Book 1 - Harry Potter And The Dawn of Chaos

Chapter 1 - The Freak Who Lived

Vernon Dursley was a large, beefy man with hardly any neck although he did have a very large moustache, he was the director of a firm called Grunnings which manufactured large drilling equipment. He was also a completely ordinary man and as a result an utterly boring man, who while never coming off as a particularly welcoming, Loveling or friendly fellow, he also never gave the impression he was a cruel one either. However if you took the time to get to know Vernon Dursley you would understand that he was in fact a rather vile individual who was best left alone. Now there were 3 things you needed to know to understand Vernon, the first was that he was a brilliant businessman, the second was he was very proud of his completely ordinary life and the third was that he and his wife had a very big secret and they lived in fear that someone would discover this secret. He couldn't begin to imagine what would happen to his ordinary life if anyone found out about the Potters.

Mrs Potter was Mr Dursley's wives sister, but thankfully they weren't very close, in fact they hadn't met for several years, Mr Dursley often pretended his wife didn't have a sister because both Mrs Potter and her good-for-nothing husband were as unordinary as it was possible to be. Mr Dursley believed they had a son but he honestly didn't care, since Petunia was happy to pretend they didn't exist he himself tried not to worry too much about the family of freaks.

Now when Mr Dursley woke up on the dull, grey Tuesday morning, there was absolutely nothing to suggest that this fragile lie they had been living in was about to be shattered. They completely missed the owls. Mr Dursley went to work, shouted and ranted at people, made important phone calls and then shouted a bit more. It was at lunch time when Mr Dursley first noticed something strange, while on his daily walk he saw a group of strangely dressed folks all standing outside a baker's. He glared at them while walking past, for some reason they made him uneasy. It was while walking back, clutching a doughnut that Vernon Dursley's fragile lie of normality was broken.

"The Potters, that's right, that's what i heard -"

"-yes, their son, Harry -"

The colour drained from Mr Dursley's face, fear flooded him. He looked back at the group, wanting to ask, to make sure it wasn't his Potters they were discussing, but he thought better of it.

He dashed back to work, hurried upstairs and tried to focus on the day, he wouldn't let this affect him. Potter was such a common name of course so Vernon was sure it could be someone else and he was pretty sure their son's name was Henry or Harold, definitely not Harry. He decided to try and forget about the strangeness of today, no reason to worry his beloved wife about such a thing. Mr Dursley really did try, but when the night came, when he and his beloved wife were disrupted by the ringing of the doorbell he couldn't stop the strange uneasiness from returning and when he saw the baby on his doorstep he knew before reading the note what it said. He held his wife while she broke down in his arms, no matter how estranged they had been she had still just lost her sister so Vernon didn't judge her for the tears nor the scene she was creating.

It had taken some time for her to calm down. Eventually after a careful amount of coaxing Vernon had managed to get his still crying wife to come back inside. He felt it was a testament to his abilities as a Husband that he was so calm.

"I know this is hard, but we need to figure out what to do." He said softly, well as softly as his gruff voice would allow.

"What do you mean what to do? We don't have a choice. We need to take the boy in. For starters they won't allow us to do anything else."

Vernon didn't need his wife to explain who they were. Petunia had told him about her sister and the horror of the freaks very early on into their dating life. She said she just couldn't keep such a secret from the man she loved and Vernon had been touched, yet part of him wished she never had told him. It still kept him up at night. The idea of people with that much power, it wasn't natural.

"I know, I know but can we afford it?" Vernon asked, hoping his subtle prompting would clue his wife into how foolish this was.

"Of course we can. We wanted another child soon anyway."

Sighing, Vernon looked over to the baby. He had placed the basket on the chair next to the sofa. How bad would it be? The boy was only one, he could hardly be a freak already.

LINE BREAK

The paper landed on the table, it had been thrown by Lord Notts "Guess it is official then, we are no longer guilty of any crimes in the eyes of the Wizingamot."

"A fact we had already been discussing yet you were as usual very late." The words from Lord Malfoy were firm yet the tone held a hint of teasing that those who had known him for a while would all be able to pick up on them. Luckily for him everyone who sat within his study at the moment had known him for a very long time. Lord Notts, Crabb, Goyal, Black and Macnair. All had been friends though they were separated throughout the years and all had served the Dark Lord.

Now however all of them sat within the large personal study of Lucius Malfoy. For all of its space that actual study was quite bare, his large desk made out of the finest mahogany money could buy sat in front of a window which overlooked the large garden. The Peacocks could be seen in the darkness of the night. Currently the room was filled with chairs, each one comfy with green and blue cushions to support the men. In the centre of the chairs was a small coffee table which was being used to support their glasses of brandy.

"Apologies Lucius, Theodore is currently being a nightmare and with Cassadra currently unwell, it falls to me to put him down. Sometimes I wish she would just let me use the elves. Nothing wrong with letting house elfs raise a child."

"Do tell my dear Sister that I wish her well." Said Walden Macnair.

"She would take more meaning from those words if you actually came to visit, dearest Brother-in-law."

"No she wouldn't." He said with a laugh.

"Probably not," Said Notts. "How is Draco doing? Does Narcissa insist on doing everything herself?"

Regulus was sure she did. He remembered Narcissa's rants to him that she would never let her own children be raised how Aunt Druella had let them be raised. The memory brought a smile to his tired face. Very few of his memories of childhood did that now.

"Yes but I am hard pressed to argue with her. We recently got a new house elf, Dobby. He is a special creature, slightly mad and I am honestly tempted to remove him from service and replace him yet he cost a pretty penny and with the Ministry breathing down our backs I refuse to give them more of a reason to look into me."

"Why don't you let Kreature have some time with him?" His old elf would love to train a younger elf, well he would once Regulus told him too.

"Perhaps that would be for the best."

The rest of the night went on a similar tone. The old friends were able to relax for the first time in a while. That was until as expected Walden ruined the mood.

"We wasted our lives, didn't we? Serving him." A heavy silence fell over the group.

"Your ability to kill the tone of the room is impressive, Walden." Crabb's voice was bitter as if he was personally offended by this.

"He's right." Said Goyal. A man of few words he had always been.

"If you truly think The Dark Lord is gone then you are fools." Nott's brought forward the truth they had all known yet not wished to voice.

"Yet he was broken by a boy. A fucking child." Walden snarled. "We saw loyalty to an idea and a man, a man who was beaten by a mongrel."

"You should be careful Walden. That sounds an awful like disrespect." Lucius' tone was light yet his words held a clear venom.

"Disrespect what? A dead man."

"Silence you fool." Regulus snapped, causing all of them to turn to him in shock, they rarely saw the Lord of House Black lose his composure. "We all know he is not dead. We know because the mark still lingers. Faded, almost completely gone yet we can all feel it. There are three options for our future."

"Do enlightenment use dear Reggie?"

"Careful Walden, not all of us cannot handle our drink." Notts warned as he watched Regulus tighten ready to pounce.

"Option one is that we completely abandon our dream. We turn our back on the future our families have dreamt of since the days of the knights."

"Option two is that we put our faith in this boy. We accept that this halfblood did manage to overpower our Lord and we see him as the second coming. Mould this Harry Potter into the next figurehead."

"Follow a Mongrel, you jest."

Ignoring Crabbs' input, Regulus continued. "Option three is that he is not dead and we accept that he will return. What do you think he will do when he returns and finds that his inner circle has abandoned the true path?"

A heavy silence fell over the group. A silence which didn't end until Notts informed the group that he was returning home and so ended the first and last time they all gathered together.

LINE BREAK

In the past 10 years one of the 3 things that you should know about Mr Dursley changed, he was still a brilliant businessman, he was still completely ordinary but the third thing was now the fact he did not approve or like his nephew and thanked the good lord everyday that his nephew was only connected to him by marriage and not blood.

Taking him in after finding him on their doorstep had been a decision made out of fear and hope. Fear that if they didn't the people who had left the boy would come looking for him and hope that they could save Harry from the unnaturalness that killed his parents; however the hope quickly vanished however when they realised was just as freakish as his parents.

His nephew was a young boy, only about ten, but that didn't stop Vernon from utterly despising him as in his eyes ever since the young boy had turned up on his doorstep, all those years ago, he had brought the family nothing but trouble and it seemed weirdness and unnatural events followed him around like a very dark cloud. Now anyone with a bit of sense might point out to Mister Dursley that the young boy could in no way stop this and in fact the obvious hatred he had for the young lad probably made it worse for them both, but this wouldn't have changed things because deep deep down it wasn't just a hatred Vernon had for the young boy it was fear, he was afraid of his nephew.

He was unsettled by the boy's unnatural green eyes that seems to stare right into your soul, he was uncomfortable with the freaks ability to know things that any normal child should not know, he was unnerved by the child's quietness, the fact he could move around the house without making a sound and just seemed to appear in the room when you needed him but above all he was afraid of the things that seemed to happen around the boy, the reports from his teachers about their hair turning blue, about him finding his way on top of the school building without anyone seeing him, there were incidents such as his scruffy black hair growing back overnight after being completely shaved off or the time he disappeared while Dudley and his young friends were being friendly or perhaps the time the lock on his door unlocked itself before Vernon had put a bolt on it. All of it added up in the mind of Vernon to a boy who was a freak, an abnormality and danger to the family, and Vernon Dursley would never allow his family to be threatened. This is why he never liked to give the boy any proper clothes, less he began to feel too important. This is why he always kept the boy hidden away in that cupboard, lest the neighbours see him, sending him to school only when necessary, to avoid the boy getting too smart, keeping him busy with idle chores so that he would never be allowed to see himself as part of the family. Vernon did everything in his power to keep the freak away from his wife and his son and to stop the freakishness spreading.

This desire to keep the freak closed off from the world, to keep his family safe from its abnormal ways pushed Vernon to often do things that he never thought he would, starve a child if it kept his family safety then of course he must, lock the child away, if it was necessary then he had too and when the boy showed signs of the unnaturalness in public, putting his family's reputation at risk, Vernon had beat the child though it filled him with no pleasure he knew he must keep his family safe and so he did what was necessary.

All of this brought Vernon to his position today, sitting in his favourite armchair in the living room, with the TV on low in the background, as Petunia was watching the news to see if there was anything she could gossip about in it. He was finishing off the last bits of the day's work, the daily expenses, Vernon always made sure to do them to get every last penny back from the company. The freak was in the kitchen cleaning up from dinner. Dudley was upstairs getting an early night's sleep so he was well rested for the big day. Tomorrow was a very important day for his growing boy as tomorrow was Duddley's 11th Birthday and Vernon could not help but feel an overwhelming sense of pride filling him. Dudley was his pride and joy and they had a big day planned for tomorrow. After a large cooked breakfast they would open some of Duddley's presents and then one of Duddley's mates, a nice young lad by the name of Piers Polkiss would be comin round and they would all go out to the local zoo.

Luckily the freak would not be a problem tomorrow as he was going off to the old ladies house, Vernon for the life of him could not remember the ladies name but since she was not important in any way he didn't let it bother him.

His charming thoughts were brought to a halt as the boy walked into the room, the freaks green eyes seemed to shine in the dimly lit room, Vernon tried hard not to let on that the boy's very presence unnerved him.

"You all done boy?" he asked, making sure to not hide his disgust and annoyance at being interrupted by the scoundrel.

The boy answered by nodding his head.

"Speak up boy."

"Yes uncle, everything is clean."

"It better be, if I find out anything hasn't been properly scrubbed down, you will be in big trouble", now he wasn't going to check but the freak didn't need to know that "now tomorrow, you will be going across the street when we go out and I don't want to hear of any funny business, you understand me?"

"Yes uncle"

"Good, now off to bed, you need to be up to cook breakfast for Dudley", the boy nodded again and walked out of the room towards his cupboard, with him gone Vernon relaxed, looking over at his wife who hadn't moved her eyes of the TV, he smiled to himself, everything was normal just the way he liked it.

LINE BREAK

Petunia Dursley was a thin, blonde lady who had twice the usual amount of neck, which was very useful as she spent most of her free time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbours. This rather ridiculous amount of free time was due to her lacking a job or really any hobbies that weren't being a nosey neighbour. Now if you met Petunia and watched her, you would get the impression she was a doting, over protective mother who spoiled her child rotten, which makes sense since she herself spent childhood playing second fiddle to the wonderful prodigy that was her sister Lilly. This impression she gave off was very accurate, because she did spoil and dote on her son, however there is much more to Petunia than you first expect.

In truth she was a very bitter woman, bitter that as a child every action she ever took, every achievement she ever made was always held up against her sister, Lilly. When Petunia did well in a test it didn't matter because Lilly had done well in her freak school. When Petunia fell in love with Vernon it didn't matter because Lilly had fallen in love with the wonderful, perfect James. When Petunia had lost her mother and father it didn't matter because Lilly was in danger and finally Lilly had gone and gotten herself killed but that didn't matter, even with her dead Petunia could never ever escape the shadow of her perfect little sister, The magical child, the special one, the perfect one.

When the boy had turned up and her doorstep, with the letter explaining to her that her only sister was dead and her only remaining blood relative was now the young child, Petunia had felt something similar to satisfaction, that though her sister had been special it was in fact that specialness that got her killed in the end yet she also felt a grave sense of fear that if the boy was anything like his freakish parents then the same fate that befell her sister and her unnatural husband could befall her upstanding natural family and she could not allow that to happen. This bitterness towards her sister, this fear for her family and the satisfaction of finally being able to treat the freakishness the way she wished her parents had treated Lilly's unnaturalness was an explanation for her utter hatred for her young nephew but as much as Petunia believed it was, it was not an excuse for the way he had been treated by her and the way she had allowed Vernon to treat the boy the way he did.

As to Petunia this was the only way to help protect her family but enough she thought to herself about the freak, it was bad enough he had to come for Duddley's birthday, due to the useless old Miss Figgs breaking her leg, and ruin such a special day for her family but she couldn't and shouldn't let it take over thoughts.

Now her Dudders, that was a good young man, her pride and joy. If everything went well he should soon be getting his letter for Smelting academy, a lovely school that turns out fine young men like her beloved husband unlike the school of freaks she hoped she would never hear from again, god look at her, yet again thinking about the freaks it was likely they were stuck in her head.

A scream interrupted her thoughts and Petunia's head snapped over towards the source of the sound, seeing a crowd forming around one of the reptile enclosures, her nosey nature got the better of her and she began to walk towards the crowd, slipping through the group of people that had gathered Petunia made her way to the front and when she caught a glimpse of what she saw her stomach filled with dread, a long, thick snake slithered over the floor towards her, its forked tongue tasting the air and its hisses filling the room, quickly moving out of the way to let it past her eyes moved back to where it had come from to find her freak of a nephew lying on the floor, his green eyes that looked so like lily's seemed to be filled with a sick joy at the mayhem he had caused, a shudder passed through Petunia when her eyes met his and she quickly looked away. Vernon came storming past her and grabbed the boy off the floor pulling him towards the exit and no doubt telling him how much trouble he would be in when they got home.

Deciding that clearly the wonderful day was done, and that they needed to get home before anyone could have a chance to recognise them, she began to look for her beautiful Dudley when for the second time today her stomach was filled with dread and this time it was a far more horrible sight that caught her eye. Trapped in the enclosure behind the glass that had once blocked the snake's release was her boy, pale as ghost and soaking wet, he sat their hands banging on the glass which muffled his begging for his mother. Petunia ran over quickly slamming her thin hands on the glass and screaming for her son, shouting at anyone who would listen to get her boy out.

The car journey home was filled with a tense silence, Vernon was driving speedily down the road, hoping to get home quickly so the freak could be punished, he had already ranted at the boy, promising that he would regret this. Dudley sat in the back, he was sat as far right as they could without falling out of the car, a zoo keeper had quickly come over after hearing the commotion and released Dudley for the enclosure, the whole family had been offered free entry for an entire year but Petunia had shouted at them for even suggesting that they would come back to such a dangerous place and that they would be telling all of her friends to never return, which of course she wouldn't be as that would mean admitting that something abnormal had happened to the family which she just could not allow.

Her mind was filled with one single thought on the way home and it was the same one she was sure was racing through her husband's mind, this was exactly what they had feared, the punishment tonight would be harsh and Petunia wouldn't feel a single drop of sympathy for the dangerous freak. She had hoped that they had gotten rid of the abnormality in the boy which caused him to wreak havoc just like his father but clearly they needed to try harder and try they would. No more days off from chores, No more free time, if he wasn't working he would be kept in the cupboard, out of sight, hopefully that would help control the freak.

LINE BREAK

Saying the Dudley Dursley was a large child would be a rather kind way of putting it, he was definitely his fathers son that was for sure, with the same lack of neck and the same bright red face when they were angry. Dudley was also not the smartest child his ages, in fact he was often described by his teachers as a slow boy who often needed help in classes however his teachers didn't mind as he used to be a sweet child and they could forgive the lack of intelligence, but over time he had become quite rude and entitled, now this might have nothing to do with the fact he mother would always give him everything he asked for and it might be completely unrelated to the fact his father wanted Dudley to grow up just like he did meaning he was slowly becoming a more spoilt version of Vernon, but it was definitely related to those two things.

Now there was also another thing both Vernon and Dudley had in common, they both were afraid of the young boy who lived in the cupboard under the stairs. When Dudley was younger he had often tried to play with Harry but his Parents had also stopped him, telling him it wasn't safe and that the freak of dangerous and over time Dudley had begun to understand what they meant, for example when Dudley had brought all of his friends around to play, they had all wanted to know about the 'freak', as his parents called him, and Dudley explained that he was his cousin but he was weird so no one wanted to talk to him, his friends had decided they should play with him, chase him for a bit, but Harry had just disappeared, this happened a lot, every time Dudley tried to play with him something bad always happened so eventually Dudley had given up, now he ignored the freak as much possible, hoping that by doing this the freak would leave him alone, turns out it didn't matter what Dudley did because bad things always seemed to happen by just being near the weirdo.

Right now Dudley was a very very scared boy, what was meant to be his amazing special day had turned into one of the worst days of his life and it was all because of his cousin, he had been so excited when he saw the snake moving and he didn't mean to push Harry over but before he could fully appreciate how cool it was the glass has disappeared and he had gotten a close up, having the snake slide over him, baring its fangs in his face and hissing at him was the craziest and scariest thing to ever happen to him and he hated that it was the freak who had caused it. The car ride home had been just as bad, the rant his father had gone on hadn't really reached him, Dudley spent the whole time trying to get as far away as he could from his monster of a cousin and when he got home the punishment started, his father dragged Harry upset and even though his mother tried to cover the sound with the tv he could hear the sound of the belt and the shouts from his cousin, but the TV was did seem much more interesting and his cousin did deserve it for what he did so Dudley zoned out the sound of it and focused on the much more exciting TV.

For the rest of the week Dudley didn't see his cousin at all, his mother was cooking dinner which meant Harry must have been locked in his room because those were the only times his mother did any house work. Dudley didn't have to do any of the chores obviously but it was still annoying that his mother did because that meant her focus wasn't on him. His father was on edge all week as well, any noise that came from the cupboard caused his dad to freak out and stomp towards the door ranting about how clearly the freak hadn't learnt the lesson. Honestly in Dudleys opinion they should just let the freak out and everything could go back to normal because Dudley missed being the centre of attention, it just wasn't fair.

At dinner that night Dudley decided to raise this issue with his parents, demand that things go back to normal, so as they all sat round the mahogany dinner table, eating a average cooked meal, yet another reason he wanted things to go back to normal, his mother wasn't the best cook, he spoke up "Mum, Dad, I want things to go back to normal, I think you should let Harry out so he can do all the chores again and you can spend more time with me" he hoped his voice sounded pleading enough.

"Duddikins, it is a bit more complicated than that" his mum said softly

"But whyyyy"

"Because that thing is a monster and I won't have him walking around freely" his father answered, his voice rising.

"Surely you could let him out just for chores, then lock him back up" Dudley argued back, his father actually looked slightly proud with this fact, Dad always said he should learn the art of negotiating

"It would make things easier on me Vernon, and we don't want Dudley to lose out" Petunia, who had decided that her baby was right.

"Hmmmm, okay, tomorrow we can let him out and get him back to the chores" Vernon who was looking forward to good food again agreed "now let's talk about something much more interesting, you excited to find out about Smelting?"

Dudley was proud of himself, he had fixed it all, the family was going to be okay, all thanks to him.