Keeper of the Keys
July 1991: Harry James Potter.
Rain lashed down heavily as a tall dark hut came into view, nothing at all could be seen in the surrounding area, just the dark dank hut, and inside that hut little Harry Potter was lying on the cold dirty floor with just a moth eaten blanket to cover his cold shivering body. The boy glanced enviously at his cousin, who had the luxury of sleeping on the sofa. Harry ran his fingers through the dust on the floor before looking back to admire his work, a dusty drawing of a birthday cake was in front of him, with the small words “Happy Birthday Harry.” The raven haired child glanced a look to his cousins wrist where a watch hung, the time beeping to signify that it had just turned midnight.
“Make a wish, Harry.” He murmured to himself before pretending to the candles out on the dusty floor cake.
“Happy Birthday, son. Daddy loves you…” James mumbled quietly, fresh tears staining his cheeks, as Lily gripped his hand painfully tightly. Tears were spilling down her own cheeks, how different she’d always imagined her future childrens’ lives.
It was Sirius who made the first move, as he stood on the bench, everyone watching him quietly, before nodding to Remus, who had a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips, as he began to sing, everyone around the table stood on the bench as one, and soon the great hall was filled with teary eyed teenagers singing Happy Birthday to a little boy who for all intents and purposes did not realise just how special and loved he truly was.
Harry had lay in the cold staring at the cake he’d drawn in the dust when he heard a loud thump at the rickety hut door at the same that a rumble of thunder sounded. Harry jumped looking all the world like an anxiety ridden kitten. When a second thump sounded, Dudley awoke with a start, the two boys jumping up from their places and scurrying into hiding places, for Harry this was easy, he hid behind a wall, but Dudley, despite how he tried, had to settle for cowering on a windowsill. When Petunia and Vernon finally made their way down the rickety stairs, Harry’s eyes widened at the sight of the double barrel gun held in his Uncle’s hands.
“Who’s there?! Ahh!” Vernon let out a scream as the door banged for a final time before falling down, revealing the shadow of an excessively tall man with a big bushy beard.
“Aren’t guns like illegal?” Lily wondered, she was fairly certain that they were, however she was a witch, and as such had a much better way to fight off anyone that may wish to attack her.
“Should’a known it’d be Hagrid.” Remus laughed.
“I bet Vernon’s shitting himself right now, what good is a muggle weapon compared to a half giant!” Regulus snorted.
“Sorry about that.” Hagrid spoke as he fitted the door back into place. Vernon had been trying to level the gun in a way to seriously harm Hagrid, a fierce look in his beady eyes.
“I demand that you leave at once, sir! You are breaking and entering!” Petunia let out a quiet gasp, seeing the lengths her husband was willing to go to for magic to not be involved in their lives. Hagrid took one step towards Vernon, who’s mustache had begun rapidly twitching in fear, the half giant seized the end of the gun and bent it upwards.
“Dry up, Dursley, you great prune.” The gun accidentally went off blasting a hole in the ceiling of the already rickety hut, Vernon and Petunia gasping as they grabbed onto each other in fear, it was as Hagrid glanced further into the room, his eyes landed on Dudley by the windowsill. “Mind, I haven’t seen you since you was a baby, Harry. But yer a bit more along than I would have expected. Particularly ‘round the middle.”
“I-I-I’m not Harry.”
Harry anxiously stepped out from behind the wall, glancing up at Hagrid, his green eyes sparkling softly. “I-I am.”
“Well, of course you are! Got somethin’ for yeh. ‘Fraid I might have sat on it at some point, but I imagine it’ll taste fine, just the same.” Hagrid handed a box to Harry, who carefully opened it, revealing a birthday cake, covered in pink icing with ‘Happee Birthdae Harry” written in green frosting.
“Baked it myself, words and all.” Hagrid seemed so pleased with himself that Harry could not stop smiling up at him.
“Thank you!” The child exclaimed joyfully, in truth this was the first present that he had ever recieved.
“Ah, well. It’s not every day that yer young man turns 11, now is it? Aye?”
“Okay maybe he isn’t such a big oaf as I always thought…” Evan murmured quietly.
“Least Harry’s going to get to Hogwarts now…” Lily murmured, her hand still gripping James’
“Jamie… do you think, that cake… is the first present he remembers getting?” Sirius’ voice cracked as he said it, his heart breaking just at the thought. He knew if it was down to him, as Harry’s godfather, he would have absolutely spoilt this raven haired boy as much as possible.
“We’re rewriting everything Padfoot… there is no way that this is the kind of life, baby prongs is going to live…” James whispered quietly, his voice shaking.
“Good because, I am so buying him his first broom.” Sirius grinned his lopsided, Padfoot smile as Remus and Lily shook their heads at the pair of them. James glanced up and down the table slowly, his eyes meeting with everyone elses.
“We’re all in agreement aren’t we. Nothing that happened in what we’ve seen so far will happen this time? For Harry…” The students looked back at him with a sad look in their eyes.
“For Harry…” They all spoke as one before Barty looked up with a serious face, a wordless look in his eyes.
“Maybe, he can know Uncle Barty instead of Uncle Wormy…” James conceded, a grin spreading over the boys face, he wasn’t even remotely close to the Marauders but this raven haired child had captured every single one of his heartstrings and was relentlessly tugging on it. As one, they all glanced back to the screen, their eyes focusing at once as they watched Hagrid sit down on the sofa.
Hagrid took out a pink umbrella and pointed it towards the empty fire, two sparks shot from the end of the umbrella and a fire was roaring to life, the three Dursley’s watched on in horror as Harry carefully moved closer to the man, a look of wonder in his bright green eyes. The boy carefully put his birthday cake down, and inched closer to the man, almost as if he could sense that Hagrid was a safe person to be around, unlike his relatives.
“Excuse me, who are you?”
“Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts. O’ course, yeh’ll know all about Hogwarts.”
Harry just had a blank look on his face as he tried to wrack his brain for any mention of Hogwarts, but he could come up with nothing.
“Sorry, no.”
“No? Blimey, Harry, didn’t you ever wonder where yer mum and dad learned it all?
“Learnt what?”
“Yer a wizard, Harry.”
Harry didn’t stop looking confused at this, infact if anything, his face scrunched up slightly, in a look was completely baffled. “I-I’m a what?”
“A wizard. And a thumping good one, I’d wager, once yer trained up a little.”
“No, you’ve made a mistake. I mean, I can’t be… a-a wizard. I mean, I’m just… Harry. Just Harry.”
“Well, Just Harry. Did you ever make anything happen? Anything you couldn’t explain when you were angry or scared?” Harry’s features softened, as he remembered the incident in the reptile house.
“Ah, that’s what that was…” Harry mumbled quietly as things slowly slotted into place, Hagrid flashing the small boy with a triumphant grin.
“I’d say his reaction is much better than mine…” Lily muttered quietly as she glanced over to Severus, who in turn smiled sheepishly.
“Oh Miss Evans you are definitely telling us that story one day…” Sirius laughed as James shook his head softly.
“Do you think Harry’s going to find out about us? I can’t imagine my sister would have told him anything remotely positive about us…” Lily whispered quietly.
“He’s gone ten years without us, what if he doesn’t want to know about us…” James frowned at the very thought of it, as Lily gripped his hand, Sirius quickly shook his head in James’ direction.
“He won’t have a choice if I ever get out of Azkaban…” James grinned at his best friend, knowing just how true that statement really was.
Hagrid reached into his coat pocket and pulled out an envelope of parchment, and carefully placed it in Harry’s hands. A light shone in the boys eyes, as he finally got to open his letter. He carefully unfastened the wax seal and pulled the letter out.
“Dear, Mr. Potter. We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
“He will not be going, I tell you! We swore when we took him in, we’d put a stop to all this rubbish!” Vernon raged towards the half giant, his bushy mustache twitching every so often, in anger, this got Harry’s attention who looked up in shock at his Uncle, his emotions taking over him completely.
“You knew? You knew all along and you never told me?”
“Of course we knew. How could you not be? My perfect sister being who she was. Oh, my mother and father were so proud the day she got her letter. ‘We have a witch in the family. Isn’t it wonderful?’ I was the only one to see her for what she was. A freak! And then she met that, Potter and then she had you, and I knew you would be the same. Just as strange, just as… abnormal And then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up! And we got landed with you.” As Petunia ranted on, tears had begun to form behind Harry’s eyes, as he tried with all his might to push them back, not wanting her to know that her words were upsetting him.
“Blown up? You told me my parents died in a car crash!”
“A car crash? A car crash killed Lily and James Potter?!”
“We had to say something.”
“It’s an outrage! It’s a scandal!”
Lily was openly sobbing into her hands now, hearing how much her sister despised her. “I don’t understand…” Severus was glaring vehemently at the screen hoping to curse the Petunia of the future. James had thrown his arms around Sirius. “Did you see his little face Pads… He was so upset and they just stood there and insulted him…”
Sirius held James trying to provide him with comfort, as Remus spun around on his seat just in time to see Pettigrew once more looking highly uncomfortable, his own cheeks wet with tears, as he realised just how much suffering his future self inflicts upon a small child.
“It’s okay James, remember, Harry’s going to have the most amazing life now that we know what we can all do differently, plus if he’s growing up with Gryffindor and Slytherin influences he’s going to be the bravest boy who can get away with damn near anything, merlin you’ll be grey before he’s even at Hogwarts!” James chuckled softly as he reached over dragged Remus into Sirius’ other side so that they’d effectively made a very Sirius sandwich.
Barty in turn, was extremely distressed, having seen the child stop himself from crying, it broke his heart to see and he swore to himself that he would be the best Uncle he could be to this little boy, and everything would be right with the wizarding world.
As the Dursley’s continued to argue with Hagrid, nobody saw Dudley sneakily taking Harry’s birthday cake away and scurrying away into a corner.
“Oh hell no…” Barty cried, as he once more drew his wand and began attempting to fire curses at the pudgy boy on the screen.
“Stealing from an orphan?! How low can this family go…” Regulus grumbled while silently promising to make Harry a birthday cake every single year for the rest of his life. He’d just have to learn how to make them first… Kreacher was bound to agree to help him though!”
“He’ll not be going!” Vernon was still trying to assert his dominance to the situation as it unfolded, despite Hagrid currently towering over him, laughing in his face.
“Oh, and I suppose a great muggle like yerself’s goin’ to stop him, are yeh?”
“Muggle?” Harry questioned quietly, having sidled up to Hagrid’s side, knowing that he’d probably agree with anything Hagrid said just to leave his family and go to a wizard school at this point. Hagrid glanced down to the boy, and gave him a calming smile.
“Non-magic folk.” He tried to explain to the boy before looking back to Vernon and Petunia, he looked highly irritated to still be arguing with them over sending Harry to Hogwarts! “This boy’s had his name down ever since he were born! He’s going to the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world, and he’ll be under the finest headmaster that Hogwarts has ever seen; Albus Dumbledore.” A small smile appeared over young Harry’s face as he heard the strange name of his headmaster, it made sense in his brain that a magic school would have a head teacher with such a funny name really.
“I will not pay to have some crackpot old fool teach him magic tricks!” Vernon all but roared making Harry jump backwards, as Hagrid quickly pulled his pink umbrella out of his coat pocket and pointed it towards Vernon.
“NEVER INSULT ALBUS DUMBLEDORE IN FRONT OF ME.” Hagrid roared back at the quivering muggle before him, when he caught a movement out the corner of his eye, he turned round to see Dudley bent over Harry’s birthday cake shovelling it into his mouth, Harry looked so upset, but Hagrid simply aimed his umbrella towards the boys fat bottom and shot a spark at him, a pigs tail growing rapidly.
Dudley shrieked in horror as Vernon and Petunia grabbed Dudley and all three ran back upstairs, in terror. Harry let out a loud laugh at the image of his cousin sporting a pigs tail, as Hagrid grinned at him, glad he was able to make Harry laugh, because he couldn’t have done much of that around these muggles for the last decade.
Dumbledore let a small smile grace over his face as he popped another lemon drop into his mouth, Hagrid had always admired him, he was very grateful for the half-giant and the work he did around the grounds of Hogwarts.
For what it was worth, Lily was trying her hardest not to join the rest of her peers in bending over laughing at Dudley’s new tail, however, she was more focused on watching her always managing to stay an arms length away from his Uncle whenever he got particularly angry, and this really did break her heart.
Once the Dursley’s had retreated back to the upstairs of the dank hut, Hagrid turned to Harry and flashed him a sheepish grin. “I’d really um, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone at Hogwarts about that. Strictly speaking, I’m not allowed to do magic.” He confessed shamefully, but Harry, being Harry did not question this at all, he just nodded his head and happily agreed, his mind focused on getting as far from his relatives as he possibly could, as fast as he could. Hagrid pulled out his pocket watch to check the time while Harry looked over his letter once more, a wide smile tugging on his face.
“Oh, we’re a bit behind schedule. Bes’ be off.” The half-giant went over to the door and pulled it down again before stepping outside and turning back to where was still stood looking anxious. “Unless you’d rather stay, of course?” Harry grinned before glancing to the direction of where his relatives had gone and quickly grabbed his jacket before running out the door after Hagrid.
“I always did like Hagrid.” James smiled softly, as Sirius nodded in agreement.
“His rockcakes however, are a completely different story.” Remus moaned before rubbing his cheek where he’d recently chipped a tooth.
“Anyone know why he can’t do magic?” Evan wondered out loud as everyone else shrugged.
“Dunno, but I got a whole lot more respect for him now that I’ve seen that terrible cousin with a pigs tail!” Regulus smirked.
“Shame he didn’t turn Vernon in to a Walrus.”
“Or Petunia into a giraffe, she has the neck for it.” Lily muttered under her breath.
“It can be arranged. I’d quite like to meet my future sister in law over the summer.” James spoke.
“Evans! Can you throw a house party? We’d all come just to bully Petunia!!!” Sirius laughed as everyone around the table nodded in agreement.