Chapter Text
Harry had always known he was different. Not in the way the Dursleys said he was—a curse, a burden, an ill omen that no one else had wanted. No, he was different in a way he couldn’t quite explain, something that hummed just beneath his skin, coiling in his bones like an unseen presence.
For as long as he could remember, his aunt and uncle had told him the same story. His parents had died in a car accident, reckless and irresponsible, leaving him as an unwanted burden on the only family who would take him in.
“It’s a miracle you survived at all,” Aunt Petunia had once said, not with relief, but with resentment. “Most babies wouldn’t have.”
He never questioned it aloud—questioning meant trouble—but something deep inside him always resisted believing it. Something about the story didn’t sit right. The way his aunt’s mouth tightened when she spoke about it. The way his uncle lost his temper when he inquired more about his parents. It was as if they were lying, but they had told the lie so many times that even they had started to believe it.
But he had no proof.
No answers.
Until now.
---
The first time it happened, Harry thought he was hearing things.
"Oi! Boy! You can hear me, can’t you? Don’t ignore me!"
A voice. Not in the house. Not from outside.
In his head.
Harry clutched his blanket tighter, pressing himself against the thin mattress in his cupboard, trying to make himself small. Maybe if he was very quiet, the voice would go away.
"Oh for the love of—listen, child! You are not losing your mind. I am communicating through a psionic tether, a manifestation of arcane connectivity across spatial dimensions—"
Harry squeezed his eyes shut. “Wha—wha’s a ‘tethur’?”
There was a long pause. Then a sigh. "...I am talking to you with magic."
Harry cracked one eye open. “Magic?”
"Yes. Magic. A fundamental force beyond mundane comprehension."
Harry frowned, his nose scrunching. “Mund… mundane comp… wha’?”
Another pause. "Magic is real."
Harry hesitated, his small fingers curling into his blanket. “The Dursleys say it’s bad.”
"Then they are misinformed. Or willfully ignorant."
Harry had no idea what that meant, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t good.
---
It took time to adjust, to believe. But the voice—Mordenkainen, as he called himself—was relentless.
He wasn’t nice. But he answered questions in a way no one ever had before. Harry had always known there was something wrong with the way his relatives spoke about him, the way they whispered when they thought he wasn’t listening.
The word ‘cursed’ had come up more than once.
After some time, he finally asked.
“They say I bring bad luck,” Harry muttered, curling up on his thin cot. “That I’m a bad thing. That I make bad stuff happen just by bein’ there.”
Mordenkainen was silent for a long moment before he finally spoke, his voice slow and even. "There is no such thing as an ‘ill omen’ tied to a person’s existence, boy. If misfortune follows you, it is not because of some inherent flaw in your being. Bad luck is merely probability, circumstance… or the actions of those who believe in it."
Harry’s small fingers clutched his blanket tighter. “So I’m not bad?”
"No. You are not cursed, I would have known if you were. You are not unlucky. You are merely… you."
Harry let out a small breath. His chest felt strange—tight, but not in a bad way.
The Dursleys were wrong.
He wasn’t some dark omen. He wasn’t unnatural. He wasn’t a burden the universe had placed upon them.
He was just a boy.
A boy with magic.
And for the first time in his life, he felt the spark of something new.
Hope.
---
There was a moment of silence before the voice spoke again, quieter this time, almost contemplative.
"Hah… I never thought I'd be grateful for an escape from Barovia, yet here we are."
Harry blinked. “Buh-roh-vee-ah?”
"Irrelevant for now. What matters is that I am here, and so are you. And since fate has brought me to your side, I shall do what I do best."
Harry frowned. “Wha’s that?”
Mordenkainen’s voice, for the first time, carried something that might have been amusement. Or maybe something deeper, steadier.
"I shall instruct you in the Arcane arts, boy. If I am to be tethered to your mind, I refuse to let you wallow in ignorance. From this moment forward, you are my apprentice."
Harry sat up straight, eyes wide. “’Prentis?”
"Yes. It will not be easy, nor will it be pleasant, but you will learn. And by the time I am finished with you, you will be more than just a boy with magic."
Harry swallowed, a strange, unfamiliar excitement bubbling in his chest. “…Okay.”
"Good. Now, listen carefully. Your first lesson begins now."