A young boy slept in a small cupboard which itself sat under a set of stairs in a quaint little house in suburban Surrey. He was small for his age and had raven black hair, a thin face and most curiously a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt.
To the young boy this seemed to be the only thing that made him different from the other boys, that and...
"Wake up!" loud banging and shouting came from above, startling the young sleeping child. Sitting up too quickly resulted in him hitting his head on one of the steps as dust, spiders and cobwebs fell about his tiny room. "Freak wake up, it's my birthday and I want breakfast." the same voice screamed out making sure to be as loud as possible.
This young child groaned and started to crawl his way out of his small room only to be rudely shoved back in just before he cleared the threshold of his cupboard. The person who had pushed him laughed like a lunatic thinking that what they had done was supremely clever.
Freak or as he was known to the outside world as Harry Potter, shuffled his way into the kitchen to begin preparing the breakfast for his cousin's enormous breakfast feast, which would have been bad enough but he still had to ensure that his aunt and uncle also received food before he could even think of asking for some himself. And on such a 'special' occasion as this, Harry was certain he'd be at the stove making mountains of pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausages and toast for quite a while.
Harry had always done his best to try and tune out his relatives, responding on instinct to sounds and not words with them. He found that ultimately everything they said resulted in the same thing. Cook, clean, keep quiet, stay out of the way, no freakishness, the list went on of things that Harry had to do, but very little in the way of what he was allowed to do.
While normal parents and guardians would at least treat children who were related to them with some sort of dignity, the Dursley's preferred a different mentality. He was abnormal and thus was not to be treated like a person. At most he was an unpaid servant who, as they told him over and over, how grateful he should be that they had taken him in at all. It made Harry wonder at times why they simply had not left him at an orphanage, surely underpaid, overworked, strung out caretakers would be kinder to him. He was of the mind that some of those people on the news who were in trouble for doing terrible things to children might not have been too bad, after all in some way those weirdos loved children.
He never knew why he was abnormal, just that on occasion strange things would happen around him. He never knew how to explain it, but after the first couple of times saying that it must have been magic got him quite a thrashing from his uncle he definitely knew what not to say it was.
However unknown to him, things would begin to change in Harry Potter's life and not in ways he would have ever foreseen.
Keeping his feet pattering at a quickened pace to match the lengthier stride of the quite large woman leading him down the road Harry still had so many questions. "Um Ms. Hagrid?" Harry nervously asked the woman he had seen bend the barrel of his uncle's rifle rendering the weapon inoperable.
"Yes Harry," Hagrid grunted and leaned down to be closer to the young lad she was escorting to the Leaky Cauldron.
"You said I was a wizard, but um, what exactly does that mean?" Harry inquired in the hopes of learning more about the lady he had run off with.
Hagrid stood up to her full impressive height and began to laugh heartily. "Instead of telling you, how about I show you," she said, nudging her charge into the dusty bar. "Morning Tamsin," the half-giantess happily greeted the bartender behind the counter.
"Hagrid, always a pleasure," the lady who Hagrid had spoken nodded while rubbing a cloth into a glass to clean it. "Here for a pick me up?"
"No no," Hagrid shook her head, then paused to think for a moment. "Well… no, sorry Dumbledore has me on official Hogwarts business you see. I have to take young Harry here to get his school supplies." Patting the boy next to her lightly, for her.
For Harry it took all of his strength to not crumple to the floor in a heap from the heavy force of the woman's affectionate gesture. After regaining his balance however he noticed that the entire bar which had previously been filled with conversation was deathly quiet.
"You are, bless my soul," Tamsin gasped out and dropped the glass she was working on, the mug shattering on the floor of her bar. "You're Harry Potter."
Within moments Harry had been swarmed by patrons who all were grabbing at him, shaking his hand and thanking him profusely. To the eleven year old boy that was quite frightening. But after a few seconds he realized that everyone was smiling and greeting him, not attacking. He had no clue as to why these witches, if he was using the term properly, were being so kind to him but he graciously returned the hand shakes and thanked them back all the same. After a minute though Hagrid started to push Harry along. "Sorry ladies, need to get him into the alley, Gringotts won't stay open all day, not even for him."
Hagrid's comment earned a few chuckles and even though the process was slow going as many of the ladies wanted to get in a few more touches and comments they all waved him goodbye. That left quite an impression on Harry because that was the warmest reception he'd ever received before, and from complete strangers no less.
"Wow Hagrid, is everyone in the magical world so nice?" Harry said with a goofy grin from the earlier interaction.
Hagrid had half a mind to tell the excited young boy that no, not everyone was nice as there were some really nasty people in the magical world but that it wouldn't really be appropriate to sit down with an eleven year old and tell them of the dark side of society. "For the most part Harry." Hagrid finally stated before hurrying to push the bricks that would open the alley up.
"Woah," Harry gasped out upon seeing Diagon Alley. A bustling marketplace where people in robes moved from store to store.
If Harry was more cultured to the magical world he was entering the fact that he only saw women and young ladies walking around might have tipped him off as to the importance of this information but as the only times that he really got out of the Dursley household other than for school and chores was to go along with his aunt to do grocery shopping and he tended to only see other housewives there, this didn't stick in his head that something was off.
The only thing he really noticed was that as Hagrid walked him down the road he would be smiled at and pointed to. In the desperate hopes of fitting in Harry always smiled and waved back to everyone that he could. He didn't want to seem rude to these nice people.
"Look at you working a crowd already," Hagrid chuckled as she held open the large door of the bank for Harry to slip in underneath her arm.
Harry would have tried to be the gentleman and hold it for Hagrid but the door was quite large and before he could even push on it Hagrid's much longer reach had moved it for him. "I'm just trying to be polite, everyone here is so nice Hagrid. Just like you, thank you for holding the door for me." Harry nodded to his minder.
"Well you know, Lords first and all that," Hagrid smiled and rubbed a finger under her nose.
Chuckling at what he saw to be a fun little play on words, Harry turned his attention to the lobby, which was full of long lines of witches standing around to be served by tellers. "Wow it looks really busy," Harry muttered imagining how long this would take to even get to a counter. His few experiences waiting with Uncle Vernon at the bank told him that even just one person could take a while to get served. "Do we really have time Hagrid?"
Hagrid ruffled Harry's unruly locks and smiled down at him. "Course we do, there's always a teller available if you know who to talk to." The giantess promised while striding down the lobby and headed towards the much taller podium in front of a large gate. "Greetings goblin, one Mr. Harry Potter to see his vault," motioning towards the wide-eyed boy who was petrified that Hagrid had seemingly skipped all the other lines.
He was frantically looking around expecting the ladies who had been waiting for much longer than he had to shout and tell him to go to the back of the line and yet… all he saw were smiles, some waves and a few of the younger girls would giggle at him. Slowly he raised his hand to give a small wave in return but that only served to have more giggles and squeals which simply confused him. So much that Harry missed the second half of Hagrid's conversation with the goblin.
"My parents left me all of this?" Harry gulped seeing the stacks of coins in the vault.
"Course, your mum was brilliant, she made sure there were strong investments and after they um, you know," Hagrid ran a finger along her neck. "Everything became yours, some of the properties were liquidated as per the law." Rambling on the explanation that was already going over the child's head, he had no idea what liquidated assets were or return on investment meant.
Patting Hagrid on the thigh to get her attention the half-giant looked around a blushed. "Sorry about that, got a bit carried away," coughing into her fist. "Anyway, since you're the only one left of your family everything became yours and your mum set up plans so that you wouldn't have problems paying for your schooling."
Seeing the vast amount of coins in all shades of bronze, silver and gold Harry was grateful to have such thoughtful parents, but a part of him would have traded every single coin just to have his parents back, even for a day. Heck he would gladly give it all up for five minutes. But that wasn't an option was it.
After securing a pouch of his coins, Harry was brought deeper into the bank where Hagrid retrieved something else, without knowing anything about it Harry put it out of his mind. Once they finished their business at Gringotts Harry looked over the alley and all the opportunities it held now that he had money to spend. "So what do we do first?"
"Well I'd say," Hagrid gulped before finally relenting on the proper way to do this. "We get you your robes. Hopefully it wouldn't be too hard since they tend to be plain for now." Grateful that she wasn't having to take Harry along on a shopping spree for a new wardrobe. Wizards tended to be really picky about their clothes and that could result in her waiting all day on Harry, even for a simple set of first year Hogwarts robes.
The young wizard nodded and walked with his escort to Madame Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. Entering the shop Harry saw that there weren't too many people, mostly some mothers who were watching their daughters get measured for their robes. Internally Harry thought that all the other boys had hurried through this to get whatever looked like it fit and ran out to go look at brooms or what have you.
"Another one for Hogwarts?" the witch at the counter asked when she saw Hagrid.
The groundskeeper nodded. "Yup, for Mr. Potter here," pushing Harry towards the counter and slyly stepping away.
"Oh hello there," the clerk said while clearly trying to hide a change in tone and body language, but even with his limited experience Harry could see the difference. How she had shifted to seem more alert, as if this was really important to look her best.
"Good afternoon," Harry bowed his head slightly. "I can see you're busy," looking over to the girls who would get on and off the podium after just a minute or so.
"It's not too busy for you," the clerk said while moving Harry to a place that had just opened up. "Course you'll be here for some time so we might as well get started now."
Harry wasn't sure why the lady thought he would take a lot of time. Looking down at his hand me downs from Dudley he frowned and considered that maybe she was right about him taking longer since what he was wearing was ill fitting and tattered.
"We'll just need to get your measurements of course," the lady said with a gleam in her eye as the magical tape began to wrap around Harry's body at different locations and angles. "So what will it be, wing tipped, semi spread, eyelet, hidden, button down?"
"Um, what?" Harry questioned what he was being asked.
"The collars," the clerk reiterated.
"Maybe you want an Italian spread rather than a British, or do you prefer mandarin, castaway, castaway two button?" Giving more options that Harry had no idea what they were for.
"Just um, regular I guess," Harry shrugged before feeling the tape wrap up under his armpits.
The clerk rolled her eyes, this wouldn't be the first wizard who was indecisive that this store served. "We'll come back to that then, for fabric do you want silk, poly cotton, cashmere, chiffon, taffeta-"
"I don't know, just robes, sorry I'm new to all this," Harry quickly interjected because all of this was going over his head. "Couldn't I just pick a few things off the rack?"
"The- off the-," the clerk gasped and looked around horrified. "What am I doing wrong mesir?"
A shock of panic ran through Harry thinking that he had offended the witch based on how she reacted to his request. "No no, you didn't do anything wrong," He blurted out looking around the room and seeing that the other women looked aghast at what was happening. "Please, we can go back to your options, whatever you think is nice." Harry put on a smile and forced himself back into the pose to let the tape do whatever it is it did. "I'm sure it will look great."
The clerk bit her bottom lip and carefully stepped around Harry while sizing him up. "I guess a tab collar with rayon challis fabric, it would help make you stand out, not that you don't." she quickly added on. "But it's not as common and I know how you boys are."
"So it cleans easily?" Harry inquired as he would like to have clothes that he could have for a bit longer than the hand-me-downs from Dudley and still look presentable.
"We can put our best cleaning charms into the fabric, don't you worry Mr. Potter." The clerk promised before moving the measuring tape down then taking a large step back from him while it ran around his legs and groin.
Hoping to avoid any more problems Harry chose options at random that the clerk had presented him with. By the end he couldn't even remember what he had said yes too he just didn't want the friendly witches to look over at him like that again. This also served the purpose of getting him and Hagrid out of the shop in what the half-giantess was calling a record setting time.
For Harry that meant he had taken far too long because he didn't know the first thing about fashion so had no idea what was being asked of him. He just hoped that he didn't look too ridiculous when his robes would be ready, which he was told they would be owled to him once they were properly tailored. Which he found confusing since the girls were just picking theirs from the racks and shelves after getting measured.
The next location was a wand. "Olivanders, the best and well only place to get a wand." Hagrid said while opening the door for Harry, once again before he had a chance to do the same for her.
Harry vowed to get the next one. Before his vision was filled by that of a slightly deranged looking man, it would only dawn on Harry much later that this would be the only wizard he had seen all day. But with how quickly the wand maker had begun talking about wands and getting one after the other in his hand it simply slipped his mind. But finally he had one and also learned a bit of history. That the man who killed his parents and had given him his scar had a wand that was the sister to his.
Before he could so much as gather himself from that quite personal information Hagrid had him outside and was presenting something to him, an owl. A snowy white owl that Hagrid had purchased for him. "You're always going to need a good owl and I'm sure she'll do the job."
"Wow, thanks Hagrid," Harry smiled and accepted the gift, he'd never gotten a gift before that wasn't socks or more chores. So he knew he would have to treasure this one for as long as he could.
After giving the owl a name that the bird seemed to like, Harry knew he needed to get his books next, but to his dismay the chance to get the door for the tall woman was stolen from him because the bookstore had just propped their door open since people were coming in and out so frequently. "Next time," Harry swore that he would open one door for Hagrid today.
Getting a trunk was a failure, the large box necessitated that he use both his hands to carry which prevented him from being the one to open the door. The apothecary that stocked him up on potion supplies had so many ingredients that Hagrid said she needed to wait outside or else her eyes would start watering. Not having yet memorized the pattern for the wall separating the alley from the bar, Harry relented that he would not be opening that door either.
"Harry, you alright there? You seem a little bit glum?" Hagrid asked her charge who sat across the booth from her. Being that it was getting late she had asked if he was getting hungry and considering he hadn't really eaten all that much the last couple of days due to punishments and running all over the country Harry had agreed that food was needed.
"Sorry it's just… nothing Hagrid," he sighed knowing that he had not been able to do the one simple thing he had been trying to do all day. "Don't worry about it."
"Well," Hagrid pursed her lips, on the one hand she knew there was more to the problem and that it was not nothing but on the other, when a wizard said don't worry about it, then maybe they meant it or they might have meant 'ask me about it and try to fix it, but I'm not going to tell you which one it is, that's for you to figure out' which left the large lady in a bit of a predicament. Choosing to err on the first option, Hagrid turned back to her food.
It was only when Harry was getting ready to leave the bar when he saw an opportunity, Hagrid had been held up slightly trying to move around the other patrons who were coming in from finishing their shopping and Harry had gotten closer to the door than she did. Rushing through the crowded bar Harry had made it to the door and stood proudly with it open. "After you," he motioned for Hagrid who looked red in the face and muttered something under her breath that he didn't quite catch. But he would take this small victory for what it was.
After Hagrid had dropped him off at the Dursley house she produced a train ticket with information on it that Harry found interesting since it listed how to get onto the platform. Quite a silly situation that required him to step into a solid wall but with magic now being real, Harry considered that maybe he was the silly one for thinking this was silly.