Year One| Chapter One

In a house that was identical to every other house around it, there lived four people though everyone thought that there were only three. Petunia, Vernon, and their son Dudley were full of falseness. There was nothing about them that was real.

Petunia was known for her long neck, which would almost crane over the hedges so she could listen to the gossip that went around the neighborhood from her next-door neighbor and best friend, Yvonne. Vernon was an obese man with many fat rolls that made up his chin. Dudley was a splitting image of his father, even though he was eleven and had yet to have puberty hit him with full force.

Cramped within the cupboard under the stairs was a malnourished, bruised and beaten girl named Henriette Potter. She had long black hair that fell almost to her hip bones and cheekbones that were shallow. She was like a bird with bones that almost seemed to stick out of her. Her emerald eyes were behind large circular glasses that almost seemed as though they were prepared to fall off her nose from the fact that they were meant for her father, James Potter.

She could hear her family shuffling around in the living room, her aunt and uncle were settling in for the evening, probably to watch television until it was time for them to pull her out of the cupboard so they could force her to make dinner. If she didn't make the food correctly her hand would be forced upon the hot stove and burnt until she would suffer third degree burns. She already had been scarred from the burns on the palms of her hands.

She was curled up on her side, her stomach gnawing from the starvation she always had. She only was fed when they knew if they didn't feed her, she would die. She had just experienced another one of the times Uncle Vernon would enter her cupboard before he would lock the door behind him.

He would unbutton his trousers and force her…no, Henriette didn't want to think about how he would molest her before he would make sure he wouldn't... Well in other words he was going to make sure there was no possible way he would impregnate her when she would go through puberty, and he would go from molesting her to raping her. He didn't want there to be a possibility that the 'freak' would have a child with him because then she would have a child that would make accidental magic like her.

She didn't know how long she had been curled up on her side with tears cascading down her cheekbones until the cupboard was opened and she was yanked out of it. There were still bruises that littered her arms along with her stomach and her back, and there were scars on her back from when Aunt Petunia would be reminded how her own husband had sought pleasure from his own niece instead of his wife.

She had claimed that Henriette was going to steal her husband away from her. She claimed that Henriette was nothing more than a whore like her own mother. She didn't want to be reminded how just like her sister had gotten the perfect life, her own niece had stolen the attention from her husband by doing nothing.

Said niece was yanked into the kitchen before thrown towards the fridge in order for her to bring out the ingredients for dinner. She tried to dismiss her uncle's heated look, one that was not full of hatred but of desire. She kept her attention on making the meatloaf that Aunt Petunia had found in a cookbook she had recently bought at the bookstore. She enjoyed the fact that she could have the food without having to worry about making it.

Uncle Vernon began to talk to Aunt Petunia about the latest project that was happening at his work, which was a drilling firm called Grumings–he was the director of the company that had had his office on the ninth floor of the building. Aunt Petunia eagerly soaked in all the information she was receiving from him before she would tell him all she had learnt from Yvonne today. Dudley on the other hand was whining about how his stomach was growling despite the fact that he had stuffed his face with snacks not even an hour ago.

"Hurry up, freak!"

Henriette hurried to make the meatloaf faster as her uncle commanded for her to work faster. She stayed next to the stove the whole time; her attention focused on the sides she was making on the stove to add to the meatloaf. Outside rain began to pour down, something that was common in England. It was always dreary but the days that it was hot and overbearing Henriette was often found in the front garden bed pulling out weeds and making sure that everything looked perfect.

Once everything was finished, Henriette went towards the kitchen table and sat the food down in the center of the table. She went to the corner of the room and stayed still as though she had hoped if she stayed completely still, they couldn't see her. She knew that it was false hope, and it didn't help that the smell of the food made her stomach queasy instead of making her hungry. As was something that was common for those who were malnourished and starved, they often found that food would make them feel sick instead of hungry if they weren't fed anytime soon.

As soon as everyone had gotten their fill from dinner, Henriette came forward and picked up the plates before she went towards the kitchen sink. She put the leftovers down the disposal since it was common knowledge that unless she had permission to eat the scraps from their meals, she would have to discard the leftovers in a way that she couldn't pull them out of the trash can and eat them. She had eaten food from the trash can, something that was disgusting and degrading but she could only go so far before her desperation would kick in and she would find herself clawing into the trash bag to find the freshest trash to eat.

Cleaning the dirty dishes Henriette calmed down when she heard her family go into the living room to continue watching whatever they desired on the television set. She knew that she was safe from Uncle Vernon since he didn't molest her every night. He only came to her a few times a week, but even once in her whole life was more than she deserved.

When she finished cleaning up the mess from dinner, Henriette went into the living room and opened the cupboard before entering it. She didn't turn to look at what her family was watching, since they almost seemed to have eyes in the back of their heads. They would quickly turn their heads and give her enough of a look to allow her to know she better enter the cupboard before she would sorely regret it. She was old enough to know better now.

Weeks went by in this normality, of Henriette making every meal for the family of three and doing chores that would make her hands ache and her body sore. She was placing another meal, this one breakfast, onto the center of the kitchen table during a dreary morning when she could hear the sound of the mail going through the mail slot. She didn't have to listen to her uncle commanding her to get the letters, for she already headed in the front room of the house.

Behind her Henriette could hear Dudley bragging about the latest adventure he had gone on with his friends Piers (he was Dudley's best friend), along with Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon. She didn't have to hear anything else from her pig-like cousin, for she knew they bullied those that were only half of their age. At eleven they were picking on the kids in the neighborhood that just started primary education and those who were about to enter secondary education. In other words, it just showed how pathetic her cousin felt to be picking on those that were five years old all because the child got caught bad mouthing Dudley and his friends.

Picking up the envelopes that were on the circular mat in front of her, Henriette stood up and began to flip through the bills that were in her pale hands. She paused when she felt a different type of material when it came to envelopes. She had already entered the kitchen and was sitting the other envelopes down onto the table when Aunt Petunia noted the envelope in the corner of her eye. The China cup full of tea fell out of her hands and shot hot tea against her dress.

"Petunia! What's gotten wrong with you?"

Uncle Vernon demanded, his mouth half full of food and the other half none. Aunt Petunia shot up from her spot where she was sitting, before she pointed at Henriette as though letting him know she couldn't even say a word. Uncle Vernon reached out and grabbed Henriette by her arm and yanked her towards him, enough that she flinched from his skin touching hers. She surely was going to get punished later by him only because of the fact that she seemed to have gotten mail. It wasn't just her name that would mean she would be punished; it was what the address said.

Miss H. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

Uncle Vernon growled and ripped the envelope open, evidently prepared to see who thought they could get away with blackmailing him. He sure as hell was going to make sure that no one would ever get away with blackmailing him. He was the director of the firm Grunnings! He was an important member of society; he was better than anyone else in this neighborhood! In fact, he was just as important as the Prime Minister himself, John Major.

Henriette barely was able to stand there with her head craned to look down at the message, only able to see the words: Hogwarts. Then Uncle Vernon destroyed the letter with an amount of anger that was disturbing. Then he turned and looked at Henriette before he stood up and slapped Henriette across the face. Henriette barely was able to register the pain before her uncle stood up and pulled her by the hair, yanking her away from the kitchen and opening the cupboard before he threw her into it.

Henriette stumbled backwards and fell onto her cot before Uncle Vernon entered the cupboard, shutting it behind him with the flick of his wrist. As he reached his hands down to his pants Henriette closed her eyes and tried not to focus on everything that was about to happen. She knew he was punishing her in the worst way imaginable because of the fact that she was making him remember how she was a freak and nothing more than a toy for him.

Later when Uncle Vernon left the cupboard, Henriette rolled onto her side and muffled her crying by putting her hands up over her mouth. She knew if she would make any sound, she would have him hit her and send out lashes from his belt. She would not be able to lie on her back and she would have to know she would take almost a whole week for her scars to heal.

She had hoped with all her heart that she would never have another letter from Hogwarts again. All she knew was it would bring her pain. She didn't want them anymore. She didn't want them to begin with, this place was someplace that wouldn't bring her happiness. She knew enough that any hope within her was taken away the very moment that Vernon had started molesting her when she was six–it was after all how her uncle decided she should celebrate her birthday with him.

No matter how much Henriette prayed to anyone who was listening, the envelopes continued to come. At first, they came from the mail slot, which in return made Uncle Vernon end up boarding up the mail slot in hopes that the envelopes wouldn't find a way into the house. Then they came through the windows by owls, which was more than confusing to all of the family members. Finally, they came from the fireplace and overwhelmed the front room of the ground floor.

Eventually it made Uncle Vernon decide they should go away from the house to a hotel. These envelopes wouldn't be able to follow them. These people who were sending acceptance letters from Hogwarts wouldn't be able to know where they were going. They were sorely wrong, the envelopes plagued them there too.

It was enough where desperation overcame the large man, and now Henriette found herself on the dirt floor of a shack on an island in the middle of the ocean. Outside it was storming and it didn't help her, it didn't soothe her. The silence would have been just as bad to her, nothing could make her calm and collected. She had lost the ability to be at peace with herself at all by the time she had reached childhood. Both the silence and the sound haunted her, making her nightmares still as solid as before.

She was turning eleven at midnight. Another year she was in the hell hole of this life of hers. She had already thought of suicide, of just killing herself so she would be away from this all. She would be damned if God was real, but it couldn't be any worse than what she was experiencing here when she was still alive. She would be welcomed with the Devil, and he would laugh at her, at the pain and suffering he had caused her.

She was curled up on the dirt floor, her eyes flickering towards the sight of her cousin on the only cot of the ground floor. Upstairs her aunt and uncle were on the larger cot, the exhaustion of having to look over their shoulder enough to knock them out. She didn't want to pay attention to the crashing of the waves against the salt water covered dark rocks that were cloaked in the darkness.

Outside the lightning from the storms lit up the shack every few minutes so she could see everything around her clearer. She stiffened when a different type of thundering came from outside, the thundering of footsteps moving towards the front door.

Henriette leant back against the stone wall behind her, curling her arms around her, as she closed her eyes and hoped that no one else would be appearing. Mailmen couldn't just magically appear on an island with a shack in the middle of it, with no address. Then again, they had been using owls, but owls didn't make sounds like this.

Knocking on the pathetically built front door of the shack, stuffing came from upstairs, allowing her to know that her aunt and uncle were waking up from the sound that was coming from downstairs. The knocking on the door continued until the weather-beaten down door fell down and hit the dirt floor in a cloud of dust. A figure stood in the doorway, giant like and masculine, enough for Henriette to stumble backwards and try to hide behind the pathetic kitchen table that was left from the last occupant(s) that had taken shelter here.

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had already reached the bottom of the stairs and stood there, gaping at the man that entered the shack. He apologized gruffly as he reached down and picked up the door before putting it back in its place. Henriette peered closely at the man, noting how he was twice the size of a normal man and five times as large. He had long bushy, tangly hair that both fell to his shoulders and formed a thick beard on his face. He wore a moleskin coat over his clothes, and his feet were large enough they were nowhere close to being a human person's size.

"Who are you? What are you doing here? Get out! Get out now!"

Henriette observed as the giant-like man cleared his throat and spoke louder, "Ey'm here for Henriette Potter."

No.

Henriette didn't want that.

She didn't want whoever this person was to take her.

She just wanted to be away from all of this. She didn't want to be living in a shack on an island in the middle of the ocean. She didn't want to think about the envelopes, nor Hogwarts. She was certain this person was going to take her to Hogwarts. She didn't know what Hogwarts was, but she didn't want to find out what it was.

She wished her father hadn't been driving drunk on a stormy night with her mother in the passenger seat and her in the back of the car. She wished that they hadn't gone over the cliff side the road was built on and died on impact, nor did she want to have this scar that was like an actual lightning bolt from the sky instead of a cartoon shape on her forehead. She wished that they had cared about her more than they cared about their safety or her father's incessant drinking.

"She's over there. Take her, I'm done with her," Aunt Petunia cried as she pointed in the direction of where the child was hiding behind the table and chairs. The man turned his head in her direction, confliction was apparent on his features before realization came over his face.

"Ye must be Henriette. Ey know ey look big and scary but ey'm harmless. Ey permise ye," the large man said before he sat the umbrella he had in his hands now that she noticed it off to the side so there was no way he could use it as a weapon.

"My name is Hagrid. Ey was friends with yer parents."

"My parents are dead, they died in a car wreck. My father was drunk driving and he and my mum died on impact after we went off the cliffside," Henriette informed him, only for Hagrid to start spewing things from his mouth in a rapid manner.

The only thing that caught her attention was the fact that he had said her parents hadn't died protecting her from he-who-must-not-be-named for Henriette to think they died in a car wreck. Not just in a car wreck, but one caused by James being drunk. It only made her confused, then again Henriette shouldn't be so surprised, she had heard this from Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia.

Henriette slowly came from behind the chairs and the table when she noted how any anger Hagrid had been directed entirely towards her aunt and uncle. Dudley was standing in the corner of the room with a puddle of urine around him on the dirt floor. He did perk up when Hagrid was finished with spitting out anger from his mouth and instead turned towards Henriette while he pulled out a box that looked like it was holding a cake in it.

"It's okay, Henriette. Ey'm not mad at ye. In fact, ey made ye a cake."

Henriette observed the giant like man as he went over to the table and sat the crushed box onto the table. He opened it and Henriette slowly made her way towards him as though she was an endangered animal before she reached the table and peered down at the box. In it was a squished pink frosted two layered cakes with green letters that said: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, in childish writing.

"Ey also got ye a letter. Dumbledore trusted me to bring it to ye. Can't trust yer aunt and uncle with them anymore."

Hagrid pulled out a familiar looking envelope from his coat, allowing her to know he did indeed have something from that place called Hogwarts. He went to hand it to her only for Henriette to shake her head and take a step backwards, "No. I don't want it. You'll take me somewhere bad."

Hagrid stared at her as though she had stabbed him in the chest. He quickly informed her, "Hogwarts isn't bad! It's a school for witches and wizards."

"I'm not a witch. Or at least I don't think I am."

"Of course you are. You're just like her. Too good for us. Always stealing boys' attention. Then she got that stupid letter from that place! Got herself a rich husband, a freak, but rich! Then they had to get killed by that so-called 'dark lord'! Leaving you with us!" Aunt Petunia screeched, making Henriette blink a few times in shock at what she was hearing.

"They didn't die in a car wreck... They died by a dark lord... My mum was a witch? And I'm one too?" Henriette probed, her eyes flickering from her aunt and uncle towards Hagrid, while Dudley was already at the table and chowing down on the cake. She didn't care about the cake, it was a sweet gesture from Hagrid, but she didn't want to eat it.

As another flash of lightning and crashing of thunder in the distance reverberated, oil black splotches overcame Henriette before she stumbled back and fell onto the dirt floor. She found herself in a dark nursery, one that was blurry around her and not focused.

She went forward to the crib that was silver and gilded, it was of the highest quality. She could see the outline of a woman near the crib, but just like the background around her that made up the nursery there was no true definition that came from her. All Henriette knew was it must have been a woman and perhaps it was her mum?

Slowly reaching the crib, Henriette peered down at what looked like her but couldn't be her. The baby girl in the crib had skin the same shade as dead snakeskin. Her hair was a wavy obsidian mess, the only thing that she could tell was hers. Her features were too beautiful, which they were beautiful when she was a baby, but they seemed heightened here. The baby yawned and opened her tiny hands, stretching them out, before her eyes opened.

Crimson.

Blood Red.

Henriette stumbled back and screamed, before she lunged forward out of her unconsciousness. She looked around her in fear, noting how she was on the cot where Dudley had originally been on. Sweat dripped down her pale skin, and she shook some from the fear of what she had just experienced. It was almost as though it was letting her know she was connected to this baby, that there was a possibility this baby was her.

It was impossible, she didn't have red eyes.

Hagrid was crouched in front of her, and she nervously took the cup of tea that he was offering her. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were in the corner of the room, allowing the girl to know they knew they couldn't do anything while Hagrid was here. Maybe he was a wizard.

"Are you a wizard?"

Hagrid frowned with sadness upon his features before he asked if she was okay. Henriette went to tell him what she had seen in her unconscious state but something inside her was telling her to keep it to herself. "I'll be okay."

"Good. Ey'll be takin ye and yer family back to yer Livin quater."

Later, once Hagrid had taken them back to the Dursley residence, Henriette was pushed into the cupboard under the stairs. Hagrid, who had cheerfully talked to Henriette as long as he would be in her presence, told her how he was going to take her to Diagon Alley tomorrow to get her supplies for Hogwarts (he also cheerfully proclaimed that he was a half giant on his mum's side, since he knew she would be wondering about it).

While everyone went upstairs to go to their bedrooms to sleep in their own beds, Henriette merely laid down onto her mattress in the cupboard. The jury was still out when it came to how things would be at Hogwarts but deep within her there was a tiny sliver of hope that Hogwarts would become like a true home to her. She never had one before.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: there's the first chapter for you all. :)

Harry Potter doesn't belong to me

-Emmy