chapter four
After Harry paid for his wand, the two of them left the store and hagrid gently tapped his shoulder with a finger, “Are ye good to get back ‘ome alone? I need to make another stop at Gringotts, official business for ‘ogwarts and all that”
“Yeah Hagrid, I’ll manage my own way home. Still have to go shopping in muggle london too. You go do whatever the school needs you to do and I’ll be off. See ya at hogwarts”, Harry told Hagrid before walking out the entrance to the leaky cauldron, into muggle london. His first stop was to a generic muggle clothing store. In there, he bought seven T-shirts, seven trousers, some nice walking shoes, underwear and socks were also on the list of his new clothing. All set and done, he paid close to 400 pounds for his muggle clothing. Which left him with another 100 pounds to get back to the Dursleys’ house. So he bought himself a train ticket to the station nearest to privet drive and then took the bus back to near privet drive.
The Dursleys hadn’t arrived back to the home yet, they were probably still driving back, so Harry took the key from underneath the garden gnome and unlocked the empty house. The whole living room floor was still filled with letters. He ignored this however and went straight up into his room with his trunk, not even getting his stuff out of it. Inside his trunk, his things were safe, so he kept them there. He did, however, get out some of his books and started reading. The books were so fascinating that he didn’t even notice the Dursleys arriving back at the house until Petunia was standing in the doorway to his room.
She looked about ready to shout but when she saw the wand in his hand -which he lit up using Lumos in order to read easier in the dark room- she turned pale and walked away. Noticing this, he was sure that his life would be a lot easier now that he was a wizard.
And so, the days continued to drag on. Harry spent the most time just reading and trying out spells, much to the fright of his relatives. The only interaction they had with one another was when they were eating and even then, he liked to do a few spells just to see their frightened expressions. It was comedy gold to him, who’d been tormented by them for the last 10 years of his life.
He knew that he had to do it as much as he could because after his first year at Hogwarts, he would be forbidden to cast magic in the company of muggles or anywhere that wasn’t a magical community, he read as much in “a history of hogwarts”. Not that his relatives had to know that. He was totally fine with them thinking he could turn them into frogs whenever he so pleased. It kept them in check.
A week before he was to begin his education at hogwarts, a large owl came carrying a photobook of moving pictures with a card that read, “Happy birthday Harry, sorry that it took so long”- love hagrid
The photo album was filled with pictures of what he could only assume were his parents, in different stages of life. Some were of kids his age, a girl with red hair and eyes that were just as green with his and a young boy who looked just like him, except for his eyes and a bit less malnourished. As he continued to flick through it, they got older and older and eventually there were pictures of them kissing and holding hands, there was even a picture of their wedding. They weren’t the only ones in the pictures, there were also their friends, a few girls and boys he knew little to nothing about except that they were their friends. There was a blonde girl with dreamy eyes, a brown haired boy looking just as underfed as he did, a blonde boy on the chubby side and an attractive black haired boy with a constant smirk on his face.
He wrote Hagrid a letter back, thanking him for the photo album and send it using the owl, which patiently waited for the response before flying off with it.
The owl almost gave aunt Petunia a heart attack.
Soon, the wait was over and he was to get to kings cross to ride the train to hogwarts, which he had read about in “a history of hogwarts”. So he called down the knight bus, which he’d learned about in “how to live in the magical world, a guide for those of muggle descent” and paid for the passage to Kings cross station. The drive was not exactly relaxing but it was over very quickly, so he couldn’t complain.
Once at Kings cross, Harry walked straight into the barrier between platform 9 and 10. To his surprise, he didn’t crash straight into the metal but instead walked straight through it. Inside, there were many kids of varying ages and parents seeing their children off. Harry walked straight to the one person he recognised, Draco Malfoy, “Hey Draco, good to see you again”
“Oh Harry! How nice to meet you again, these are my father and mother”, he pointed at the couple standing behind him, “parents this is Harry Potter, I told you I met him but you didn’t believe me”
“Hm… seems I stand corrected”, the father looked Harry over, “nice to meet you Potter”
“Nice to meet you too mr. Malfoy but I’ll get on the train now, see you later”
“Yes, yes, see you another time Harry”, Draco said in place of his father.
He walked onto the train, easily getting his magically feather light trunk into the train, where he carried it to an empty compartment.
It was a few minutes later that a red haired boy came into his compartment asking to sit with him.
“Sure, take a seat, I’m Harry”
“I’m Ron”, the red haired boy introduced himself, “Wanna be friends?”
“Sure”, Harry answered, happy to have another friend, “What house do you think you’ll be in?”
“Gryffindor probably”, he was silent for a good few minutes before he asked, “Hey, I saw you with the Malfoys, what’s that all about? The Malfoys dabble in some very dark magic, you know. They were followers of You know who back in the day and even today they hate muggleborn witches and wizards”
“well, they seemed nice enough to me”, he shrugged it off, “If Draco turns out to be a dick, I won’t be friends with him but until I see any of that, I don’t have a reason to judge him”
“Fair enough”, Ron mumbled.