Chapter 1

Year – 2005

It had been four years since Baby Harry was placed at the doorstep on the fateful night of November 2001. Harry had waited for a long time for his mama and dada to come and take him out of this smelly, dark room. But they didn't. In the darkness, he kept seeing the green light that hurt him. But he never made a sound. Because, even at fifteen months of age, Harry was very intelligent. He understood that the purple-faced man would hurt him like the green light. So he just chewed on his blanket and whimpered, trying to grab hold of the fleeting image of his mama that became fader and fader as time went by.

[WoW]

Harry, mama loves you! Dada loves you! Be strong, my love!

He reached out for the red-haired woman, but as always, she remained just out of his reach. A loud rapping noise jolted him awake.

"Get out of there, Boy!"

Harry sighed as he rubbed the sleep off his eyes. Aunt Petunia just had to wake him up whenever he was dreaming of something pleasant. He wondered if that red-haired woman was his mother. He had never seen any picture of his parents. In the past, he had asked his aunt about them, but like always, she snapped at him, telling him that his parents were drunk, wastes of space and a drain on the society who got themselves killed in a car crash. The same one which gave him that scar on his forehead.

As he got out from the cupboard under the stairs, Harry brushed his hair to half cover the scar. It was his way to protest against the Dursleys. They were very proud of their normalcy. But Harry knew better. He was a very observant and clever young boy. He knew that the Dursleys were as much of the freaks they claim him to be. He used to fear them, used to believe them when they called him a freak. But it had all changed since last year. When he was sent off to school. He had found a whole new world opening up to him.

Harry was an intelligent and studious young boy. He took to his lessons like fish to water, retaining information and applying exactly where they required. He always found his solace in the library, where his whale of a cousin would never set a foot in even if his life was dependant on it. Harry read everything he could, it started with stories at first, just to familiarize himself with his lessons of letters, sentence construction. But within months, he was advancing in leap and bounds over his classmates. He came to understand that what the Dursleys think is normal, wasn't so with the larger world outside. Out there, it wasn't him who was the freak, but them. So he started to rebel. He was still very much afraid of his relatives… and how could he not be? He knew that the purple-faced demon walrus, which he had taken to call Vernon in his mind, would just need an excuse to kill him.

He started with small, imperceptible changes. Little bits of rebellion one might call them. He was forced to cook for the family since almost the same time he was allowed to attend school. Before that, it used to be cleaning the house, maintaining the garden, mowing the lawn, painting the fences, clearing the gutter – you name it, Harry did it. So when they added cooking over all of those, and Harry came to know about their so-called normalcy, he started his little pranks for them. Slightly burnt toasts, a few undercooked eggs among the mountain of fried eggs, watered-down glasses of juice – just enough for them to not notice and for Harry to feel vindicated. He had learned to not make himself noticeable, because every time, even the minutest thing that went wrong, Vernon and Petunia blamed him. So he always made sure to hightail it right after he finished his 'cooking' and snagging the choicest morsels for himself within the vast recess of his cousin's old clothes. Since Dudley was about the same size as a baby hippo, there were plenty of rooms within the clothes for a slenderer built Harry. He plain refused to be starved, thank you very much.

His half-hidden scar was also a part of this rebellion. Harry didn't know what it was, but his aunt always flinched every time she saw it. Harry counted this as a win in his favour as he too didn't like the reminder of his parents' demise. And if the hated thing kept his aunt's gaze off of him, then it was all the very best for him. He smirked at himself thinking all of these while he put on the oversized, hand-me-down clothes of his cousin.

Petunia sniffed at her nephew as he stumbled into the kitchen, her right eye performed a weird tick as that blasted scar peeked at her from underneath his perpetually messy hair. Harry was the very image of an obedient little boy who stood before her with his head bowed, awaiting her instruction.

"Prepare the breakfast, and be quick about it." She snapped at him while keeping her gaze towards the wall.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia." He replied robotically as he opened the fridge to get the stuff out to make the mountain of food that his relatives called breakfast, his aunt failed to see the smirk on his face.

As usual, Harry managed to cook enough food to feed an army before the walrus and the hippo deigned to grace all with their presence. Harry whirled about with practised ease, well aware of the hawklike glare his aunt was casting on his back, but even then, she never caught that a few pieces of toast, some fried eggs and bacon that disappeared inside of an empty bread packet and carefully tucked away within an oversized shirt, or the small bottle of orange juice which was taken out of the fridge but never found its place on the table. Harry was swift with his handiwork. He had learned at the cost of a few slaps and many days worth of starving to never get caught stealing food from his 'hard-working, pious and respected family' when they took the ungrateful freak in after his freak parents got themselves killed simply out of the goodness of their hearts.

Very soon, the male Dursleys stomped inside of the kitchen and sat on the dining table, making the poor chairs squeak under their girth. Petunia, within a blink, turned from a shrew to the perfect image of a loving housewife for the world to see as she placed the plates of food made by the freak in front of her dear husband and darling boy, giving a peck on their cheeks while doing so. To Harry, it looked just as if a bird pecked the walrus and hippo in search of food. He stifled his laughter as he quickly made his way upstairs to clean the bedrooms as per his daily routine. He took a peek inside of the master bedroom to see if anything was out of its place, knowing his neat freak aunt, even a little crease of the bedspread was impossible. He smiled to himself satisfactorily as he waved the dusting cloth about for show and quickly munched down his pilfered breakfast. Afterwards, he made his way towards his cousin's bedroom, the bread packed emptied and cleaned and tucked away for its use again on tomorrow morning. Harry needed to snatch a few currency notes away from Dinky Duddidum's stash so he could buy his rations for the night as well as a lunch at the school. Dudley always had more money than he can even count, so he never noticed even if a few went missing.

Harry smiled a smug smile as he trudged on his way towards school – another successful morning of fooling his relatives. Now, if only he could avoid the impromptu game of 'Harry Hunting' by Dudley's gang on the way back home, he would strike the day off as another happy day.

[WoW]

Harry sat at his desk beside the window and took a glance at his homework. He had finished it all during the study period the day before, knowing that he wouldn't be able to do jack while he was at Number Four. He nodded his head as he couldn't find any mistake in his immaculate works. He was lucky that during the placement examination, he and Dudley were placed at different classes, else, the Dursleys would have complained that Harry was in no way smarter than their precious Duddykins. It was because of their different classes, they never raised an almighty stink that Harry was cheating to get grades higher than Dudley could count on his fingers.

You see, Harry had a plan. He wanted to learn as much as he could so that he could put as much distance between himself and his relatives as humanly possible. He knew that to achieve that, he needed higher grades, a solid foundation that can grant him a chance to win a scholarship in some prestigious college. Afterwards, he planned to either become an engineer, or a researcher. On that part, he was still unsure. But the one thing he was sure about was that he would show his vile relatives up one day for the freaks they truly were.

A sound coming from beside him broke him out of his rumination. Harry almost jumped out of his seat when somebody chose to sit at the desk at his right. Generally, he was always left alone, mostly in fear of Dudley's gang members who were always responsible for beating up any children who even exchanged a few civil words with him. So, unless they wanted any help with their coursework, the other children always left him alone.

Harry peered at the new arrival with a frown, doesn't he know that he is not supposed to sit here? – he thought to himself.

He was taken aback by the appearance of this new boy who sat beside him. At a glance, people could mistake them to be twins. They had the same built, same height, although Harry's hair seemed always messy, the new boy tried to make his hair behave by in a back brush hairstyle. They both had glasses adorning their faces – the only differences between the two were that Harry had raven black hair and green eyes whereas this boy had dark brown hair and brown eyes. Curiously, Harry gave the new arrival a small smile.

"Hello, are you new here?"

"Yeah. We just moved here from America. This is my first day at this school."

"Uh…welcome to Britain, I guess…I am Harry, Harry Potter." He offered his hand to this new student.

The boy smiled back as he took the offered hand and shook it, "My name is Peter Parker."