Tim sighed, and ran his hand through his messy black hair. Deep blue eyes watched enviously as his younger siblings eagerly ate their breakfast, talking happily about the outing they would all take.
All but Tim.
A freak, his greatgrandparents had called him, he recalled. A throwback. Once he learned to read, he looked that up on the internet and discovered he didn't understand why they would call him that. Throwbacks occured in animals of different species that had kids, the site had explained – he had only been seven at the time, and was reading a site for children – and the children of those children would sometimes not look like a cross between species, like their parents, but would resemble one ancestor. But his grandparents weren't crossbreeds, were they? Or perhaps his father's unknown mother? He assumed he must resemble her, and his father and grandparents hated him for it.
Day after day, his father lamented having born such an unnatural son. His mother wasn't as outright cruel as his father and greatgrandparents had been, but she obviously didn't care much. He was different. The other children had looks and personalities that his mother found easier to recognize. Her eldest was a stranger to her, with his love for books, his quiet personality, and the strange accidents that kept happening around him.
Everything had been fine until he was four. Then he had somehow managed to get the cookie he wanted to float from the jar in the cupboard, to the floor where he was sitting. His mother had been terrified. His father had hit him.
After doing his chores, Tim retreated to his room, a drafty space in the attic where he kept his few treasures: some books, his report cards that his parents never wished to see, and a strange picture that moved. It showed two people and a young boy, perhaps a year old. They smiled and waved. The man had black hair just like him, and they obviously loved the boy very much. Tim kept it, not only because it MOVED, but because he could nearly imagine that he was the boy, and that his parents loved him.
The long hours he was forced to spend in his room he had practiced. While he could not control the strange force when he was angry or upset, he was able to use it a little. He winced as he touched his left eye that was swollen shut. He had another 'accident' when trying to catch a glass of milk that his youngest sister nearly dropped. He had managed to catch it, alright. By freezing it in mid-air.
To say his father had not been pleased was an understatement. He had ranted for what seemed like hours, slapped and finally punched his son.
Tim looked at the broken mirror. There was no way he could cover up this bruise. He'd have to stay inside for at least a week.
ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
Two figures appeared at the end of the street, one carrying a cloth of a strange silvery material over his arm.
"Are you sure you want to do it this way?" the eldest of the two gentlemen asked.
"Yes. If they treat him like Petunia and Vernon treated me, they won't willingly admit that he even lives there. He might be locked in anywhere. You need to search for him while I talk to the parents."
"Perhaps you are mistaken, and the boy is not mistreated at all."
Harry glared. "His father was raised by Vernon and Petunia. Believe me, if he shows signs of magic, which he must since he is on the list, he will be mistreated. But I don't expect you to believe it, you never believed I was anything but pampered and spoiled either, and Albus didn't care," he finished with a touch of anger and bitterness in his voice.
He regretted it immediately when he felt the other man wince.
"Sorry, Severus. Visiting Dursleys makes me…"
"Irrational and irritable," the other man finished his sentence, "it's alright, Harry. We…I did make rather large mistakes back then. You are correct, we should try to avoid that this time."
The dark man threw the cloak around his shoulders and disappeared from view.
Taking a deep breath, Harry walked up to the door and rang the doorbell.
A man opened. Harry took a few seconds to study him. Yes, this was unmistakably Dudley's son. Although not obese like his father had been, the man was bulky and muscular. His face was a mirror image of Dudley's.
"Yes? Can I help you?" the man asked.
"I certainly hope so," Harry said, "Do I have the pleasure of addressing Martin Dursley?"
"You do," Martin responded. He felt a bit uneasy. The man before him was older than he was, about the age his father would have been now. He stood at least six inches shorter than Martin himself, but the power he radiated made him seem much taller than he was.
"Won't you come in?" he finally offered, remembering the manners his grandmother had drilled into him so long ago.
"Thank you."
As the man stepped by him, Martin felt a soft waft of air in his wake, as if someone else walked by, but he saw nothing.
"Gilian, dear, we have a guest. Would you bring in some tea, please?"
Soon, Harry was seated with a cup of tea in his hands, studying the pictures on the wall. Four children, he noticed. Busy people.
"I wished to speak to you about your son, Timothy," he opened the conversation at last.
He saw the flash of anger in the man's eyes, and the uneasiness in the woman's.
"So, what has he done now?" the man growled.
Harry felt his anger flare, but the Occlumency he had mastered and perfected so long ago enabled him to remain calm. "Think Slytherin," he said to himself.
"I'm not accusing him of anything, Mr. Dursley," Harry said smoothly, "I merely wish to speak with him for a moment."
From the corner of his eye, he saw Snape sneak back in under the invisibility cloak. A short nod from the Potions Master was all he needed to know he had been correct in his assumptions.
"Would you mind calling Timothy down here, Mr. Dursley? I assure you I am not about to arrest him."
"Wouldn't be surprised if you were," he heard the man mutter as he went into the hall and yelled up the stairs.
"BOY! Get down here right now! There's someone wanting to speak to you."
Soft footsteps came down the stairs.
"What have you done now, boy?" the two wizards heard Martin Dursley hiss at his son, "If you did something unnatural again…"
"No, no father, I haven't, honest," a soft, young voice answered with a rather large amount of fear in it.
A moment later, a black-haired boy was shoved into the room. From the corner of his eye, Harry saw Snape roll his eyes. He smirked inwardly, knowing exactly why. The messy black hair looked awfully familiar.
The boy was looking down at his feet, so he couldn't see the color of his eyes.
"So, you are Timothy Dursley," he said, a little more stiff and formal than necessary, "Pleasure to meet you, young man."
Finally, the boy looked up. Harry gasped. No, the boy didn't have green eyes, like Harry nearly expected. But that wasn't the shock. The fact that he could only see one eye, the other purple and swollen shut, that horrified him. He cast a quick glance at Martin Dursley's knuckles, and saw what he expected to see.
"I…I fell, sir," the boy stuttered.
"You did not," Harry said with a piercing look, "but I'm not going to argue with you. Let me introduce myself. I am Professor Potter, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and here to invite you to start at my school on september first."
Stunned silence reigned for a nearly half a minute afterwards. Then Martin Dursley roared.
"YOU! YOU FREAK! ABUSING OUR HOSPITALITY TO TRY AND TURN MY SON INTO SOMETHING UNNATURAL! HE IS NOT GOING! HE'LL STAY HERE AND BECOME A NORMAL PERSON! WE'LL BEAT THE MAGIC OUT OF HIM!"
Harry raised his chin.
"Mr. Dursley, I know what your grandparents have told you. But let me assure you, neither your son nor myself are 'freaks' of any kind. And you could not beat the magic out of him. Magic is part of him. Telling him not to be a wizard is like telling him not to breathe."
"Although clearly," he took the child's chin and studied his eye, as well as some nearly healed bruises on his neck and temple, "you have tried. You do know that child abuse is illegal, don't you, Mr. Dursley?"
Timothy stared up at the strange man. He glanced at his pale, and clearly enraged parents. Professor Potter…he heard that name before.
"Harry James Potter," he suddenly whispered.
The man's head immediately whipped around. "How do you know?" he demanded.
Swallowing, Timothy took the picture that he had quickly stowed into his pocket when his father called him, and showed it to the man.
"I…found this once," he whispered, "beneath a loose floorboard in Grandmother Petunia's house. The names are on the back."
Harry let go of the boy's chin as he stared at a picture he thought he had lost decades ago, the night he had to flee from his uncle's house. The picture of his parents and himself.
"Yes," he finally said, looking at Martin and Gilian Dursley, "I am Harry James Potter. I was raised by your greatgrandparents after my parents died."
"The other freak." Timothy clasped his hands over his mouth in shock. He hadn't meant to say that! But the man smiled sadly at him.
"We are not freaks. It is they who are the freaks. Only a freak would abuse a child for something it can not help. Severus, would you call Ron, please?"
Ron Weasley had, after a short Quidditch career, joined the Auror force. The Dursleys, of course, did not know this little fact. They did, however, notice someone suddenly appear out of thin air in their living room.
And within minutes, another freak entered with a plopping sound.
"These, Ron, are Martin and Gilian Dursley," Harry motioned to the two, "Martin is Dudley's son. This here, is Timothy, who has an invitation to start at Hogwarts in the fall. If you would look at his eye, and Mr Dursleys knuckles, I think you will understand why I called you here."
Ron Weasley had out his wand within a matter of seconds.
"If there's one thing I can't stand," he growled, "it is this."
"Ron is an Auror, a Wizard police man, detective, and CIA all rolled into one," Harry sat down and took a sip of tea, apparently relaxed and in control. Inwardly, he thanked the time he had spent imitating Dumbledore's infuriatingly calm behavior.
"He could have you arrested, and thrown into Azkaban. I don't know if your father ever mentioned an encounter with Dementors when he was young…?"
Clearly, Dudley had. Or Petunia had. At least, Martin nearly fainted.
"My father died when I was seven," he protested, "my grandparents are dead too. You can't…can't take revenge on me."
"Oh, I am not thinking of revenge for what your father and grandparents did to me, Martin," Harry's eyes flashed dangerously, "But I am most displeased with how you treat your own son. I was only an unwanted nephew, but your own son? No matter, though."
He stood up and took Timothy's shoulder. "If you wish to avoid Azkaban, you will sign over guardianship of Timothy to me immediately. Whether or not he wished to come to Hogwarts, I will not allow him to be mistreated."
The haste with which the man dove unto the papers to sign them saddened Harry, and he saw Timothy wipe away a tear. He squeezed the boy's shoulder gently in an attempt to comfort.
"Good riddance," the man sneered, "let the boy go where he belongs, with the other freaks. Don't any of you there to darken my threshold again, and that goes for you too, boy!"
"Martin!" Gilian gasped, casting a fearful glance at her son and the three grown wizards next to him.
"We have four normal children, Gilian. I won't listen to another word about it." He stormed out, to the garage. Soon they heard a car drive away.
"We'll be going now," Harry said softly, "Timothy, Professor Snape will help you gather your belongings. I wish to speak to your mother for a moment."
When the two had left, and Ron returned to the Auror office, Harry turned to the shocked woman.
"You brought this upon yourself, by allowing your husband to maintain his prejudices, even against your own son," he said, knowing he sounded harsh.
"But you must know this: your son needs training and guidance. One day, perhaps, he will be called to do great and dangerous things. Do not let your husband stop you from knowing and loving the boy. This," he handed her a card, "is where non-magical people can send mail. It is a regular post box. From there, it is brought to Hogwarts or any magical family. Be sure to write to him."
The woman looked close to tears. "But he scares me so much, ever since he was four, with those odds things happening…"
"His magic scares you," Harry corrected, "the boy himself is your son. Your firstborn. You must have loved him when you first held him. When he has been trained to keep his magic under control, you will get used to it."
He heard Snape and the boy return from upstairs.
"Think about it, and use that address," he said, "goodbye, Mrs Dursley."
With that, the two wizards took hold of the boy's arm, and they Apparated away.
