Hey everyone!

I've been really busy with life stuff, but I also want to finish my fics. This one came out of nowhere, but that doesn't mean I'm done with the others. I hope you guys like this. If you don't, a spider will be in your room in the next five seconds... JK...

... Rowling owns Harry Potter. I do not, so don't hurt me, please. (That was so cringy I'm so sorry) Also, I disagree with her weirdo beliefs.

Love you guys! ❤❤❤

Early Hours of July 22nd, 1991

Nightfall: 8:02 p.m.

―

At first, there was a fire.

A small one that sparked at the end of the cupboard. Harry didn't know why or how it started, but he assumed that this was how Vernon wished to kill him without actually looking at him face to face. The chord had been struck, and his death was on his uncle's to-do list. In the smoke that now clouded the tiny box he called his room, Harry was doing his best not to inhale the smoke. He coughed a bit, sure, but then he thought of the futility of his actions—what did it matter? Even if he survived this, his relatives would put an end to him in some other manner.

When the fire spread further, he could hear the numbing screams of his family as the roar of the flames rose. Something in Harry's mind now realized that this wasn't just a one-size-fits-all solution to the Dursley's Harry Problem. He pushed at the door to his cupboard and watched it tumble to the floor. The fire had burned the hinges off. Concealing his coughs, Harry scampered out of his room and into the hall. The smoke had blurred the world, and his head was lighter than his feet on the burning tiles. Soon after, the world began shaking, and he no longer knew what was what. There was nothing but fire and smoke.

"You!" His uncle approached him, screaming out profanities as he grabbed Harry by the neck, pulling him up. "This is your doing, freak!" Not a question, but a well-informed statement—the man was foaming at the mouth as if he was demented.

From a distance, his aunt's horse-like voice could be heard. "Vernon! Get this thing off me!"

Vernon still looked like he was going to strangle Harry to death. "I'll deal with you…!"—he looked rabid—"Damn it, Petunia!" He tossed Harry to the floor and stumbled to find his wife somewhere in the kitchen.

Harry caught his breath. His neck was blue now. This was the end, it seemed. He saw his relatives; Petunia was dead, and her husband was on her, smouldering and charred up. Dudley ran out the door, coughing from the smoke he had inhaled. Harry sat on the floor and waited for the inevitable as the fire soon encircled him.

"He's the only one." A buzz of words sprung at him. Harry didn't know what was happening, but it seemed like time had passed since his death. Was he in heaven? "He's awake, sir!"

"Come on, son," another voice said to him. "Are you alright?"

He opened his eyes to see the blurry visage of a policeman staring at him like he was the second coming of Christ. "It's a miracle you survived that hellish place."

Harry turned to see that the house he had grown up in was just cinder now. The officer hummed in intrigue. "Do you have anything to say?"

Were they accusing him of starting the fire? "I didn't—I didn't do this." He was frantic now. "I didn't do it… they just burned and went mad—they weren't like that!" Harry prayed that this explanation would persuade the officer of his innocence.

"Hush, now. It's alright son. I'm just gonna move you to the ambulance, alright?" It was the first time Harry looked to see what he was sitting on. It was a stretcher splayed out on the streets.

All he could do was nod as the stench of death entered his nose. He turned around to see the road slick with red and black splotches of blood. People were mangled on top of each other, most of them he knew from the neighbourhood. Two men in white garbs lifted the stretcher into the ambulance.

The officer wrote something down on his clipboard and walked up to him. "Now that you're all settled, mind if I ask for your name?" His brown gaze was piercing, but it wasn't intimidating Harry.

"Harry… Harry Potter," he said. "The fire, I didn't start it—!"

"Shh, it's all okay, Mr Potter. Harry, may I call you that? We know you didn't start it." The officer had kind eyes. "I don't wish to alarm you, but the whole neighbourhood has gone down," he said.

"I don't get it."

"Except for you." The officer had this wiry smile on his lips as if he was pitying Harry.

"Not even a scratch. We hosed down the house to find a few bodies, including yours." The man paused for a second. "But unlike you, they were char and ash."

"That can't be right…."

"Well, Harry. It did." The officer smiled again. "Now you stay in the ambulance. We're going to take you somewhere safe."

Harry cracked his mouth, then closed it. "Are you sure?"

"Am I sure of what?"

"That it's safe."

The man laughed. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Because you aren't telling me where it is."

The officer patted Harry's legs before squaring his shoulders. "It's better this way, trust me."

Before he knew it, the back doors to the ambulance closed, and it started moving. Harry laid on his back and closed his eyes.

Evening of July 25th, 1991

Nightfall: 9:10 p.m.

―

Fate really had it in for him. It may have been a coincidence the first time, but to be orphaned again was nothing more than a cruel joke.

Two days had passed since the death of his insufferable family—the silent accusation hanging heavy in the air. They'd have died years ago if Harry possessed the power to orchestrate their deaths. But he can't have nice things, can he?

Dudley was the first to go. Young, plump and slow, he didn't die from the fire, but the smoke in his lungs afterwards. Petunia was caught under smouldering debris, coughing, crying and yelling at everything and everyone. Vernon couldn't lift the awning off his wife, his grubby fingers bigger than his muscles. They were nothing but ash when the firefighters arrived.

Yet, it wasn't confined to his family but the entire neighbourhood. May it have been the fire or a knife to the jugular, people were flayed out on the streets, decaying as the rest followed.

In a stroke of luck, whether by the will of the divine or improbable chance, Harry Potter was the sole survivor of the Privet Drive Massacre.

A knock sounded on the door of his new room. Calling it his room seemed a stretch. It was more of a juvenile holding facility for those yet to be proven guilty—a surprising respite for someone like him. It was a shock that he even received a space to stay. Harry had assumed the policemen would ship him off to Long Lartin the first chance they got.

"Mr. Potter?" came the familiar voice of the warden. Before he could reply, the man cracked the door open. He had square spectacles and a bushy-brown moustache crowning his lips as he spoke. "A man is here to see you."

Seeing he had no choice, he swallowed hard and tried to steady his voice. "Okay," Harry said in a meek squall, his voice barely over a whisper. "Let him in."

A tall, dark figure sauntered by the warden and entered without glancing at the man holding the door open. He had slick black hair, a crooked nose, and a permanent frown. He wore a black suit that matched his charcoal eyes.

"Potter," he said. "Quite the mystery, no? You should be dead, yet here you are, breathing the same air as the rest of us."

Harry nodded, not knowing what else to do. For a moment, he had hoped that the man was here to free him. He had heard of cases like this, where criminal children were taken to special facilities to be adequately taken care of. But no criminal child is like Harry. He had killed no one but had the power to do so.

Unlike other children his age, Harry had a secret. A secret that, if revealed, would lead to him being dissected for study.

This man did not look like a caretaker. He looked like a killer. He had the devil in his eyes and a murky, sour tilt to his mouth. Snape clenched his hands in a fist. He was not quite like his uncle but not much like anyone Harry had ever met.

"I don't know why I am alive," Harry said, letting the words settle in. "I don't know how I survived."

The man did not answer. He stepped closer and stared at Harry, his eyes like ice. "You... are not the first to ask those questions, Potter."

"Who are you?" Harry asked.

The man took a step back. He was not a tall man, but he loomed over the room like the shadow of a mountain. "Leave us," he said to the warden. "I will speak with him alone."

The moustached warden nodded and left the room. The door closed behind him with a quiet click. Harry looked up at the towering man, who looked like a soldier. "I am Professor Severus Snape," he said, his voice lulled. "I am the Potions Master at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

A chill shot through Harry. How was this possible? He had been so sure of himself and his place that he was the only one of his kind. But now, right in front of him, stands this embittered man. His gaze was icier than the rain on Harry's back whenever Petunia put him to work in the gardens mid-autumn. And behind it, there was a fire, a wintry fire, that told a deeper story.

"I'm not sure I believe you," Harry said. This was all some kind of joke. It had to be.

"Don't you?" Snape asked. "Tell me, Potter, have you ever experienced something in your life that you could not explain? A feeling that you could not put into words?" He let his words sink in. "When you were certain you were not imagining it?"

Of course he had. He had done more than what was necessary. But the feeling of uncertainty was something he had always struggled with. "I don't know what you mean," Harry said, his eyes narrowing.

Snape had intrigue etched upon his face now. "Truly?" he asked, his eyes glinting with anything but amusement. "Do not fret, Potter. I will not hold it against you. In fact, I may have a proposition for you."

Harry didn't know what to expect, but he nodded. Snape pulled out an envelope from his chest pocket. A far too small patch of cloth to conceal a letter that big. He slid it across the table next to Harry. Harry stared at the envelope, unsure of what to do.

"What is this?" he asked, unsure what to make of the envelope.

"Open it," Snape replied, his voice low and commanding.

"You expect me to believe I am some kind of witch?"

"Is that how you wish to be referred?"

"No. Of course not. Why is it I'm not green and covered in boils, then?"

"Muggles perceive wizardry in a negative light. They see us as fabricated creatures. I am sure you do not see yourself that way."

Harry picked up the envelope and opened it. Inside, he found a letter with a wax seal and a crest. It depicted a lion, a snake, a badger, and an eagle inundating a large letter H. He carefully unfurled the letter, its delicate paper crackling in his hands.

Harry's mind veered in the quietness of his reading, forming a haphazard idea.

"I still don't believe you." Harry moved his gaze up to the man's eyes. Those gloom-bearing eyes of coal stared back at him in what felt like a challenge. "What are you hiding from me, Professor?"

"Actually, I believe you already knew of these powers… oh, you know them well." Snape snorted, so much so that his mocking frown almost resembled a grin. "It is quite amusing how you are attempting and failing to pry into my mind, Potter. Perhaps I have misjudged you." He pushed Harry out in a savage assault of energy. "A meagre viper striking at a mamba, thinking it to be cattle."

"I didn't do any of that. I can't even do magic. It just happens out of the blue."

"Ah yes, accidental magic. I will tell you right here, Potter, magic is never accidental, behind every spell is intent. You sought to read into my thoughts. I am a natural Occlumens, my mind is a fortress that even… it does not matter. You would do well to heed my words." Snape's face contorted, resembling the sour taste of a lemon. "You are not safe in either the muggle world or in the magical one. The one place you will be safe is at Hogwarts, where the professors can look after you."

Harry adjusted his posture and sat up straight on his bed. "What makes me so special?"

"Why? Because you are a celebrity. People have been worshipping you like a God since the defeat of the Dark Lord."

"Are the Dursleys dead because of this Dark Lord?"

"Perhaps." Snape crossed his arms. "But you need not worry about him. He is gone because of you."

"So they want to avenge him?" Harry asked. "By killing me?"

"Would you not want to maim the ones responsible for your family's death?" Snape met his gaze once again.

"Yes," he said, the lie slipping through his teeth. He was over the moon. Someone had burned his oppressors to ash and dust. Whomever this Dark Lord was, he did Harry a great favour. "I need my revenge. Where can I find the people who did this?"

"I was not speaking of your muggle relatives. Your birth parents, Potter. Their selflessness led them to give up their lives in order to keep you from harm's reach. The night of October thirty-first, nineteen-eighty-one, the Dark Lord came to Godric's Hollow. The only survivor of the attack was a lonely child, unharmed except for a lightning bolt scar tainting his forehead."

A familiar pang of discomfort caused Harry to raise his hand and gingerly press his fingers against his scar. "Me."

"You, Potter, are a wizard. Not just any wizard, you are the only one in history to survive the killing curse... and the save the wizarding world while doing so."

"Will you take me out of here? I can't just live in this hellhole for the rest of my life."

"Don't be crude, Potter. You have a hit on your head, everyone wants to lay a finger in your fortune. We—Hogwarts—will do everything to protect you from those who wish to exploit you."

"So you'll give me a place to stay?" Harry stood up from the cold bed, his knobbly knees nearly giving out from his iron deficiency. "Can I hold you to that?" Who was going to protect him when his protectors chose to exploit him?

At some point, he wished this was all a dream. That fate wasn't playing tricks on him; he'd wake up soon.

Snape glared at him, extending a long tree branch of an arm to him. "Come with me and find out."

There was no confusion in Harry's mind that this was far from being a dream.

Even though he never wanted to explore this part of his life, the opportunity had arrived.

He had to adjust to the fact that his reality had drastically changed.

There was no way around it; he had to fight for it.

Even if it leads to spilt blood.

The sigh that escaped Harry's lips was the most agonizing he had ever felt. He grasped the man's hand, only to feel his body shifting in and out of existence within a second.

Hey, it's me again. :)

This chapter has now been revised with more stuff added to it. This is not the final version, and I will add more to it over time to fix up other things I might find. This fic does not have a specific upload schedule, so the time between updates can range over varying amounts of time.

Thanks so much for reading! ❤️❤️