Chapter 1-

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter but i do own quite a bit of memorabilia. Not that those of you reading don't.

Anyway here is the first chapter.

The days that followed the Dursley' trip to the Zoo were hectic for Harry, Uncle had pulled him out and shoved him back into his cupboard over and over. When out he was given a list of jobs to preform that day –this wasn't that left of the field, he was given chores regularly, but never this many.

The first day told to

Make breakfast, loosen the soil in the garden beds, water the soil and prep it for the compost and fertilizer –which can only be done in the afternoon, because of the sun the list said- then water the whole garden again. He had to clean out the shed, first moving everything out and to clean and mop, then sort through the junk therein before putting the garbage –which it all really was- in plastic bags would I take out that trash and then place all that remained back in the shed in an orderly fashion of course.

With the list of jobs looming Harry went with the largest job first, the shed it was then.

The second day was a continuation of the agony of job from yesterday, now that the shed was cleaned out he was to strip and repaint the little construct, a cream to match the beige of the house and a dark blue door and roof to compliment the repainting job he was ordered to do on the garage door as well. For two years they had been a matching moss green and off-white. But he knew that this task would take two days to do properly, and if he did it the fast wrong way, he'd be struck upside the head so hard his glasses would fly. So better to be punished for being slow than for doing it wrong, oh what the neighbors' would say if the paint was streaky. He'd gotten a welt for that before.

Luckily he only had to water the garden and remove weeds and start on the roast for dinner as his other chores.

He ran back and forth scampering over his tasks as quickly as an eleven-year-old named Harry could. Which was very fast, he was well practiced.

Third day of imprisonment was filled with finishing the last coat of paint on shed and garage, cleaning out the loft and vacuuming the house and tidying the lounge and other common areas of the two level house. Bedrooms were off limits, he had been caught playing with one of Dudley' toys when he was five and had never been allowed back in to clean again.

The loft was not as cluttered as the shed or garage had been, mainly due to the fact that Uncle Vernon would never fit through the hole, so he and his Aunt would put things up there; and they were a lot more tidy when placing things.

The chores bored on, Dudley was out at the cinemas with his friend and Co-Harry Hunter Pierce, Petunia had went out for tea with the other lady gossips of Little Whinging. She would be back fifteen past two and Harry enjoyed being able to eat and sandwich and large glass of milk without rebuke.

"You see this brat?" Uncle Vernon held his hand up; it was blue. "It's blue!" Harry felt himself flinch, the sound of Vernon' belt coming down on his back loud but dull to the pain of being walloped by the leather strap.

"Ahhhh," Harry cried out, tears burning at the rims of his eyes as the large man beat him with his standard black work belt.

It went on until Uncle Vernon' arm tired and Harry with his bloodied back lay collapsed on the kitchen linoleum, Aunt Petunia stood to the side, glancing over at her nephew with disgust. He was bleeding on her clean floor. He would have to mop again.

He woke inside his cupboard his back on fire, and then he was put to work. First moping then mowing and washing, he was sweating in his cuts and they burned him.

On the 28th of July something came, as he had hope. Underneath the bills and other normal post he found one address to a Mr. Hadrian James Potter, the cupboard under the stairs, no. 4 Privet Drive Little Whinging. The thick card and green wax seal told him this was not usual post and definitely not usual for the messy haired young man. 'I've never received any post before.'

Passing the remaining letters to his Uncle, Harry turned to walk out of the living room. That was until Dudley called, "Look look, Harry's got a letter!" Vernon' face turned puce, his lip quivering and eyes squinting as he scowled at the runt of a boy, clutching at a letter with green writing.

"That's absurd, who would writing letters to you?" he said, but he knew that ink and parchment, it was those freaks. "Hand it over boy." Vernon ordered the whelp just clutched it to himself tighter. "I said GIVE IT TO ME!" the puce man demanded, raising his voice.

Dursley ripped the offending object from the boys hands, Vernon could feel his temper flaring, this boy would not be sent to some school full of freaks and crazies only to come back here and do his unnatural jiggery in his house. He would nit stand for that.

So he ripped and ripped until the shredded pieces could no longer be put back together. He smiled, none of that in my house.

Harry watched as more owls flew past dropping bunches of letters, all copies of the first, green ink, thick card and addressed to him. The swarming was speedily driving his Aunt and Uncle spar. He could hear Vernon on the phone making plans. Harry worried what those plans entailed.

Harry was serving biscuits to the family when Vernon looking quite mad began talking, "Nice day Sundays. You know what's good about Sundays?" he asked Dudley, to which Dudley shrugged and tucked into another gingernut.

"No post on Sundays." Harry replied.

"Right you are Harry, no post on Sundays. HA" he sounded rather gleeful at his words. "Not ONE bloody letter-" right then a letter flew out of the fireplace and slide across Vernon' lip. He looked fairly befuddled by the airborne post.

A thunder of noise brought all their attentions to the fireplace; it shook or seemed to, abruptly gushing letters in a river or rain as they went up and then came back down on their heads. Harry grabbed as many as he could and ran for the bathroom on the second floor, he had stored a pen that his Aunt took notes at the phone with under the bathmat. Being quick he just made it to the door and looked it as his Aunt reached out to stop its swing; locking it he opened the letter reading it's contents. It confirmed what he had been told by Merciss, there were Witches and Wizards out there, and he was one of them. At the end of the letter Harry found a statement saying that this letter would return itself to the correct offices once signed and that if any assistance was required that he best to write it down on the parchment supplied.

Harry wrote only a few words on the clean shelf of paper and they were.

Help me please; come as soon as you can. I'm in the second floor bathroom. I don't think I can get out they are waiting for me. Please help me; I don't know what to do.

He signed the parchment with his full name, he'd never written it before. Hadn't known it. Hadrian James Potter. The parchment popped as it disappeared. Harry set in for the long haul, he had water, facilities; he had picked his sanctuary well. 'Now to wait'

A/N. wow this is my first Harry potter fanfic, not the first one I've ever read that's laughable, but the first one I've started to write. I'm not going to give much away, hopefully. If you think you know what's going to happen next say it in a review, not in a pm because we all know that seeing more reviews on a story makes us more inclined to read it. So help me out and I'll take into mind some of the suggestions you give out. It might be a character or a line that you think would be cool (I know I think of them when I read) or maybe even a sub-pairing. So read review and remember I'm making groundwork here, this is backstory and path making keep reading. Sorry the chapters are so short they will get longer the closer I get to the actual plot.