This was supposed to be part of the prologue but the prologue got too long with this. So I separated it. It's short but I promise the chapters will get longer. Like I said, constructive criticism is always welcome. Hope you enjoy. Read and review, please.

Chapter 1

Harry Potter was living a life that was nowhere near the imaginations of Witches and Wizards. Not even the man who placed him there.

You see, the people he lived with hated him for his magic, and were afraid of it as well. Not that Harry knew that. All he knew was that they blamed him for all the strange things that happened around him, for some reason. Not that he didn't understand where they were coming from. Freaky things happened around him or with him.

A person's hair just doesn't grow back overnight. A wig doesn't turn blue out of nowhere. One doesn't just somehow teleport to the roof of a building from the ground. But all these happened around one Harry Potter.

Of course, he didn't know what was causing all this and his relatives refused to believe him. That resulted in his home life being less than pleasant. Oh, they didn't hit him. Lord, no! Normal people didn't hit children. But that didn't mean they didn't hurt him. You see, contrary to what people say, words can hurt more than any number of sticks or stones. And that was exactly what the Dursleys used.

They made it clear that they didn't like him, forced chores on him ever since he could remember, gave him only scrapes to eat and his cousin Dudley's hand-me-downs, spread rumours about him being an unruly child around the neighborhood. He never received the slightest affection, while Dudley got everything single thing he wanted. It wasn't fair! Why should Dudley get all those things? What did he do to deserve it? It drove another wedge in little Harry's heart from the fact that he would never have the love and affection he craved.

Currently, Harry was being chased around the neighbourhood by his cousin Dudley and gang, in yet another game of 'Harry Hunting'. Harry ran for his life, even as his legs started to tire out. He couldn't get caught. He still had the bruises from the last time.

They were nearing the park now, and there weren't many buildings around. Being fast on his feet, he turned the corner and darted into the first open door he saw, without checking the sign. The bullies rounded the corner a moment later and, unfortunately, saw him entering the building.

"He's in there! Get him!" He heard Dudley's voice, followed by several footfalls that told him they were following him inside.

Harry ran into the first room that he found; he looked around and froze.

He was standing in a laboratory.

There were strange instruments and glasses on the table and the cabinets at the back of the room contained a number of bottles with strange liquids in them.

He all but forgot his chasers, as his interest was zigzagged between the tables and chairs until he reached the cabinet and peered at the bottles. They were labelled with strange names: HCl, Ca(OH)2, NaOH, CaCO3 and so many others! He could understand none of them, though. Why did these bottles have labels with random letters and numbers? Did they mean something? Were they symbols of some kind?

He was just about to open the door to the shelf, when he was jerked back to reality when, he heard shouts and loud footsteps from the outside. "Where is he?" he heard Dudley shout. "Where's the freak?!" Harry suppressed a gasp and quickly darted under the nearest bench.

"Find him!" His cousin shrieked.

There were some shuffling and scattered footsteps in the hallway before he heard Piers Polkiss' voice just outside the room he was in.

"Hey! This door is open! I'm going in!"

Harry clamped his hands over his mouth as the door creaked open, shifting his eyes just enough to see the a pair of feet enter his line of vision through the doorway.

He gulped. The gang of five were bad enough on a regular day when he didn't do anything. Today, he had tripped Piers while trying to escape them. He didn't want to find out what would happen when they caught him.

But luck seemed to be on Harry's side and he didn't need to find out just what would've happened. No sooner had the boy taken a step into the classroom than the bell rang.

Harry saw Piers stop in his track. The hallway was silent for a moment, and then, there was an explosion of noise. The loud sound of footsteps seemed to be coming from every which way, along with hundreds of voices that were echoing in the hallway.

"Crap!" Harry heard Piers hiss to his friends. "I forgot. Secondary school classes run longer. We have to go! We can't get caught here. Mum will ground me for ages!"

Harry felt alarmed. This was a secondary school? He peeked out from under the bench and looked around. Why was there a laboratory in a secondary school?.

There was murmur of agreement from the other boys and Harry heard them shuffle away from the classroom. He waited for a few moments to see if they were coming back. When he heard only the loud and heavy footsteps of, what he presumed, were the older students, he cautiously started to crawl out.

But Piers' bad luck seemed pounce on him now, and as soon as his head emerged from under the table, the door banged open. Harry saw a sea of legs as students poured in. Harry gasped and quickly drew back under the table. If Piers couldn't get caught, then that went double for Harry. If Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon got slightest whiff that he was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be… he didn't want to think how many nights in the cupboard without food that would bring.

Fortunately, it seemed that his gasp had been drowned by the outpour of chatter and the scrapping of benches as students took their made himself small and clamped his hands over his mouth, not daring to move from his hiding spot, praying that no one would find him.

For once, it seemed, his prayers were answered. No one sat at the table he was under. He cautiously peeked through the legs and saw all the seats except a few in his row was filled up.

The door opened again- this time more gently - and immediately silence fell. Soft footsteps echoed around the room as a man (was it a man?) entered it. From what he could see, Harry guessed this was the teacher. He was proven right as the man - definitely a man - made straight for the table at the front.

"Afternoon, class," he said in a deep voice and paused for a moment. "It seems we have quite a few absentees today." Huh, thought Harry, that explained it. He thanked his lucky stars that those students chose today of all days to remain absent. "I hope you've done your assignments. Please hand it in right now."

Once again, there was the sound of shuffling as all students made their way up to the front table to put their assignments there. Harry kept still, hoping he wouldn't be spotted by any of the students who were returning to their respective seats. He only relaxed when they all settled down once more.

He was small for his age, looking more like a 5 year old boy instead of the 7 years old that he actually was. So it wasn't too uncomfortable there. It seemed he would have to stay there for a while. He had to be back home in an hour though. He hoped this class would end before then. Being late meant more chores tomorrow.

"Today's topic," the man said, the noise of a marker dragging across the whiteboard reaching Harry's ears, "is double displacement. Who can tell me what that is?"

There was a pause and several hands were thrown up into the air. "Yes, Mr. Langley?" said the teacher.

A boy spoke from somewhere in the front. "It's a reaction where two compounds are used at reactants and two compounds are received as products."

"Yes, that would be the simplest way to put it," the teacher responded. "A double displacement reaction," he started, "also known as a double replacement reaction or metathesis, is a type of chemical reaction where two compounds react, and the positive ions, cation, and the negative ions. anion, of the two reactants switch places, forming two new compounds or products. The overall pattern of a double displacement reaction looks like this."

Once again, there was the sound of the marker across the board, but this time, it was accompanied with the scratching of pen across paper, as the students jotted down notes. A few seconds later, the noises ceased and the teacher spoke again.

"You can think of the reaction as swapping the cations or the anions, but not swapping both since you would end up with the same substances you started with," he said, "the solvent for a double replacement reaction is usually water, and the reactants and products are usually ionic compounds—but they can also be acids or bases."

Harry's head spun as he listened to the man's speech. Cations? Anions? What on earth were those? He had heard about acids before. Uncle Vernon said that those were really harmful things that burned your skin if you touched them. Did people really learn about such things when they were older? Wasn't that dangerous? And what was a base anyway?

He was brought out of his internal questioning as the teacher started speaking again. "Here is an example of a double replacement reaction." Again, there was the sound of the teacher writing on the board and the students copying down whatever he wrote, even as he kept speaking. "In this example, the cations are Barium and Sodium ions, and the anions are Chloride and Sulphate ions . If we swap the anions, or cations, we get as our products Barium Sulphate and Sodium Chloride."

Unknown to the occupants of the room, Harry was on the verge of developing a headache trying to follow what the man was saying. He didn't understand anything! He didn't like not understanding. Even as he continue to (deliberately) do worse than Dudley in class, there wasn't a single thing that he couldn't understand.

When the teachers taught them addition and subtraction, when they started teaching them stuff like how sun was also a star and all the stars together are called galaxies, he caught on faster than most of his classmates And here, he couldn't understand a single thing! It was so frustrating and yet, he found it interesting. He didn't understand all those new terms and words. But he believed he did understand the concept. If you mixed two different things, liquids in this case, you would get two new and completely different things!

The thought sent his mind down an imaginary hill. How was that even possible? How can you get two completely different substances? It was almost like… magic. But, that was silly. Magic didn't exist. He didn't need Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia to tell him that. He was sure there was a perfectly reasonable, normal explanation for that.

"Today, we will be discussing precipitation and neutralization reactions. Mostly the precipitation reaction." Harry turned his attention back to what the teacher was saying. "Both are a kind of double displacement reaction. A precipitation reaction is when two aqueous ionic compounds form a new ionic compound that is not soluble in water. For example, both lead nitrate and potassium iodide are white solids that can be dissolved in water to make clear, colorless solutions. When you combine the two clear solutions, you get the following reaction."

There was a pause as the teacher wrote something on the board and the students jotted it down, before the teacher continued. "When we mix these two clear solutions, we will get a beautiful golden solid. This will be our fun little experiment!" He sounded absolutely giddy at the prospect. There was a murmur of excitement among the students as well.

"But that is after we finish today's discussion," he said and the murmurs died down. "Now, the insoluble product compound is called the precipitate. The solvent and soluble components of the reaction are called the supernatant or supernate. We can use solubility rules to predict whether a precipitation reaction will take place. The formation of a solid precipitate is the driving force that makes the reaction proceed in the forward direction."

"Now, for the neutralization reaction," he continued. "Neutralization reactions are a type of double replacement reaction that occurs between an acid and a base. This…" again a pause for writing, "is an example of a neutralization reaction. An aqueous neutralization reaction generally produces water and a new ionic compound, also called a salt. We will discuss this in detail in the next class. For now, the experiment!" Then came the sound of a clap that was most probably given by the teacher. "Everyone, form groups of four, grab a table and let's get to work!"

There was a few moments of chaos as the students shuffled to form groups, presumably with their friends. Harry sighed. He wondered what it was like to have friends. As the class settled down, he cautiously peered around once again. Now that there were groups of four at each desk, all the students were clustered among the first few rows. But he still couldn't get out. He would surely be spotted if he was the only one moving. But it seemed safe to watch for now.

"Alright, class," said the teacher - a middle aged man with a few grey strands in his otherwise brown hair - as he walked to tables, handing something out, "I'm giving you guys five grams each of lead nitrate and potassium iodide. What you need to do is make stock solution of each. Take a glass tube, pour 30 milliliters of distilled water in it, then pour in one of the powders. Then cover the mouth of the tube with a rubber stopper and shake so it dissolves well. Repeat it again with the other compound."

He said as he reached the last desk and put what Harry assumed was the - what was it again? - oh, yeah, compounds the man mentioned. It just seemed like wrapped paper to him. But as the students unfold the papers, Harry could see white powder in them. The teacher continued as he made his way to the front desk.

"And then pour one of the stock solution into another, clean glass tube. And the pour some of the other solution into it. And you should have your golden precipitate. Simple enough. Go ahead!"

Harry watched as the students followed the instructions to the letter, eyes following each movement. There was a sharp intake of breath from him as he watched the clear solution turn slowly into a beautiful golden hue as the other solution (What was a solution anyway? As far as he knew, solution meant finding answer to a problem) was poured into it. He watched, mesmerised, as the clear solution turned a beautiful molten gold, with a glittering satin-like quality. Harry heard the teacher direct the students to heat the liquid and watched as it became tiny, clear, solid golden particles falling to the bottom of the glass.

He didn't want to believe it at first, but, it was right in front of his eyes! It was like magic. But it wasn't, it was science. He was sure of it. He wanted to do that! It looked so beautiful. Not to mention fun. And like magic! Ugh, he didn't know why he kept fixating on that point.

All of the students seemed to have gotten it right. He could see them many of them grinning at each other. "Perfect," the teacher's voice came from the front. "Now, our time's almost up. Your homework will be to write down an essay about precipitation reaction, definition, mechanism, elass."

As soon as he finished speaking, the bell rang. Instantly, the noise level in the room went up as the students started to stuff their things into their bags while talking to their friends. He stared at them for a few moments, watching until they started to leave. It was now or never. He cautiously got out from under the table and looked around. No one seemed to notice him. Good.

He slipped into the small gap between the first column of seat and the wall adjacent to the door. He was small enough for it. He crawled his way towards the door, the students too engrossed among themselves to notice him, especially in so small a space. As the last student walked out, he reached close enough to the door and cautiously peered around the leg of the desk he was beside of. Seeing the teacher was busy with the assignments handed in at the start of the class, Harry quickly darted out of the room and into the crowd of teenagers who were now running to their respective classes.

He darted between them with quiet, nimble and surprisingly - or perhaps not - agile steps. In their hurry to get to class, nobody seemed to notice him. Or if they did, they didn't say anything. Harry didn't stop until he had put some distance between himself and the building. He hunched over, putting his hands on his knees and panting. He looked back after a moment, his eyes widening as he saw the huge board at the front of the building.

Stonewall Secondary School

That was the school Uncle Vernon always spoke of sending him to. For the first time since who-knew-when, he felt a grin spreading across his face. If that was the kind of thing he was going to be taught at that school, then he couldn't wait to go. At least, that was one good thing Uncle Vernon would actually do for him. He couldn't wait to learn that stuff!

He looked down at his watch. It was a hand-me-down, the glass cracked. But it worked well enough. He sighed. Only ten minutes before he had to be home. Shaking his head, he gave a longing look towards the direction of his future school before sprinting towards Number Four, Privet Drive. He needed to be home in time. He would go and browse some books in the library tomorrow, see if he couldn't find something about the stuff he saw and heard today.

No one said he couldn't get an early start.

It seemed, as one Ron Weasley would say, that Harry Potter had found something to be a prodigy at.