The red haired Potter

Privet drive, surrey. A normal street with normal residents. The Polkiss’ with their young son piers, the Handyman’s with their teenage daughter Lydia and of course, the Dursley’s with their pride and joy Dudley. But Dudley wasn’t the only child housed with the ever respected dursley’s, their nephew, Harry also lived with them.

Consensus amongst the families of Privet drive was that Harry was a naughty boy, a troublemaker who they didn’t want to engage with. In school, he got in trouble often and didn’t have any friends. Now, he wasn’t bullied either but the children avoided him, be it because their parents told them to or because they just didn’t like the boy very much, no one could say. Still it changed nothing for his image, black as the night.

Truth be told, he wasn’t a bad kid, everyone just thought that he was. What no one knew was his real self, far away from the dark rumors surrounding him which flew and whizzed like storm clouds around his head. Harry, the true Harry, was a kind young boy who didn’t understand why no one liked him, why he was constantly shunned and forced to sleep within the closet under the stairs.

He was different, that much was clear. He could make things happen when he really wanted to. Make his clothes turn from the bleak gray they were to a more vibrant color or levitate his pencil when he focused enough. He was special and that made the others hate him, he was sure of it, they were jealous.

Right about now, young Harry laid within the closet underneath the stairs, having fun with making balls of light appear and disappear again. It wasn’t enough light for him to read -bummer that, he liked reading- but it was still more fun than to just lay there and wait for his aunt to open the closet’s door for him to make dinner, or rather keep an eye on the dinner that aunt petunia made so that it wouldn’t get burned.

He produced a ball of light on his finger tip, it was bright white.

Squinting at the ball, Harry willed it to turn from white to green, a bit darker than his eyes, then to red, like his hair, which fell into his eyes. Swatting away the lock of fiery red curls, he began concentrating again, making the light dance from his pinky to his ring finger and back. Sometimes he still wondered what he was, he wasn’t a normal person, he was something more than that but what exactly was he? An Alien? He doubted the Dursley’s had any extraterrestrial family. A superhero? If so then where were the other heroes and villains? Was he part fairy? Like in the childrens stories they read in school? Or maybe he was a wizard, like merlin or Bibbi Blocksberg?

Whatever he was, there weren’t many like him, or else he would’ve met someone like him already, he was sure.

Lost in his thoughts, the light fizzled out of existence and he was left once more in the darkness of the closet, his only companions the spiders laying still in the corners. The small arachnids were there as long as he could remember, always present and always comforting. Harry never had problems with spiders or reptiles. It was the more generally liked animals, dogs, cats and so on, who seemed to hate his guts for one reason or another. Mayhaps that was indeed why snakes and insects liked him so much, they were both outcasts, damned by the non-understanding of normal people. Just like himself.

There was a faint clicking noise, notifying him that he was free to leave and even more that he was ordered to leave. He knew that in ten seconds after the lock was opened(sometimes more sometimes less) his aunt would screech for him to attend to the bacon fizzling in the kitchen. Knowing that, he got up and did so before his aunt could command him to do it. Doing things right like that meant that he got more food and he needed all he could get, he was a growing boy after all.

Attending the bacon was a rather mundane way of passing his time. Nothing ever happened. The bacon didn’t get burned, not anymore. Harry was too good at cooking for that to happen. With the bacon cooked to a nice, even crisp, Harry was given his own portion of breakfast. Including scrambled eggs, a strip of bacon and two full pieces of toast. It tasted divine.

The bell rang just after he was done eating, so his uncle ordered him to get the post.

Laying there on the floor were four letters. A bill of some sort, a postcard with a small letter attached and two letters addressed to him.

Knowing full well that the Dursley’s would take the letters from him, he stuffed them into the closet on his way back to the dinner table, as he always did upon getting mail. He got letters every once in a while, mostly from the library, when he forgot to return a book or (most often) when he was locked in his closet, preventing him from returning them. He didn’t have any library books with him at the moment, so he didn’t know what the letters could be about but he would find out later.

First though, he handed the other two letters to his uncle.

Vernon grunted with disdain at the bill, before looking at the postcard and the accompanying letter, when his face turned white, “Petunia dear?”, he croaked out.

“What is it, honey?”

Without a word, vernon handed her the letter and she too grew deathly pale, “sweet Dirk… he is-”

“Looks like it”

“Oh my…”, Petunia shot a glance at Harry, almost as if she was looking for something.

Harry didn’t understand what was going on. Dirk was Aunt Marge’s son, that he knew but what was going on, he couldn’t fathom. Soon after, he was sent to his closet by an overly paranoid petunia.

There, he was alone with his letters, the first of which he opened under the light of his glowing thumb. What he read there shocked him beyond reasoning, he was accepted into Hogwarts, a school for magic. Was what he could do magic? It seemed official enough and there was a map showing him where he could get the things on the list. There was also a key inside, which -according to the letter- was for a vault in a wizarding bank, where he had an account. The other letter was less important if all the same revolutionary for Harry, just a small letter from the ‘Ministry of magic’(that exists?) giving an equally short briefing on magical transportation and his parent’s true fate. They were murdered, it said and their murderer tried and failed to kill him, leading to him being famous in this magical world.

It was all a bit overwhelming yet at the same time, it fascinated him to no end that he was indeed special. Even in this world of magic, he was still special. The boy-who-lived, the savior of magical britain.

This discovery ignited within him a spark of something unlike he’d ever felt, a flame of pride and ambition unlike any other. He was the boy-who-lived, he was special, he was destined for greatness!