The door to Privet Drive closed with a sickening finality.
Vernon Dursley was not happy. The product of his ire? The lion embroiled blanket wreathing in his meaty hands. His nephew had lost his parents a couple of hours ago, and instead of being asked to take care of an additional mouth to feed, he was dumped on their doorstep.
Worse yet, he didn't have the money to look after the child, he would have to give him to an orphanage. Maybe it was for the best? He would have to broach the subject to his wife first though. Steeling himself, he made his way through the hallway to the kitchen, where his wife would be sipping on her customary tea.
Petunia Dursley was a practical woman, she had mentally crunched the numbers in her head when her husband had shown her the letter penned by Lily's wretched headmaster.
The child was her nephew, Evans blood coursed through him, but he was magical like Lily. Perfect and abnormal. Destined to brew potions and wave wands. He wouldn't have a place in normal society. He wouldn't have a place in the Dursley household.
Worse yet, they couldn't afford to take him in. Vernon only worked for a mediocre salary at a drilling company. Any money he did generate was lavished on their own son.
Her decision finalised, she made to speak, damning her nephew to life in an orphanage until he opened his eyes.
Her eyes. A brilliant shade of emerald, clouded with murky whiteness.
And she knew, maybe it was a mother's intuition, maybe it was the child's silence and lack of movement. She knew of her sister's husband, and his ability to create mischief. His son being nothing like him made her reach the staggering conclusion that he was blind. The whiteness in his eyes helped her to reach that verdict.
Maybe he did have a place in Surrey. In Privet Drive. With the Dursley's.
"Vernon dear, maybe we should keep him?
They thought him blind. And for their misconceptions, they made him suffer through hospital appointments and various amounts of screening and prodding.
He didn't correct their assumptions, he embraced them. The man that had killed his parents had followers, cult leaders always did. Let them think he was blind and weak. When he re-joined the magical society, they would underestimate him. And for that, they would pay.
But before that, he needed to be fed and fast. He cursed his childlike continence, the wails escaped his mouth before he could contain them, as his outburst continued, his aunt ran into the room, one hand precariously balancing his cousin and the other holding a bottle filled to the brim with milk. She pressed it to his mouth, which silenced him at once.
That night in the safety of her room, Petunia spoke in hushed whispers to her husband on what transpired earlier that day.
"He has magic Vernon! I felt the house shake when he started crying…"
"What do you want me to do Pet? His kind have heaved him on us, and we can't just dump him to an orphanage if word gets out of his magic, the olivtors would just return him back to us."
Obliviators, she mentally thought. Bless her husband. He tried to get his head around magic but she could see the toll it was having on him. He was forced to work overtime, without rest or respite. Trying to provide for them and make ends meet. And she herself had to dust off her old typing skills, to generate some income as well.
She looked at the toddler, cradled in her arms and fast asleep.
She wanted desperately to hate him with every fibre of her being, to cast him out into the dark, to mistreat him.
But she couldn't. Lily would never have done the same for Dudley. She would have treated him as her own. And it was something she would do the same for her nephew.
Thinking of Lily brought fresh, salty tears to her eyes, she let them cascade down her cheeks. A lifetime of not speaking to her, and bitter regrets that couldn't be rectified due to her beautiful red-headed sister being killed by the society that split the two sisters up.
Looking at Harry, she cried afresh. Dudley and Harry were close if not inseparable. Would joining the magical society engender feelings of resentment from her son? Turning them into the male versions of her and her sister?
No… She wouldn't let that happen. If the owl came swopping into her neighbourhood, she would send a sharp dismissal back.
Pressing a kiss to Harry's forehead, and placing him down in his cot, she wiped her tears. No, he would not be going to Hogwarts.
Harry walked along Wisteria Walk, living for five years with the Dursley's had done him some good, he was a healthy height and weight, if a little suffocated by his family's oppressive presence. Especially by his cousin and aunt.
Case in point, Dudley was walking alongside him, practically shepherding him to the corner shop at the end of the road. He'd been meaning to sneak out, unbeknownst to him that his cousin had just returned from his play date.
They made it to the shop in relative silence, he was perceptive enough to realise that his cousin was uncomfortable with him, his eyes did unnerve a lot of people after all. Still, he took it in stride, basking in the anonymity they provided.
A group of teenagers sat on the ramp leading to the shop, cigarette smoke wafting through their general direction.
"Bobby, look! It's that Potty boy!"
Bobby was a wastrel, he had flunked out of school at the age of sixteen, and his only desire was to get as drunk as possible to not remember the day before.
He was a bully too. Seeing the two boys without a guardian in sight, gave him a punching bag to ease his pain.
"Well, well, well, look what we have here. Fat whale and Potty the blind."
"Leave us be, Jerkins!" Came Dudley's brave reply, he was a large child, baby fat still remained on his face but his bones were big and an undercurrent of muscle resided underneath, still he knew his limits, these boys were twice their age and it was three v two. Well, three v one. It's not like his cousin could do anything.
"No, Dursley. I won't. You see, I've just finished by packet of cigarettes, and I've no money to buy new ones. Your cousin over here is going to distract the shopkeeper, and you're going to steal some for me. And if you don't…" He cracked his knuckles. "You'll be telling your aunt, you fell and scraped yourself, down the bottom of a hill. What do you say?"
Dudley gulped, but before he could answer, Harry did so for him. "I've thought about it, and I'm opposed to the concept," came his serious reply. "I don't think your fighting capacity will surpass mine. Only those of equal or near equal capacity should challenge another to a fight, everything else is a mere illusion or an excess of trying."
Bobby and his friends were reduced to staring at the blind boy. He hadn't ever heard someone his age, let alone someone younger then him speak about capacities and all that rubbish, naturally he came to the wrong conclusion. "Are you dissing me, you little shit!?"
Dudley tugged at his sleeve and whispered, "Harry, stop, please! Just apologise and get his cigarettes so we can go home."
Harry turned to look at him and as reassuringly as he could, patted him back, whispering to him conspiratorially, but loud enough so Bobby and his friends could hear, "Don't worry Dudley, they're just cowards, no need to feel afraid of them."
That was it! Bobby was used to his commands being followed, especially by those younger then him, never had he been put down like this by one of them. Anger surged through him as he threw himself at the blind boy, intending to show him a thing or two.
But somehow, he found himself pinned to the ground. There was no pain but he couldn't move either thanks to Harry immobilising him with an arm lock. "I told you Bobby. The difference between you and I is too large. Do not fight me until your capacity can match mine," said Harry quietly. Bobby flinched as he looked into the blind boy's eyes, wondering why they had suddenly become a bright red with a single tomoe.
A short while later, Dudley and Harry made their way back home, both boys licking ice-cream. One of them slurping without decorum, the other savouring the flavour.
"That was awesome Harry! How did you do that?"
Harry turned to look at his cousin, a small smirk blossoming across his face. Shisui had taught him that arm-lock, he had been a fount of knowledge, teaching him the ins and outs of how a true shinobi operated.
"It's something I picked up from a friend, if you want, I can teach you?"
Dudley didn't even register the mysterious friend, instead his ice-cream forgotten, he wrapped one sticky arm around Harry's neck and brought him in close, so they walked close to each other. "Thank you, Harry."
Harry stood crouched in the middle of a small clearing in Banstead Woods, sharpened pieces of wood clutched in both hands. He had shaped them himself from a knife he had pilfered from his aunt's kitchen.
They were crude representations of kunai's but it was the muscle memory they provided was the reason for him using them.
He sent a small trickle of chakra through the soles of his shoes, a breeze forming into existence causing the autumn leaves to fly overhead, and he jumped.
As he soared throughout the air, past memories distracted him,
Young, cute Sasuke following him like a shadow. All smiles as he jogged towards him.
"Can you train with me, brother?"
He poked him in the forehead. "Maybe next time, Sasuke."
There was a reason why he would refute his brother. He didn't want him embroiled in the same turmoil that had plagued him. He had looked up to him, desiring to become a prodigy like him, envious of the attention their father had heaped on him. Yet, he'd always hoped Sasuke would grow out of his emulating phase.
He twirled through the air, his hands a blur as he unleashed the sharp wooden kunai. They travelled through the air, only for two more to fly from his hands, these ones however travelled in a different trajectory.
They hit with an audible sound as they helped change the flight path of the existing ones he had thrown.
Ping, ping, ping.
He landed, crouched and sweaty. Not one of his better times, but he was improving.
Hoot, hoot!
An owl. How odd? They were nocturnal animals, and it was just shy of evening.
He held his arm out, as a small, owl landed on it. A letter tucked in its talons.
He unlatched it from its vice grip, as soon as he had done so, the owl flew away.
Watching it go, Harry turned the letter over and read the name at the front.
To Mr Potter,
Small clearing, Banstead Woods
Even odder…
He opened it, before crumpling the letter in his hands, three tomoe beginning to spin.
Finally! He didn't know how he got here, chakra didn't seem to be able to answer, but maybe magic could? He needed to return to Sasuke. If magic was a means to an end, then he would see it that way.
Soon brother, we'll be reunited…
AN:
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