Bardic Beginnings
Harry Potter was special. This, he knew. Of course, he was special in quite a few ways, such as the magical nature of his being that his blood kin, and their kin by both bond and blood, so reviled. Of course, the manner in which young Mr. Potter knew himself to be special was rather different. He could, you see, hear things. And not the ordinary mundane noises of human life, such as the chatter of people, or the humming of electricity. Nor, of course, the hearing of rumors and half-spoken secrets.
No, Harry Potter could hear the delicate clattering of a plant’s wind chimes, the reliable rhythm of the stone’s drums. In short, Harry Potter had a rare gift. He could hear the rhythms that dictated the world and its turning. And young Harry, you must understand, was rather curious a child. Of all the temporary refuges he would use to fend off his cousin the school library was amongst his favorites. A trove of tales to sate his curiosity, a great deal of which held stories of magic and magicians, charm weavers and tricksters, illusionists and wizards.
A collection - really more of a smattering - of which had their magicians tell tales of their own and sing songs. There was only one possible conclusion he could draw.
So, in stolen moments between chores, in dark nights behind a cupboard door, precious minutes in little clearings, Harry learned the tunes, the rhythms, and songs of his surroundings. He learned to distinguish granite from andesite, oak from birch, quartz from amethyst, all by sound. He practiced changing one song from another, making a small oaken twig into a length of asphalt, an acorn into a cylinder of rowan.
It was a slow process, learning everything he had about his unique gift, one that took years. Throughout those years he learned a great many things, that it was easier to layer one tune over another, add another layer to a grouping of harmonies than it was to try and wholesale change a tune. Most crucially, he learned that instruments were necessary to achieve certain acts. One he learned when he let his focus drift, rather upset that they were no longer being allowed to use a string instrument, and accidentally turned the stone rim of a drum to silver.
The unique nature of one Mr. Harry Potter was not, of course, the only facet of his life he understood to be uncommon. He had seen how his Uncle and Aunt treated his cousin, how the carers of his classmates had treated their charges, how the teachers had treated their pupils. He understood the nature of his board within Number Four Privet Drive was… unusual if one were to present such a situation lightly. This, compounded by the nature of young Harry’s existence, naturally led him to craft a plan.
It was child’s work for one who had his level of practice to sing anew the articles of clothing Harry had chosen for this plan. A shirt, a pair of long pants, two belts and a pair of shoes. In the dark of the night, he hummed and whistled and sang, lengthening the shirt ever so slightly, reweaving the width into length, changing its washed-out blue into a pleasant moss green, re-spinning the frayed threads. He strengthened the fabric of the pants, turning the grey of the cotton denim into an oaken brown. Having memorized the rhythm of cured leather, the harmonies of well-made boots, he sung the scuffed trainers into sturdy leather boots. The belts, he merely reinforced, altering the colors to light reds.
Packing the clothing, as well as a stolen notebook and pen, into a disheveled backpack, Harry was prepared to set his plan in motion. You see, the Dursley family of Number Four Privet Drive was going on a camping trip, a rather unusual occurrence, however, one spurred on by Dudley hearing about the Boy Scouts in America. Ordinarily, this would have left Harry with his neighbor, Mrs. Figg, however just the other week she had had a fall and had broken a leg and arm. Oddly, no one had questioned the presence of a small bump in the road that hadn’t been there the other day. So, Harry would be going with them.
Harry, having been made to sleep outside of the tents, found it an easy task to sneak away from the campsite they were at to a public toilet, changing into the outfit he had packed, taking the notebook and pen and dumping the bag, and sneaking away. As he was leaving the collection of campsites, he noticed someone had left a canvas satchel outside their tent. Scooping it up, he put the notebook and pen into the bag, which he saw had food in it, and hurried away, into the forest.
As he stumbled through the woods, he made his way through a naturally formed archway, stumbled onwards further, and passed through a small henge, not yet knowing the significance of such an act. Sitting down by a tree, he took out his notebook and wrote his first entry, as a wandering ten-year-old, finally free from his relatives.