Harry Potter was blonde.

Dumbledore had not been expecting that.

Harry wore neither wizard robes, nor the common muggle attire that an average eleven-year-old might wear.

Instead, he wore a black tank-top which showed off the large snake tattoos that wound up both of his arms and appeared to trail down over his shoulders to his back.

Dumbledore had certainly not expecting that.

But then again, from the address on the Acceptance Letter maybe he should have.

“Harry Potter?” Dumbledore began, “My n-”

“Wrong Harry, old buffer,” Harry interrupted, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair, glancing up at the clock.

Dumbledore glanced at the lightning bolt scar on Harry’s forehead. “No, I’m fairly sure you’re not the wrong Harry. I take it you go by Harry Dursley, then?”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “Yeah no kidding. That’s my name.”

“Well, I’m glad Petunia and Vernon accepted you so fully into their house,” Dumbledore replied, though he hadn’t been expecting anything close to this. He’d actually been afraid that Harry would grow up in a rather less than ideal home, though it couldn’t really have been helped.

Harry didn’t say anything, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“On to business then, I suppose. I am Professor Dumbledore from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You are a wizard, and I’ve come to give you your acceptance letter.”

Harry’s eyebrows raised again, though in surprise rather than derision this time. “Huh. Mum and Da won’t be pleased,” though he didn’t look at all concerned about this particular fact.

“I take it from your rather blase reaction that they gave you the letter then?”

“You ‘take it’ incorrectly. I’m just not terribly surprised that I’m special,” Harry replied smirking.

Dumbledore did not like where this conversation was heading. “I see. Well, I primarily came to personally deliver this letter. It has all the details that you will need to get to Hogwarts, and a list of everything that you will be required to bring.”

Harry held out his hand for the letter, which Dumbledore duly handed over.

Dumbledore further studied Harry as he read through the letter, though his attention kept being drawn back to the snake tattoos.

After a moment or two Harry looked up. “I assume there’s some super secret magic wizard shop somewhere where I can buy all this?”

“Diagon Alley. Generally for those who don’t have prior contact with the Wizarding World we have a professor escort them there.”

“I don’t need a babysitter, old man, just give me directions.”

“I take it that you are accepting your position at Hogwarts?”

Harry shrugged. “Probably, yeah. I’ll have to tell my parents, and run it by Dudley, but I assume they won't have a problem with it.”

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “Then you will address me as Professor or Sir. And once you get to Hogwarts you will address the other professors with the respect due to them as both your elders and your teachers.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Yes sir, professor,” he said sarcastically.

Dumbledore was strangely relieved that Harry hadn’t pretended to be more polite. The more steps away from Tom the better.

Dumbledore gave the directions, writing them down on the back of Harry’s letter. After a couple more last-minute instructions and warnings, he turned to leave.

“You’re not going to bust me out or anything? What if I’m stuck in here too long to make it to school?” Harry asked, though he didn’t sound like he had been expecting anything.

“Then perhaps you will learn a valuable lesson.” Dumbledore once again began to leave, but this time his hesitation was completely his own.

He turned back. “Why snakes, Harry?”

Harry shrugged. “Why not snakes? They’re cool,” but he had a look on his face that said there was definitely more of a reason than just the fact that snakes were cool.

Dumbledore considered using Legilimency, but ultimately decided against it. This boy had defeated Voldemort once, and would hopefully do it again. Appearances could be, and by Merlin’s boots hopefully were, deceiving.

So he left Saint Brutus’ Detention Center for Juvenile Delinquents, no more reassured than when he’d entered.

Harry hadn’t actually wanted, nor expected, the odd old man to bust him out of Detention, since he was going to be leaving soon anyway, but the less suspicious the old buffer was, the less likely he would end up messing everything up.

He glanced up at the clock to check the time again. Two minutes late. Dudley, you’d better not scrap the plan just because I had a visitor.

He was escorted back to his room, and from there he set the plan in motion. Dudley hadn’t gotten sick of waiting and waddled off, but more importantly Piers hadn’t followed him, and in just under an hour a guard had successfully been encouraged to change the computer records to say that Harry had definitely served his time, and was being released.

Since the guard wasn’t addled enough to actually let Harry out, before any other guard could stop Harry and/or do any sort of annoying investigating, Harry skidaddled his way to the yard and scurried up over the fence whilst Piers (and technically Dudley, though he just sort of stood there and let Piers do everything) distracted the guard who was there.

Once Harry was over, he quickly found the bike Piers had left at the predetermined point, and immediately rode his way down the long twisting driveway that led back to Privet Drive proper.

He didn’t go home quite yet, since he had some words to give to a certain snitch.

About an hour and a half later Harry was walking up the driveway, whistling a merry tune as he did so. A moment later Petunia came rushing out of the house, and Harry mentally braced himself for a smothering hug.

“Riri!” Harry made his face light up at this, though he was mentally rolling his eyes. “You’re home!” The next moment the smothering hug had arrived. “Oh did those awful people finally let you go? You’re so thin… did they starve you?? I’m going to-”

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“Mum?”

Petunia stopped her tirade and stepped out of the hug, looking down at Harry, “Yes?”

“They realized their mistake and let me go as soon as they did. You don’t need to write to them or call them.”

“Bu-”

“They didn’t starve me either. It’s only been two days, and I’m fine. They’ll know better next time.”

Petunia wrung her hands. “But if they’ll believe anyone who is jealous of you, then you’ll spend more time falsely imprisoned. And now you have a record! I-”

“Mum. When they realized their mistake they took it off my record. It’s fine.”

A few minutes of persuading Petunia that everything was alright later, Harry was finally able to go inside. Vernon was at work, so Harry decided to wait to ask about the weird ‘wizard-school’ which could have just been just a prank played on special people by other special people. But either way, he wanted to get all of the rage and concern from his parents done with at the same time.

Not to mention Dudley couldn’t keep a secret, so he wouldn’t run it by him until after he’d told Petunia and Vernon.

Dudley was back by now, of course, and Harry dropped by his room to say hi. They didn’t say anything about anything, since Petunia had a tendency to listen to absolutely anything that anyone was talking about that she could hear, and though they probably would have been fine, they didn’t want to risk it.

Dudley was busy playing Space Movie Game 2: Retribution, so Harry didn’t bother him for too long, but he did feel like talking with someone about this whole thing, especially if that someone had half a brain. Dudley was great and all, but he didn’t tend to… think all that much.

So after telling Petunia where he was headed, he made his way down to Piers’ house.

He didn’t bother knocking and made his way up to Piers’ room right away, passing a passed-out Mr. Polkiss on the livingroom couch.

Piers was down for a chat, as they hadn’t talked for a couple of days ever since they had planned how to bust Harry out, but he obviously didn’t want to wake up his dad, so the two of them headed down to the little park that they all liked to hang out in.

“So what did you wanna talk about?” Piers asked, once they’d kicked a couple of eight year olds out.

Harry smirked. “Some old man visited me right before I got out. Invited me to a wizard school.”

Piers’ eyes widened, before squinting into a thoughtful expression. “Someone’s been watching you?”

Harry shrugged. “Maybe, but they don’t seem to care about what I do, so we don’t need to worry about it. Either way, whatever this place is offering is probably going to end up being useful.”

Piers nodded slowly, before his eyes lit up. “Imagine being able to set the Strikers on fire, but without it actually hurting you or anything. Man, no one would mess with us.”

“Right? But it would also mean that I’d be away for nine and a half months out of the year. Would you guys be able to handle everything?”

Piers’ smile dropped, and he frowned. “I dunno. Without you there to troubleshoot my ideas the next best guy for that would be… honestly it would probably just be better to not bother. And you know how many problems we sort before putting any of them into action.” He thought for a moment. “If we lose you the other kids might get cocky and try to stand up to us, but I’m sure Dudley and the others can smack some sense into them. It’d be rough but we’d probably make it alright.”

Harry nodded. “Right then. But would that be worth it? I mean, we’ve got it great right now.”

After a moment of silence, during which they both thought this over, Piers smirked. “Flaming Strikers though.”

Harry laughed. They chatted about it for a while longer, debating the pros and cons and whatnot, but eventually they landed on it would be super cool and even if the gang suffered for a little while Harry would become downright awesome in the meantime.

Harry had never seen someone go so pale. It was honestly a bit concerning. Normal people were not supposed look like an albino rat snake. Or rather, in this case it would be an albino walrus.

Were there albino walruses?

Harry’s musings were interrupted by a whisper from Petunia. “V-Vernon… th-they found us.”

When Vernon spoke it sounded like either rage or fear were being masked by a thin veneer of calm. “Harry. You will write back to these… people and tell them that you are not interested. You will then burn the letter and forget about it. Do you understand?”

“I understand the instructions, but not the reason. I know you and Mum hate weird stuff like ‘wizardry’ or whatever, but I don’t know why. It sounds cool and helpful.” Petunia and Vernon were looking at him aghast. “I mean, imagine being able to have the dishes wash themselves or being able to mow the yard in the snap of your fingers. Imagi-”

“S-top it!” Vernon barked sharply. “You will put this foolish nonsense out of your head at once. There is no. Such. Thing. As. Magic. No such thing as wizardry. The old man was insane. Understand?”

Harry frowned in ‘innocent’ ‘confusion’. “But, if magic isn’t real, why are you so afraid of it?”

“Because! There’s a group of nutters out there who have deluded themselves into thinking it is real, and they kidnap innocent young children who don’t know any better. I’d wager over half of the child disappearances in the past century have been because of those crack-pot crazies!”

Harry cocked his head. “So it’s because they’re deluded that you’re scared of them?”

Petunia glanced at Vernon, her face no less frightened than it had been at the beginning of the conversation.

Vernon scowled. “If it were real, I’d want none of that freakishness under my roof.”

Harry slammed his hand onto the table in genuine frustration. “But why?! Either this is a trap, in which case magic isn’t real and you don’t have to worry about it, or it isn’t a trap and life gets easier! Whether or not we accept that magic may or may not be real doesn’t increase or decrease the chance of someone with magic hurting someone, any more than any other criminal! We don’t have a lot of crime here. We haven’t been attacked by wizards or by people deluded into thinking they’re wizards. What are you so afraid of??”

Vernon slammed his own fist onto the table, causing the glasses of water sitting upon it to jump several inches. “I WILL NOT HAVE ANY MAGIC NONSENSE IN THIS HOUSE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

Harry made absolutely sure not to scowl out loud, instead flinching and shrinking down a bit.

Now, Dudley Dursley had spent years practicing how to get what he wanted out of his parents. A well-placed tantrum and some crocodile tears and he was set.

Harry was on another level. He didn’t know how exactly, but he was a master at getting his mother to change her mind. Vernon was a little trickier, but he could still manage it ninety percent of the time.

So Harry let tears begin to pool in his eyes, but he made sure to keep them held back. Whenever Dudley managed to actually get himself to fake-cry, it just happened at once, which, while it made Petunia want to stop him crying immediately, it was less persuasive than proper faking.

So, Harry did his absolute best not to cry in front of his Mum and Da. “Y-yes sir.”

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Petunia immediately go into protective mother mode, though she didn’t rush forward to comfort him like she usually did.

Vernon scowled.

Harry slunk down further in his chair turning his face away from the two so that they totally and absolutely wouldn’t see the tears begin to slip down his face. He aggressively brushed them away, slinking down even farther.

Very quietly he asked, “Can I go to my room?” (The dichotomy between his scared-child act and his tank-top and heavily tattooed arms was quite something.)

He didn’t have to look to know that Petunia was practically straining at her leash wanting to hug him and tell him it was alright.

Vernon didn’t say anything, but he nodded sharply, so Harry carefully and quietly got up and slunk out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Not all the way of course, just far enough to be out of sight and yet close enough to hear what Petunia and Vernon would talk about. He also let whatever tears he had left flow down his face without wiping them away. Just in case.

“Oh Vernon, are they watching us? What do we do?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We ignore them. I swore I would have none of that under my roof, and that we’d stamp it out of the boy if it came to that.”

“But he really doesn’t know any bet-”

“Petunia. Do you want that freakishness to corrupt the boy? Do you want Dudley to be exposed to that?”

“Oh goodness no! But Harry doesn-”

“If you want to tell him that that nonsense got his no-good parents blown up then go ahead. But I refuse to let anyone bring that here.”

Harry heard Petunia gasp. “Vernon! He’s eleven! How could we tell him something like that?”

“If it would stop him becoming a freak like his parents I would have told him when he was three!”

There was a bit more back and forth that just reiterated their general stances, but after a few minutes Petunia said, “Whatever I end up telling him, I need to go make sure he’s alright. He was crying Vernon. Dudley cries all the time, but Harry never does. You shouldn’t have scare-”

“Petunia. I don’t care. I’m glad he’s scared, maybe that’ll keep him away from the whole mess.”

Petunia didn’t say anything, but Harry did hear her heading out of the kitchen. As such he scrambled into his room and swung the door quietly mostly shut, so it made no noise and looked like he hadn’t shut it hard enough.

He flopped face-first onto his bed and began to quietly fake-sob, so as to trigger some more tears by the time she reached him. One way or another, he would be going to Hogwarts.

It was time for some emotional manipulation.