Chapter 4
The rest of the summer flew by, and soon Harry was waking up on September 1st to head to kings cross station. When the dursleys came back from aunt marge’s place, dudley had been mysteriously sick. None of the doctors could explain his illness, but rather seemed apathetic to his plight since it was helping him lose weight. Indeed they told aunt petunia that if he didn’t eat as much he wouldn’t get sick. After multiple doctors telling her the same thing, she started to believe them more, but Dudley wailed that he was starving, and she would let him have more food. In the end, this led to him getting sick, which only cemented in aunt petunia’s head that dudley was simply overeating and needed to learn portion control. Poor dudley…
Anyway, Harry had cleverly manipulated his way into Dudley's second bedroom after showing Aunt Petunia the letter he had gotten with his address to the cupboard under the stairs.
“I wonder how they knew I slept under there?” he asked offhandedly as he looked at the opened letter. When his aunt had caught sight of the seal on the envelope, she blanched and choked out that she needed to talk to vernon. The whisper fight in the hall between the two adults led Harry to inhabit the lovely room on the second floor, complete with a bed on the floor and a wardrobe that had the doors knocked off. Of course he was locked in there now, that hadn’t changed, but he had space for his trunk at least. That morning Harry had approached his aunt to let her know he was going to school for the year and that she would never see him again.
“What do you mean, Brat?”
“What I said, Aunt. I leave today for Hogwarts, and I hope to never return.”
“How could you possibly be able to live without food, shelter, or money?”
“Oh, Auntie, I have money. Almost more than I could ever spend. And you’ll never get any of it.” Harry smirked and walked out of the house with his trunk in hand, leaving a gobsmacked petunia behind.
A few blocks down, Harry called the knight bus and took it to kings cross. He entered the platform via the hidden entrance per Tom's instruction, and chose a seat near the back of the train. Tom came out in his new animagus form, scolding him in parseltongue,
“ that was shortsighted you know. If Dumbledore finds out, this could ruin your plans.”
“I have a plan tom, just hear me out.” and at the snake’s acquiescence Harry laid out his plan. “I’m basically guaranteed to be slytherin, if not I will still be of interest to those powerful families that have heirs at Hogwarts, right? Well, I figure that if I cozy up to some of the people who have more power and give them my sob story about living in a cupboard and what not, I can at least get an invitation to their house for the summer. If that falls through I could always rent a room or something, or even choose a nice alley in muggle london to camp out in my trunk.” Tom just stares at Harry with his snake eyes, glaring as best as he can in that form.
“This is a bad idea, but alright. The worst that can happen is you get found out and forced to go back, in which case you’ll try to run away again.,” He gives a long sigh that ends in a hiss, and curls around Harry's neck.
At that moment the door to the car is flung open and a tall red haired boy stands in the doorway huffing, “I’ve been looking everywhere…I’m Ron.”
Harry was truly and utterly baffled, “I’m…sorry, is there something you need?” he trailed off looking out the door in hopes of some sort of emergency.
“I, er…I was hoping this seat wasn’t taken.” the red head, Ron, started to move into the car when harry stopped him with a hand,
“I actually am saving it, my friends should be coming any minute. There really won’t be any room, and I haven't gotten to talk to them in ages. So please, go choose another cart.” Harry tried to be as polite as possible, but really he just couldn’t understand why the boy was being so rude.
The boy was already flaming up getting ready to release a verbal tirade no doubt, when a group of three boys made their appearance.
“Oh, great you made it. Please, come in.” Harry said to the leader of the group, a blonde boy who was just about to speak before Harry turned to Ron, “See, the car is full, so go find another place to sit so the train can leave.”
The boy flushes and puffs up, beginning another tirade when the blonde haired boy steps in, “Look Weasley, he obviously doesn’t want to sit with the likes of you, so take a hint and scram.”
Just as the battle was about to get heated, a woman called out for Ron, and he was away.
The red haired boy stomped off in a huff, leaving Harry and the group of three boys. “Thanks for going along, I’ve been trying to get rid of him for ages. So rude.”
“Think nothing of it, I’m Draco, Draco Malfoy. These are my friends Crabbe and Goyle.”
“A pleasure to meet you, heir Malfoy. My name is Harry Potter, Heir Potter-Black.”
Harry invited the trio in to take a seat and they discussed their hopes for the year, with Crabbe saying he was most excited for herbology, and Goyle looking forward to charms. Draco expounded on his favor for potions, as his godfather was the potions master.
“He’ll be teaching us potions this year, he was the youngest ever potions master, and he’s invented several innovative potions.” Draco bragged. Harry thought that Draco must really like his godfather, though it made him wonder if Harry would like him too. He was even more curious if he would like harry.
“What house do you think you’ll be in, Harry?” Crabbe asked in the lapsed silence.
Harry hummed, “well, my mother and father were both in Gryffindor, as well as my adopted father. My other adopted father was a slytherin, and my family has a history of either being slytherin or gryffindor. I personally hope for slytherin, although Ravenclaw wouldn’t be too bad.”
“Excellent choices. Did I hear you say you had two adopted fathers?” Draco asked with curiosity. Harry internally smirked at Draco taking the bait.
“Yes, I just took a gringotts test. I grew up with my relatives but never knew another family. It was nice to hear about my parents and magic.” Harry said, innocently suggesting he didn’t know about his family or magic until recently. The trio of boys looked shocked before Draco took the lead in interrogating him.
“You didn’t know about magic?” Draco almost screeched his question.
“No, I was with my Aunt and Uncle. They’re muggles.”
“But, that shouldn’t… Harry, that's not what's supposed to happen.” Draco said, looking shocked and a little sick.
“Umm, what do you mean? I have lived with them since my parents died.”
“Yes, but when a magical child becomes an orphan, they’re not supposed to go to muggles. Even muggle born children would be adopted into magical families.”Goyle explained in a hushed rumble.
“Didn’t you do accidental magic when you were young?” Crabbe asked.
“ Well, sure. I made my teacher’s hair blue, and when I ran from my cousin, I was suddenly on top of the school. I also healed super quick and was able to talk to the snakes in the garden." Harry announced somewhat proudly.
“You WHAT?'' Draco did screech this time. “No way, you’re a parselmouth? That's like, super rare!”
“The point,” Goyle said, shooting a look to draco, “is that all those things could have let muggles know that magic exists.”
“Also, some muggles get really weird about magic. There are some horror stories about young kids who die because their family believes they’re the devil.” Crabbe spoke up with a shiver.
“Oh. I guess that makes sense, my relatives didn’t like me doing ‘Freaky’ things. They would punish me for doing magic.” Again, Harry's words made the car go quiet.
“Harry,” Draco said. He couldn’t seem to find the words, so he got up and hugged the black haired boy, who had started leaking tears from his eyes. Harry sniffled, trying to stop his embarrassing reaction. He really didn’t mean to cry, how embarrassing.
“It’s fine though, I found out I have some money. I don’t have to stay there anymore. I have a plan to use my trunk, it has a room in it. I can live in muggle london in my trunk in the summer and come to school in the fall. I never have to go back.”
Sensing that the topic was over, the three changed topic quickly, but Draco vowed to himself that his father would hear about this.