An eight year old boy stood at the front of the class, his palms sweating as he looked at the sum on the board. Harry could feel every eye in the class stare at him in his too big clothes and was acutely aware of the tuft of hair sticking up from the back of his head. He gave the board another look, trying to figure out the impossible problem. Maths had never been his strong subject. The phone outside the classroom and Miss Richardson left the room to answer it. He looked around the bland classroom, hoping for some source of inspiration. Instead his eyes found Dudley Dursley.
“Thicko!” his obese and coincidentally brain-dead cousin shouted. This was the trigger for Piers Polkis, a nearly equally horrible boy, to start yelling insults and soon the entire class was throwing insults at the skinny boy.
“Stupid!”
“Weirdo!”
“Freak!” Various members of the class shouted. With that last word, Harrys’ blood boiled with anger. That was the word Aunt Petunia always used to describe his mother whenever she rarely came into the conversation.
Harry glared at his cousin, concentrating solely on him, wishing with all of his might that for once it would be Dudley who was humiliated. But it was always him.
“Oh! He’s giving me the evil eye. Look! What are you going to do, Potter? I’m so scared! I’m……” But before Harry had a chance to find out what else Dudley was (a few of Uncle Vernons more colourful words sprang to mind), his cousin disappeared from his desk and reappeared on top of a tall bookcase at the front of the room. Without his trousers. The entire class took a collective gasp and at the same time Miss Richardson re-entered the room.
“Dudley Dursley, what do you think you are doing? Come down immediately! And where are your trousers?” She glared at him, waiting for an explanation.
“It wasn’t me, Miss. It was him!” Dudley pointed an accusatory finger at Harry. When she still looked sceptical, he implored to the class, “Tell her, then!”
Dudley was a bully and no-one really liked “the freaky kid with the glasses” And no-one wanted to be on the receiving end of Dudleys wrath at the end of this escapade. As one, the class erupted into loud explanation, a few people pointing at Harry to emphasise their point.
“Thank you. I think I’ve heard enough,” grimaced Miss Richardson, holding up a silencing hand. She turned towards the pale boy in front of her. “Is this true?”
A fierce battle was going on inside the young boys head. He could lie and attempt to get out of trouble, denying that he had anything to do with it. Or he could attempt at the entire truth, even though he didn’t understand a jot of it himself. All he knew was that weird stuff always seemed to happen to him and that Uncle Vernon constantly called him a “freak of nature”. Or he could chose the safest option and tell her exactly what she and the rest of the class wanted to hear. That he had been responsible. After all, if he was such a freak then it must be at least partly true. Before Harry even had a change to sort through all of the thoughts whirring through his head, Dudley made up his mind for him.
“He’s weird. He…..he can do weird stuff….” Harry looked down at his feet, took a deep breath and answered,
“Yes”
***
The bell rung to signal the end of school just as Harry walked through the metal gates of the playground. He had spent the last fifteen minutes of school in Mr Stanley’s (The formidable Headmaster) office. This was the third time in the last term that Harry had seen the interior of the office because of his (though he did not know it) magical wrong doings. The last time had been when he had ended up on the roof of the school when running away from Dudley and his gang. Harry had been given a warning about “climbing school buildings”, but the way he remembered it, no climbing had happened at all. He had just ended up there.
And of course, he now had the customary letter to take home to the Dursleys. He wasn’t expecting any food for a while. Harry looked behind him at the sound of a foot crunching on dead leaves and realised he had a bigger problem to deal with. Dudley and co. were standing a few paces behind Harry, looking menacing.
Harry turned around to face the gang that often haunted him in his dreams and made his life a living hell. He didn’t run, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of letting them know he was afraid.
The line between courage and stupidity was a thin one, Harry mused as eight fist pounded into his body, two of them belonging to Dudley and an extra two holding his arms behind his back. His sight blurred as Dudley took hold of his glasses and snapped them in two. David was emptying the contents of his school bag into a puddle. He saw the blurred image of a huge, meaty fist heading straight for his stomach and doubled over in pain, but was relieved to hear the footsteps and laughter moving away from him.
He groaned, closing his eyes and staying curled up on the pavement until he could be sure that Dudley was gone. When he brought himself to open his eyes, the eight year old saw the blurred outline of a man standing over him, wearing a set of green, well, robes
The man smiled and offered his hand to Harry, helping him up. He then handed him his, now miraculously fixed, glasses. Harry slid them over his nose and tried to pick up the sopping books. It was while he was retrieving the dripping letter from Mr Stanley that the strange man spoke.
“Are you Harry Potter?” How odd. How did this stranger know his name? He had never met this man in his life.
“Yes.” he said, straightening up. “How do you know my name?” Instead of giving an answer, the man told him,
“Your sheet’s running away.” Harry turned around to retrieve his English homework and when he turned back to where he had just been looking, the man had gone without a trace. How strange. It had only been the other week that he had seen another man wearing the same strange clothes (only this time in violet) bowing to him. Uncle Vernon had been very angry about that. Sighing, Harry continued to walk to number four. Uncle Vernon was going to be angry about this letter too.
***
“BOY!” Uncle Vernon bellowed up the stairs. Harry halted on the last step and turned around slowly. He had been hoping to sneak to the attic without being noticed. He had been spending a lot of time in the attic lately, preferring it to his cramped cupboard under the stairs.
He started to make his way towards his already scarlet uncle. Harry knew that if this had anything to do with this afternoons events (which it was certain to) then scarlet was only the tip of the iceberg. Vernon Dursley would be a dark shade of purple by the time he was done.
“Boy. What’s this I hear about you going to Mr Stanleys office? Well? Have you got a letter for me?” Vernon’s face was slowly moving a long the colour scale, reaching a deep maroon by the end of the sentence. Harry could also see evidence of a particular vein throbbing in his forehead
“Yes,” Harry grimaced and headed out of the kitchen to his cupboard to get it from his school bag, a rucksack that Dudley had managed to break the zip of, so was passed down to Harry. He returned to the kitchen, letter in hand.
“Why is it damp, boy?” Uncle Vernon asked dangerously.
“ I…..I tripped,” Harry said, thinking on the spot. Blaming Dudley would only get him in more trouble.
“You’re lying. You befouled it on purpose, didn’t you? Didn’t you?” Vernon really was stupid. But Harry knew from experience that telling the truth to his uncle was pointless. You had to tell him what he wanted to hear.
“Yes.” Harry murmured. Anything for a quiet life. Though the man shouting down his ear was starting to give him a headache, so not really that quiet. Harry handed him the letter which he read, his piggy eyes moving back and forth across the page.
“You’re just like your drunk of a father and your worthless freak of a mother, you know that? They were both useless, futile, good-for-nothings and you’re following well in their footsteps, boy….” Uncle Vernon continued to rant but Harry stopped concentrating. Instead of looking his Uncle in the eye, he was looking at the glass cabinet above the mans head, filled with delicate wine glasses.
“ Your father was nothing but an arrogant imbecile while your mother was a freak of nature, just like you…”
Again Harry tuned out, his blood rushing to his head, his pulse beating in his ears. He was still staring at the cabinet, glaring at it, getting more and more angry, hotter and hotter…
CRASH!
There was glass everywhere and a high pitched scream form Petunia.
“BOY! YOU DID THAT! COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!” Vernon grabbed an escaping Harry by the neck and pulled him back into the kitchen.
“It wasn’t me,” Harry gasped, but there was no point.
“IT RUDDY WELL WAS YOU!” Vernon bellowed, now the predicted shade of purple.
“ I didn’t…I wasn’t….. I didn’t mean to! It was like magic!” The minute the word were out of Harrys mouth he instantly regretted them. The last time he had said that word there had been trouble. And there enough,
“THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS MAGIC! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? NO SUCH THING! GO TO YOUR CUOBOARD! NOW!” And as Harry ducked through the low doorway he heard it being slammed behind him and the bolt being drawn across from the outside.
And as that day was a Friday, his hopes for the next two weren’t high.
End
A/N. Please review. This is my first one shot and I need to know what you think. Go on, it’s not that hard. In fact the little box is just below here, so just type a bit of cC and brighten my day! Thankyou if you read it and an even bigger thanks if you review. :D
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