A mysterious letter
You can pick a child and as true as a coin landing either on its head or its tail, that child will either have had a fantastic childhood, which they will look upon in nostalgia or a horrible one, which they flee from. Now, nothing is as black and white as that, I can admit that but these biases aren’t coming from me, who knows this world down to its most unimportant detail, these biases are coming from the mind of a child, a boy who most certainly falls in the second camp in this argument. Orphaned at a young age and forced to live with his abusive relatives, which had their own son, a spoiled boy who got everything he wanted and yet our protagonist never got much. Food was on his plate but never enough to satiate him fully, not the best quality either. He had a roof under which to sleep but was never allowed much space within that home. Toys were a rarity, he only got some when his cousin allowed it, the spoiled boy would rather overcrowd his rooms than share.
Within this life he lived, these black and white views of childhood made sense, it was all he knew. One child who was pushed into the dust and one who sat upon a throne of gifts and love. The one thing he was to have that his cousin wasn’t was the library. Not for his relatives’ good will but because his cousin couldn’t care less about books, he detested reading. Our protagonist, though, adored them, the old pages that smelled of transcribed wisdom which sat stack upon stack, row upon row in the old library. Much of his time was spent between oaken shelves packed to the brim with books. There weren’t many that were suited for children but he didn’t mind, why would he need to cling to the innocence of childhood when his’ was but a cage. What truly would he give up to understand the texts that he so desired?
He believed in no wondrous man in red which brought presents to children across the world, after all he never got any presents. Neither did he have any of that wonder in his eyes which his classmates did when they looked upon a kitten, no amount of cuteness was worth more than knowledge. He cared not for fairytales of grand adventures but for the truth as it laid transcribed upon the pages, be they paper or parchment, no matter how gruesome that truth may turn out to be.
Truly, Harry Potter was an abnormal child, more so than even he realized. Now, I am to assume that you, who happened upon this story are aware of just how special Harry is but he isn't, not yet when our little tale falls into motion. It begins, where many of his days peak, in the town library…
Harry sat in his favorite leather chair, a thick book, as per usual, laying on the small coffee table beside him, its pages under the ever knowledge seeking gaze of the young boy. Little light passed into this part of the building. It had been built when glass was difficult to produce and expensive to purchase, so many of the shelve-made hallways were barely lit, forcing the staff to always have lamps at the ready if someone wanted a book from there. This didn’t worry him though, his sight was extremely good in the dark, even if that did mean it suffered in harsh light, it was one of the first phenomena that he read about in this very chair. Lighter colors of eyes let more light through than their darker equivalents, which led to a very clear advantage to lighter eyes in darker places and to darker eyes working well in brighter environments. Harry’s eyes were definitely light, neon green some may call them, a very distinct color that even lightly gleamed in total darkness.
Bioluminescence was not a trait commonly found in humans in a wavelength that was visible to the naked eye, quite the contrary but evolution had brought about stranger things, he supposed. This had its disadvantages too, in normally lit places, Harry had to wear sunglasses just to make sure he could see. It was as though the brighter it got, the more his vision blurred. This reaction was what he read up on right now, a certain version of Glare sensitivity if his assumption was right, though his case wasn’t the usual one, his eyes complicated the matter.
Loud creaks of the wooden floor informed him that another person walked near, not the librarian though, his steps were too light to make much of a sound, much like Harry’s own, these ones, they were heavy sounds, nothing that the frail old man that ran this place could produce, though just as slow as his steps. As the creaking grew nearer and the steps more clear, there came another noise, previously too quiet for Harry’s ears to pick up on, cloth sweeping across the surface.
Soon Harry, from the corner of his vision, could see the origin of these sounds, a tall woman in her thirties wearing long, silver-gray robes turned around the corner, her frail fingers trailing the bookshelf to her right. Subtle amulets hung from her neck on a bronze chain, each a different shape and color, some matching the needle-thin rings which wrapped around her fingers. The woman’s dusty gray eyes traveled slowly from shelf to shelf, resting on some texts more than others, before her eyes found him within the dark. A small, almost childlike smile spread across her lips, “Mr. Potter I assume”
It wasn’t a question but a statement, “I must say, I thought you would look more like your father but looking at you, you are your mother through and through, if only that hair was a different color, I might have mistaken you for her”
“My mother?”
A small sigh escaped the woman, sitting down on a small wooden stool which Harry was certain hadn’t been there before, “Yes, bright little thing she was, you know, I was a grade above her in school and still she knew more about charms than me… but I am getting distracted. Now, we have heard that your relatives have neglected to educate you about your birthright, not to worry, that’s what I am here for. Mr. Potter, let me tell you a story…”
Harry didn’t think of interrupting the lady as she droned on, her words like honey.
“Behind the normal world, there lies one of magic which is closed off to those that aren’t magical themselves, people like your relatives, muggles. Your parents weren’t like the Dursley’s, they were magical, a wizard and a witch, both brilliant, even if your father wasn’t always the most responsible with how he used that brilliance. A great conflict broke out many years ago between those of us that believed Wizards and Witches the next step in human evolution, the superior entities, and those that believed our kind to be a branch of human evolution, not its continuation. I, for one, don’t see the point in arguing about it but not many share my point of view. Anyways…
this conflict, it raged on for many hundreds of years, there were no good or bad sides for most of it, just different schools of thought with some extremists here and there, that is until two wizards rose to power in quick succession, both gathering extremists to their cause, both losing in the end and sullying their own school of thought in the general public’s eye. It is that second wizard who is most important for you to know about, for your parents thought against him and you were the one who ended his reign. Many are afraid to say his name even now that he is long dead but I find it important that you know it, this wizard called himself lord Voldemort, he gathered behind him many wizards and witches whose families had descended into madness due to inbreeding, calling war upon all muggles and wizards that were closely related. Many fell to him and his following but in the end, his reign ended. When he killed your parents Harry, when he was about to kill you, something happened. No one knows what it was, there were no witnesses but in the end, the dark lord Voldemort laid dead in the room and you had survived, but a scar upon you. That day, you were proclaimed as the savior of Wizarding Britain, the boy who lived.
Most of Voldemort’s followers were locked away in Azkaban, the most secure wizarding prison in europe, excluding the one which holds the former dark lord, Grindelwald but no one was sure if every follower was found, so, to hide you from fanatics, you were brought into the muggle world, to your aunt and uncle. There was much critique when that decision was made, much of which I agree with but nonetheless, the decision was final. Now, almost ten years since you saved us from the war with the extremists, it is time for you to learn magic.
Normally, a child gets many letters from schools all over the world but, seeing as who you are, only one school was the right one, Hogwarts, school of witchcraft and wizardry. The school which housed your parents and many of your paternal ancestors.
I, as one of the professors at this school, was sent to deliver you your acceptance letter. It is an honor to meet you mr. Potter, I am Professor Babbling, I teach an elective subject known as Ancient Runes”
It took a while until Harry had managed to process all which had been revealed to him, even longer to sort it out. In the end, he couldn’t find this story untrue, as improbable as it may sound, many times before had strange things happened around him, things that not even his dearest books could fully explain away. He had brushed them off, they must simply be beyond his understanding yet, he had told himself and in a certain way, they were, weren’T they? How could he understand magic if he didn’t know it was real yet?
On his coffee table, there laid the letter, written upon in curved, green letters: ‘Harry Potter, Leather chair, darkest part of the library, Ragenbuck library, Little Whinging, Surrey’