A/N: This is my first fanfic that I've ever written, so forgive me if it's a little choppy. This story is inspired by numerous other fanfics including Enchanting Melodies, Harry Evans and the Well Lived Death, and Dragons Reborn: The Era After. I decided to write this after watching the Oppenheimer movie then binge reading the book the following weekend. I thought it would be quite interesting to tell a historical retelling of Harry Potter, however he's a SI with the same background as the Harry Evans story. I hope you enjoy, if you do, please like, follow, or comment your thoughts on the story.
Harry Evans was and is to this day a complex individual whose motivations are still unclear, but his accomplishments so early in life are clear for everyone to see. He was born on ominous terms in August of 1974. His mother, Lily Evans, had found herself kicked out of school earlier that year due to her unexpected pregnancy. She had no recollection of being intimate with anyone and her pleading was unheard due to her muggleborn status and the ongoing war against the death eaters. She quickly realized that she would get no help from the wizarding world and disappeared immediately after the school year finished. Her friend, Alice Longbottom, would later say that this was the wizarding world's "greatest loss."
There was little more than speculation about her whereabouts over that summer, however her favorite teacher Professor Horace Slughorn mentioned to a few students that he'd "taught her a few tricks" to survive and hide with magic. Slughorn would later go into hiding himself and was found in temporarily abandoned non-magical housing.
Little is known about what occurred in the later stages of her pregnancy, however she had turned 17 earlier that year and was free of the magical trace. Her story ends tragically when she appeared bleeding out and dying on her sisters doorstep on August 3rd with only a baby Harry in her lap. Petunia Dursley would later recount that Lily "kept repeating, 'take care of him'" until she succumbed to her injuries.
From that moment until his hogwarts letter, Harry found himself in the care of his aunt, uncle, and cousin. Petunia goes in detail of Harry's time as a child in an interview years later saying:
"He was always an incredibly bright child, however he wasn't exceptional until he had an accident in a playground that resulted in a serious head injury. We rushed him to the hospital, but he was never the same afterwards."
Harry's primary school teacher, Ms. Laura Johnson, spoke in an interview regarding his academic success saying, "After his accident, he came back about a month later with an incredible motivation. He was hungry to learn and was willing to put in the work. Interestingly enough, the passion he found was languages." The month following the accident, Harry was said to be immensely quiet and confused. He broke out of his funk in relatively short order and soon recovered significantly.
Upon returning to school, many noticed his increased motivation and competence. His math teacher, Mr. Patel, was heard telling the other staff that "Harry could probably do university level math right now." There was immense hype around his genius once word was spread of his potential. Many thought that he would pursue mathematics or physics and be one of the bright young minds of the future. However another subject caught his eye immediately, linguistics.
In the 4 years prior to attending Hogwarts, Harry managed to successfully learn 5 languages besides English including Latin, French, Greek, German and Russian. While learning these languages, many of the magical community speculate that he discovered his accidental magic and was learning to harness his power, however those claims have no substantiated proof. Harry also managed to pass his A-Level exams prior to his 11th birthday, which brought in it's own fame in the muggle world. During this time, he also picked up a love of literature. Part of this was due to the learning of languages which he found to accomplish easier by reading about interesting topics. He read many of the classics in their original language and could often be heard quoting strange passages in a different language then offering a translation.
In August of 1985, Professor Minerva McGonagall visited the Dursleys to offer Harry admittance to Hogwarts. She was pleasantly surprised to meet Harry and later described him as "smart" and "charming," however she also mentioned to her colleagues that "his eyes are startling." Looking back, one thing that was commonly agreed about Harry was that when he was focused on someone, they got 100% of his attention. It would turn out to be an intimidating or flattering aspect of his personality, depending on who you ask.
One thing McGonagall would note to her colleagues at breakfast the next day was, "he seemed quite scared of magic." This was a mystery to many, but from nearly the moment he was introduced to the magical world, Harry felt deathly afraid of the dangers the world now presented. It is believed that Harry had figured out his origins quite early and that led to his early fear of the magical society. It was an uncommonly mature perspective to have because he clearly saw the greater implications of people having access to what appeared to him like limitless abilities with limited oversight.
Harry had another significant unique quality when he was young which developed over time and that was an entrepreneurial spirit. He loved the idea of using his talents to make money and hated that he didn't have access to greater resources. One of his many attempts at making money actually netted him a significant sum. Once it got out that he was quite skilled with languages, he attempted to make money translating documents. He happened to catch a break and someone from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office sent him a sample of Russian communications as a test. He managed to pass spectacularly and was later sent numerous documents to translate for the foreign office. As a result, at a young age, he had already managed to make some non-magical political connections and reputation. He ended up spending nearly all his earned money on books upon entering the magical world. The one splurge purchase he made was a bottomless book bag that he would be seeing carrying for his entire time at Hogwarts.
Harry's move to Hogwarts would have larger repercussions in the non-magical world due to his already building reputation. It came to quite a shock that one of the rising British prodigies had decided to attend boarding school in Scotland, however Harry managed to smooth things over with the promise of completing some work over his summers. Harry's connections to the non-magical world would later become immensely valuable and would explain some of his ideology later in life. However the importance of those relationships wouldn't come to relevance until a couple years after leaving Hogwarts.
A/N: I hope you enjoy, I wanted to make it longer, but it's a pre-Hogwarts intro. Let me know if this is a story you guys might be interested in. I'm trying to convey early on that Harry is talented/smart, but intimidates and charms people depending on who you are or how he feels that day. I'll go more into his character once he gets to hogwarts. I don't know if this style is really good, so some feedback on that would be nice.