If you want to give love to the original creator his name is TheLazyJoke
Summary:
Harry Potter, or "The Boy Who Lived" isn't known for thinking through decisions before he makes them. Despite not even starting his 3rd year at Hogwarts, charging into danger is almost second nature to him. This story follows him learning from mistakes, taking leaps of faith and growing into the most powerful wizard that the world has ever known.
This is a work in progress, when it's complete, or if I stop writing, I will change this line so people know.
(To be clear, this is a fanfiction where Hogwarts starts at 13, the world works in a way that more aligns with my thought processes regarding magic and other factors such as population etc. Harry will be given one "ability" that sets him apart from other wizards. There will be many wizards/witches throughout the story that will also have unique abilities, sometimes from bloodlines, sometimes from study, sometimes from luck. So if things in my story don't fit with what you know from canon Harry Potter lore? Probably best to just move on and enjoy the story. Rated M for good reasons, there will be dark things in this story, and there will probably be lemons…. Just wanted to give fair warning.)
Chapter 1: Goodbye?
July 31st, 4 Privet Drive
Reading through the well wishes from friends on his 15th birthday, was unfortunately one of the only good things to happen on this day. Harry Potter hadn't been able to have a proper celebration his entire life and that was unlikely to happen while he lived with his current "family". His aunt Petunia was a poor excuse for family, but at least she kept her abuse to mild verbal assaults. His uncle Vernon, cousin Dudley and Vernon's sister Marge actively tried to make his hell. Thankfully their physical expressions of care for Harry hadn't escalated to violence, however Harry wondered if it was just a matter of time.
Shaking his mind off the matter of the crone and her walruses downstairs, Harry continued opening gifts. A Broomstick Servicing Kit from Hermione had him both thankful and giggling at the idea of vigorously polishing his wood. He mentally reminded himself to try and keep a straight face when telling Hermoine about it in as much detail as he could manage before she hit him for being a prat. The Sneakoscope from Ron was appreciated. When watching the tv the other day, he saw news coverage of a man named Sirius Black and a dozen others who had broken out of some prison… or was it a mental hospital? Either way, he was happy to have something, no matter how minor to help protect himself. The book from Hagrid was supposedly useful, but the damn thing kept biting him until he gave it a piece of bacon, and wasn't that a sight? Live in a magical castle that has an attitude, sling spells for a couple years, accidentally kill a teacher, purposefully kill a basilisk and somehow the book that eats bacon is the surprising thing.
Besides the gifts, he also really enjoyed the updates his friends sent taking in all the information they shared such as Percy being Head Boy. Expressing his condolences to the twins shenanigans felt like the right thing to do. However by far the best thing in the letters is a time set up to meet his friends to get their school supplies. The list for school supplies and the Hogsmeade permission slip arrived with all the other gifts oddly enough. Night owls, he shrugs and laughs to himself. Harry vows to himself to get his aunt and uncle to help him make the date.
The next morning, Harry wakes up to a most unpleasant surprise when he got to the breakfast table.
Uncle Vernon drained his teacup, glanced at his watch, and added, "I'd better be off in a minute, Petunia. Marge's train gets in at ten."
Harry, whose thoughts had been upstairs with the Broomstick Servicing Kit, was brought back to earth with an unpleasant bump. "Aunt Marge?" he blurted out. Shit. Play it cool, they know you don't get along with her. "Is she coming for a visit?"
"At least a week," Uncle Vernon shot out, "and while we're on the subject", he stabbed a fat finger at Harry, "we need to get a few things straight before I go and collect her and I don't want to have to repeat this."
"Firstly," growled Uncle Vernon, "you'll keep a civil tongue in your head when you're talking to Marge."
"All right," said Harry, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice, "but that should be mutual shouldn't it?"
Vernon expertly ignored Harry's comment and continued, "Secondly, you know MArge doesn't know about your abnormality, and you better keep it that way. Got it?"
With a rising frustration, "I will if she does."
Vernon continued listing another requirement and Harry would be lying if he said he heard or even remembered agreeing due to the extreme frustration he was experiencing. Vernon had gotten up after talking to Dudley and Petunia some, before walking out the front door. Harry Absent mindedly continued eating and then remembered his permission slip.
"Aunt Petunia, I know you just want me out of your hair when Aunt Marge is here, if you sign this for me, I promise to behave as much as is reasonable, I'll even stick to my room as much as I can in an attempt to be as normal as can be. I know you and Vernon hate my magic and want to keep it hidden." Harry couldn't be sure Petunia would go for it, but he had to try right? Vernon would sooner willingly throw it in the fire and laugh like a second rate villain.
Petunia looked affronted at him being so blunt, but she also knew he wasn't wrong and if signing a paper got him to willingly try to fit in? Well it was a small price to pay with a figuratively high reward. "Fine, but I expect good enough behavior that Vernon forgets you're even in the house."
"Deal, if possible I'll only come down for food so I'm out of your hair while Marge is here." Harry was willing to make sacrifices to have quality time with friends.
Dudley laughed, "So you'll be the weird kid from Brutus's and acting like it." He got up with roars of laughter. "Mum, I'm going to a friend's house, I'll be back for dinner." The mini-walrus's words left Harry slightly confused, but he resolved himself to accept whatever the Dursley family dealt him and took his signed permission slip directly to the rest of his school supplies and put it away.
Retreating to his room, he started prepping his room for uninvited guests, hiding his magic books etc and gently asking Hedwig to stay with Hermione for a week. Before, she left he wrote a note explaining why he asked Hedwig to stay with her for a bit and even a few galleons for food if it was needed. Sighing, he gave her the envelope "Good girl Hedwig." she promptly nipped him for sending her away and she was out the window.
Harry survived all of 3 days before he ended up forced at the dinner table by Marge herself, and as you can imagine, nobody was pleased with the Situation. Harry wanted to escape and the rest of the family wanted him gone. 'Why am I even here? I was perfectly fine hiding in my room. Oh no… Vernon got out the cheap wine.'
"Can I tempt you, Marge?"
Aunt Marge had already had quite a lot of wine. Her huge face was very red. "Just a small one, then," she chuckled. "A bit more than that . . . and a bit more . . . that's the ticket." The wine glass was full and Harry was confident that nobody was surprised by this.
Harry had zoned out at least 20 minutes of conversation waiting to be excused from the table when he noticed Marge talking and pointing at him.
"This one's got a mean, runty look about him. You get that with dogs. I had Colonel Fubster drown one last year. Ratty little thing it was. Weak. Underbred."
'Damnit, how am I supposed to react to that? I'm going to pretend exhaustion.' Harry's thoughts were running wild, but he was truly trying to control his frustrations.
"...Now, I'm saying nothing against your family, Petunia", she patted Aunt Petunia's bony hand with her shovel-like one, "but your sister was a bad egg….."
With that Harry was trying really hard to zone out, but he was definitely struggling. Hard to ignore your war hero parents being talked down on and ignore it blank face. A sinking feeling arrived in his gut, a familiar tune of danger in his ear. 'Well here we go again…'
"...Then she ran off with a wastrel and here's the result right in front of us." The pit in Harry's stomach dropped lower. "This Potter," said Aunt Marge loudly, seizing the brandy bottle and splashing more into her glass and over the tablecloth, "you never told me what he did?"
The music in Harry's ear grew louder. Even Dudley looked uncomfortable with the tension in the room. Petunia and Vernon appeared to be on a knife's edge.
Internally Vernon panicked. He would not admit it on his deathbed, but when glanced at Harry, he saw something that made him nervous. He wanted the conversation done with.
"He — didn't work," said Uncle Vernon, with another glance at Harry. "Unemployed."
Harry tried to contain himself. He really did. For another 10 minutes he held to the hope he could get up and walk away, as Marge talked trash about his parents and nobody stopped her. For 10 minutes that ever faint music in Harry's ear played him a tune he hyper focused on trying to understand its message, when Marge said something that pushed Harry over the edge.
Harry made eye contact with the beluga wannabe and asked in a voice without inflection, "Could you repeat that Marge?"
"Oh of course dear," She huffed. The rest of the family, silent, paralyzed and wondering why they let her keep going. "I merely stated your father was a waste and drug addict and clearly your mother must've been the biggest slag to grace the isles with her presence if she was going to settle for a man like that."
For five seconds all Harry heard was the pounding of his heart in his ears, then silence as he stood up. Unfortunately several things then happened all at the same time. Marge slumped forward unmoving, Dudley relieved himself in his pants, Vernon's rush to help Marge resulted in a broken chair, Marge's dog being stepped on by the land walrus paralyzing the vicious thing, Petunia fainting, and last but not least, the music in Harry's ear returning. Now to be clear, Harry didn't actually have anything to do with Dudley's situation, that was just bad luck. However his accidental magic did cause a domino effect for the rest of the shenanigans that happened at the table. At this moment, the music he heard gave a clearer message than he'd ever heard before. "Escape". Harry did not need to be told twice.
Quickly he grabbed his trunk and everything else he needed for school and life on the run. Within five minutes he had everything he owned and was out the door. As he left in a hurry, he noticed the Dursley's still panicking in the kitchen. In the next moment, he was out in the dark, quiet street, heaving his heavy trunk behind him, Hedwig's cage under his arm.
Several streets away, his Exhaustion caught up with him. Harry finally stopped and sat down on his trunk trying to think of what he should do. A large park behind him and a side street in front, he weighed his options.
While thinking he heard a very large growl behind him. Fight or flight instincts kicked in and before Harry knew it, he had turned around with his wand aimed ready. He was not prepared for what he saw. The largest black dog he had ever seen, easily as tall as his chest stood there watching him. It was standing over another figure. It's mouth, dripping with blood. With a shiver Harry then noticed the figures on the ground behind it. three dead men laid on the ground.
And that ladies and gentleman, is when Harry Potter panicked for the second time that night. However, he had already fled once that night. This time his instincts picked fight and oh boy did that surprise the big ass dog. two quick spells fired out of his wand, a Petrificus Totalus and then a locomotor mortis. The instinct was if it couldn't move, it couldn't attack him. Harry for some reason even he didn't understand, then charged the dog with his wand like it was a sword. Now something to note about this situation is that the spells did in fact hit the dog, but as Harry found out mid charge, did absolutely nothing to it. On the plus side, the dog also didn't seem to want to hurt him and ran away when he charged it.
Heart hammering in his chest he stood near where the dog had been, and now that the dog was gone, he could take better stock of his situation. It was not good. He cast spells out of school, there were three dead men almost within arm reach with missing limbs, and at least one had a missing throat. All wore robes and looked like they had been hunting that damn dog. He also now noticed a curled up cat at his feet. It was so dark that it had blended in with the ground in the darkness. Also now noticed it was bleeding, and the music had returned. He could feel it urging him to help the cat. Almost as if it was telling him the cat would protect him.
Following the Pull of the music, he took out that bacon eating monster book he apologized to it for not having bacon on hand and instantly started reading through the book, looking for the care section. It had to be in here somewhere? Something to help the poor thing that had been brutalized before him. As he sat next to it, the blood kept flowing. He tried comforting the large cat, noticing it was considerably bigger than he thought. Bigger than most dogs by far, he figured its head would be near his waist. 'AH, there it is.' On the page the music had him stop on was the familiar ritual.
Harry stopped to contemplate. The music has stopped as if to let him think clearly if this was something he wanted to do. 'A familiar could make me strong, but it could be a weakness too if captured. Then again a cat this large should be plenty capable of protecting itself, that dog was just a vicious monster right?' He sighed and grabbed a knife from his trunk. He'd go through with it. 'What's one more completely stupid thing to do? The music led me here so I may as well take that leap of faith.' With clenched teeth he carved the familiar ritual circle into his left palm. (Unprepared, ill informed students always do things the dumb painful way. There are completely painless ways to do the familiar bond.) and read the bonding ritual out loud presenting his bleeding palm to the purring cat.
As it rubbed its head into his palm he felt the bond form. He instantly knew it was inches away from death, heart slowing down before his influx of magic kick started her healing process. 'Her? Ah I could feel her gender. That's weird.' Between her shoulder blades the Familiar bond seemed to appear, an outward symbol of their bond. Harry smiled seeing her Heal. 'Ah the bond needs a name. Hmmmm let's see.'
"You are a beautiful creature and I can feel your power and magic through the bond. I don't know what you are, but you deserve a strong name. WIth magic, names have power, so I'll call you Nyx. Fur as dark as night and ridiculous amounts of magic inside you? It's perfect." As Harry settled on the name. The last of his magic drained and he promptly passed out cuddling his new familiar as it healed the broken flesh and bones using the influx of magic it gained from Harry. Nyx was unsure about her new name, but to survive she found herself as a familiar, at least she could feel the kindness from the boy. She would protect him from anything for healing her body and mind.
From the moment that Harry cast his spell to the point that he passed out felt like hours to him, however it was in fact only 4 minutes. When the cracks of Aurors arriving settled, they found an unconscious Harry Potter, 3 dead men, and a very unhappy familiar that despite its injuries had instantly gotten up to protect Harry.
"Holy balls is that a…it killed three men protecting him."
"Shut it Jenkins. Hey little one…"the more senior Auror present tried to reason with the cat. Cue angry growls. "I just want to make sure the boy is ok. I can see the glowing mark on his hand from here and it seems to match the one you've got nicely. It looks like you protected your new master here and we just want to make sure he's safe"
After being very slow and deliberate Harry was checked and moved with his new familiar and items to a secure location. The 3 escaped convicts that were collected in the process were attributed to Harry's familiar and considering the scene they found, his charges for using magic outside of school were ruled as self defense.
End of Chapter 1