Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, I am not JK Rowling
Potential trigger warnings (for throughout the book): Abuse, Neglect, Panic Attacks, Anxiety, Suicide (most of these depictions won't be at all graphic, and if they ever are I'll make sure to put a trigger warning at the start of the chapter.
Trigger warning: suicide; vaguely graphic language but only a brief mention. Asterisks around the paragraph its referenced.
I hope you enjoy this story, if you have any requests for future relationships or friendships or things like what Harry's patronus might be please review below:
Harry realised he was different for the first time when he went to his first day at school. It wasn't that the young boy had been completely ignorant beforehand of how his cousin would always get the bigger plate of food, or the bigger bedroom. How his Aunt Petunia would always go out of her way to make Dudley smile, or hug him tightly, and kiss him on his head. How Uncle Vernon would ruffle his hair with a booming laugh whenever Dudley strung together more than four words. He knew that his aunt and uncle loved Dudley more than they loved him. He just hadn't quite comprehended what that meant until they forgot to say goodbye to him on the first day of school.
It was a week later when the second bombshell broke. Aunt Petunia had just walked them home from school, brought two lollipops on the way home (Dudley had promptly stolen Harry's - if the second lollipop was ever really his in the first place) and sat them down on the kitchen table whilst she put together a snack for her 'perfect and wonderful, intelligent, all grown-up Dudders' and 'Harry'. She'd put the sandwiches in front of them, and Harry had quickly started to eat his already small portion before Dudley stole it away with his chubby, clammy hands. Then she'd sent Harry to go put the wash on whilst quizzing Dudley all about his first week at school. Harry had realised then that Aunt Petunia certainly didn't see him as her child, and that she didn't even consider him family.
It wasn't until a year later that Harry had his third realisation. Dudley and him had now been at school for a whole year, and on entering Year 1 they were approached with a new dilemma: homework. They were both given their own sheet of sums, along with a homework diary so the teacher could record if they'd completed their homework, and how well they'd done. When they'd gotten home and Aunt Petunia had fixed them up a snack, she didn't immediately send Harry off to go put their school clothes in the wash. For a brief moment Harry felt relief, and hope, wondering if maybe things had changed, if maybe he'd been a good enough boy and his Aunt and Uncle now loved him as they did Dudley. Then Aunt Petunia had taken their homework Dudley had been complaining about out of their bags, and laid both pieces of paper in front of Harry, instructing him clearly to do both his homework, and Dudley's, and to make sure that they weren't too similar, 'Make a few mistakes on your own sheet' she'd said, along with a stern order to not tell the teachers. That was the day Harry realised he would never be a Dursley, he would always just be an extra, an inconvenience - something that they would never forget to remind him of.
As Harry grew up he began to realise that, not only the Dursleys didn't care about him, but in fact the entire world didn't. He'd at one point attempted to explain to his Year 2 form tutor how he'd always been made to do both his own homework and Dudley's, his teacher had lightly cuffed him over the head, telling him that Dudley had always done better in homework than him and that he should stop being a jealous brat. The next year he told his Year 3 form tutor that Vernon hit him, and Mr Cosby had merely responded that up until a year ago he too would have been able to use the stick on him - cussing the new law prohibiting corporeal punishment in public schools at the same time - and that he'd have taken great pleasure in doing it too. He'd even once told the owner of the sweet shop on the corner that Dudley populated almost every day, that he thought his Aunt and Uncle would prefer it if he was dead. Old Mr Jeffries had merely smiled, muttering something about 'the youth these days' and patting him on the head, reassuring him that that was just in his imagination.
It was when Harry was seven that he realised old Mr Jeffries had been very wrong. He didn't remember much about the day. He remembered he'd cooked breakfast in the morning, as he had been doing since the day after his seventh birthday, and that he'd then gone to school as usual (though he couldn't remember the actual school day at all), and after that he'd gotten started on Dudley's homework. He remembered that there had been something different about Uncle Vernon when he'd gotten home that day after work. Something in his eyes which had twisted Harry's insides into a nervous knot. Perhaps that anxiety had been why he'd tripped up the stairs whilst bringing Aunt Petunia her evening tea. After that everything was a haze. He knew retrospectively that he'd tripped and spilled the tea onto Vernon's best Sunday suit. He understood that was why Uncle Vernon had been furious at him. He understood that the cricket bat Vernon picked up had been discarded by Dudley outside his room when he had gotten bored, and that Vernon had then picked up that bat and started rushing towards Harry.
And then all he could remember was darkness, until he woke up, two years later.
*A lot had changed in the two years Harry had spent comatose. Vernon had been sentenced to five years in prison, whilst Petunia had spent two years in prison herself. When she'd gotten out she'd tried to find her son, who'd been sent to a foster home which had worked hard to reverse the bad lessons imparted on him by his parents, tried to teach him how to control his negative emotions and tried to reverse the health impacts caused by Petunia and Vernon overfeeding him. But Petunia hadn't been allowed to see him, and she'd been forcibly removed from the hospital when she had tried to come see Harry. She visited Lily's grave before she did it. Apologised for everything she'd done whilst Lily was alive, and everything she'd done - or allowed to be done - to her son whilst he was alive. She then wrote two letters and left them with a solicitor, before she slit her wrists. One letter she wrote to her son. The other she left to her nephew in the hope that he would ever wake up.*
Harry woke up when he was nine, which in itself was a miracle as the doctors would continue to exclaim. After the blood lose, and fracture to his skull most of the doctors hadn't expected him to survive the surgery. When he didn't wake up within a week after the operation, his odds of survival got even lower. When Harry had woken up none of the doctors could explain it, some called it the hand of God, a miracle that proved their religious beliefs, others called it magic.
Harry's recovery continued in the same vein: miraculous. He'd had to learn how to talk again, had to learn how to walk and recover all his motor functions. The fact he managed any of that and wasn't left a shell of the boy he once was, was simply unbelievable to many..
However, Harry's unbelievable recovery came with its own complications. Most hadn't expected him to wake up in the first place, let alone be able to function highly enough to live a normal life. The boy had no family left, no one to take him in, and all the doctors agreed it wouldn't be productive to the rest of his recovery, or considering his past in an abusive and hostile household, to go to a foster family. The only option left was finding him a family who was able to keep up with all his medical needs and psychiatric issues.
There weren't many homes like that open to take a boy like Harry. Some generous families offered to take him in, but they were often big households, filled with many people - an environment which wouldn't suit Harry, who undoubtedly needed special attention. Other families were deemed unsuitable if they moved around too often, if they were located too far away from a hospital capable of dealing with major incidents and cases like this, or if they were economically unstable.
After a month of searching, the prospects were looking rather bleak, until Dr Luke Reynolds stepped in. Whilst some members of the CPS were unsure if Luke's single parent home would be suitable for Harry, there were no better options. The distinguished doctor was well off, and his medical experience and knowledge of Harry's case - he'd been working on it since the day Harry had been wheeled in from the ambulance - was enough to placate any questions.
Within one month of living together Luke offered to legally adopt Harry, and properly become his father, an offer Harry accepted with ease, as whilst he was still filled with a general distrust of most authority figures in his life, he had known Luke since the first day he'd waken up, and had enough faith in the man to want to be his son. He was also desperate for a normal life, in a normal home, with a normal family, and Luke offered this security. When Luke adopted Harry, Harry decided to legally change his name to Harry Reynolds, destroying any link between the Harry who'd lived with the Dursleys and the Harry who existed now, and having zero desire to have any connection with his parents who had died and chosen to leave him with such horrible people.
With Luke, Harry was able to commiserate over his life whilst moving on, the doctor, who'd lost his pregnant wife three years ago, was able to help with Harry's negativity around the world, and his lack of faith in people.
Harry had a private tutor and relatively quickly caught up to where he was meant to be in academics, he was an intelligent child, something which shone through now he didn't have to have the constant fear of Vernon Dursley beating him for doing better than Dudley in school. He had a particular love of history but his desire to be a doctor and help out children who were in similar situations to him and desperately needed help, was more important to him - plus, he loved the idea of being like Luke.
Luke caught him up on all the events that had been happening around the world, and the two bonded quickly over a mutual love of football. Harry was quite fast, experienced from all the times he had to run away from his relatives (perhaps the one positive that had come from Dudley's bullying) and Luke had once played for an academy team. When he was younger, the now distinguished doctor had wanted to be a professional football player, but unfortunately bad luck had struck and he had a serious knee injury, and with that his parents had found a way to push him into medicine and sciences. Having adopted Harry, Luke started to take shorter shifts at the hospital, shifting his focus to the boy who he was gradually coming to consider as a son, and slowly began to heal from the wounds that his deceased wife and child had left him.
Harry stayed in private education, but was going to go to a school in September, as him and his father had agreed that it would be better as he could get friends, and give him a more 'normal' life. It was as he was touring a secondary school the first weird - abnormal - thing in his memory happened. A big, bulky boy probably around two years older than Harry was bullying a smaller, scrawny boy, Harry suddenly started to feel really angry, there was a large engraved crest above the bully's head, and as Harry got angrier the lion in the middle suddenly roared really loudly, jumping out of the frame and chasing the boy down the hall, before slowly returning and getting back into the engraved crest.
No one could explain what had just happened, and all Harry knew was that, somehow, in some bizarre way he had caused it to happen, however none of the staff realised this, and neither had Luke. When they had returned home Harry to Luke what had happened, how he had seen the boy being bullied and had gotten angry, and how he had an odd suspicion that he was the one who caused it. Luke struggled to fully believe him, but considering how insane the image of a stone lion chasing a boy down a hallway was burnt into his head he decided to give Harry the benefit of the doubt, and trust him. The only reasonable theory that Luke could come up with was that something strange had happened when Harry was put in the coma, there were small cases of medical marvels - mainly he'd heard of patients who woke up and suddenly knew a different language, or now had an eidetic memory - but none like this, but it was the only rational idea the doctor could think of.
That was the biggest 'odd happening' which Harry had caused, and the first, in the next few months Harry had caused other small abnormal things to happen, he turned someone's hat blue and turned his father's hair pink - much to the doctor's embarrassment and disgruntlement. Neither father nor son could see any reason why this was happening, and only on Harry's eleventh birthday was it explained.
A stern woman with old fashioned clothing had knocked on their door, Luke had let her in and they all sat in the living room. "Are you Mr Harry Reynolds?" She had asked and in response to the "Yes ma'am." she had handed Luke a letter, which he and Harry read in astonishment.
"Are you serious?" Harry asked sceptically, to which the no nonsense women nodded.
"Deadly." She deadpanned.
"This makes no sense. I'm not a wizard - I can't be a wizard, because wizards don't exist. If magic existed we'd all know about it. This is insane-" Harry rambled on, disbelief present in his expression and his tone.
"This is not funny." Luke told her sternly. "Whatever hoax this is you should take it to somebody else, and leave my house." He ordered, standing up to make it clear she was no longer welcome here, and he was waiting for her to leave.
"I can assure you, Mr Reynolds, I am not lying to you."
"Prove it is true and we will take it seriously." The doctor replied, not expecting for a second that she'd take him up on her offer - what was she going to do, pull out a wand and say abracadabra?
The professor slowly took out a mahogany stick, muttered something and waved it around a bit causing the fire in the room to suddenly light up with soothing amber flames.
Well... she didn't say abracadabra.
The doctor's mind was whirring around at 100 miles per hour. Every rational bone in his body was telling him to get this woman out of the door, or call up a mental institution and get her admitted, but a small part of him wondered. It did seem to explain the mysterious events which had been occurring, and it did seem like quite an odd thing, that she'd come to their door and known Harry's name, his new name, and she had waved a stick and his fireplace that he hadn't used in years was suddenly filled with flames.
"Oh my god." Luke whispered, shocked. This went against everything - everything - he believed in and had learnt in his medical career. The fact that according to this women his son, - Harry -, would be able to do this, that Harry was a wizard who could do magic was starting to make him think that maybe he was the one who should be in the mental institution.
The doctor wasn't the only one to be in disbelief over this, Harry had his hands in his face. "Why me? Why can't I just be normal, haven't I gone through enough?" He asked desperately, his voice hoarse. Luke quickly put a reassuring arm around him gently brushing his hand along Harry's arm in circles, like his wife used to do for him when he was stressed or had had a hard day at the hospital. "Please tell me this is a joke." He pleaded towards the older, stern looking lady who simply stared back sympathetically as the boy's entire world was unravelled. For the second time.
"Hey, its okay, maybe its not a bad thing Harry, maybe this is good, its magic Harry!" Luke said, trying to be excited for his adopted son and distract him from his building anxiety - worried that Harry would have a panic attack with this overloading of information - whilst also struggling himself as the information he had just received was extremely overwhelming.
"I don't know, I don't know." Harry repeated under his breath, "I just want to be normal." He stated, trying to sound confident (but failing).
"Mr Reynolds." The stern woman started, "I am Professor Minerva McGonagall, I work at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, magic is a wonderful thing Mr Reynolds, and can be used in the most amazing ways, Mr Reynolds, you are special, you are a wizard, that is most certainly not a bad thing at all."
"I guess," Harry said meekly, "but what are you here for? I doubt you're here to just tell me that I can do magic."
"You are correct. I am here to offer you a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the finest school for learning the art of magic in the whole of Europe, and some say in the entire world."
"Bloody hell." Luke said, leaning back in his seat.
"You're saying there's a school for people like me... for wizards?" Harry asked, wincing as he said the 'w' word, as though saying it meant he was admitting it was real - which at the moment kind of felt like he was admitting he was crazy, and a freak like his uncle had called him so many times.
"Yes." The Professor replied. "There's around 80 people looking to be admitted into what would be your year in September. 80 people your age who are looking to study magic at Hogwarts, many of them like you - first generation wizards, which is to mean that you are the first people in your family tree to have magic. Many who have also felt this disbelief, and shock, and probably who all thought I was insane." The professor explained, reassuring Harry that he was not alone in how he was feeling right now.
"And I can just go to this school? There's no exams or, I don't know, test where I have to prove that I'm a wizard?" Harry asked.
"Yes Mr Reynolds, you can just come to this school, no exams are necessary. In your life, have abnormal, unexplainable things happened, things which don't make sense no matter what way you look at them? Maybe you dyed your hair or somehow some sweets randomly appeared in your pocket?" She asked and Harry nodded, reminiscing with a grin the time Luke's hair had suddenly turned pink after he'd beaten Harry in a game of football.
Luke too looked as though he was replaying the last year or so in his mind. He looked substantially less happy as he too recollected the pink hair incident, as it had come to be known. Harry looked at Luke, who nodded softly back at him, silently communicating that the decision was all his, and that he would not stop Harry if he wanted to explore this.
"Tell me more?" Harry asked Minerva shyly. The professor smiled and began to tell him all about the wonders of the world of magic.