Petunia came into Harry’s room and sat down on his bed next to him. “Oh my poor sweet Ririkins. Are you alright?”
Harry sniffled and shook his head, not lifting his face from the pillow.
“Oh… why not?” Petunia asked concernedly.
Harry mumbled some words into the blankets while he formulated his actual sentence, and once Petunia asked for clarification he lifted his head and said between sniffles, “I don’t understand. Why is Da so upset? Why is it so bad if magic is real?”
Petunia stiffened slightly. “Harry, listen. People who believe magic is real are dangero-”
“But I know magic is real! I turned Mrs. Thwimble’s hair blue!”
“Harry-”
“I fell off the roof of the kitchens at school and was fine! Just last week at the zoo that girl got trapped in the boa constrictor’s exhibit after the glass vanished and reappeared. Why does Da deny it?”
Petunia pinched the bridge of her nose, exhaling quickly. “We’re scared because magic is real. We’re scared because magic is dangerous. So long as we shut our eyes and pretend it doesn’t exist they’ll leave us alone.”
“But they won’t now. They sent someone to talk to me while I was in detention!” Harry grew quiet and tried to get more tears to appear, but apparently his Fake Tear Reserve was empty. “Will Da send me away? Will I get sent to an orphanage?”
“Oh, Riri, no,” Petunia said hugging Harry tightly. Harry rolled his eyes while she did so, since she couldn’t see at the moment anyway and the cheesiness was killing him. “I won’t let that happen.” She pulled away, and her comforting mother expression faded into something that Harry couldn’t quite precisely identify. “Even if I couldn’t, I don’t think that they would let him.”
Harry sniffled. “Is that the only reason that you kept me? Because you couldn’t get rid of me?”
“No! Don’t let anyone ever tell you that! That is not true.”
“But if I were magic it would be,” Harry responded morosely.
Petunia winced. “That’s not true either. Your parents…”
“Was the car crash because of magic?”
“There was no car crash. Some wizard blew them up.”
“So you think if I learn magic that they’ll blow you up? Or do you think I’ll blow you up? Do you-”
“Harry stop it. Please. And please let this go. Hopefully if we ignore it they won’t do anything to us.”
Harry thought about it for a second, remembering all the times he was special without intending to be. He managed not to smirk, and instead affected some more tears. “M-mum. What if I do more things unintentionally. Like when I turned Mrs. Thwimble’s hair blue, except worse? What if I can’t control it?” Harry turned and buried his head into his pillow to keep Petunia from seeing his silent snickering.
“Oh, Ririkins! It’ll be alright. It’ll be okay.” Petunia said, trying to run her hands through his hair and ultimately failing due to the hair-tie holding it in a ponytail.
Harry pretended to start crying again, and actually managed some tears again. Once he had enough he lifted his head and sniffled. “But what if you go the same way as my parents, and it’s my fault?”
Petunia settled for another hug. “We wo-”
Harry was getting sick of this, so he pulled away. “You can’t know that! You don’t know anything about magic! If I don’t learn to control it, you don’t know if that’ll make it go away or bottle up until it explodes. You don’t know!”
“But Vern-”
“YOU. DON’T. KNOW. You can’t know! On one hand you know that if I go I’ll learn magic and potentially become a… a wizard. On the other if I stay home there are so many things that could go wrong that you don’t know! It could explode out of me! The other wizards could kidnap me or kill you or both! Things could happen that I can’t think of! You don’t know!!”
Petunia shrunk back, clearly on the verge of tears. “I know… I know we can’t know. But… it’s also possible that if we ignore it it’ll go away. They won’t bother us.”
Harry slumped back in his bed. Partially in pretend resignation, partially because he was just sick of the circles this conversation was going in. “I just think that going off and appeasing these weirdos is the middleground. Not the best that could happen, but not the worst. Besides, I can probably learn things to defend us from them.”
Petunia sighed. “I’ll talk to Vernon. Do me a favor though, and don’t… don’t talk about this for a few days. Give him time to cool off, okay? I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all, but… I don’t want them to hurt you for not going with them…”
“They did break into the detention center just to tell me how to get there.”
Petunia shuddered. “Just… don’t bring it up. Okay?”
Harry nodded, and suffered through one last hug before Petunia left. He waited until he heard her go downstairs before scampering over to Dudley’s room.
He didn’t bother knocking, and came in to find Dudley still playing Retribution.
“Dudley! I need to talk with you.”
“Ah, hey there Harry. You and Piers have a new idea?”
Harry shook his head. “Nah. I got an offer. You know how special I am, right?”
Dudley snickered. “Sure, ‘course I do.”
Harry smirked as well, “Well some other special people are inviting me to a school to learn how to be even more special.”
Dudley frowned, but didn’t look up from his game. “A school? But we’re going to Smeltings. We’re going to rule Smeltings.”
“I know that was the plan, Dudley, but this could really set us up in the future. The Strikers can’t take down a rival gang on their own, and further specialness could really help with that.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Dudley’s frown deepened, and this time he paused to turn around. “What are we going to do about Smeltings then? Dennis and Gordon aren’t going to Smeltings, and Malcolm probably isn’t either. With you, me, and Piers we would’ve been alright. But now…”
Harry shrugged. “Persuade Malcolm to actually go to Smeltings. Piers can plan, Malcolm can chase, and you can clobber. You may not rule Smeltings, but you’ll be fine. And once I come back we will dominate this place. Imagine where we are now. Now imagine us in a couple years, when I have real proper magic.”
Dudley frowned, thinking really hard.
Harry waited patiently.
Dudley finally nodded. Slowly and deliberately. “Alright. I’ll get Malcolm to come with. What school is it?”
“It would be best if I don’t tell you until Mum and Da actually officially say I can go. You know how they are.”
Dudley nodded. “They would blow a fuse if they knew w-”
“Yeah, zip it, ‘kay?”
Dudley nodded, turning his game back on. “Does Piers know already?”
“Yeah. He’s fine with it too.”
And that was that.
A few days passed, with Petunia walking on eggshells around Vernon, Dudley and Harry not caring but not talking about it, and Vernon trying not to panic every time the mailman came to the door.
About a week before Harry had to send a response, Vernon coldly told Harry that, if certain rules and conditions were kept, he was allowed to go to ‘that freak school’.
“But! When you’re home, there will be no… no magic. You won’t do it, you won’t talk about it, you won’t think about it. Your… ‘school’ things will be locked in the cupboard and you will not so much as glance at them. Am I understood?”
Harry nodded solemnly. But just because I understand the rules doesn’t mean I’ll follow them.
-
Petunia drove Harry to where Dumbledore had said that The Leaky Cauldron was, and Harry eagerly rushed into the bar. He’d never thought that the first time he went into a pub his mum would be right there waving him off.
They didn’t have any around Privet Drive, so he’d never been able to sneak in to one before. But apparently eleven year-olds were allowed in this one, even if they didn’t have adult supervision.
The bar was exactly like Harry had always imagined one would be. Most people didn’t give him a second glance, except to gawk at his tattoos.
He scampered up to the bar. “Hey there, barkeep.”
The barkeep turned and squinted at him. “You here for the Alley?”
“Yes, but I’d also like a-”
“Head through that door, and there’ll be someone there to open it for ya’.”
Harry ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I just want a-”
“Good heavens! Are you- can it be- Harry Potter?”
“Why does everyone- No. It’s Dursley. Harry Dursley.”
The barkeep shook his head. “No, that scar is unmistakable. You’re Harry Potter!”
Harry scowled. “Listen up, mister, I’m not Harry Potter. So you can either-” But Harry was never able to finish his sentence, because at that point a good number of people had swarmed around him, muttering things like ‘Can it really be?’ ‘Did he say Potter?’ ‘Look at the scar’ and other such babblings, and just as Harry was finishing up his sentence, a old man came over to him and said, “Thank you, Harry Potter! Thank Merlin for you,” and started to try shaking his hands. Once that happened, the rest seemed to realize that, despite Harry’s prior denial, he was in fact The Harry Potter, and they swarmed him. Some wanted autographs, though most just wanted handshakes.
It got ever-so-slightly overwhelming. Fortunately the occupants of the bar were all adults, so they knew better than to actually swarm him.
After about ten minutes of Harry wishing Dudley and the others were here to just barge through and drag him out, he finally managed to push his way out of the small crowd and into the back room that the barkeep had pointed to earlier.
A tall, bored-looking lady glanced at him. “You for Diagon Alley?” She had a moderately thick Irish accent.
Harry nodded.
The lady’s eyes widened a bit when his hair stopped obscuring his scar in that moment, but she just tapped some of the bricks in the far wall with a stick, which proceeded to cause Harry’s mind to break a little.
He’d known he was special, and could therefore control reality to some extent. But this was somehow different. The bricks shuffled themselves around into a fancy arch, leading directly into a bustling alley that was chock full of reality breaking things.
Harry meandered around for a while, taking everything in. Normally, he would have confidently meandered around, but he normally would have been meandering with either Piers or Dudley, and normally he was the most special individual in the room. As it was, he was now surrounded by a bunch of people who could use magic far more proficiently than he.
After about an hour, Harry finally began the tedious task of purchasing all the required supplies for school.
Once he was made aware of the different currency, he meandered around for a little while until he found the bank. The goblins creeped him out to no end, but he got in and got out as fast as he could and all was well.
He transferred all but about twenty pounds into wizard money, and hoped to high heaven he wouldn’t use it all for a while. He spent the next while slinking around buying and otherwise obtaining stuff. By the time he finished it was dark out, and he was at least an hour past their predetermined pick-up time.
For the next few weeks Harry pored over the books he’d gotten from Diagon Alley. Secretly, of course, and with many stern reminders to Dudley not to say anything that would give it away and cause Vernon to change his mind about the whole thing. He didn’t practice with his wand, since he had no clue how the magic would react if he got it wrong, and he didn’t want to blow up his bedroom.
-
The night before he went off to Hogwarts, Harry, Dudley, and the rest of the gang all went out for one final evening of fun.
And boy howdy, was it fun. And profitable. Not perhaps for Little Jeffery a few streets over, but for everyone else. After that Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon all went home and the rest of them hung out for a bit longer. They headed down to the tunnel, picking up their paints from Piers’ house on the way. They chatted about a bunch of stuff while they worked, from the logistics of only having three to conquer Smeltings’, to what they thought Hogwarts was going to be like, to whether or not Harry could nick some things from Diagon Alley for Piers.
The three stepped back and examined their work. Harry had taken inspiration from one of his new textbooks and had painted an occamy (some super awesome snake-bird thing), while Piers had done a slightly more realistic version of his signature stylized scorpion. The two were facing off against each other, and above the whole thing Dudley had written 'Domanashin'.
Piers sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose, while Harry slung his arm around Dudley’s shoulders and said, “You know Dudley, you might wanna spell-check your tags before you put them up.”
Dudley rolled his eyes. “The point gets across.”
“Yeah but-”
Piers shook his head. “It’s fine Harry. It’s not like our other tags aren’t misspelled.”
They kicked about for a little while longer before going their separate ways.
Harry and Dudley didn’t really talk much on the way home, though at one point, now that Piers had left, he asked Harry for more advice regarding Smeltings’, since usually he relied on Harry to scare anyone who tried to stand up to them.
But then they got back to the house. They ate dinner in uncomfortable silence, occasionally broken by awkward smalltalk from Petunia. They finished up, Harry and Dudley going to their rooms to read and play games, respectively.
Harry couldn’t sleep that night, but he didn’t want to get up and seal his sleepless doom. So instead, he stayed in bed and thought. While Dudley and the others might worry about the gang now that Harry was leaving, they still had each other to help maintain their power. Harry, on the other hand, had to start over from scratch in a world in which the majority of his ‘peers’ would actually be more proficient than he was.
Sure, he’d been studying his books ever since he got them, but a bunch of his fellow students would probably have grown up in a magic environment.
Poring through Magical Theory could only do so much. There could be things that were just instinctively known by those who grew up in wizard culture, that textbooks might assume didn’t need to be discussed. And while A History of Magic probably would have helped him in this area to some extent, he didn’t have the fortitude to slog through it while there was so much else that he could read instead. At some point, obviously, he would have to read it in full, but for now the three long chapters he’d gone through would have to be enough.
He was as prepared as he could be, but it still wasn’t enough. He should have found some stick and practiced wand movements with a stand-in, instead of just doing it empty-handed. He should have studied the nuances of pronunciation more attentively. He should have memorized the details for the most common potion ingredients. He should have-
Harry sighed, rolling over and glaring at the window. It wouldn’t do any good wishing now for what he ought to have done. The past was gone. It couldn’t be changed.
He’d have to deal with the problems as they came.