oh god changes happened (duh)
“Of course Ginny, it’s absolutely miraculous that he survived this, but you cannot seriously believe that he could beat a dragon barehanded at the age of 4!”
A young girl, brown-ish red hair in a bob cut was reading a bedtime story to her little sister. The night was dark but the room was still lit despite the lack of any furniture besides the beds of the two girls. The walls were oddly bare and where you would usually find at least a poster, there was nothing besides a small and crude hand-drawn picture of ten people, with their names above.
“What about with a wand? I’m sure he would be able to!”
-Probably not, he doesn't even have a wand… listen, Do you want me to tell you a story? I could tell you about the great hero: All Might! He was as strong as a giant, faster than any broom, and he had a smile so bright that only by being in the room you didn’t need any lumos.
-Woooow… Please, please Vivi tell me!
-I’m not suuuure.
-Please, please please!
-call me chako and it's a deal.
-Okay.. Why?
-Because I asked.
-But why?
-pretty please?
-hmm..Okay!
-Well what story do you want?
-The one about him against the super magical bird inferi without brain!
-Okay so…”
(-o-)
“Draco, Antiochus, come here!
-Yes father.
-Uncle?
-As I told you the other day, you should know how to properly act as purebloods. Making friends with mudbloods shall not be tolerated. Neither shall you even speak to those half-breeds that pretend to be among the cursed. If I hear that one of you made any friends with this kind of wizard or witch, you will be punished accordingly. Now let’s move and meet the Parkinsons. remember; back straight, head held high and shoulders back.”
‘How am I supposed to act when I meet the others? I know Bondo’s here at least, Shishida is probably the one they took last month, and Tokoyami from 1-A was the first big catch.’
(-o-)
‘It’s official, my brother's new name is ‘truck-kun’ and it’s never gonna change.
-Not like he can protest really
-please guys, could we speak about anime tropes AFTER I stop breaking every single one of my bones again?
-Well use only a half percent without moving, should help, we still have a few years before puberty anyway, and your body seems to be “born for it”.
-I wouldn’t call it that, you know.
-Of course if you try using as much of it as before this whole bullshit that’s gonna hurt.
-Fair.
-By the way, when will we be able to move freely again?
-Don’t know, don’t want to think about it.
-My boy, as much as you are right, we maybe should discuss why we are not with your new father anymore.
-How can we know? We barely saw what happened. Not like it changes much from the first time around.
-Yes but we’re not in Japan anymore, plus your father died “mysteriously”.
-the wording implied “interesting”, what can I do about that? Maybe he was in the secret services and we’ll learn about it in a few days, or hear me out… people die because it's life.’
With that the heated mental discussion came to an end, the small child ignoring the pain from his broken arm and wincing at the phantom pain of a cane to his shins for his recklessness.
(-o-)
It had been nearly ten years since Harry Potter had mysteriously vanished, eleven since “the cursed ones”
Not that Harry knew any of it. In fact, to him the day was normal. Not like it could have been anything else with the Dursleys really, what with their seemingly permanent longing for normality to the point of obsession. The walls were all pristine as if made the day before. Harry’s aunt Petunia was checking the picture frames so often that the spirit level she used may as well have been a part of them. Harry was asked to know how to do his bed perfectly from age 6 and this was only because before this age he did not have the physical capabilities to do it. The car parked in the garage was at a precise distance of one meter and fifty-six point seven centimeters from each wall. He knew about it from the rambling of his uncle after Dudley, Harry’s cousin, had forgotten to measure it right.
Harry’s uncle was named Vernon. Vernon was a man who seemed to have declared a bitter war against his greens, war to which the two children were more than pleased to participate when younger. This absolute hate of healthy foods added to his love for very large quantities of fish and chips had made him very large. Petunia Dursley said it was the sign of a strong man. Dudley had once said it made his father look like an elephant. This had led to the biggest punishment Dudley ever got: no sweets for a week.
Dudley was trying to imitate his father so much, it sometimes even became something close to heartwarming. Until Dudley opened his mouth and made abundantly clear where he was the most prolific in imitating his father: his complete lack of any social graces at home. Vernon said that Dudley’s size was healthy while Harry thought that if his cousin’s arms and legs were any shorter he would make a perfect sphere.
Petunia was the last member of this museum of horrors, as some of the neighbors had taken to calling the family (including a Mrs. Next Door that Petunia had shut down with glee by remembering some of the gossip about a secret son with a very small and ugly man that had allegedly fled the country towards Russia because of his job for a “bank”). She had taken the allowed neck length of her family for herself, giving away her share of body fat, leaving her looking like a skeleton with parchment to cover the rest (it could hardly be called skiing, thought Harry, and he had believed his aunt might have a giraffe heart to be able to pump blood to her always pink cheeks before he learned of her habit of drinking a glass of gin every time she had to interact with anyone.)
Harry’s eleventh birthday was approaching, and with it came the prospect of changing schools. His cousin was to follow in his father’s footsteps, while he was to go to the local school. It wasn’t the best thing, but maybe without his cousin he could finally go and make some friends.
In fact, he often wished for friends, but Dudley had made it his duty to stop him from having any. Every time someone talked to him was an excuse for a good beating, of both parties if possible. Harry had been targeted so often that he probably could have beaten most adults when it came to running (it wasn’t true, but he only cared about his uncle and aunt anyway and none of them seemed to know how to run more than a few meters without stopping, panting with the sounds of a dying whale and saying that he was fast because he was a freak).
Eleven years ago, looking out the windows would have let you see the number 5 privet drive, a house like any other, and Mrs. Dursley would probably have taken pleasure in taking note of everything happening there.
One year later, the gas explosion happened, making the number 5 an old memory.
Since then, the neighborhood had not changed much. The Dursley knew that there had been one couple that had decided to move to London, but that was about it. It was a miracle that new gossip was still a possibility, with every neighbor knowing what the other was doing at all times. Only the children could give you an idea of the time passing.
In the Dursley’s house however, you could have thought that no one other than the three main members of the family existed. In one room, Vernon and his wife, sleeping like an old seal and a horse head on a stick. In another was Dudley, seemingly taking pride even in his sleep of his lack of chin if the triple smile on his abdomen and face was any indication.
If you wanted to find Harry, you’d have to seek in the smallest room. In this same room was a spider, one that the little boy cradled like a pet sometimes. He was using said spider like this since he had never been allowed to let cats or dogs in the house (the fur got everywhere and everyone in the house had spent a day scrubbing the floor and picking any hair with tweezers after Dudley had brought a stray in) and any other animal would have been too weird for Privet drive and the Dursleys.
Ten years since the “porch day”, and Harry still dreamt of a green flash sometimes. He didn’t know why, or how he always had this same dream, but it was followed by a sense of loss.
A few days earlier had been Dudley’s birthday, and he knew that he was walking on eggs since that day. They had seen a quite literally rocky boy talking to the snakes and other animals in the zoo, and the Dursley had been shocked enough that they had just shouted about lunatics and went home.
Since then, Harry had been especially quiet, and had obeyed even faster than usual. He knew how to deal with them. If they asked to jump, you jumped, no asking “how high” or anything. He remembered this lesson from when he had asked questions about his parents. He had only gotten one answer to everything: the Potters were so pathetic that his aunt and uncle couldn’t be bothered to remember them.
Lost in thought, he forgot about the time, only brought back to reality by a loud sound. It was his aunt, shouting at him to get out of the cupboard where he left his belongings, nearly all of them school related, to get the breakfast ready. Just another day in the life of Harry Potter.