But there is a really bad wizard who killed them. He is trying to kill you, too. That's why we had to keep you hidden."

"Now, Dumbledore will be able to keep you safe as well," said Vernon.

"You never told me Harry could do magic!" Dudley gasped.

"We could not say anything," said Aunt Petunia. "Dumbledore reckons that the murderer is still at large. We have to be careful!"

"We will take you to Godric's Hollow later today," said Vernon. "That was where your parents lived."

"Not to mention died," Aunt Petunia muttered.

"Dumbledore said he has secured the place for today," Vernon went on after a short nod of agreement. "You will be able to learn some of your history there before going to Hogwarts."

"Finish up, quickly," Aunt Petunia ordered. "We leave straight away!"

All Harry could do was shove the rest of his breakfast into his mouth before getting dressed. Though he hurried, time still seemed to move slowly for him. He was a wizard? He was going to a school named Hogwarts this year? Who was trying to kill his family? So many questions for a young mind!

After a drive that seemed too long for Harry, the car finally pulled into a driveway leading to a half destroyed cottage. As they got out, Harry looked around at the broken down area, wondering what they were doing in a place like this. He saw a sign stand nearing the fence. On it were several signatures of those who had visited the place in the past. Glancing down the road, he saw a statue of a couple. Turning his eyes forward, he noticed a very large, hairy man standing at the door of the broken home, waiting for them. Something seemed familiar about that man. Somewhere in Harry's dreams, he felt he had seen this man before. Or maybe it was not a dream but a distant memory?

"Hello, Harry!" The man said as Harry came up the steps. "Happy birthday!"

Harry's eyes went wide as he was handed a box with another birthday cake inside it. "Whoa! Thanks!" He placed the box on a small round porch table before asking, "Who are you? You seem to know who I am."

"I'm the one what brought yeh to Little Whingin' many years ago," Hagrid replied. "I'm Hagrid. Keeper o' Ke—"

"RUBEUS! WILL YOU LET THE POOR CHILD IN HERE ALREADY?" A male voice bellowed from the hall. "We have been waiting ages to see him!"

"Er, who is that?" Harry cast an apprehensive look towards the door.

Hagrid slightly rolled his eyes. "That'll be yer Grandpa."

"Grandpa?" Harry gasped, following Hagrid inside.

"He died a long time ago," Hagrid said. "This is jus' a picture o' both yer grandparents." He pointed to the wall where a large almost life-sized picture hung. Two old people smiled down at Harry.

"Well, well," the old woman smiled. "About time. Oh he looks so much like James."

"Yeah but he has Lily's eyes," said the old man.

Harry's eyes stared at the talking—the TALKING—photo before swivelling over to Hagrid. "Is that photo ... talking?" Harry was sort of used to moving, talking photos in a sense that he was used to TV's where such things were common-place. But this was a literal photo on the wall!

"Oh yeah," Hagrid nodded. "Wizard photos can speak to yeh. 'Cept prisoner photos, o' course."

"We have a gift for you," said the old man in the photo. "It's on the table in the dining room. Hagrid has been keeping it clean for you."

Harry followed Hagrid into the dining room. Hagrid lifted off a table cloth covering something underneath. He pushed Harry forward to see it properly. There in the center of the table was a photo album filled with moving wizard photos of his family!

Harry carefully picked it up. He turned each page to look at every photo in turn. People waved up at him as their pages passed by. "Is this for me?" Harry gasped in awe.

"I've been addin' to tha' photo album fer a long time," Hagrid said. "Yer grandparents helped me out. Told me where teh go n' find some o' them!"

"Brilliant!" Harry exclaimed as he closed the book before tucking it under one arm. He went back to the hall to talk to his grandparents some more.

They spent the next hour fussing over him, telling him to fix his hair in much the same way they used to scold James for his messy hair. It was all in good fun, but seriously, the hair on both Potter boys was uncontrollable!

When Harry returned home to Little Whinging, he went upstairs to find something large enough to pack up for his next school year which would be spent at what was essentially a boarding school. He made sure that his new photo album would be included in the list of stuff he would bring to Hogwarts. When the time came, he could show the new pictures to his new friends come September when it was time to go.

Harry had gone from ordinary to extraordinary in one literal day. He was a wizard in training now, with lots of things to help him on his way, for Hagrid had also taken him to a wondrous place called Diagon Alley for a wee bit of shopping for some school supplies.

But still, the photo album had become his most favourite possession besides a feathery white snowy owl that Hagrid had gotten him. The Dursleys had copied a few of their own photos to add to it, although those ones were unmoving. It was a stark contrast of the two worlds that Harry belong to. Harry rearranged some photos in the album to make sure he had a few muggle Dursley ones along side the magical Potter ones. It felt complete to have both halves of his life finally merged into one extraordinary adventure!

~the end