I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER OR ANY OF THE CHARACTERS IN THIS FANFICTION. ALL RIGHT GO TO J.K. ROWLING

-August 1989-

Petunia looked at the brat, checking he was at least presentable for school, it would not be good for the neighbours to think that it was her fault that he was shabbily dressed, but she had given him clothes which was more than he deserved. He didn't even act thankful, the ungrateful welp.

He was a freak, just like her sister and that husband of hers. Speaking of the husband, Jack or whatever his freakish name was, he had come over about once a month for a quarter of the year after they had first taken custody of the brat, soon however, his visits became less frequent and soon were replaced by letters which also became less and less frequent. Delivered by beastly owls of all things, those freaks were backwards in every sense of the word; they would always wait on her new granite kitchen tops until she wrote a reply which now consisted of, "Yes, he's fine – Petunia."

That was all that was asked and that was all that she said. The last letter came about a year and a half ago, so they were not expecting anymore letters. It seemed the freak clearly did not care that much about his wretch of a child.

The old man, the one with the horrible dress sense and that ghastly long beard, had told them all about the war his sister died to end. He claimed that by taking Harry into their homes that they would be safe and protected in case one of those freaks decided to attack them. The monthly payments they received for housing him certainly helped to sweeten the deal. At least he kept his word about that.

The same old man said that brat could still possibly have those freakish abilities, but that it would be unlikely so when the boy started using that freakish power of his, Vernon and herself decided to try and get rid of them.

He was moved to the cupboard under the stairs, where he still sleeps till this day. His number of chores was increased, and portion sizes decreased in hopes to starve that freakishness out of him. None of it worked however, when Dudley started physically attacking the brat, she merely turned a blind eye to it. Afterall, when he woke up the next day from the cupboard, he would appear fine, no bruises or cuts or anything that would suggest he was hit so it was not as if the neighbours would see anything amiss or believe him if he told them anything. She had made sure they all thought he was an attention seeking delinquent and if he claimed these things without bruises it would only further that image.

The physical beatings had an effect, the unexplainable things started getting less frequent, but they still happened. Finally, they had a way to reduce the amount of freakishness of the boy. Petunia had a strong suspicion that after these 'incidents' Vernon would tell her sweet little Diddykins to hit the brat more. Of course, they never hit the freak even if she sometimes wanted to. That could draw the unwanted attention of the neighbours but if any of them saw Dudley do it, they would just assume that they were play fighting.

"Boy, you better behave yourself, I don't want to hear any reports of your misbehaving!" Vernon told the freak sternly, who just nodded mutely in return. "Good, and Dudley," Vernon's voice got softer as he turned to face his son, "Remember what I said, charm the teachers and they will turn a blind eye, and deny everything"

Dudley's face morphed into a grin as he nodded his head, "Yes daddy, I won't get caught." He swore.

"Good, off you two go then" Vernon instructed.

Both boys left for the front door, only for Harry to get slammed into the wall at the side as Dudley wanted to be the first to leave, probably to meet up with his friends, who were all such lovely boys.

The freak on the other hand had no friends, which made perfect sense, no one wants to be friends with such a freak, and it's not as if the brat deserves friends anyway.

"Bye Aunt Petunia, Bye Uncle Vernon," the wretch called out before he closed the door behind him

Harry liked school, well, the idea of school at least. He liked learning about all the different things like, Maths, English, Art, even sometimes a bit of Science. What he did not like were the people. All the other children stayed away from him, scared of Dudley's ire if they befriended him and the teachers were no better. Harry often thought that they were very dismissive of him as well as any problems he came forward with.

He knew that he was smart and so knew that how the Dursleys treated him wasn't right but when he tried to bring it up to one of his teachers, they dismissed it by saying he was being overly dramatic as he looked perfectly healthy and clearly just wanted more attention. Exactly like how his aunt had described him to the school.

Harry thought back to the most recent incident in which a Harry had found himself in trouble with both the other kids as well as his teachers.

Dudley and the rest of his gang were playing 'Harry Hunting' and Harry was tripped up by Polkiss, landing on the concrete playground floor. Pain erupted from Harry's wrist as a scream ripped through his throat. He had tried to put pressure on his wrist to push himself up, that evidently failed. He used his other hand and looked at the wrist to see it was limply hanging there. As soon as he was on his feet, another of Dudleys gang, Dennis this time, shoved Harry into the metal climbing frame.

Harry didn't remember much until he woke up and heard his teacher in the playground calling out his name. He was over at the back of the playground where there were some trees and bushes concealing him from view. He pushed himself off the dirt and brushed the dirt and leaves off of him. He left the greenery and headed towards the voice and called out, "Miss Kerr, I think I hurt my wrist.

"There you are, where were you hiding?" she asked sternly.

"I wasn't hiding Miss; I ran into climbing frame then woke up over there." He pointed to the knew that snitching in Dudley and his mates didn't help him and it got him into even more bother with them when they found out he had tried to report them.

"Mmmhmm," she hummed, clearly not believing him, "And what is this about your wrist, it looks fine to me."

Harry looked down at his wrist to see it no longer hanging loosely, instead it seemed to be as it was that morning. Harry knew that wasn't normal, well, not normal for anyone else. "Um, it's just a bit stingy."

"Okay, well, why were you hiding in the bushes and not going to class."

"I wasn't hiding Miss, please believe me."

"Well, until you tell me why you were hiding in the bush, you are going to spend your lunchtimes inside."

"Okay Miss," Harry said defeatedly. He knew there was no point in arguing, all the teachers seemed to never believe anything he said.

He had spent the rest of the month's lunches inside after that before his teacher finally allowed him back outside. If anything, Harry preferred being inside as it meant that Dudley and his gang could not chase him.

However, when he was told to back to the playground, Dudley's gang seemed to leave him alone. Harry knew why, they thought when he had hit his head, they had killed him, and so were terrified that they would do it again. The fact that his wrist miraculously recovered only scared them off further.

The reprieve lasted about 2 weeks before they were back to playing 'Harry Hunting.' After all, how else would they spend their lunch times unless it was playing their favourite game.

That was what was happening right now, Harry was running away from Dudley and Dennis, he didn't know where the other two were, but it didn't matter. He ran over to the bushes; they could give him some obstacles to hide behind.

Harry ran into the opening that he had walked out of months ago, only to turn right and head into the denser area. He grabbed onto one of the branches over his head, he pulled himself up and swung his legs over one of the bushes in front of him. Dudley was too stupid to see where he had gone, and him and all his friends were too heavy for the branch to support their weight.

What Harry did not expect though was them to just physically kick the bush and its branches until it gave way. He must have been too slow as the must have seen him swing over the bushes. Dudley and his friends were only nine and so were not that strong, but the bushes were not that sturdy either and they would give way eventually.

'I need to get out of here,' Harry thought as he knew no teachers would see them doing anything so they could be a lot more merciless here. He had taken a gamble and it clearly had not paid off. He closed his eyes. 'I really, really need to get out of here.' He repeated it over and over until he felt his body be squeezed as if he was being stuffed into a pipe. He thought that was odd, why would Dudley give him a hug? He would have punched or kicked him, not show him a sign of affection. He also felt really, really tired, almost as if he had just ran around the playground 10 times without stopping. His legs and arms felt heavy, and he was ready to collapse onto the dirt beneath him.

Harry slowly opened one of his eyes and saw he was not surrounded by greenery like he expected. Instead, he saw the sky and the tops of buildings. He frowned and the shock of being on a roof made his legs give way and he crumpled to the ground. How the hell was he on the roof of a building. He pulled himself over to the edge and peered down only to see the playground.

Odd things always seemed to happen around Harry, and he was well aware of it. He tried to bring it up to his Uncle and Aunt but any time he even mentioned it he was quickly shoved into the cupboard without any food, so he just avoided the topic for now, but after this he didn't think he would be able to. How on earth had he managed to teleport to the roof? Maybe he was a freak, just like his uncle and aunt told him. How else did someone explain literal teleportation.

He had read somewhere that you couldn't feel pain in a dream and so he pinched the back of his hand. He felt the pain so he knew he must be in the real world. That was when he saw a drop of blood fall from his palm and onto the roof. Harry turned his palm over to see that lightning scar bleeding. He had always wondered what that scar was. It was constantly ugly and inflamed, his Uncle and Aunt had said it was from the accident that killed his parents. He had never seen it bleed; normal scars didn't do that. Maybe the scar was the reason he could do these odd things and when they happened the scar would bleed. That didn't make sense though as it hadn't bled before. Maybe when he used a lot of the power it would bleed. It would make much more sense that somehow teleporting used up more of this power than turning a teachers hair blue.

When Harry got home Uncle Vernon was furious. "The bloody fire department and everything. Do you know how this makes us look boy? It makes us look bad," Vernon always seemed to talk down to his as if he couldn't understand English, "I cannot believe the number of issues we have had after agreeing to take you in, bloody freak just like your parents." By the end of the rant Vernon was an incredibly shade of purple. He looked back over towards Harry, "Well brat, what are you looking at, go to your cupboard!"

Harry knew when to avoid his Uncle, and he had never known a time more essential than right now. He quickly darted to the cupboard and closed it behind him. He heard Vernon lock it, so he was trapped inside. Well, guess he will go to sleep hungry. It was sadly a familiar feeling for him. He looked around the cupboard, the single mattress on the floor, the small tiny shelves that had a few plastic figurines he had stolen from Dudley. There was even a spider web in one corner of the room but he had never seen the spider, nor did he particularly want to.

He pondered over what his uncle had said, "freak just like your parents," maybe his parents also had this power. Did they also have scars? If so where they all on their hands? If not then what was his scar? Were all scars lightning bolt shaped? He had so many questions but he knew asking them would just place him in even more trouble.

As it was the middle of August, it was still quite warm and to make it even worse, the boiler was right below the cupboard so he knew when all the Dursleys took their evening shower, he would bake in the cupboard as the heat would rise through the floorboards and turn his cupboard into essentially a sauna.

Halfway through the second shower, Harry wished his prediction hadn't been quite so accurate as the sweat was literally dripping off of Harry. He desperately wanted to escape the all-encompassing heat, he had already taken his top, shoes and socks off. He was now just sitting on his mattress in just his shorts. The desire to cool down, or escape the heat was consuming his every thought until he heard a click from outside his cupboard.

Harry's heart started racing as he reached out with his hand to give the door a small push. The door opened silently, and Harry's eyes were as wide as saucepans. It was like he had just performed magic. No, not like he had, he had definitely performed magic. For the second time today! This must have been a dream. Magic wasn't real, his uncle and aunt would take every opportunity to remind him of that fact. He pinched himself like he had earlier today, he was awake.

He pushed the door so it opened slightly further and took an experimental step out of the cupboard. He creeped his way over to the kitchen. The more he thought about it the more it seemed clear that his Uncle and Aunt must have known about his magic. Why else would they avoid any questions related to it? They had always said that he was a freak, but maybe being a freak wasn't a bad thing. He was going to prove that being a freak wasn't a bad thing, and one day the Dursleys would regret being so mean to him.

He opened the bread bin and took out a loaf, he made his way over to the fridge. He opened it up and took every ingredient he could think of out of it, ham, cheese, chicken, lettuce, tomatoes. Everything Harry liked he took out. He stacked it all up onto a piece of bread and topped it with another. He looked towards the knife block and picked out the biggest knife he could find, using it he cut the sandwich he had made. It was the biggest sandwich he had ever seen!

As he was cutting it however, he accidentally pricked himself on the thumb with the edge. It stung but compared to what Dudley put him through it was nothing. Harry put the knife down and focused on the red dot forming on the tip of his thumb. He focused on healing it and making the cut close itself. Nothing was happening so he focused harder. Still nothing.

Eventually, after about 2 minutes, he gave up and licked the blood from his finger. He was too hungry to put off eating his masterpiece any longer. He took it in his hands and took one big bite out of it. It was delicious.

Thuds of a fist against the door rang out through the cupboard, that was weird, normally they just shouted at him to get up. Harry put his glasses on.

He left the cupboard only to be met with a face the colour of a grape. "HOW DARE YOU UNLOCK YOUR CUPBOARD YOU INSOLENT BRAT!" Vernon bellowed.

Harry was taken aback by the incredible volume that his Uncle was able to shout at. "Um, I didn't unlock my cupboard Uncle Vernon, maybe you forgot to lock it last night." Harry suggested helpfully.

"Don't you dare take that tone with me boy, you are going to be doing chores all of today, I don't care how many we give you, you WILL complete all of them and then, ONLY THEN, will you be allowed back in your cupboard. Understood?"

Harry just nodded. He could he be such an idiot that he forgot to re-lock the cupboard. Of course Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would think that is suspicious.

Vernon huffed off and went through to the kitchen until he got halfway and turned back to Harry and said, "Actually brat, u can cook me my breakfast." He turned around and turned into the dining room. His voice then sounded out again, "Well, what are you waiting for. Oh, also make me my coffee boy!"

The entire day was spent outside tending to the garden. The only interesting thing that happened the whole day was when he saw a grass snake slithering through the flowers in Aunt Petunia's flowerbed.

"Hello, are you stuck out here in the sun as well?" Harry asked the snake. The snake evidently didn't hear him and just kept slithering through the flowerbeds until it was out of view. Harry was so desperate for a friend that he was even trying to befriend snakes now. God, he was a freak just like his Uncle and Aunt kept reminding him.

'No,' Harry told himself, 'Being a freak isn't bad, I will show them just how good it can be'.

Over the next couple of months, Harry kept experimenting with his magic, he couldn't actually do anything. Maybe the freakishness his Uncle and Aunt were talking about was not the magic and the fact that he obviously was hallucinating.

He had even read a book called 'Matilda' which had a young girl who could do magic. He had tried to do the same thing as her but nothing seemed to work. The more time that past, the more Harry thought the entire experience was some weird dream brought on by the heat in the cupboard.

It was now Winter and Vernon, being as stingy with his money as anyone could be, refused to put the heating on during the nights so Harry was constantly cold. They had had their showers hours ago so the heat from the boiler was now non-existent. The rest of the house's beds had some of the warmest duvets that Uncle Vernon could buy, a 'long time investment' was his excuse for spending the money on them. Even Dudley's second bedroom had them!

A single blanket was all that Harry had to keep him warm. It didn't help at all. He was so cold he could feel himself shivering. He needed warmth, he had already had an awful sleep yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and the day before… you get the idea. He needed just a crumb of warmth and the sleep he would get would be the best in the last month. Suddenly, heat was spreading throughout Harry's body like a wildfire. He looked down to see wisps of blue fire dancing along his hand.

Harry thought he must have been hallucinating again, fire wasn't blue. But then again, he shouldn't be able to teleport nor unlock his door from the inside. At this point however, Harry didn't really care about if the fire was real or not. It felt real and that's what mattered to Harry, he felt the warmth reach all the way from his fingertips to his toes. It was such a pleasant feeling that he fell backwards onto his mattress and closed his eyes.

Not even 5 seconds later he shot up, eyes wide in panic. It was fire and fire burns things. However, when he looked around his cupboard, nothing was on fire and the flames that previously danced around his hand had disappeared, but the warmth had remained. He lay back down on his mattress and drifted off into the most pleasant sleep he could remember.

It had been almost a year since he had ended up on the school roof and he had made a massive discovery about his powers which he was now certain was real life magic! To use it he had to really mean it, with everything he had, every fibre of his being had to desire for something to happen and then, only then, would the magic happen. Of course, somethings didn't work. He couldn't get the Dursleys to like him more or he couldn't make money appear out of thin air, but small things like unlocking and re-locking his cupboard. He had learned to do that the hard way.

Once he had discovered this he had gone back and reread 'Matilda' and started trying to copy her. At first it didn't work, but after about a week he saw the glass of water he was trying to push shake slightly. That evening Harry went to sleep with the biggest grin plastered all over his face. 'If he is a freak, he would be the best freak in the world.' He remembered thinking as he drifted off into the realm of dreams.

Once he could consistently push things over, he tried to start lifting things in the air without touching them. He started with a one of his plastic figurines in his cupboard, but by the end of the week all he had was it hover less than a centimetre above the shelf. However, it was progress and that was what mattered to Harry.

The Dursleys were still none the wiser about Harry's practice and that was just the way he liked it.

Harry had practiced every evening and by the end of June he could levitate 5 figurines at the same time and if he focused on a single figure, he could make him move around in the air. It was very tiring. He did find out however that the more you perform a certain piece of magic, it becomes easier and easier. He could now unlock and lock his cupboard with only a slight thought.

-24 July 1991-

Harry was incredibly proud of how his magic was progressing. He could now levitate his mattress for at least 30 seconds before he had to drop it. He was very impressed with himself.

His school life still wasn't great however, he had tried to use his magic to subtlety attack back at Dudley and his gang, but it did not work at all, and the teachers were still as negligent as ever. He had spent the last 2 years learning and practicing his magic and no adult knew about it as if they did they would make him stop. Or take him to the government. Or maybe even kill him for being able to use magic, he had heard of the witch hunts and he would be lying if he didn't say they scared him. He didn't trust that any of them would help him or keep his secret

Harry had also discovered that if he wanted to burn something, his blue fire would turn red and then it would start to burn things. Harry thought back to how he learnt that.

It was 11pm and everyone in the house was asleep. Apparently he hadn't done a very good job with his chores today as he was forced to bed without any dinner that day. That was why he had gone to make another masterpiece, more well known as a sandwich, but he had saw a brand new type of sandwich called a toastie and he wanted to try and make one. The only issue was that he couldn't turn anything on or his Uncle would hear and that would be a very bad thing indeed.

He knew fire could burn things, but his fire wasn't normal fire, it didn't burn anything. He had conducted countless experiments to confirm that as fact, but Harry now knew a bit about how to control his magic, so he wondered if he wanted the fire to burn things, would the fire be able to burn things?

Harry summoned his fire, which started circling his hands in a familiar pattern. When Harry wished for the fire to be able to burn, he saw the blue flames move into a single ball above his palm and turn bright red. He could see the deep orange colour at the centre of it burning away. It looked like a miniature sun he could hold in his hands.

The bright light caused Harry to lose focus and suddenly he dropped his sandwich and the flame extinguished. He had also taken a step back and hit the wall causing the picture frames to shake.

He knew that his Uncle had probably heard the bang and would come downstairs to investigate. He also knew that if he was found he would be in so much trouble he wouldn't be able to leave the cupboard unsupervised for at least a month, probably more.

He screwed his eyes shut and desperately wished for everything to go back as it was. Suddenly a wave of exhaustion hit him and he nearly fell to the ground, only stabilising himself on the wall. He opened his eyes to see everything he had been using fly back to where it was from.

Time was not on his side as he knew Uncle Vernon will have heard that. He suddenly he felt a sharp pain from his right hand. He had higher priories than that now. He darted down the hallway back into his cupboard. He had gotten used to re-locking the door from the inside so his Uncle and Aunt wouldn't get suspicious.

Suddenly he heard the loud footsteps and the under the breath murmuring of Uncle Vernon. He heard the footsteps pass the cupboard and into the kitchen where they paused only to come back the other way.

Once they passed Harry let out a sigh of relief and finally looked down at his right palm. His scar was bleeding again. How odd. Maybe using so much of his magic to tidy up had caused the scar to bleed again. That was probably it.

He looked at his scar, something was different about it but he couldn't work out what it was. He kept looking at it, it looked as if it had grown. It now was no longer just on his palm; it had started to spread down onto the pad of his hand. He knew his scar was not ordinary, but this just made it even more confusing.

Harry heard a knock at the door that brought him out of his memories.

He walked over to it and opened it to see a women standing in a dark green robe, covering her from head to toe. She was wearing a hat that could only be described as a witches hat. She had dark gray hair that he could see from where the hat wasn't covering. he looked up to see a stern expression on her face. He already did not like her. She looked too serious and gave him the impression of a teacher, and he didn't exactly have the greatest relationships with his teachers.

She down looked at Harry and her eyes went wide in surprise and her mouth opened slightly, her entire face softened, and she no longer looked so serious. She coughed slightly then asked, "Are you Mr. H. Potter?" She had a clear Scottish accent and Harry was wondering what she wanted to do with him.

He nodded his head, "Then I have something to give you," she said as she handed him an envelope that said:

Mr. H. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

Authors Note

Just in case there are any children reading this and do not know, blue fire is a thing and is in fact incredibly hot. Do not touch it or you will get burned.

Harry clearly doesn't trust people easily, especially adults who seem to have just let him down time and time again. He doesn't get along with most kids either so how will he fit in at Hogwarts?

Also, Harry isn't a parselmouth, or is he?

And again, any reviews are welcome