The island is wet and cold and it gnaws at Harry's bones and Dudley is complaining about his television show and Harry just wants his letter.
"Where are we?" he asks, a twinge of panic stirring in his chest.
"We're at the bloody end of the earth," Vernon mutters darkly. His fingers clench around a long, thin package. "Now be quiet!" His mustache wobbles dangerously and Harry shuts up.
They'll find me, Harry tells Nighttime. They will.
Are you sure?
No, he admits, tucking his knees tight into his chest. But they have to come. They have to.
The rain slashes against the windows of the small hut, wind howling like a beast outside, but Harry doesn't mind it. It's soothing, almost. Steadying. He can't fall asleep so he just huddles in the corner and listens to the rain and counts down the seconds until he turns eleven.
Double ones, he tells Nighttime. That's a good number. Like springtime.
I wish it were springtime, his snake grumbles. I'm freezing.
Statistically, summer is hotter than spring. It is summer. You should be glad it's not spring.
I don't care about your statistics. Let me suffer in peace.
So Harry watches Dudley's clock tick tick tick away the seconds until midnight: 201918171615154—
How old am I?
Harry ignores him. 1098765432—
—1—
BANG.
Harry jolts, the noise slamming into him like a physical thing. He's gotten less sensitive, and Nighttime has definitely helped, but it's so loud, so piercing, that he can't help but cry out and press his hands over his ears. In the other room, he hears a scuffle, then Vernon emerges, half asleep and maniacal and clutching a gun in his hands.
"Where's the canon?" Dudley asks sleepily from the couch.
"I heard something," Vernon mutters, moving toward the window and peering out into the storm. His fingers twitch on the gun's trigger, like he's waiting for something, for a sign, a sound, a knock. "It's them. I know it's them. Bloody freaks." He casts a rather nasty look at Harry.
There's a moment of silence. The rain lashes the hut. Then—
BANG. BANG.
"I'm armed!" his uncle screams at the shuddering door. "I warn you—"
BANG!
The door bursts open, splintering with a force that sends a sharp crack through the air. Harry's heart stutters, his breath coming in fast, shallow gasps. He presses harder into the corner, knees pulled tight to his chest, desperately trying to disappear, to hide from the storm, from the noise, from everything.
The silhouette in the doorway is massive, blocking out the little light from the storm. For a moment, all Harry can see is a dark shape, hulking, imposing, and the overwhelming sense that something, someone, has come to end his world. He squeezes his eyes shut, his pulse thudding painfully in his ears, but the person doesn't move. The noise of the storm fills the space between them, drowning out any words, any movement, until—
"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh?" The voice is a rumble, deep and unfamiliar. "It's not been an easy journey…"
Harry flinches at the sound, so raw and booming it feels like it's shaking the walls. He can't control the way his body tenses, the way his hands curl into fists. Harry can't focus, can't process them properly, only the fact that the voice is coming closer, the feet thumping against the floor like the sound of thunder.
"No!" Harry chokes, his voice a thin, high whimper as he scrambles further back, his back pressing into the rough wall of the hut. "No, no nonono—"
The giant gives him a Look, the kind Harry never can understand, but stops at Dudley instead. "Budge up, yeh great lump," he says, and Dudley gives a squeak of fear and complies. Harry shudders, trying to disappear.
Should I bite him? Nighttime asks, but Harry is frozen—
"An' here's Harry!" says the giant and Harry goes blank. He doesn't think, he doesn't move, he is stone and rock and dead and nothing blank blank blank what do you want what do you want leave me alone—
"Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," the enormous, craggy man says. "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mum's eyes."
Something in Harry thaws slightly. He unfreezes, looks up. "I don't have parents."
The man's brow wrinkles. "Sure yeh do. They were good frien's of mine, they were, good people, Lily and James…"
Harry shakes his head quickly and looks down down down. "Dead. They're dead. I don't have parents."
His uncle makes a funny choking sound in the corner. "I'm armed," he rasps out, and the giant plucks the gun from his hands and bends it into a pretzel.
"Not anymore, yeh don't," he booms and there is something distinctly menacing in his tone as he fixes Vernon with a glare. "He don' have parents? Wha've you been tellin' this boy, Dursley?"
Vernon Dursley quails under the giant's gaze, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. For the first time, Harry feels a flash of kinship with his speechless uncle.
"Nothing!" Petunia says shrilly. "Harry—he's just—"
"He's a freak, that's what he is," Vernon growls, finding his voice. "All you lot are, but he's freakier than normal freaky, this one is."
Harry is small small small a little ball of flesh and bone striped skinless in the corner.
What's happening? Nighttime hisses uneasily. Who is this man-thing? What's going on?
He doesn't answer her. He counts very very quickly and tries to disappear.
"Never speak that way again 'bout him, Dursley," the giant spits out, like a curse. He turns back to Harry. "Meant to say Happy Birthday to yeh, but these louts got me sidetracked," he says, giving the trembling Vernon a very evil look. "Got ya a cake, too, but I migh've squashed it…"
He reaches into his overcoat and pulls out a large, smushed chocolate cake. Harry stares at it blankly. His words are dry, his tongue shriveled into gas.
The huge man shuffles awkwardly at his silence. Finally, he says loudly, "Haven't introduced meself, have I?" Harry doesn't move. He is somewhere deep inside his head, dark and quiet and safe safe safe. The man clears his throat. "Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."
He holds out an enormous hand. Harry remains motionless. Hagrid lets the hand drop after a moment.
"I told you he's a freak," Vernon sneers, seeming to have found his voice again, and Hagrid whirls on him.
"You don' get to speak 'bout him that way, Dursley," Hagrid growls, stepping forward, making the small hut tremble with his presence. He looms, a shadow of fury that dwarfs everything around him, his enormous frame filling the room. "Not in front of me, not ever. Yeh hear me?" He jabs his umbrella into his uncle's chest. "I said, yeh hear me?" Vernon lets out a small noise like a mouse before Nighttime eats it. Hagrid nods. "Good."
Hagrid turns back to Harry, his expression softening as he looks at the small boy curled up in the corner. "Don' worry, Harry," he rumbles, his voice much gentler now. "I'm not here to hurt yeh. Not at all." He crouches down slowly, though it still feels like an enormous mountain shifting in Harry's space. Harry stays still. He is made of rock. Hagrid's shadow stretches over him like a dark, looming thing, but there's something, something, in his eyes that makes Harry feel just a little less small.
He brought a cake.
For me.
For the first time, Harry wonders if maybe this giant was the one who had sent him the Letters.
Hagrid lets out a sigh, his huge form sagging. "You're eleven now, Harry," he says softly, his deep voice trembling with something almost like concern. "Eleven years old. Time to go to Hogwarts, to meet the rest of yer folks."
Harry remains silent still, but something in his face must give away his confusion.
"Yeh… Yeh've heard a Hogwarts, haven't yeh?" Hagrid asks uncertainty.
Harry gives a twitch of his head. No. No.
The giant's mouth opens slightly. "Bloody—" He breaks off, shaking his shaggy head. "I mean, I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yet parents learned it all?"
"Stop!" his aunt cries. "Stop right there!"
Something in Harry cracks and he finds his voice. "Learned what all?"
"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered. "Now wait jus' one second!" He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Dursleys were cowering against the wall. "Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy—this boy!—knows nothin' abou'—about ANYTHING?"
He is wrong, Harry thinks. He knows a lot. A lot. But he doesn't say anything.
"But yeh must know something. I mean, yer parents are famous. Yer famous."
Harry's head is shaking back and forth very very fast. "No," he states, the words clipped. "I am not."
"DURSLEY!" Hagrid bellows.
"No!" Petunia shrieks. "I forbid you to tell him!"
"SHUDDUP!" Hagrid bellows and Harry cringes back into his corner. "I've had ENOUGH of yer bloody meddling!" He turns back to Harry. "Harry—yer a wizard."
There is silence.
Tick tick tick goes Dudley's watch and Harry can't find his voice.
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Everyone watches him and then Harry finally speaks.
"Snakes are elongated, legless reptiles belonging to the suborder Serpentes," Harry tells the man quickly, keeping his gaze fixed on the cracked wooden floor. "They possess a highly flexible jaw structure, allowing them to consume prey larger than their head. Snakes are carnivorous, using various methods to capture and subdue prey, such as constriction or venom injection. They rely on their specialized scales, known as ventral scales, to aid in locomotion. Most snakes are ectothermic, meaning they regulate their body temperature through external sources. Snakes are found across a wide range of habitats, from forests and deserts to aquatic environments."
Hagrid blinks. Harry doesn't look up, his words continuing on like an automatic recitation. His fingers twitch a little, curling slightly around his knees, but his body remains frozen.
"Er—right," Hagrid says, his deep voice full of bewilderment. He clears his throat. "That's—well, tha's a lot a infermation, Harry, but I wasn' talkin' 'bout snakes…"
"Snakes use their Jacobsen's organ, also known as the vomeronasal organ, to detect chemical signals in their environment." He is talking loudly now, too loudly, and very fast. He drowns out the confusing chaotic world with things that make sense. "This organ allows them to 'taste' the air by flicking their tongues to collect scent particles. These particles are then transferred to the Jacobsen's organ, located on the roof of the mouth, for processing—"
"I told you he was a freak," Vernon says with a sort of nasty triumph.
A/N: hi guys! If you're enjoying this story PLEASE comment/favorite/follow-this is one of my first attempts at fanfiction and I honestly can't tell you how much it would mean to me