The Boy in the Cupboard

The Boy Who Learned to Live

THE BOY WHO LEARNED TO LIVE

Like any first of September, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters bustled, as busy as the rest of King's Cross and filled with excited chatter. Proud parents hugged their children, some tears were shed before the students boarded the train.

At eleven o'clock, the scarlet engine puffed and chugged away, pulling cars full of students off to a new year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Among those left behind was Harry Potter, though he turned eleven about a month before. Just a few years ago, anyone questioning whether Harry would attend Hogwarts would have been checked for the Confundus Charm.

Then the condition of the Boy Who Lived, the conditions he'd been raised in, came to light. Auror Alastor Moody found the boy confined to a cupboard crawling with spiders and filled with muggle cleaning chemicals. It seemed a miracle the boy hadn't poisoned himself or succumbed to starvation; he'd earned his title of survival more than once.

Harry spent time in St. Mungo's before his godfather, Sirius Black, was released from his wrongful imprisonment in Azkaban.

As they stood on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, both godfather and godson looked healthier. They had some meat on their bones. Harry had grown to be about Ginny's height, no longer looking years younger than his peers. But a haunted look still lingered in both sets of eyes.

"Looks like it's just you and me," Sirius ruffled Harry's dark, untidy hair.

"Not today, it's not." Molly Weasley declared. She insisted Harry and Sirius join them for lunch, wouldn't take no for an answer.

"We'll be there next year." Ginny Weasley looked back at the empty platform, then at Harry with certainty and determination filling her eyes. Above the children's heads, the adults exchanged a glance. Nobody knew where Harry would be in a year.

"Should've taken my motorbike," Sirius grumbled as they piled into Arthur Weasley's old Ford Anglia. Like the car, the motorbike had been magically enhanced and could hold more people than it would appear to, but the other child in Sirius's care was still terrified of flying.

At the Weasleys' house, affectionately named the Burrow, Sirius walked Harry to the loo, leaned against the wall and walked him through the process of using the lavatory. Harry no longer needed nappies, at least during the day, but it was a stark reminder of why Harry was not attending Hogwarts. That and lunchtime.

Harry ate like he was still being starved. He snatched food, often from other people's plates, and shoveled it into his mouth. But now he stayed at the table and speared potatoes with a fork instead of using his hands.

Even with these milestones, it would be a spectacle for the entire Great Hall to gawk at.

"Everyone's a prat at that age. Merlin knows I was." Sirius paused and then added, with a soft smile. "Neville's not."

Neville Longbottom, whom Sirius had taken in not long after Harry, was among the students who boarded the Hogwarts Express. Both boys in Sirius' care had received Hogwarts letters, and Sirius is sure Neville and the four Weasley boys attending would have had Harry's back, had he joined them. But Hogwarts didn't seem the right placement for Harry.

"I'm not a prat!" Ginny cried indignantly, though she smirked. "Ron can be, though."

Despite her comment on Ron, Ginny seemed to miss all of her older brothers. The Burrow had been lively with the most of the large family there just that morning. Now, for the first time in her ten years of life, Ginny would be the only child living at the Burrow.