AN: A fair bit of this chapter is either a summarization of Harry's life up until he goes to Hogwarts (with some minor differences), and then it's much of the Sorting Ceremony taken from Book 1 before it starts finally getting going at the very end.

Chapter 2 (Year 1)

Contrary to what everyone would have believed and hoped, Harry Potter did not grow up loved, knowing about who and what he was and where he came from. In some ways, just as Albus Dumbledore wanted, Harry grew up as normal a boy as he could be, though this was a bit contrary to how he'd been treated.

At best, Harry would have been considered a neglected child. He was never given a single birthday or Christmas gift, while having to watch his cousin receive dozens of gifts on each holiday. Harry never had his own clothes. Everything he wore was a hand-me-down from his cousin, Dudley, despite the massive difference in sizes between them. Harry's glasses were held together with liberal amounts of tape and his relatives refused to replace them or even get him rechecked up to see if his prescription changed at all, and while his cousin was large and overfed, Harry was young and underfed. That's where the extent of being considered neglected ended though.

From there, it had left the realm of neglect and went to abuse. He wasn't just mildly underfed. He had often been extremely underfed, only getting as much food as his relatives felt like giving him, which was always less than a growing boy needed. He'd had an abnormal amount of chores, doing much of the housework while his cousin, aunt, and uncle did only what they felt like doing, which for his uncle and cousin was none. He'd had no friends because his cousin and his gang of friends made sure that nobody would dare approach him. Harry was bullied and beaten by his cousin if he tried to get friendly with anyone and just out of overall enjoyment on his cousin's part. His aunt and uncle generally hadn't laid hands on their nephew, but occasionally after an extremely stressful day, if Harry didn't accomplish all his chores, after a bit of 'freakishness' or if Harry made Dudley look bad in any way, Harry was often smacked around, kicked while he was down, or thrown head first into his cupboard, which he lived in, even though Dursley's had two spare bedrooms not being used, one being Dudley's spare bedroom, and the other being simply a guest room.

No, Harry had not grown up a happy child, often dreaming of an escape from his misfortune, wishing his parents hadn't died and that he could have a real family that actually loved him. He had been resigned to the fact that he would suffer until he turned eighteen at which point he would have been unceremoniously kicked out of his relatives home and left to fend for himself, something that wouldn't be easy considering he wasn't allowed to do well in school.

However, not a few weeks earlier, life had seemingly, finally turned around for him. It had started with weird letters that continued to come in increasingly odder ways as his relatives did their best to keep them away from him. It had culminated when his relatives tried to take him and his cousin away but had ended up being tracked down by the biggest man Harry had ever seen, Hagrid.

Hagrid had opened Harry's eyes to the truth of who and what he was and made his eleventh birthday the best day of his life when he realized that he would be going to Hogwarts to learn magic and would be able to escape his relatives for all except the summers.

Hagrid had then taken him to Diagon Alley for all his shopping, showing him part of the magical world and explaining things as Harry asked about them before finally returning him to the Dursley's to wait out the last month before he would go to Hogwarts.

The month had ended up being one of the best of his life. The Dursleys were terrified of him and thus completely left him alone, which while a bit lonely was a vast improvement to his normal treatment, and now that he had a bedroom instead of the cupboard under the stairs, he was able to read his new textbooks and dote over his gift from Hagrid, a snowy owl he named Hedwig. They'd only finally talked to him when he approached them for a ride to King's Cross Station, which they'd provided being that they already had to go in to London, and as Harry found out, to laugh at him when they dropped him off at the station, but with no idea how to find the correct platform.

Thankfully, he'd overheard a family of redheads talking about Hogwarts, and he'd been able to ask them for help getting onto the platform. From there, he'd got a compartment and met Ron, who was becoming his first friend . . . well his friend his age, since he considered Hagrid a friend. They'd had an enjoyable ride on the train, discussing various things and eating candy, met a timid boy named Neville and a bossy girl named Hermione, and had a run in with a snobbish boy and his two bodyguards named Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, the former of whom Harry had met briefly in Diagon Alley and hadn't liked that time either.

That finally brought Harry to the present. He'd just gotten out of the boats after crossing the lake, having gotten his first glance of the magnificent castle that was Hogwarts, and was now heading up the stairs, following the rest of his yearmates and Hagrid, wondering what was coming next.

Hagrid led them up to the front doors and then knocked three times on the castle's main door.

The door swung open, revealing a tall, black haired witch in emerald green robes. Her stern face told Harry that she was someone not to be crossed.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," Hagrid said.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."

The professor pulled the door wide, allowing them to all file into the large entrance hall. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones he'd seen at Gringotts. They followed her across the stone floor, and Harry could hear the drones of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right of the rest of the school. The rest of his classmates crowded in, standing rather close together, perring about nervously.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history, and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting. I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor McGonagall. "Please wait quietly."

She left the chamber. Harry swallowed.

He could hear his year mates talking about how people were sorted, some saying it was some sort of test. Hermione Granger was whispering very fast about all the spells she'd learned and wondering which one she'd need. Ron wasn't helping him much, muttering about how Fred and George talked about wrestling a troll. Harry kept his eyes fixed on the door. Any second now, Professor McGonagall would come back and lead him to his doom.

Then something happened that made him jump about a foot in the air - several people behind him screamed.

"What the - ?"

He gasped. So did the people around him. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying: "Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance-"

"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost - I say, what are you all doing here?"

A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.

Nobody answered.

"New students!" said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them. "About to be Sorted, I suppose?"

A few people nodded mutely.

"Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" said the Friar. "My old house, you know."

"Move along now," said a sharp voice. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start."

Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.

"Now, form a line," Professor McGonagall told the first years, "and follow me."

Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned to lead, Harry got into line behind a boy with sandy hair, and they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

Harry had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. He heard Hermione whisper, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts, A History."

It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn't simply open on to the heavens.

Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn't have let it in the house.

Maybe they had to try and get a rabbit out of it, Harry thought wildly, that seemed the sort of thing - noticing that everyone in the hall was now staring at the hat, he stared at it, too. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth - and the hat began to sing:

"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,

But don't judge on what you see,

I'll eat myself if you can find

A smarter hat than me.

You can keep your bowlers black,

Your top hats sleek and tall,

For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat

And I can cap them all.

There's nothing hidden in your head

The Sorting Hat can't see,

So try me on and I will tell you

Where you ought to be.

You might belong in Gryffindor,

Where dwell the brave at heart,

Their daring, nerve, and chivalry

Set Gryffindors apart;

You might belong in Hufflepuff,

Where they are just and loyal,

Those patient Hufflepuffs are true

And unafraid of toil;

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, if you've a ready mind,

Where those of wit and learning,

Will always find their kind;

Or perhaps in Slytherin

You'll make your real friends,

Those cunning folk use any means

To achieve their ends.

So put me on! Don't be afraid!

And don't get in a flap!

You're in safe hands (though I have none)

For I'm a Thinking Cap!"

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

Harry felt a sense of relief hit him. Yes, trying on the hat was a lot better than having to do a spell or wrestle a troll, but he did wish they could have tried it on without everyone watching. The hat seemed to be asking rather a lot; Harry didn't feel brave or quick-witted or any of it at the moment. If only the hat had mentioned a house for people who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for him.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott, Hannah!"

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment's pause -

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Harry saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

"Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

The table second from the left clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them.

"Brocklehurst, Mandy" went to Ravenclaw too, but "Brown, Lavender" became the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers; Harry could see Ron's twin brothers catcalling.

"Bulstrode, Millicent" then became a Slytherin.

He was starting to feel definitely sick now. He remembered being picked for teams during gym at his old school. He had always been last to be chosen, not because he was no good, but because no one wanted Dudley to think they liked him.

"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Sometimes, Harry noticed, the hat shouted out the house at once, but at others it took a little while to decide. "Finnigan, Seamus," the sandy-haired boy next to Harry in the line, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.

"Granger, Hermione!"

Hermione almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head.

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat.

A horrible thought struck Harry, as horrible thoughts always do when you're very nervous. What if he wasn't chosen at all? What if he just sat there with the hat over his eyes for ages, until Professor McGonagall jerked it off his head and said there had obviously been a mistake and he'd better get back on the train?

When Neville Longbottom, the boy who kept losing his toad, was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide with Neville. When it finally shouted, "GRYFFINDOR," Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to "MacDougal, Morag."

Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, "SLYTHERIN!"

Malfoy went to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle, looking pleased with himself.

There weren't many people left now. "Moon"..., "Nott"..., "Parkinson"..., then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil"..., then "Perks, Sally-Anne"..., and then, at last -

"Potter, Harry!"

As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

"Potter, did she say?"

"The Harry Potter?"

The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second, he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.

"Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. "Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There's talent, my goodness, yes - and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting... So where shall I put you?"

Harry thought about it for a moment, thinking about what little he'd heard and then finally gripped the edge of thes tool. Not Slytherin.

"Not Slytherin, eh?" said the small voice. "Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that - no? Well, if you're sure - better be GRYFFINDOR!"

**HP**

It had been an enjoyable feast, where he met some of his fellow housemates and had the various teachers pointed out to him, and he'd enjoyed being able to eat his fill without the Dursley's telling him no or restricting his diet. There had been one odd thing that happened during Headmaster Dumbledore's announcements. Dumbledore had said that the third floor corridor on the right hand side was out of bounds for everyone who did not wish to die a very painful death. At first, Harry had laughed thinking he was joking, but had quickly found out he wasn't joking, and nobody else knew why.

Afterwards, he'd been led up to Gryffindor Tower and introduced to his wonderful four poster bed in the first years' dormitory. Tired and warm after the long day and wonderful feast, he quickly fell asleep.

The next odd thing, which would alter Harry's life happened the very next morning while he was having his first breakfast at Hogwarts.

He'd been listening to the whispers and avoiding the people pointing at him during his walk down to the Great Hall, while also trying to figure out how to navigate the castle, which seemed extremely complex, but thankfully he and Ron were able to follow others who knew the way.

While they were eating, and waiting for their schedules, and listening to everyone discuss classes, Harry got another shock in the form of hundreds of owls sweeping into the Great Hall.

"Ron - wha?" Harry fumbled out.

"Wha- oh! It's just the post being delivered," Ron said matter of factly, and Harry glanced at him.

"Mail is delivered by owl. This is them bringing the post for the day," Ron explained and Harry nodded, looking up in awe at the hundreds of owls that were flying overhead.

His attention was broken when an owl landed in front of him, and he stared at it in confusion.

"Looks like you've got a letter, mate," Ron said, nodding at it and then grinning. "Maybe you'll start getting fan mail now that you're back in the wizarding world."

Harry blushed hard, hoping to any and all deities that it wasn't fan mail because he had no idea how he would even deal with that. He relieved the owl of its letter and it flew off. Harry waited a moment, figuring if anything else was going to come, he'd deal with it all at the same time, but as the owls started leaving, he knew this letter would be his only one.

Almost nervous, despite his curiosity, Harry opened up the letter and was surprised when several photos came out. He glanced at them in confusion before his eyes widened. One showed a young boy, that he was sure was himself as a toddler, on the shoulders of a pink haired girl, maybe in her pre-teens. The toddler Harry was laughing as the girl ran around, a wide smile on her face, and for a moment, Harry almost felt like he could hear the girl's laugh, but he figured he was just imagining things. The next photo made his hands start to shake seeing him once again in the girl's arms, but around them were four adults, two on the girl's left and two on the girl's right. It was the ones on her left that his eyes feasted on. One was a man with messy dark hair, just like Harry's, wearing glasses and a broad smile. The other was a beautiful woman with red hair and green eyes, just like Harry's. He had never seen them or at least not within his memory, but he knew who they were.

Harry sighed, wanting to just stare at the photo with his parents, but he glanced back at the girl and then at the other two. The man was blonde haired, with a bit of a belly, but a kind face that seemed to have laugh lines permanently etched. The woman was tall and lithe with light brown hair and dark eyes.

He wondered who they were. He wondered who the girl was. He looked at the next photo, seeing him running with the same girl alongside a black dog with a shabby looking man in the picture watching them with a soft smile.

He turned to the last photo, seeing him and the girl once again, though this time they were both asleep, looking content, curled up on a couch, the girl's arms wrapped protectively around the young Harry's torso.

Hands still shaking slightly, Harry turned to the letter.

Wotcher, Harry,

I've been stressing on what to write, how to write it, but I guess the best way is to just be direct, so here it goes. My name is Nymphadora Tonks, though please just call me Tonks or Dora. I'm the pink haired girl in the photos I've sent you. I don't expect you to remember me, but I wasn't really sure since I didn't really know what your relatives might have told you. We're not blood related . . . or at least not closely, but I used to call your parents Uncle James and Aunt Lily. I really did love them and they were amazing people.

After they passed, my parents wanted to take you in, but they were told that you would be living with your muggle relatives, and that we weren't allowed to contact you, at least until you'd rejoined the wizarding world.

Harry paused at that information, wondering why anyone would tell people who seemed like they had been family not to contact him. He turned back to the letter frantically.

It wasn't easy to hear, but I hope you grew up happy, and hopefully living with your relatives accomplished what the Ministry and Professor Dumbledore intended.

I'm really writing to you now because we were really close growing up and I'm really hoping that we might be able to reforge a bond of friendship, if you would be interested? If not, well I understand. You have a family, and probably friends, and you might not have time for your past, but I'm hoping I'm wrong. At one point in time, I considered you the brother I never had, and while I certainly don't want to come on too strong, I really hope that someday we can be that close again. My parents recently passed and I found these photos among others in a box they had which also mentioned the situation for why my family was not able to contact you. I hoped that you would appreciate the photos.

Well, I feel like I'm just rambling on now, so I guess I'll end it here. If you are interested in getting to know me, please just send me a letter and we can start talking about our interests, hobbies, friends, and we can exchange fun stories that have happened to us over the years. I'd also love to share some of the stories I remember of your parents if you're interested in hearing them.

Hoping for the best,

Tonks

Harry sighed, pondering the letter and all that had been revealed. This girl, Tonks or Dora, said she used to consider him a brother. She had known his parents, and had pictures to prove it. By all accounts, they had been family. He looked at some of the later lines.

Her parents had just passed. She was like him . . . an orphan.

On one hand, he desperately wanted to contact her to get stories about his parents and maybe more photos since her letter implied she had more. He was grateful to her. She'd given him the first photos of his parents he'd ever seen. Besides, Tonks seemed like someone who generally cared about him, which was something he craved. The concept of someone who seemingly considered him family, or at least at one point did, who actually wanted to know him was close to his dream growing up. He'd always dreamed that maybe some long lost relative or friend of his parents would one day come find him and take him away from the Dursleys.

Sure, this Tonks wasn't offering him a home, but she was at least extending out a hand for friendship and perhaps a familial bond down the road, and she was a tie to his family, something he'd never really had, since his aunt refused to talk about Harry's mum.

"So, what's the fan letter say?" Ron said with a grin, breaking Harry out of his thoughts.

"It's not a fan letter," Harry responded with a frown. "It's . . . it's someone that I used to know, I guess, someone who used to be friends with my parents . . . or at least her parents were friends with my parents."

Ron looked interested, so Harry, a bit reluctantly, handed over the letters and photos for Ron to look at while he thought about Nymphadora Tonks.

"Huh, I guess this is kind of cool. I think she went to school with my older brother, Charlie," Ron said with a shrug. "Do you already have these photos?"

Harry was a bit reluctant to admit, especially since he didn't want his new friend to know what his home life was like, that he'd never even seen a photo of his parents before this.

"No . . . I don't," Harry finally said.

That was really the crux of his hesitation to send a return letter to Tonks. He wanted to hear about his parents, and even about her and her parents, but at the same time, he didn't really want to tell her about his childhood, and he didn't want to build up the hope that he'd found himself a long lost branch of family, only to lose it because his letters either weren't interesting or he revealed what he'd been like after the Dursleys had taken him in and Tonks decides he's too much of a freak to continue corresponding with.

"Well, are you going to write her back?" Ron asked with interest.

"I'm not sure," Harry responded, still trying to think it through.