Chapter Text
August 1st was not the day Harry Potter learned everything.
The previous day was his birthday—July 31st. His Aunt and his Uncle never did anything much for it. He was not their child, after all, and they would have never had him if they weren’t being paid for it. It was logical, in a sense, that they would not waste their money on an invalid’s son’s cake. They would not buy him unnecessary gifts. They would give him sense and they would give him chores, but they could not be expected to wear down their own hearts to do meaningless gestures of familiarity. “I know you, but I don’t like you,” was always what Petunia said, which confirmed she certainly didn't love him, a fact that didn't make him as upset as it probably should have, when he was seven and got too curious for his own good.
He stayed curious, stopped asking questions.
He quietly read books. He silently traveled through mystery novels. He hid in small corners and became a walking ghost when he had to be seen.
Harry did not seek trouble. That didn't mean he made things easy.
Early in the morning, Harry had awakened ten minutes after Aunt Petunia did. He waited for Aunt Petunia to bang, closed fist, a repetitive tap-tap-tap that gnawed on the corners of his mind, on his bedroom door—oh, I’d stuff you in the cupboard if I could, with all your oddness, but that was something your insane, crazy, hysterical mother would do and damn her if I raise her brat like she would—and, only after, he’d walk down the stairs. He could hurry, but he learned that the woman seldom cared about the seconds he wasted unless he made a big deal about it.
Aunt Petunia only acted out when Harry showed he cared about missteps. If he did not cry, Aunt Petunia would not press further into his useless tears. If he did not fight, Aunt Petunia would not punish him for bringing a ball of fire onto Dudley’s fat hands. If he did not act, Aunt Petunia would not act either.
It was a balance. It was a deal. It was life.
There were people worse, people more deserving of sneering looks and contemptuous words, than knobby-kneed, dictionary-reading Harry Potter, after all. (Only so many times Dudley could break his nose before he realized falling off his bicycle wasn’t an accident.)
Harry wasn’t the worst person in the neighborhood—that title, as of this week, belonged to Mrs. Pecker’s son, who was marrying a Russian that Aunt Petunia swore secretly a picked-on-the-streets spy—but he did carry the knowledge that he was the least wanted person in the Dursley household. It wasn’t only this morning, but every morning. He moved down the stairs, water-like movement, quiet steps that made not the slightest creak, don’t hear me, don’t see me, don’t notice me, and thought about, above all other topics, breakfast.
He had just turned eleven.
The week before, he’d gotten his Hogwarts acceptance letter right on time.
That early morn, where the sun had barely come up, the letter was still in his pocket. He had folded it so carefully that it was small enough to not crinkle or become misshapen in the tiny space. It carried a wax stamp, was signed by an Albus Dumbledore Uncle Vernon scoffed at, and was delivered by owl. Petunia made no effort to keep him from getting it.
Protectively, Harry kept it close to him. He never let the letter out of his sight. If he could, he would not sleep just to reread it all day long, a reminder that he was not like this insipid neighborhood, that he could be a Harry nobody had known before, a Harry nobody would bother out of respect and fear, that he could be Hadrian. He was still wearing yesterday’s evening clothes because of that—he could hardly bring himself to change into more Muggle clothes. Muggle, what an ugly word it was. Mundane. Unoriginal. Dursley. Aunt Petunia sewed Dudley’s old clothes for him to wear, making sure there was no way for any of the neighborhood ladies to judge the prestigious Dursley family for how they treated their ward, especially with how much Aunt Petunia talked about her sister.
On his birthday, Harry opened it again with a careful touch. He couldn’t bear to even wrinkle the parchment. Parchment, that was what wizards used. Quills and ink and parchment.
(“You're being a right freak, now,” Aunt Petunia had sighed, like he had caused her great disappointment instead of the usual amount of low expectations he brought her. She watched in a dim-eyed stare as he forgot decorum and embarrassment and all those things that make you act like a fool. He opened his letter excitedly. “Running around like a circus attraction in its demented festivals, after all the work we’ve put into you, can you believe it, Vernon—,”)
Hadrian Sirius Potter, it read. The smallest bedroom.
Hogwarts. Lily Evans’ freak school full of freaky, unorthodox, uncivilized people.
So he helped Aunt Petunia cut the tomatoes and he fried the bacon and he did the tasks he’d been taught to perfect. He was a drain on their resources. He was the snake in the grass. He was a piece of Aunt Petunia’s past that came back hissing and ugly like a pus-filled wound.
“You’re meeting them today,” Aunt Petunia hummed. There was a song-like delight in those words. She snapped on her apron even though she’d only be starting on the toast.
Harry refocused on the burns the sausage left, tiny nicks on his hands. He’d been distracted. Pity that. “I know,” he said, keeping his head down, keeping his voice low.
“They’ll be bringing you back to us for every break they have,” she continued with an almost victorious tilt to her shrill voice. “It’s better for you. Better to be raised somewhat stable and proper than that ill family.”
“I know,” he said, but there was something dark in his eyes, the vivid green that unsettled every person who even crossed his path. Always something cultivating. Always something planning. “
And that night, he couldn’t sleep and sought the company of people who hated him and whom he hated back. His relatives were together on the sofa, drinking, talking, and perhaps they were celebrating that he would be gone. It didn’t matter much to Harry anymore.
So he stood. He did not speak. (Do not see me. Do not notice me. Do not look at me.) He simply stared at the floor and took in their conversation like it was one of his professor’s lessons. Aunt Petunia was watching him. She was always watching him, out of the corner of her eye.
Finally, Aunt Petunia decided she was ready to recognize him as a person and not just a shadow of his mother. “Do you ever wonder why they left you here?”
“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” Harry said. Hands behind his back. Knuckles white. Posture straight.
Aunt Petunia snorted, the way she always did whenever she thought Harry had said something a little too daft. “It’s because they don’t love you, dear,” she said, a mirthless smile passing on her face. It disappeared the moment her eyes landed back on her wine glass. “I’m surprised that mother of yours can love anyone at all. My, I’d think, with all her other problems, that would only be the iceberg’s tip.”
Harry had listened. Dudley was always unnerved by it, but Dudley didn’t know the things Harry did. He wasn’t smart like Harry was. For that, his opinion on his oddness did not matter.
Uncle Vernon let out a low, obnoxious noise. “Some people are just born wrong, pet,” he soothed, but Aunt Petunia didn’t need soothing. Not when it came to her sister.
“Always so fragile, Lily was. Mother and Father never learned how to fix her. She’d run away to that Magical school every year, and she’d come back quieter and quieter—she was a mousy, sneaky thing, always keeping things to herself, hoarding just to make our parents worry—and then she got married to that man. Wasn’t he so darling, Vernon?” She let Vernon murmur something under his thick mustache before continuing. Harry knew she rarely ever drank, which was why she was enjoying it. Slowly, she lifted it to her mouth and let the contents spill out. Controlled. Praticied. “Held her hand like a caretaker, she was his patient, wasn’t she. And he was—well, you know why she married him—Lily was always much more craftier than Mother thought. Selfish. Money-hungry, she liked those pretty dresses even if she never wore them because she was always hoveled inside her room like an agoraphobe. Scared little mouse…”
Harry didn’t interrupt her. He never did. She left you because she was a little crazy girl who never grew up. Your father never looked back after leaving you here. Dumbledore still pays us, you know, the minimum. If it weren’t for us, boy, you’d be on the streets begging.
So it wasn’t August 1st he learned everything. He had known it all his life.
On August 1st, however, was when he learned what to do with this information.
James Potter and Lily Potter came by knocking on Number four, Privet Drive.
James complained about the weather, the bus ride, and how his wand sparkled annoyed against the Muggle technology while Lily scratched her skin raw and bloody, dragging shiny bright red nails against her pale skin. Uncle Vernon fixed himself a drink while musing about how Dudley, at Piers’ house, would be missing his favorite TV show because of this—and Aunt Petunia strolled around the house in her pink apron, a slow smile building on her face, like she couldn’t hear the knocking.
Harry listened and watched all of this. He felt phantom. It didn’t feel real.
“Lily,” Aunt Petunia said. The door creaked and she positioned herself in the middle of the doorway. “You look… well.”
Lily didn’t respond. She drifted into the house, pushing herself forward. James followed behind like a loyal dog. Aunt Petunia and Lily—Mum—his mother—stood face to face. He could hardly tell they were sisters. Petunia was blond and horse-faced, mean like a general, sharpened like a knife. Lily trembled, fair skin to the point of sickness, dark red hair falling in her face, hands clenched together to the ends of her cream-colored doll dress; Petunia had talked plenty about her facial surgeries, about her gaudiness, about her weakness.
This was his mother. And all he could feel was a sinking sense of disappointment. Of resentment. Of anger.
Lily didn’t look just scared. She looked haunted.
“It was nice of you to drop by,” Petunia was saying. “Gone for eleven years, weren’t you? But it’s nice to see you. I hope you’re more…” She looked down. A flicker of plain dislike crossed her face. “Well-adjusted than you were. I do hope you’ve raised, what was his name, Colin right—”
James, his father, shifted his feet, drawing himself up to his full height, like he was too big and too important for this house. “Charles,” he interrupted. He was in robes. Glasses like Harry’s own. “His name is Charles.”
Harry pressed his back against the wall. His heart was in his throat, bobbing up and down, because James looked like him. Harry’s hair wasn’t messy—because that was a bad, delinquent look in such a good neighborhood—but it was just as dark as James’ own. They shared noses and future stature and the exact same chin. Harry had his mother’s eyes, everything else from his father, and there was a surge in illness at this revelation.
It would be uncouth if he vomited, wouldn't it? Especially on their new rug. So he swallowed the bile and he let himself become invisible until he was called for.
“Harry,” Petunia called absent-mindedly, soft because she knew he was nearby.
James’ jaw clenched when he saw him. Lily took a step back, giving him a possessed stare, like she was seeing the devil himself. Harry wasn’t sure what he’d been hoping for, if he was hoping for anything from them at all. He had to get to the Wizarding World. He had to get to Hogwarts.
Lily was whispering to herself, about hidden enemies and God and what an unsafe and cruel world it was, as Harry presented himself.
Petunia’s eyebrow lifted in faint amusement. Her thin lips become a mere line, indistinguishable from if it was disdain or satisfaction. She glanced at her husband, giving a far-off sigh, put-upon exasperation. “There she goes again,” was all she said, taking a long, appreciative look at Lily’s trembling demeanor before she stalked off towards the kitchen. Uncle Vernon followed off after her, bored with the whole ordeal.
“You look like me,” he said to James.
James awkwardly nodded. “Yeah… uh.” He scratched the back of his hair. “Yeah… kid. Lily, that’s genetics, isn’t it?”
Lily seemed to calm herself down, although it didn’t make her any more friendly. Her arms crossed, pink and irritated where everything else was pale.
“You’re my parents, aren’t you,” Harry said.
James managed a half-hearted grin. “We are,” he said a little too brightly. It strained around the edges of every word. “It’s nice to see you.”
“Am I the heir?”
His father blinked. “The what?”
“Of House Potter,” Harry said clearly. He drew his shoulders up, even though he wasn’t sure if it was something Aunt Petunia told him to prove how clueless he was. “When you die—”
“I’m not gonna die anytime soon,” James said, distrustful, “so no need to worry about that. Anyway, we’ll be bringing you out to shop today, before the crowds come. Get your wand and your books. We’ll… um, tell you about Hogwarts. Uh, you know about Magic, don’t you? I’d think you’d know, most wizards do, and…” He turned. Worry bloomed on his face. “Lily, are you all right?”
She nodded mutely. He cooed quietly at her side, bringing his arm over her petite shoulders, leaning her into him. He kissed her temple and loosely played with a lock of her hair. “It’ll be over soon,” he was saying. “I’m sorry your sister’s such a bitch.”
Lily wasn’t affected by his words but she was receptive to his touch. She sighed into him and murmured something mildly homicidal about Petunia.
Harry watched this. He watched everything.
It didn’t matter, he thought. All that mattered was getting to Hogwarts and getting to be a real wizard.
“And what next?” Harry said.
James looked surprised at his interruption. “Oh! Um!” He brushed himself off, newly uncomfortable. He slapped his hands onto his hips. “Well, Charlie will be there. He needs to get his stuff, too. He doesn’t know about you yet. Don’t mind him if he’s a bit excitable—he doesn’t talk to other children often, and he takes after your Mum. You can just ignore him if you want. We don’t expect you to…” James swallowed. He coughed. “You can take what you’ve gotten back—uh—home. We’ll come and get you on September 1st. It won’t be a big thing.”
Harry wished he had a better vocabulary—posher, fancier, more respectable, cold and untouchable—as he asked, “Who’s Charlie?”
James glanced away. He licked his lips briefly, appearing to admire a vase far away. Something unimportant. Something reasonable. He said, speaking quietly, “He’s my son.”
Harry stared at him until James, finally, looked back at him.
“So he’s my brother.”
“You can call him that,” his father muttered very tiredly. And then, much louder, he announced, happy and shining, “Well! Enough talk! You don’t get motion sickness, do you? We’ll be taking the Knight Bus. It’s a lot of fun, Lils doesn’t like it, but it’s just the people that bothers her…”
As they left Privet Drive, Lily didn’t say a word, keeping herself at a medium distance. James’ hand swung out of reach every time Harry even glanced at it. And so, they left together.
Yay, he thought to himself somewhat sardonically. Happy family.
