The Lost Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Midnight Mysteries

All the bruises that Vernon and Dudley Dursley had inflicted on him were on his chest and were cleverly (though Harry doubted he could say that about any other action that Dusleys had ever done while he was living with them) hidden by his clothing. Once, one of his teachers had suspected something during a swimming lesson that Harry had been excused from “for health reasons” but the Dursleys had somehow stopped all lines of enquiries.

What the teacher had done, however, was stop the hitting that had started off about three years after he had been abandoned on the Dursleys' doorstep when he was one year old. When he was tiny the abuse was smaller than hitting, the Dursleys (out of some well hidden sense of right and wrong) hadn’t hit him then, they had settled for not changing his diaper for days, spitting at him if he asked questions and throwing objects at him if he dared to leave a mark on the doors or walls of Number Four.

“Your parents didn’t even want you! What does that make…?”

Harry had never known his parents. Vague memories that pushed themselves in a fuzzy state were all the comfort he had on long nights locked in his room but they never had come in sharp focus or with sound. Memories of a red headed woman crying over him with a man with black hair comforting her sometimes came to him when he was asleep along with whispered promises of safety, but most common in his dreams, something that stayed with him even when all the other memories (if that was even what they were) had faded away from his mind, was a flash of green light and a pair of cold, snakelike eyes.

“If I see you outside of this room any time before Christmas, I’ll make sure you live to regret it!” Uncle Vernon finished at a deafening roar and he slammed the door behind him as he left. A key turned the lock, and Harry was alone. The first thing he did was to go to the window after he was sure his uncle wasn’t going to come back, the streetlamp outside of the house flickered slightly as he looked out over the street and observed one of Mrs Figg’s cats as it made its way back to its house.

“I’m not a freak,” Harry mumbled under his breath as the cat entered the house across the street. He glanced down at where the cat had been not a moment before, holding onto the curtains, preparing to go to bed. He was just about to head away from the window when he noticed something on the corner of the street. There was a man with half-moon spectacles standing at the end of the street. He had long robes which reached the street, in the dim light Harry couldn’t quite tell what the colour was. The stranger had long white hair which was held in by a belt on his waist. Harry’s gaze met the gaze of the stranger, even from where he stood on the second floor of the building he could see the look on the man’s face, disappointment and shame.

Harry raised a hand, not wanting to be considered rude, the man nodded and continued to stare. How late was it? Harry wasn’t sure, he looked at the fixed alarm clock on his bedside table, was it really ten in the evening? The Dursleys would be heading to bed soon. He looked back at the stranger, but he was gone. He looked up and down the street but there was nowhere that the person could have gone to.

Laying down on the sagging bed, which only sagged more when he lay on it, Harry looked at the aged ceiling, contemplating the way that the white paint was flecked here and there from when the effort of holding itself to the wall had become too much for it. Harry closed his emerald green eyes, turned over under the blanket and slipped into an uneasy sleep.

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The inhabitants of Godric's Hollow hid from the storm inside their houses. Even though it was Halloween, there were no children out, the storm blew so hard that even the bravest child gave up all their ideas of trick or treating and replaced them with thoughts of warm fires and hot chocolates. The wind, the rain and a tall snakelike man were the only occupants of the streets.