If you recognize it, surprise, I don't own it

AN, There is a major time skip here, if yall wanted the real slow burn I can't, but I'll get y'all in my mind, no worries :)

Harry was getting ready for his day at schooling, it was already October and Halloween was in a couple days, not that Harry or Dudley ever went trick or treating. His aunt and uncle hated the holiday for some reason, and kept them inside every year. He had no reason to think this year would be different.

The boy was doing well in class, he liked his teacher, Mr Sonders, who still often came over to check on Harry when the children would separate into their groups. Harry felt he had gotten the best lesson that first day of controlling his breaths to help him manage his emotions, he even started doing it at home when the blisters on his hands hurt while gardening. He was improving.

It wasn't until Halloween that everything had to take such a big step backwards.

"Good morning class, I have some good news and great news for you all." The headmaster of his primary school stood in their classroom for the first time since the second day. Harry didn't think much of it before, and now his only thought about him was he looked way too relaxed in his button up, like he wasn't at work. Harry knew what a proper businessman looked like from his uncle on the days he went to do big sales or whatever. Even on days where Vernon left without his overcoat and vest, he still made sure to button those top buttons.

"Mr Sonders, as a new teacher here in the area, was moved to the high school, getting himself a great opportunity, we hope he does well." With a nod to the woman next to him, he turned back to continue speaking with her stepping up next to him.

"While that was the good news, the great news is we have a new teacher to help in his place. Now class I understand you'll be sad to see Mr Sonders go, but please join me in welcoming Mrs Wickens to the class." The older woman didn't appear to like the round of applause the room gave her, and was walking towards the desk behind the two before it got past the headmaster and a couple other students clapping for her.

"Thank you headmaster, if that was everything?" her voice didn't sound very thankful, Harry thought to himself, but it seemed the headmaster either didn't agree or didn't hear it.

"Of course, well I'll leave it to your capable hands Mrs Wickens" as the headmaster walked into the hallway, behind his back Mrs Wickens had narrowed her eyes, seemingly getting angry for just a couple seconds, but long enough for him to have seen it.

"Good morning class, starting today I will be your teacher. I understand Mr Sonders was gojng to allow it, but this Halloween there will be no dressing up or putting on costumes in this class." As a couple of kids tried interrupting her, she spoke sternly, "This classroom is a place of learning, and while here you will learn and I will teach."

Harry did and didn't get the dislike of the new professor, on one hand he really wanted to see Malcom's Freddy Krueger, as the boy hadn't stopped talking about how it would look like he came from the movie, but the idea of the whole class focusing on learning sounds incredible, and maybe the time out corner would work for Malcom in a classroom for learning?

Well, he didn't know if it helped Melcom, but the boy sure sat there a lot more now. Mrs Wickens wasn't as kind as Mr Sonders, she spent the last two days making the kids sit at their desks without any toys, going over how much they had learned from just sitting in on lectures while other students were in the middle of their alphabet books.

Harry thought it was brilliant, as more and more students started whispering instead of almost shouting, it seemed Mrs Wickens would let them whisper to seatmates, for a couple seconds, before calling them out if it lasted too long. Harry didn't really talk to the other students anyway, just sat and observed, so this fit him fine.

In the last couple hours of class, as most of the students let their voices out a little, knowjng school was almost out anyways. Mrs Wickens continued her task of maintaining the children, and saw little Harry, after not participating nearly as much as she would've liked from the smart boy, seemingly asleep! He didn't sway in his seat, but if he was as sleepy of a child as she imagined, it simply made since that the reason he was so quiet the last few days was he learned to sleep without the sway. Walking up to the boy, knowing she couldn't focus on one student for long, she knew just the thing to motivate such a "quiet star".

"Mr Potter, since you seem to want to sleep in my class, go do so in the timeout corner." Turning away she didn't see the shocked face of the boy, only heard him not get up and without looking back, spoke again. "Now Mr Potter, so my class can continue please."

As she walked back up to the board, Harry stood to hear the quiet giggles of his classmates. They still giggled everytime anyone but Malcom went to it, but it seemed louder to his ears. As he started blushing the laughter did get a bit louder, so much that Mrs Wickens had to give the class "the look" again before turning precisely on the slow moving Harry.

As the boy sat down, he first tried breathing again, since she had instructed him to do so in the corner. But after the first minute of staring at a wall, in the first minute he realized the real pain of the corner, he couldn't do anything! He still heard his classmates writing out their alphabet books, and his hands wanted nothing more than to go back to doing ANYTHING!

"Mrs Wickens, I know sleeping in class isn't allowed, and I promise I wasn't, I was.."

"Mr Potter, you were sent to the timeout corner, if you understand the reason that is good. However you still had another 3 minutes, and will have your time reset for interrupting my class." She gave him the meanest "the look" he'd seen from her yet, and pointed him to face the corner again.

Harry didn't usually get angry, he just got too tired after and would usually get his chores done even slower the days he did. But it was his class too! His name was on the attendence sheet, and he wasn't sleeping! As the boy got more and more upset, missing out on one of his favorite parts of class, thinking about why he sat there in the worst corner in the world, it came to its boiling point all too quick.

And it was supposed to relieve him of his punishment, funny how that goes.

"Mr Potter, your five minutes is up. You may return to your seat." As the young man did so, the teacher felt it only right to make sure he learned the lesson, "Mr Potter, if I see you continuing to sleep in class as you did in that corner, you will be meeting the deputy headmaster. Do you understand?"

As Harry sat down he kept his head pointed down, since it sometimes helped Uncle Vernon not shout as much and it help hide his face, eyes holding back frustrated tears and teeth biting his inner cheek. It was going to take a minute before she got her reply, and while Mrs Wickens did start to feel pity for the student, she didn't want to have to send him back to the corner any more than he wanted to go back. But the only way to insure that was to get a verbal affirmation in her eyes, so with a growing heavy heart, she forced herself to ask her sternest, no nonsense tone.

"Do you understand Mr Potter? Yes or no?"

Harry wasn't focusing on how he physically felt, as he had no reason to think anything was out of place, usual aches and sore muscles aside, so he again missed the tingle in his spine, as he forced out a quiet yes in response.

But as the class started giggling, first he thought to his embarrassment, he soon figured that even Malcom knew better than to fall out his seat laughing like that, so something else must of happened. As Harry picked his head up and looked around, he saw all he classmates looking up at Mrs Wickens. Taking his chances, he felt his body go loose with shock, as he saw his teacher, the sternest old lady he thought he'd ever meet, had blue hair. It boggled him for more than a moment or two, long enough for Mrs Wickens to realize the boy was staring at her in a dead shock.

She thought that it was usual that Malcom was already misbehaving again, but he never laughed that loud about the timeout corner for other children. She looked around herself attempting to see what happened, which caused more, almost the entire class, to join laughing at the stick teacher try to figure it out.

Mr Potter, the only student not laughing, was going over how his final frustrated thought had almost predicted what would happen. He was thinking about wanting her to feel how upset she was making him, and how she wouldn't even let him explain, when it felt like all his anger had boiled out like it always did, really really fast but it felt like the same exhastion.

Still in his shock, he was the only student to give the poor woman the answer she was looking for, Ma'am, your hair..."

Picking up a small mirror from her desk drawer, she soon saw exactly what Harry was talking about, and as someone who did not feel the sudden change, she, understandably, freaked out.

"What in the bloody f*cking hell?!? My hair is blue! MY HAIR IS GODDAMN FORSAKEN BLUE! What in the bloody..." As the woman ran out the door, most of the class had gone silent in their own shock of hearing a teacher speak like that, with Malcom now crying on the ground, trying to regain his breath as he continued to giggle almost hysterically.

Eventually the headmaster came in and told everyone that he was going to watch them until class let out, and that Mrs Wickens was going to be moved to another class in the school. At this, almost every student had the reaction of cheering and getting up in celebration of the "Wicked Witch" being gone. While quiet young Harry did think it'd be cool to have Mr Sonders back, he knew he'd miss the quiet level Mrs Wicken was able to get everyone under. It just was so much better than the loud chaos his class had already went back too, even some of the ones that were in the lecture seats for Mr Sonders were making a racket with the other students.

'Well Mrs "Wicked Witch", thanks for trying, I guess.'

Aunt Petunia already wasn't happy when they got home that night, wanting them to do their nightly activities, chores for Harry, games for Dudley, and go to bed early instead of staying up to see anyone dressed up. Harry usually just listened through the tiny window in his room to all the excitement and laughter other kids had on Halloween, but knew if his aunt had decided something, it was for a good reason.

Dudley had apparently heard the story about Mrs Wickens fate, and told it for a good laugh from his mom, wanting to share the laughter he got just from hearing why a teacher was cursing so loudly in the halls as she ran out the school.

Instead Petunia knew Mrs Wickens was Harry's new teacher, and it figured he'd do his "freakish thing" today of all days.

Giving Dudley a strained smile, she went outside, grabbed the boy by his collar, and stuck him in his room as punishment for doing magic on his teacher, not she told him as such.

"Boy, there will be no dinner for you! I'm going to talk to your uncle for your punishment this weekend, but you will not do such horrible things, especially on your teachers!" As the woman walked away, Harry was beginning to feel the same anger he had felt earlier. He didn't do anything to his teacher, someone else did! He still had half the garden to do, and now his room was starting to feel like the corner, sitting around when he knew he had something to do.

The difference was that he knew he wasn't going to go back out to the garden tonight, and no one was going to stop him from his technique against such strong feelings, 'Mr Sonders really was better than Mrs Wickens, if only cause he taught me this and lets me do it in class,' as the boy breathed in and out, with each breath he followed his thoughts to their logical end, with his anger lessening as he focused on his breathing, and as children do, reached his own conclusions.

'I know I didn't do anything to Mrs Wickens, which means Aunt Petunia is either wrong or knows something I don't.' Figuring that was as far as he was going to get on that train of thought, he jumped to the next one.

'I should've been almost done with the garden by now, based on the sun in my window, but I was really tired from being so upset earlier. Mr Sonders was right, emotions are just going to slow me down, I should practice my breathing so I can keep my attention in class, it really is inconvenient to have to figure out where a lecture was every time he shut down to breathe, even if it was only 30 seconds or so.' Settled on a new goal, he continued his breathing as he kept on following each track of thoughts to its natural end.

The next morning he was given some light breakfast and was told to finish the garden, it was Friday and since he didn't go to school for Halloween weekend, he was to finish it and continue with a new list of chores from his aunt before he went back to his room. Some of them were new, such as painting the picket fence, but Harry took the chance to practice focusing on learning the new chore and controlling his breathing. The fence definitely needed a second coat because of this, as you could really see his improvement, which meant you could see his mistakes early on. Harry felt the frustration of having to do so only for a single moment, before he focused on his breathing and doing the next chore before he had to return to the fence.

'I can't fix it right now, but I can do something else in the meantime,' was little Harry's thoughts as he started up the lawnmower, not knowing the grass would soon get on the wet paint make his sloppy first job even worse. And when he did see the new problem, he did feel some real anger towards himself for such a crappy job, before taking his deep breath, and went to do the second paint before going to the garden in the back while it dried.

'Just take a breath, and take the next step. All you can do Harry'

"Hi, your name is Harry right?"

Harry was back in school, Mr Sonders had returned with a big smile and had already changed the classroom back to his style with a clear area in front of the desks so he could lecture the student who wanted to listen while being close to the rowdy ones whether he was near the board or helping the sitting students.

Harry had thought that the kids that had sat through Mr Sonders lectures would've gone to enjoy the toys more in class, but instead more than a couple students had instead joined their "section". Apparently some of them didn't mind the lectures Mrs Wickens gave, and Mr Sonders did have even less rules for them. The lecture students were still encouraged to talk to each other and didn't have to worry about Mrs Wickens cutting their conversation short, so a number of other students had started sitting at their desk more in the day, enough that a couple had to share desks.

Which brought us to the moment where Harry now has to have a deskmate, talkative Malcom. The class legend, for how popular he was, and it was Harry's first time actually talking to him.

"Huh, oh yeah, Hi, I'm Harry." Sticking his hand out as he knew was polite, Malcom shook it up and down enthusiastically as he asked Harry, "Well don't ya want to know my name?" Embarrassed, Harry spoke in a quiet tone, and responded, "Oh, well everyone knows you Malcom, you go up to the timeout corner so often I think everyone knows your name." Now young Harry didn't know what truly made the other so popular, and he was about to find out, as the other started talking, and didn't stop.

"Haha, well I mean you're not wrong, but I think everyone would know your name more. You know everyone thinks you did it, turning Mrs Wickens hair blue. Did you? It was instant, like a magic trick straight from the movies, I had immediately started laughing but other people were saying you were the only one not laughing. Plus with her having pushed you so hard that time. I never saw you in the corner before, it was a real shock to hear her think she thought you were sleeping in class, totally not fair." Malcom was going to continue his ramble, about the prank it seemed, when Harry, in slight shock that anyone could talk that much, had to butt in and ask. "Wait, you knew I wasn't sleeping?"

To Harry, it seemed he had pulled the rug from out under Malcom, as the boy had to actually slow done his lips and took a second to register what Harry said, before continuing, "Well yeah, you've been doing that whenever Mr Sonders goes to quiet us loud ones down, and when it would get louder those couple of days with the witch. At first I thought you were sleeping in class, but Marie, thats the girl over there, told me you were meditating, something her dad does to calm down when he gets upset, so I figured it was the same for you. I mean, I get why the witch thought you were sleeping, but it was really mean of her to pick on you like that, thats another reason why the class thinks you did it. Did you really though?" Malcom stopped and Harry thought it was going to continue like the last time he asked, but it seemed he actually was going to talk with Harry after all.

"I don't think so, my aunt and uncle think I did but I don't remember doing anything, I definitely don't remember doing anything to turn my new favorite teacher's hair blue." After Harry's response he wasn't listening to Malcoms shock and complaints about the "Wicked Witch", but instead focusing on the new information he had gained. 'So meditation, thats the name of it, I wonder who could teach me more.'

As Malcom continued talking next to him, and as Harry looked up at Mr Sonders, fate's tapestry twisted in ways not expected, but nothing she couldn't deal with.

5 Year Timeskip

Harry had learned somethings about the world he lived in and about himself over the last few years, it was half his life but now after his time in school he was beginning to understand that five years wouldn't matter when you're 80 and dying, and maybe he's thinking too far ahead but when he reaches that time, he imagines it's about the things you learned and what you did with that knowledge.

For example, Harry learned what it meant to be an orphan, and what it meant to him. He lived in his aunt's house, he would never get the support Dudley got from them because, well as sad as it sounds, he's not their son. He could've cried into the night when he realized this, but as his list of chores wasn't done that night, he'd done what he had always did with negative emotions and came to a place of understanding. He would always have to work harder then other kids, and it wasn't out of spite Aunt Petunia kept making his chore list longer, no matter how much he wanted to say so. It was because he was going to have a harder time of it, and to become a upstanding member of society, he was going to have to work without the support that the other kids had their entire lives and forseeable future.

It wasn't fair but neither was being born to two drunkards who died in a car crash, nothing he could do but continue his life, and he believed nothing but that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were trying their best to help him.

Sure, other kids might look at him weird when he talked about all the chores he did at home, but that just proved his point of him being different. None of the other kids would understand being an orphan, and most adults he talked to about losing parents had lost them as adults, after a good lifetime with the people closest to them. It used to upset him, imagining a life with people like that, then he would try incorporating the fact they were drunkards and instead be satisfied with his lot in life.

Harry Potter most certainly did not fit the norm of Little Whinging, not that of the children. And while he wasn't a man yet, he thought he was well on his way to becoming a great one.

"Afterall, He-Who-Must-Not-Named did great things, terrible yes, but great."

Hello!

So I'm back with a second chapter, these two chapters are to help y'all get where I see Harry, hearing about his backstory and trying to both tear out any kid visage we got about the Dursleys while making it from the view of a child. Dudley IS spoiled, Harry is being abused, or at least neglected, but Harry knows he's different. At first it was forced, the chores and labor he went through with his aunt made him start the route, but hearing that he is fundamental different from Dudley and other kids is going to shake up his view of what should be normal for him. He will learn next chapter about his parents and the things the Dursleys hid from him *cough cough* magic *cough* and while this should shake up some truths in him, I believe once you sell yourself a lie, you'll pay a long time not just paying for it, but for every decision that came after.

To me Harry wasn't abused, but he did signify danger in Vernon's eyes, and everything you can imagine when Petunia has to look into her orphaned nephew's eyes who's look "just like her sister's". Harry didn't have a good start of it, but he doesn't even realise how close he is to "once you're at the bottom, you can only go up" because he shouldn't realise what truly shaky ground they've set him on, and he only will learn when his life is about to get flipped upside down.

As for why it ain't abuse, again, Harry was practically a paradime of virtue when he forgave the Dursleys, we've seen the handshake between Dudley and Harry in those bloopers, but I dont think he could've faced a whole world where he could've been raised famous, was abused by Dursleys, and didn't turn into another Voldemort, full range of emotions or not.

If you haven't figured, I'm making Harry very removed from his emotions. They're not gone, he just has spent 5 years practicing what we all would call an adult view of things, and just works through them in his own time. How quickly that is will be revealed later, but basically Harry is a basic occlumens, based on fanfic, in that his mind is trained to be very still, to focus on the task at hand and what can help him do so. He won't be all that good at calling injustices, for himself or others, because his view of "what hurts" is very literal, and he's been actually put in the underdog position by his family so much that any harm others recieve is more than likely their fault. Anger will still spill over from time to time, so will sadness and many emotions Harry will get to face in Hoggywarts, but his mission is to beat life without those emotions getting in his way.

And that we, as the thinking adult audience, know it doesn't work like that, and Harry isn't as ready for the world as he thinks he is.

As for Mr Sonders and Mrs Wickens, don't expect them again, they were just to show Harry does know what kindness looked like, just sees the practically in not using it. Doesn't hurt, but a lot less stressful to go the other route. Mr Sonders was a bright new teacher, ready to take on 5 yr olds, while Mrs Wickens was transfered in and already had experience with older children. No big flaw in actual people, just people trying to do their job without their hair turning blue.

Til Next Time,

TRHPRP