Chapter 1
Harry is woken by a loud obnoxious stomping ceiling of his bedroom- or well cupboard. He coughs at the sprinkle of plaster falling from the weight of the boy he must call cousin. At the repetitive nagging from his aunt at the door to make breakfast, he makes his way into a seated position. He turns on the small light bulb in the cupboard with the small chain nest to the door. Squinting his eyes closed he feels around for his clothes that he threw somewhere last night.
When he finds them wedged between the sorry excuse for a mattress and the wall, he puts on his stained trousers, thankful to be out of his damp pyjamas, ignoring the almost constant rash burning his skin and he tise the waistband of the dcrapy jeans with scrap bit of yarn to keep them up, slipping on the massive t-shirt, so big it hangs off his shoulder no matter what he does.
Harry knows that he is small for his age and for most kids, being just over the average height for a 3 year old at 105.6 centimetres. Harry is not exactly sure why at the same age as his cousin, 11, that he is much smaller than the giant that Dudley is. He eats all the scraps from his family's meals and some of the bits that fall on the floor which admittedly is not much but still he doesn't get any bigger each year.
He told his aunt once that he thinks it is some sort of magic that he is not getting bigger but she just got very mad and locked him in his cupboard for 3 days without any food, then when he got out uncle Vernon gave him a beating so bad that he couldn't move for 3 more days to which aunt petunia just said ‘if you can’t get up you can’t have any food’.
Today Harry remembers, it is a special day as it is Dudley's birthday. Which to Harry also means that it is only 2 weeks until Dudley goes out to a place called school, which still confuses Harry as Dudley always complains about it but aunt and uncle say that it means Dudley is smarter as he gets to go to school. Harry is not too sure but he knows that you get to read lots of books and make loads of friends.
Harry wishes he gets to go to school as well but tries to think of the positive side that when Dudley leaves so does aunt Petunia which means that he gets to have the house to himself which is nice and he gets to sit on the living room floor. Not the sofa, no that is too good for him.
Finally ready he crawls out of his cupboard and makes his way over into the kitchen to make the breakfast hoping that maybe if he burns a piece that he might be able to eat some. The Dursleys are always hungry but especially in the morning and he rarely gets any.
He sits quietly in the hallway until they are done. He watches as they put their coats and shoes on, gushing about how the zoo will be before uncle Vernon grabs him by the ear and throws him into the cupboard.
“Don't even think about getting into any mischief. And I want all the silverware polished before we’re back, do you hear me boy” he shouts into Harry's ear.
“Yes sir” Harry replies obediently.
Harry gets to work as soon as they are gone. After a lifetime of house work he is done in only an hour meaning that he has time to sneak another book from the living room into his cupboard to read. Harry learnt to read after finding an out learning book of dudleys and using it at night when everyone was upstairs and sleeping. From then on he borrowed Uncle Vernon's from the living room bookshelves whenever they went out.
Although he is not very good it gives him some strange sense of hope.
Harry eagerly waits for the next two weeks to pass, dreaming of the day he can sit in the sunshine, with the curtain closed of course the dursleys don't want anybody to know that he lives with them, and read all day.
It is on a slow Tuesday that it comes. As Harry is collecting the post like normal he flicks through them, practising reading a few of the words at the front. He stops when he sees something he was not expecting: his name. He looks at it knowing that it must be for him because that is where uncle Vernon's name is always. He flips it over and only sees his own name.
Not thinking he quickly shoved it under his cupboard door for later. He quickly acts like nothing happened and passes out the post to uncle vernon and a single postcard to aunt petunia.
Later in the evening when he had finally finished scrubbing the kitchen tiles. He crawls back into his cupboard, too tired to even change into his pyjamas, when he stops noticing the letter he forgot about.
Quickly he turns on the light bulb wincing as the bright light hurts his eyes from working in the dark for so long. He looks at the writing, re-reading it again and again before signing, giving up understanding how they knew he lived in the cupboard under the stairs.
Although he doesn't fully understand the letter he thinks he understands most of it. From what he can read he thinks that he is going to a school for witches and wizards and there are some more things but he thinks that a bus will be picking him up on the first of September which is the same day that Dudley also starts school.
Thankfully the learning book he found in the bin about telling the time came in useful and he knows that the bis will come at 8 in the morning. He thinks about whether he should say goodbye to his aunt and uncle but thinks better of it as he always said that he wasn't allowed to go to school and they might not let him go. So he quickly hides his letter under his mattress leaving his hand on it, relishing in the knowledge that in under a week he will be at his very own school.
Without realising he drifts off into a peaceful sleep ignoring the deep lashes on his back from his beating after dinner.
The first of September comes quickly enough. The Dursleys mostly seem to forget about Harry, too caught up in getting their precious Dudley ready for secondary school. Buying him the nicest tailored uniform, professional high end stationary. So for the most part of that week he was left locked into his cupboard. Although this also means that the dursleys do not have enough time for him giving his body time to heal.
His is woken up on the first by loud rushing up and down the stairs. He waits patiently until he hears the tell-tale sound of the door slamming shut and the screeching of the car tyres on the drive as they rush to not be late.
He crawls out of the cupboard and into the small toilet opposite using his small rag to wipe himself clean, ridding himself of the pee that has soaked his clothes. Once the everconstan burning from the rash that he has always had from never being properly toilet trained is somewhat dulled, he puts on his clothes tying the yarn securely onto his boney hips.
He checks the clock in the lounge seeing it is very close to seven. He walks cautiously to the door. He knows how to unlock the door but hesitates from the fear; he hasn't been let outside for years.
He twists the lock he has seen aunt petunia do so many times and reaches up to pull down the handle effectively opening the door. A strong gust of wind blows the door open more. He stares at the plain street in awe, revelling in the strong smell of freshly cut grass, sweet apples from the treen next door. Bumble bees buzzing in aunt petunias flower beds.
His sweet bliss is interrupted by the squeaking and clattering from a purple bus, seemingly appearing right at the curb of the dursleys house.
“‘Ello, little man, you goin’ to Kings Cros’?” the lanky ticket taker asks with a practised smile. “Hogwar’?” he asks after, sensing Harry's confusion.
“Yes! Hogwar’s?” Harry smiles, shutting the door and rushing down the drive to the man, stumbling on the grass, his legs so fragile from years of limited use and little exercise.
He struggles climbing onto the bus, having to heave his little body up.
“Say kid, how ol’ are you?” the ticket taker says as he looks down at Harry with an eyebrow raised.
“Eleven” Harry answers anxiously fiddling with a small hole in his t-shirt.
“ok , well nice to meet ya m’names Stan” he says shrugging and holds out his hand to harry.
Harry grabs his hand and holds it unsure what to do with it. “‘Ello m’Harry” he smiles toothily at stan. Stan looks at him with a weird look before he asks:
“So where's your bags, then ught to get goin’?” he asks, looking back to the dursleys for Harry's bags.
“Harry doesn't have any bags'' Harry says confused, frowning, the letter although couldn't read most of it he was sure didn't say anything about a bag.
Stan just looks at him before shouts to the driver to get going.
“You probably wanna sit down '' Stan says with a smirk at the same time as the bus feels like it took flight, speeding off into the morning.
“I think i might have somethin’ you could take, ah here” he says as he pulls a much to big trunk for the small cupboard.
Harry stares in wonder at the trunk as Stan opens it and searches through it.
“Yea’ well this has some uniform and a few books, think it was left here last year or sumin’” stan says as he kicks the box over to harry who stares at stan shocked.
“Fo’ harry?” he asks and only when Stan nods, a confused smile blooms on his face. “Harry went to school, aunty always said Harry can't go to school but now he is!” Harry squeals with excitement moving steadily over to Stan and hugging his legs, only because he doesn't reach higher on the freakishly tall man.
“Ok well we are here, ya know where ya goin’?” he asks, looking out of the bus one hand on Harry's shoulder as Harry stands next to him.
“No” Harry says, fear growing at the amount of people rushing around outside the station.
“Ok well follow me” stan says as he grabs harry's new trunk and walks away. Harry toddling after him. They put his case on a baggage trolley and walk together onto the platform he follows closely behind Stan not wanting to get lost in the large crowd of people.
He trips over when Stan stops suddenly but quickly gathers himself up, rubbing his knees to relieve the pain of falling over.
“Just through there then” stan says pointing to a wall between the platforms nine and ten. Harry looks at it then looks back but not finding Stan.
His rising panic is paused when he sees a family all with striking red hair hussle onto the platform. An older woman presumably their mum starts showing the eldest kid threw the wall. Harry watches, confused as she shoos two identical boys to walk right through the wall.
“Excuse me! H-how?” Harry shouted to the family, gesturing to the wall.
“Oh are you a first year honey?” she asks kindly. Harry nods and she tells her next son pushing a trolly to run through.
“Ronald dear, show him how to do it?” she says using a much firmer voice.
The boy who looks to be about Harry's age and who Harry now knows is Ronald rolls his eyes but runs through the wall pushing his trolley through with him.
“Now you go dear and my and Ginny will be right thru after you she says smiling warmly patting harry's head as he starts running. He closes his eyes waiting to hit the wall but it doesn't happen.
When he opens his eyes he is on a much more busy platform than the one he was on before. He looks back seeing the mum and little girl come though. He keeps walking on the platform watching as parents cry sending their children onto the train. He sees a big pile of trunks just like his one, not thinking about it he drops his off there assuming that someone will get it to his new school with the others.
Eagerly he climbed onto the train, almost slipping a few times onto the tracks but eventually he made it in. He quickly apologises to some older kids staring at him weirdly, for taking so long getting on. He walks down the train on the side looking least busy.
He lowers his head as he feels the stare’s from the other kids on him as he walks to find somewhere to sit.
Eventually he finds an empty compartment. He groans when he sees the high seats wondering why everywhere has to be so tall. He gets on the seat with some struggle sitting with his legs not even hanging off the edge of the bench.
As he waits for the train to depart he pulls out the letter that he had been holding in the waistband of his trousers. He studies it trying to make sense of it some more. While he was reading students kept opening the door peeking in, seeing him and leaving giggling to their friends.
Eventually after the train has started chugging, a girl and the same boy from before, Ronald, come in.
“Do you mind if we sit here, everywhere else is full” she says.
“Yes,” he says with a shy smile.
The girl with the large frisky hair that bounced as she sauntered in sat herself directly in front of harry.
“My name is Hermione Granger, this is Ron Weasly and you are?”She asks not kindly but not harshly, Harry was confused about her, but nobody,not even Ron, wanted to talk to him so he figured she must be nice.
“M’ Harry, Harry Potter” he says, reaching to grab her hand still unsure why everybody keeps doing that to him.
“What! No way you can't be Harry Potter!?” Ron says, outraged looking at Harry with disgust. Harry cowers away from Rons loud voice, knowing that loud voices always mean beatings.
“Shut up Ron, you're scaring him” Hermione tells Ron off sternly. “I am sorry Harry ron it just that well everyone thought you would look a lot different” she says in a much softer voice than she did when she first introduced himself.
“I’s fine”he says although he curls in further on himself, watching out the window trying to ignore the whispers from the other two, sobbs start building to eventually be releaced in loud wails unable to suppress the sadness and fear he feels.