Chapter 1
Harry sits in the chair hunched over himself. Petunia places a plate before him with a loud thunk. The food is warm and smells heavenly. Dudley sits by him and picks up the toast from his own plate. Dudley bites in to the piece of buttered toast and looks from his mother to his father. Severus was reading the Daily Prophet. A picture for an advertisement for the new Nimbus 2000 broom flutters on the page that faces the boys.
“Father,” Dudley calls out, very lanky and tall for his age.
Severus puts the newspaper aside and asks, “Yes Dudley?”
“When are we going to Diagon Alley to get my stuff for Hogwarts?” he asks.
“Don’t speak with your mouth full Dudley. I will be taking you and Harry to Diagon Alley to get your things the day after tomorrow. You boys pack up the rest of the essentials into your trunk in the meantime,” Severus said. He always spoke very clearly to Dudley, giving him all the attention he could while he could. He was not as careful with Harry though. Harry mostly got things told without being looked at by either his aunt Petunia or his legal guardian, her husband.
Harry shivered then and started eating his food slowly. He had gotten the letter the same day as Dudley. He too got the long list of books and assorted things he is supposed to bring to Hogwarts on the first day of admission. He had not one coin in his possession and not one thing to call his own. Everything he ever had was given to him as a loan, one of the rules in the Snape house that Aunt Petunia followed judiciously.
Harry was Aunt Petunia’s younger sister’s son. Both his parents were dead and he had no extended family apart from Aunt Petunia, her husband Severus Snape and their son Dudley. Aunt Petunia and Severus in turn were orphans as well and had no family to speak of. Somewhat reclusive, they kept to themselves and absolutely doted on their one son. Harry they kept around because he was family but there was no deeper meaning to it.
And now there was Hogwarts. It would be the first school he would go to. Home schooled till date, both the Snape and Potter boys were shy and extremely reserved. Since Harry could remember, he had hardly seen other people except from the windows of his house. Apart from Dudley, no one really talked with him, only to him. The only time he had gone out had been to the hospital once, when it was discovered he would require glasses.
He was covered up in robes for the whole thing, hiding his face and incredibly nervous to even talk with a new human being. Not that he needed to of course, Aunt Petunia took care of the talking, explaining the problem. When she asked Harry to take off the cloak, Harry shook and shook and shook, standing still and unable to move. When the healer told his aunt to leave, Harry started wailing, begging his aunt not to leave him.
The healer than forcibly had Harry ingest a drought then and that had calmed him down enough to carry out the examination. Aunt Petunia had been most displeased, more so when the healer informed her that Harry had a lot of anxiety and it would not do for the boy who lived. Harry could not make out what that meant. He cried on reaching home because each moment outside felt like he was going to suffocate and collapse at any moment.
Since then, Aunt petunia had been doling a bit of a magical drought that tasted just like water to calm Harry whenever he got ‘over excited’. It didn’t help much though, unlike the potion that the healer had given him. But Harry could not ask for more. His food was to be cut off this week again. Uncle Severus never spoke on these issues and it was as if Harry were invisible to him most of the time.
Today, however, completely bewildering Harry, Severus told Harry to take a seat before him. Harry had sat down with his heart literally beating in his throat. Then, Severus had proceeded to tell him exactly why that healer had called him the boy who lived. Harry had been gobsmacked. Adding to that had been the information that he would be able to access his parents’ inheritance now. Harry was rather nonplussed with this information.
All that time he went hungry or without things, he could have gotten them easily? He had the money, his Aunt could have gotten it out for him but she just kept on depriving him. How was any of this fair? How had been his life, apparently the boy who lived and defeated Voldemort, fair in any way? Harry had tried to say the same to his guardian but as usual the words had gotten stuck in his mouth.
“Ww-why didn’t you tell mm-me before?” Harry had asked aghast.
“It was your Aunt’s decision Harry. Nothing I could say over a blood relative anyway,” Severus answered calmly, getting up and walking to the dining room to start eating his breakfast.
And now here Harry was, shivering and shaking till Aunt Petunia deemed him disturbed enough to give the anxiety drought. Not that it would help of course. Some perverse part of his brain also whispered that he was merely making a scene just like Aunt Petunia accused him of doing almost everytime he got an anxiety attack. In fact the situation got so dire that Severus had to step in this time, making Harry drink a thick and nice smelling drought to calm his nerves.
Everyone had been openly dissapointed in him for needing the drought and after breakfast Harry just went and laid down on his bed, crying silently as he though of his poor mother and father. The day after tomorrow he would go out with his guardian and cousin and out into places crowded with people. Maybe the day after tomorrow, if Harry wished hard enough, he will also disappear into thin air.