In the dark, cold surroundings of the cupboard under the stairs in Number 4, Privet Drive, Surrey, a ten-year-old boy was curled up on a too-small cot and trying desperately to stem the hot tears that rolled down his small face.
He knew his tears were useless; nobody in the world cared for the plights of Harry Potter.
He took slow, deliberate breaths, ignoring the hitching in his throat every now and then, as he tried to reign in the emotions raging inside his chest.
Anger.
Anger towards the world that continuously beat him down, each and every day for as long as he could remember. Anger at his relatives; his horse-faced, cruel Aunt Petunia, her fat, obnoxious husband, his Uncle Vernon, and their equally unpleasant son, his cousin Dudley.
Harry knew the way his family treated him was not normal, how they hated him for reasons he could not understand and could not change, no matter how much he had tried to earn their love and acceptance. It was not normal for one little boy to be left forgotten, cold and hungry in a cramped cupboard under the stairs, whilst the other was given everything his heart desired, had two bedrooms to call his own and the unconditional love of his family.
Despair.
He despaired that he would once again go hungry tonight, though he was by now used to the painful pangs of his stomach desperately calling out for nourishment. When his Uncle had thrown him in here, he had angrily declared that he would not be getting any meals for the entire weekend. Harry knew better than to think it an idle threat, as he had been forced to go for longer without food or water in the past.
Sometimes, he wondered how he had survived to this point, and wondered whether it was really a good thing that he had when there was no end in sight to his misery.
Hopelessness.
He knew what was being done to him was wrong. Only last year at school his teacher Mrs. Reed had spent one morning explaining to his class that parents sometimes hurt and neglected their children and that it was very wrong. She had told them it was called abuse and had told them all the different signs that they, or one of their friends, might be abused and that if they ever suspected such they were to tell her or another teacher right away and they would make it stop.
Harry had stayed behind after class that morning, whilst all the other children went out to play, carefree and happy, and told her how his life was at home, how he felt he was being abused just like she had explained, and that he wanted her to help him.
Unfortunately for Harry, she had not, as Mrs. Reed was an old schoolmate of his Aunt Petunia and had refused to believe her old friend would do such a thing. Besides, she had already been warned by her old friend that her nephew was a liar and a delinquent despite her best efforts to raise him into a fine young gentleman like her Dudley.
Harry hadn't eaten for five days after that, but he had learned a valuable lesson that he would not soon forget - Nobody would help him, because nobody cared about Harry Potter.
Confusion.
The worst thing of all was that he had no idea why nobody cared about him.
His family had hated him all of his life and had treated him like he was lower than the dirt on their shoes. Uncle Vernon made him do chores whenever he was allowed out of his cupboard, and had made him do the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning and the gardening but was never satisfied with his efforts, going on long rants about Harry's lack of worth and lamenting how he and his lovely wife had been burdened with his existence before throwing him bodily into his cupboard to spend his nights alone, cold and oftentimes hungry.
Aunt Petunia would hover over his shoulders as he worked tirelessly, making scathing remarks and telling him how he would not amount to anything in life like his drunk parents who had died due to their own foolishness, damning Harry to their care.
His cousin Dudley would purposely make messes for Harry to clean, would take great joy in eating large quantities of food in front of the starving boy and would hit Harry whenever his parents were not watching, his beady little eyes glinting with cruelty.
At school, he had no friends as the other children either avoided him entirely and treated him like he did not exist or actively sought him out to cause him harm and mock him for his shabby clothing, unkempt hair and the "ugly" scar adorning his forehead, which was the only reminder of the life he had had with his parents before the car crash that had killed them and left him with the Dursleys.
Thus, he spent his playtimes in the library, hiding away from his peers and losing himself in books, whether they be fantastical stories where he could imagine himself in a life far better than his own, or books to help him learn and stay at the top of his class.
Of course, the Dursleys punished him for his good marks, accusing him of cheating when he outperformed their precious "Dudders", but Harry did not care what they thought because he knew that as long as he soaked up all the knowledge he could, he might one day find himself a good job and escape his miserable life and find a much better one.
But that day was far from today.
Eventually, Harry managed to calm down, his tears subsiding and his breathing returning to normal. Shivering from the harsh November cold that seeped into his meager surroundings, he reflected on the events of the day and how he came to find himself once again imprisoned in his cupboard.
The day had been one that Harry had actually been looking forward to ever since it had been announced. Today, a man from the Army would be coming to speak to his class and tell them stories of a life in service to his country.
Sgt. Daniel Taylor was a tall, well-built man in his thirties, short hair cropped short and in full uniform, medals adorning his left breast. He was an inspiring sight and proved a charismatic speaker as he told them all about his life before joining the Army, how he had been a young man from a poor family that had yearned for a better life for himself and to see the world, and Harry had been enraptured. That was exactly what he wanted!
He had told them of joining up when he had been eighteen, how he had found it harder than anything he had ever had to do before, had had to get up early each day and follow orders, but that it was worth it because he had found a place to belong, a family with his fellow soldiers and respect for the officers in charge of them.
It all sounded wonderful to Harry. He found himself idolising Sgt. Taylor and dreaming of a life far away from the Dursleys.
Unfortunately for Harry, certain members of his class had noticed his happiness and were keen to put a stop to it. Questions were allowed after the man had finished his stories, and Piers Polkiss had wasted little time in ruining Harry's day.
"Sir, my dad told me a little bit about the Army. He said that you have to dress smart all the time and can't have messy hair, is that right sir?" The boy had asked with a sly look towards Harry.
Sgt. Taylor chuckled and nodded. "Your father is certainly correct young man, your appearance must be pristine and your uniform in tip-top shape when representing your country."
"That rules out Harry then!" Dudley had burst in, pointing towards his quickly reddening cousin as the classroom descended into laughter.
Harry was blushing furiously, mortified at the laughter of his class and the less-than-impressed look Sgt. Taylor was giving his second-hand, overly large uniform and wild, messy hair.
It wasn't Harry's fault that his Aunt only ever gave him Dudley's cast-offs, having to update her son's uniform every couple of months as the boy's waistline grew and grew, and his hair had always been this messy no matter how much his Aunt Petunia had furiously tried to tame it over the years.
Harry sat in his chair, looking around the room as his classmates all laughed at him once more, and found himself growing angry. How would they like it if everyone was laughing at them?
He looked around at each person in the room, imagining them with long, messy, dirty hair and clothes that dwarfed them, then maybe they'd see what it was like.
And, to his astonishment, it began to happen before his very eyes. A pleasant tingling sensation had spread across his small body, and then all around him, hair began to grow, slowly at first then rapidly descending towards the classroom floor. Uniforms began to triple in size as if they had each come to school wearing their father's clothing.
Suddenly, the laughter stopped as people started to notice the changes.
Then, the screaming started.
His Aunt and Uncle had been furious when they had arrived home after being called in to collect himself and Dudley. Somehow, this had all been Harry's fault, and Dudley pointing out that Harry looked exactly as he had always looked was damning evidence.
Harry had done this, and he would be punished.
And as he sat in his cupboard, again and again replaying the scene in his mind, he couldn't help but agree with them. He had wished for everyone to experience what he had to every day, and it had happened.
He remembered the pleasant sensation just before, how it had felt like a powerful force was coursing through him, and then his wishes had come true.
This had not been the only time something strange like this had happened.
He remembered when he was seven and Aunt Petunia had grown tired of complaining about his long, shaggy hair and had taken to it with his Uncle Vernon's electric razor and shaved him completely bald. Harry had been mortified, the other children at school already treated him like an outcast, and this would only add more fuel to the fire. He had cried himself to sleep that night in his cupboard, fearing the name-calling and jeers he would receive the next day at school, and wished that he had his hair back.
He was as surprised as anybody when he awoke the next morning with his full head of hair completely restored.
When Harry had been eight, he had been dusting Aunt Petunia's prized china when Dudley, despite his considerable weight, had managed to sneak up behind him and scare him. In his fright, Harry had dropped the oriental plate where upon contact with the laminate floor of the sitting room it had smashed into smithereens.
Amidst Dudley's evil laughter, he could hear his Aunt storming from the kitchen with a shout of "BOY!". Panicking, Harry had wished for the plate to be fixed, and to his and the watching Dudley's amazement, the plate had been fixed right in front of their eyes.
The shocked silence lasted a few more seconds until Aunt Petunia burst into the room and Dudley was thrown out of his stupor. The boy gleefully told his mother how Harry had done something "freaky" to the plate.
Then, when had been nine, he had somehow found himself on top of the school roof after running away from Dudley and his gang of bullies on one of the rare occasions he had ventured outside to the playground during dinnertime. One moment, he had been running as fast as his short legs could carry him, desperately wishing to be somewhere else, somewhere safe, and suddenly had been on the roof, looking down on the playground below him.
Each and every time, he had dearly wished for something and it had happened. His hair had grown back, the china plate had fixed itself, he had escaped to safety from Dudley and his gang and the hair and clothes of his classmates had grown to comically large sizes.
So that meant it was something Harry was doing, something Harry could control that would explain these strange occurrences.
He had wanted something to happen, and it did.
So...if he wanted something to happen now, would it?
Harry looked around him, seeing nothing but the darkness of his cupboard, and shivered to himself. It was freezing in here, the threadbare blanket he had been given when he was first put in here as a baby was next to useless at providing any warmth to the now ten-year-old.
But if he concentrated very, very hard on being warm? Would it happen?
Could he wish himself warm?
Harry uncurled himself from the balled-up position he had been sitting in and held out his hands in front of him, palms up. He closed his eyes and tried to replicate the meditation he had read Tibetan monks practiced, and he began to concentrate on his wish, his desire.
Warm.
Warm.
I want to be warm.
And then, from one second to the next, he felt the change from shivering cold to a comforting warmth. Harry opened his eyes and to his astonishment, a ball of orange flames sat in the palms of each hand, heating the small room up around him. Wide-eyed, he stared at the flames flickering before him, and to his amazement, he felt no pain.
Bringing his hands closer to himself, he concentrated hard again to make the flames bigger and brighter, and he watched the flames grow until they were almost touching the slanted roof of the stairs above him. Concentrating again, he made them recede, barely dancing above the surface of his skin.
Finally, he concentrated on making the flame disappear, but keeping the warmth present in his hands, and eventually spreading to the rest of his body.
It worked.
He felt warmer than he had ever felt before.
It was real.
He had...powers.
Slowly, as the muscles of his face were unused to the expression, a wide smile spread across the face of Harry Potter.
He had magic.
The next few months passed quickly, and soon the summer holidays had begun.
Harry had experimented with his powers, quickly becoming used to calling upon them and began to use them to make life better for himself.
First, he perfected calling upon the warmth he had felt that first night in the cupboard to the point he could do it with barely a thought now. Eventually, when spring arrived and the weather became milder and he was once again sent out for long days tending to the garden, with the harsh sun beating down on him, he learnt how to cool himself as easily as he could make himself warmer.
He had learned how to create a source of light that hovered above him at night so he could read the books he had turned invisible and smuggled from school.
He had learned how to unlock his cupboard from the inside, silently, so he could sneak out at night and gather food for himself. He no longer went hungry for days on end, not with his special powers.
He had learned how to replicate the teleportation he had used to escape to the roof of his school, though it made a very loud noise whenever he did it so he could rarely use this gift.
And just last week, he had fixed his own eyesight.
He really hated his glasses, they were old and had been broken countless times over the years by his cousin and were barely held together by sellotape. And he remembered the time at school when Dudley had ripped them from his face and hid them, leaving Harry to blindly wander around the playground, trying desperately to find them. Of course, no one had helped him look, and when the bell for classes to resume had rung, Dudley had quickly thrust them into his hands so the teachers didn't even know what had happened.
He never wanted to feel so lost again.
So one Friday night, he had sat in his cupboard and wished very, very hard for his eyes to be fixed, for his vision to be as good as it possibly could be.
And it had worked.
It was the most painful experience of his life.
His eyes had burned, and the agony had caused him to cry out and had woken his Aunt and Uncle, but all he could do was tell them that his eyes were burning. They ignored him.
Though he did not know it, for the entirety of that night, Harry was completely and utterly blind. By Saturday morning, his vision had returned but was worse than ever, and the pain was still unbearable. Over the next few hours however, the pain began to slowly recede, and his vision began to clear. By Saturday night, his vision was the best it had ever been.
He hadn't had to wear his glasses since.
He had wisely decided against trying anything similar to fix his short stature or bony frame despite his success as he knew that if just fixing his eyes had hurt that much then anything else would be excruciating.
But unfortunately for Harry, not everything could be fixed with his powers.
When he returned to school on the Monday after discovering his abilities, he had set about fixing what he felt was the worst thing about his life.
How lonely he was.
He had approached a boy called Eddie Richardson in the year below him who Harry felt was rather similar to himself. He was a shy, quiet boy who kept to himself, spending his dinnertimes in the computer room playing Math games.
Harry had entered the computer room that dinnertime and sat next to Eddie, he looked him right in the eyes and wished for Eddie to be his friend. And Eddie immediately began to speak to Harry as if they had known each other all their lives, joyfully telling him all about his family and his beloved cat Mikey.
Eddie invited Harry to come round to his house for tea that night to play with him, and Harry had been happier than he had ever been before.
He had a friend.
He never noticed the glazed look in Eddie's eyes.
After school, Eddie happily pulled Harry over to his parents when they came to pick him up and begged them to let Harry come over that night. The Richardsons were delighted that their boy finally had a friend of his own and, after the grudging agreement of Aunt Petunia, had taken Harry home with them.
He had been fed a good meal, had played with Mikey the cat and finally felt like was accepted.
It was all a lie.
For the next day at school, Harry and Eddie had been in the playground when Dudley and his gang decided to play another game of "Harry Hunting". Only this time, Eddie was included.
And poor Eddie, unused to such treatment, stood no chance of escaping them.
He had been caught, and beaten up, and it was all Harry's fault.
Eddie swore how it wasn't, how he was Harry's friend and it didn't matter, but Harry saw the truth now. He saw the glazed look in his eyes and was horrified.
This wasn't natural. This wasn't Eddie Richardson.
And so Harry had wished for Eddie to go back to normal, and he had. And he was terrified of Harry.
Eddie Richardson moved schools and Harry never saw him again.
And Harry was alone once more.
June came and went, and with it Dudley's birthday trip to the zoo.
Harry had gotten used to his powers by now, but even for him, chatting amicably with a python was strange.
It didn't even feel like he was using his powers, it just felt natural to him.
Of course, Dudley had then ruined it by pushing him to the floor, and Harry had decided to use his powers for revenge and vanished the glass of the snake enclosure as Dudley was leaning against it, causing the rotund boy to fall in.
Maybe it was overkill to then replace the glass and trap him in, but if anyone deserved it it was Dudley Dursley.
The punishment he received from Uncle Vernon was completely worth it in his opinion.
But now nearing the end of July, the summer holidays were in full swing, and Harry was bored out of his mind.
All day he went about his chores set for him by his Uncle, and Harry knew better than to complete them using his powers. He'd done that once and his Aunt had given him a fearful look before sending him into his cupboard for three days.
That didn't mean he couldn't use them to help, but he still had to do most of it by hand.
He had long run out of the books he had liberated from school on his final day, and after they began to take up too much room in his small cupboard he had to use his powers and make them all disappear.
He wondered if he could do that with his relatives.
He shook the thought from his mind and returned his attention to cooking the bacon for his family to consume, surreptitiously turning some rashers invisible and hiding them in his pockets for later consumption, trying and failing to ignore the awful smell emanating from the corner of the room.
His Aunt Petunia was dyeing some of Dudley's old clothes a hideous grey for Harry to wear as his new school uniform. He would be attending the local comprehensive Stonewall High
As he was setting down a steaming plate at the kitchen table, the sound of the letterbox opening and closing was heard.
"Get the mail, Dudley," His Uncle said absently from behind his newspaper.
"Make Harry get it."
"Get the mail, Harry." His Uncle said more firmly.
Harry decided against saying anything smart in hopes he'd be allowed a few rashers of bacon himself and went to get the mail. Three pieces of mail lay on the doormat; a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was somehow even worse than her brother, an official looking letter addressed to his Uncle Vernon and - a letter for Harry.
"What the hell?" Harry gasped, staring at the yellow, old-looking envelope in his hands.
Since when did he get mail?
And it was definitely his, it said so right there on the front in loopy, cursive writing.
Mr. H. Potter
The Cupboard Under The Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
Harry made his way back to the kitchen, still staring at the letter. As he passed his cupboard, common sense prevailed and he wrenched open the door, throwing the letter addressed to himself inside before hurrying back to his Uncle.
"For you, Uncle Vernon." Harry handed him the two remaining letters and went back to the sink, beginning to wash up the pan he had used to cook with, trying hard not to draw any attention to himself.
For once, his luck held out and his family eventually dispersed, and Harry practically sprinted back to his cupboard and dove in.
Plucking the letter from his cot, he summoned a ball of light to hang above his head and turned it over. On the back was a purple seal that looked like an old-fashioned coat of arms, a large H surrounded by a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake.
Reverently, Harry broke open the seal to his first-ever letter and removed what he now suspected was actual parchment from within.
There, in emerald green writing, was:
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin First Class, Grand Sorcerer, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederate of Wizards)
Dear Mr. Potter
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress.
Stunned, Harry shook the envelope once more and another piece of yellowed parchment fell out into his lap. Opening it, he found the aforementioned list of things this Hogwarts place would require him to purchase.
This had to be a joke.
Where on earth was he supposed to find dragon-hide gloves?!
They aren't even real!
"Neither is magic and yet you have it." A small voice in the back of his mind said enticingly. That was true...could this be real? He doubted the Dursleys had enough brain cells between them to think of a joke like this, and he knew his powers were real. His lack of glasses was proof of that.
There was a school of magic, and he had been invited.
They knew about his powers.
There were others like him.
He wasn't alone.
Harry basked in the warm, happy feeling in his stomach at the thought until his mind suddenly remembered a detail of the letter he'd previously glossed over.
"Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31."
So all he had to do was somehow tame an owl and hope it would deliver a letter for him, to a school he didn't even know the address of.
He had one week.
That couldn't be too difficult, right?
So this is the first chapter, I hope you all like it. To anyone who has read my stories before, yeah I know I'm shit at actually finishing them but this one will be a little different, it's an idea I've had in mind for as long as I've been reading Harry Potter Fanfiction and I'm not going to put too much pressure on myself for it to be perfect, I just want to enjoy writing and seeing what happens.
Daphne will be in the next chapter but Harry will be the main POV character for this story so I needed the first chapter to be him.
I tried hard not to make the Dursley's abuse of Harry too OTT, but still serve as the backstory for the characterisation of him I have in mind.
And yeah, Harry will be more powerful than canon in this, he's supposed to somehow be Voldemort's equal so he will be, but he will have to work for it.
So yeah, please leave a review and let me know what you think.