"Talking"

"Parseltongue"

"Obliviate."

Chapter 12: Alex, meet The-Boy-Who-Lived

"Your nephew has been attending a primary school for the mentally impaired. He has made significant progress, and so you have agreed to send him to the secondary school. You don't want him to be a burden on society, after all. A representative of the school will come to pick him up tomorrow and you can't wait to get rid of him again. You have decided to give him the smallest bedroom as a reward for good grades and to ignore him as much as possible." With that, he turned on his heel, nodded once, respectfully to Alex, and strode off.

The next morning, a tremendous knock shook the house and a few seconds later, the front door crashed to the ground, having been knocked off its hinges. In the door way stood the largest…man any of them had ever seen.

The crash brought Dudley to the bottom of the stairs and Harry's aunt and uncle to the door of the kitchen. Uncle Vernon quickly stepped in front of the stranger, "Who are you? What are you doing here? YOU'RE ONE OF THOSE FREAKS AREN'T YOU, WELL WE DON'T WANT YOUR KIND HERE! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!"

" Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune, I came for li'l 'Arry. An' here he is. Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mom's eyes."

Harry made an odd noise somewhere between a pleased gasp and a derisive snort. Then he remembered himself, "Who are you?"

The giant chuckled.

"True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm.

After waiting in awkward silence for about a minute, feigning confusion, he finally said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."

"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts – yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o'course. You got yeh letter didn't yeh?"

"Er – no," said Harry.

"I thought yeh had gettin' yeh letter" replied Hagrid.

"Sorry," Harry said quickly.

"Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back towards the kitchen. "It's them as should be sorry! I thought yeh had gott'n yeh letter an' knew I was com'n."

Vernon had decided he didn't like what was being insinuated. "Now see here, the boy has just got home from his friend's late last night and I hadn't had a chance to give him his letter and I sure wasn't going to explain his freakishness to him before I had to, even if we are going to let him attend that freak school."

"Do you mean ter tell me," Hagrid growled at eh Dursleys, "that this boy – this boy! knows nothin' about' – about ANYTHING?"

Alex decided that this was unfair, he was sure he knew more about magic than the oaf in front of him, but Harry couldn't say that so instead he went for the subtle approach, "I know some things" he said defensively.

But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."

"What world?"

"The Wizarding World, Harry, yer famous." Started Hagrid, but then interrupted himself, "Dursley, I'm going to have a talk with li'l Harry, here and you are going to leave us alone, you can stay and listen, but you will not say a single word. Understand?" Hagrid all but growled out.

"Y…y…yes I understand" said Vernon, once again losing his nerve and he quickly stalked from the room trying to preserve what he perceived as his dignity.

"Now than Harry, you see, there are good wizards and there are bad wizards. Well about 20 years ago, there was a wizard and he went as bad as you could go. People were so scared of him that they don't say his name, they just say You-Know-Who. He started to gather followers to try to take on the Ministry. Please don't interrupt; this is hard to tell ye. You can ask your questions at the end. These were dark times, didn' know who ta trust. Many people followed him, some 'cause they believed him and some 'cause they were scared. Anyway, your parents fought under Dumbledore with a bunch of others and pretty soon, You-Know-Who was look'n to kill 'em. So Dumbledore, great man Dumbledore, he told yer parents to go into hiding, but a couple of months later, 'bout 10 years ago now, You-Know-Who found them. He killed yer mum and dad, and then when he tried to kill you something went wrong and he disappeared. That makes you famous; you lived, when so many before you had died and you made him disappear no one knows why. Some people claim You-Know-Who's dead. I don' believe that, don' think he had enough human left in him to die, I think he's out there just wait'n for the right time ta come back. So that's how you became The-Boy-Who-Lived."

"You mean my parents didn't die in a car crash? That this evil wizard killed them?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm a say'n"

"Oh, well, what was the wizard's name?"

"Most people don't say his name still too scared."

"Well, can you write it then?"

"Naw, I don't know how ta spell it. Ok, it's…it's…Voldemort. Please don't make me say it again."

"Ok, Thanks Mr. Hagrid."

"Hagrid, just Hagrid."

"Ok, Hagrid." Said Harry with a bright smile. "Where are we gonna get all this stuff though? They don't sell this in London do they?"

"Not in muggle London, we are going to go to Diagon Alley, best place to get whatever you need."

"Ok, but how are we going to get there?"

"Just hold this sock, good, then 'dragon'," and with that, they both disappeared from the Dursley's living and reappeared in the alley way behind The Leakey Cauldron.