Chapter one, home sweet hell

Authors note.

This is my very first time writing anything, but I've been sitting on this idea for a while. In this story, Harry is not the boy-who-lived. There is no prophecy about him and Voldemort. This takes place hundreds of years before modern time. There's more classifications of magic, and muggles to do a limited amount. I got some elements from a series called The Magisterium. Reviews would be greatly appreciated, as it would show that people are actually reading, and that would boost my motivation to make more chapters.

The people that lived in the village of little whinging hated anything strange. While most of the country of great Britain accepted wizards, witches and adventurers, the town of little whinging seemed to agree that those sort were unnatural and freakish. And in the fourth house on main Street, those opinions were only stronger.

The Dursley's were a normal family. The family head, Vernon Dursley, was a large man who oversaw the construction of most of the buildings in town, which is to say, he did nothing. He would leave for work every morning at 9:00, and return every night at 4:00. He was a no nonsense man who would not tolerate any tom-foolery.

Dudley Dursley was the most well known boy in the entire village, not that he was particularly liked. He and his friends would run amok the town, stealing from the Baker, ruining the neighbors garden, and generally causing a disturbance. That his father held sway over the mayor was the most infuriating thing about him. He would strut about as if the whole town was his, and never get in trouble.

Petunia Dursley, wife and loving mother, had an abnormally long neck, most useful for spying on the townsfolk to spread rumors. She would spend every day cooking, cleaning, tending to the garden, or running errands. She was a fine housewife, if one did not care for personalities. That she fostered most of the work onto her nephew, Harry, was never acknowledged.

Ah yes, Harry. Though this was his name (he was never told his last name), most of the time he was addressed as 'freak'. He slept in a small shack next to the family horses stall, not even fit for a maid. The Dursley's were afraid that if he slept in the same house as them, he would kill them in their sleep, or worse, contaminate them with his freakishness.

Harry was a shorter than average 12 year old. He knew nothing about his parents. Only that they died when he was one year old. When his aunt was in a good mood from learning some scandalous rumors, Harry might risk asking about how they died. "Trampled by a horse." She once said "begging in the streets. No-good beggers they were, you're lucky we're so generous, or you'd go the same way!" Harry never believed anything his relatives told him, he knew how horrible they were.

Every morning, Harry awoke an hour before the sun to do his pre-breakfast chores. Feed the chickens, collect the eggs, sneak into the neighbors to milk their cow, groom the horse, do the washing, and finally start breakfast. By the time breakfast was done, it was over an hour later, and Harry was already tired. The cow next door put up more of a fuss than normal, and it was difficult to keep her quiet. After burning himself on the fire pit for the third time this week, he snuffed the fire and moved into the house.

"Filthy freak! Dragging the mud and dirt into our pristine dining room!" It seems that his aunt had already awoken, and was starting on her daily ritual of yelling at Harry. "ugk! This is burnt! This kind of food is not fit for my precious boy. Its not even fit for the pigs!" Harry looked into the tray in his hands and saw that he had gotten some soot on the eggs.

"I think it doesn't look too bad." He ventured. "you could just wipe it off." And as Harry touched the eggs to brush off the soot, he knew he had done something terribly wrong at the sound of his aunts screeching.

"POISON!" She screeched at him as she pushed him out the door. "FILTH! Our food is NOT to be touched by your filthy, DISCUSTING hands!" And before anything could be done, she pushed him into the dirt. As he was falling, the eggs and bacon in the tray fell and covered him in yolks and bacon grease.

"you will restart the food, and it will be done before Vernon comes down, or I will have him give you ten lashings with the whip." She yelled as Harry got up and attempted to get the yolk out of his hair. "and if you ever touch our food again, I'll have you out on the street with both your legs broken. Do you understand me?" Seeing his fervent nodding, she went back into the house.

Quickly washing his hands in a stone basin for birds, Harry gathered more sticks from the clump of trees behind the house. Setting the collected wood beside the fire pit, he contemplated what his aunt had just said.

He had no doubt that if he did not finish the food before his uncle was up, he would get the lashings. They didn't use the whip often, simply because uncle Vernon always had a belt in him. His 'family' loved finding new reasons to punish him. That Vernon was normally up by 8:00, and with his aunts yelling he was likely to be up sooner, was a cause for panic. He hurriedly set up the bacon and eggs, and grabbed the axe.

This was what was going to get him whipped. The Dursley's axe had gotten Harry hurt in many situations. He had either cut himself on it, or taken to long to do a task with it. It was dull, so it was terrible for cutting wood, and every morning he had to scrape it against a rock to start the fire.

As he frantically started grinding metal and stone, Harry began to become more frustrated. Not often did he indulge on pointless and angry thoughts, but he was having an especially bad morning. He did everything for the Dursley's, and got nothing in return, unless you consider black eyes and crisscrossing scars compensation. And the more Harry thought about it, the more angry he got. How dare they treat me like this! They don't deserve what I do for them! And the more he seethed, the worse his performance with the axe.

And how dare they take those complements about the flowers? I did those! Until he finally snapped.

"UGH! Screw this!" And as he shouted in rage, the wood in the pit suddenly roared to life, nearly reaching over his head. Harry scrambled back as the fire lowered to normal size. As he sat there stunned, the fire started to fizzle out.

Shaken out of his stupor, Harry quickly threw more wood onto the fire in hopes of rekindling the flame. In 2 minutes, he was able to get it going again, and as he cooked, he thought about what he just saw.

What just happened? He asked himself as he put the pan over the flame. Was that magic?! After that thought, Harry quickly looked in all directions to make sure no one saw him. After seeing no one, he returned to his thoughts. There's no way that was magic. I can't do magic. If I could, the Dursley's would kill me!

On this, Harry had no doubts. Even the mere mention of magic would send them into a rage. He had never seen magic done before, but he had heard his uncles tirades about how all magic users should be burned at the stake, his uncle's solution for everything. "BOY!" Harry jumped at the sound of his uncle's voice, thinking he'd been caught. "You had better have that food done! I will not wait a minute longer!"

As he was scrambling to move the eggs onto the tray without breaking the yolks, Harry thought about how ridiculous he was being. If they had seen it, they would have already gotten me in trouble. And if they didn't see it, they'll never know. Assured in the knowledge that the Dursley's would never know what happened, Harry walked confidently into the house.

"Quit your strutting boy, or I'll have you limping instead!" Quickly ducking his head in submission, he placed the tray on the table.

His uncle gave the food a glance before turning to Harry. "I hear you tried to poison our food with your filth," he spat. "And that you're wasting our hard earned food." As he said that, a piece of egg fell off Harry's hair onto the floor. He would have laughed if he didn't know that this would end badly for him.

It seemed his uncle was willing to be merciful, "You're to spend the day in the fields. Maybe if you spend the day doing actual work instead of lounging around, you would appreciate how much we've done for you." Vernon smiled cruelly as Harry looked down glumly.

Harry mentally cheered at his luck despite his terrible morning. Getting to work in the fields (and in June weather) was ten times better than running the horrible errands the Dursley's gave him. And it gave the added bonus of staying away from Dudley's friends 'hunting range'. He was allowed water, breaks, and could even gather his own food from the surrounding forest. He knew that his uncle would be getting paid for his efforts, but he didn't care.

"What are you standing around for?! Get out there and start working!" He quickly ran from the house and back to his shack to get his working gloves. His hands would be raw at the end of the day without them. After grabbing his gloves, he walked to the fields.