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Chapter Text

The eleven year old walked through Diagon Alley, having been let in by the barkeep at the Leaky Cauldron. He appeared in the doorway of the pub as if conjured there, and there were harsh gasps and cries of shock as they looked at the child. His face was covered with shiny burn scars, centered around his eyes, which were a pale, milky green. His hair was dead white, with a streak of black just above where the curse scar sat, hidden by all the damage to his face, as if all the dark color had been scared away. The boy made his way unerringly to the bar and asked politely to be let into the magical shopping district. The patrons knew the youth was blind; his eyes showed pinpoints for pupils, but they were stunned that he was able to make his way through the bar without tripping over anyone.

One patron, who was deep into his cups and thinking he was clever, stuck his leg out, hoping to trip the young boy, but the kid just effortlessly leapt over the blockage, making the man’s table mates laugh uproariously at a practical joke misfire. “Serves you bloody well right,” the man next to the joker barked out maliciously. “That was really nasty, what you tried to do.” The preteen ignored all the fuss and chatter as he continued out the back door, waiting patiently for the barkeep to open the way. The boy felt the magic wash over him, and didn’t need the older man to tell him that the archway had appeared. He made his slow way into Diagon Alley and turned, heading for Ollivander’s and his new future.

The bell over the door rang as the first-year-to-be entered the wand shop, and he stood in the shadows as he waited for the proprietor to see to his needs. “Hello, Mr. Potter,” the old man rasped as he came into the front of his shop. He was staring at the wand in his hand and didn’t notice the horrible injuries at first. When he finally lifted his head to properly greet his customer, he couldn’t hold back the gasp of horror. “Oh, dear,” he murmured quietly, unaware that, because of the boy’s blindness, his other senses had attuned themselves to every sound, every movement, and every sensation that brushed against his skin. “Albus isn’t going to be able to get his way this time.” Louder, he said, “I’m afraid that a wand just won’t do for you, young man. It will have to be a cane, so that you might use it to help you along your way. Come in the back with me, and we’ll get your wood and core settled.”

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Everyone stared at the boy who walked through the Alley with a most unusual cane, which doubled as a wand, unbeknownst to the gawking crowd. It was made of bloodwood, and had thestral hair and dementor essence as its cores. The head of the cane was carved into a cobra, hood flared, and the boy had his hand wrapped around the body as he used it to check for obstacles and trouble spots as he walked. Whispering flew through the shoppers as the child entered Madam Malkin’s to get his school robes, many speculating as to who he was and what had happened to his face.

The proprietor bustled toward the boy, and he backed up a couple of steps in startlement as she rushed at him. Seeing this, she stopped and clenched her hands together in front of her as she tried to temper her eagerness to help the poor child. “Hello, dearie,” she said slowly, as if he was intellectually challenged. “My name is Madam Malkin. How may I help you?”

“You could start by not talking to me as if I were a stupid two year old,” the boy replied flatly. “I’m here to get my robes for school.”

Flushing in embarrassment, she stared at him for a moment before gathering her scattered wits and pulling on her professional mask. “I do apologize, sir. May I have your name?”

“Harry Potter,” was the answer she received, and her eyes widened in shock as she realized that their Savior was standing in front of her, and that he had somehow been horrifically injured.

“Of...of course, Mr. Potter,” she stammered with a shallow bow. “Right this way. I’m serving another customer at the moment, so I’ll have one of my assistants take care of you.” She went to take his elbow to guide him, and he smartly stepped away.

“That’s completely unnecessary,” he told her, voice cold. “I don’t like anyone touching me. Just walk ahead of me; I can follow the sound of your footsteps.” With an agonized clearing of her throat, she turned and led the way, her mind coming up with horrible scenario after horrible scenario that might have caused his injuries and his excessive caution. She could hear the gentle tap-tap of the cane he carried, and when she stopped, so did he.

“There’s a fitting stand you must step onto in order for us to take your measurements,” she told him as she stepped aside. He reached forward with the tip of his cane and felt for the edge of the platform before stepping unerringly onto it. Potter stood stiffly in place as the assistant fluttered around him with a measuring tape and bolts of fabric. An interesting scent met Harry’s nose from next to him, and he turned his sightless eyes in that direction with a small smile.

“Hello,” he said, startling a small squeak from the person next to him. “My name is Harry Potter. Who might you be?”

“I...I’m Draco Malfoy,” an equally young voice announced hesitantly. He’d been raised on the legend of the Boy Who Lived, and to see him in the flesh and looking far worse than the blond had expected was a bit of a shock. “What...what happened to you?” Before Harry could answer, Malkin announced that the blond was done and that he could go.

“If you’ll wait for me, we can continue shopping together,” Harry invited with a small smile. The soul shard, which had been with the boy since that horrible Samhain night, had spoken up whilst they were introducing themselves, telling Harry that Draco’s father was one of his lieutenants, and that the blond’s family would be more than willing to take him in, since he’d been alone in number four, Privet Drive since he was six.

“I’d...I’d like that, Potter,” Malfoy agreed readily. “My mother will be here soon, and she can take us to the rest of the shops.”

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“So, what happened to you?” Draco reiterated as they walked in front of Narcissa Malfoy. She had been introduced to Harry as soon as the white-haired boy was finished, and only the woman’s strict training kept her from exclaiming in shock at the sight of the boy’s face.

“I was dumped off in the muggle world with people who hated me and didn’t want me,” Potter replied in a monotone. “They forced me to slave for them from the time I was four. When I was six, I was cooking breakfast, and I’d left the bacon on too long, and it burnt. Petunia got angry with me and threw the pan of hot grease into my face, which blinded me and caused these scars. She was afraid she’d be arrested for assault and child abuse, so she threw me in my cupboard and locked me in. I was in there for over a month, and at one point I thought I would die, but a presence that had been with me since I was two spoke up and told me how to use my magic to heal what I could.

“I couldn’t save my sight, and the grease caused these permanent scars, but I did survive. After that, when I was finally able to slave for them again, they tried not to look at me anymore. They still punished me for the slightest infractions, but they did it with their faces turned away, as if they couldn't bear the visible evidence of their treatment of me. One day, while I was in the garden, I heard someone talking to me. It was quite a struggle for me to get around, since I couldn’t see, and the Dursleys would deliberately move things so that I would knock into them or trip over them, but this person to whom I’d been talking made me feel better.

“I found out that it was a European viper, and it was willing to act as my eyes, as well as protect me from the muggles. It was a magical species, and had felt my magic calling out to it. So, I bonded to it as my familiar, and we were able to forge a psychic connection. She, as I later learned, was more than happy to have someone who would love her and take care of her, and I named her Hisstine. It only took one time of them raising their hand to me for her to strike out, and she narrowly missed my fat cousin’s nose. I told them, in no uncertain terms, that if they didn’t move out, I’d have Hisstine kill them in their sleep. They were gone a week later, and I’ve lived there, alone, since then.”

“What did you do for food?” Narcissa queried softly, her heart aching for this sad, lonely little boy. “How did the neighbors not realize that you were there unsupervised?”

“The neighbors were told a lot of scary tales about me, and with my face looking like this, it wasn’t hard for them to believe what the Dursleys told them,” Harry growled lowly. “They never saw the abuse, even when it was done out in the open, nor did they pay attention to Dudley and his friends tormenting me. Like most sheeple, they ignored the crimes going on under their very noses, so they wouldn’t trouble themselves to actually report that there might be a child living alone in the house.

“The soul shard taught me how to contact the goblins at Gringotts, so that I could get an accounting of my inheritances, and I was able to schedule weekly grocery deliveries from a local market who didn’t ask questions, as well as take care of the utilities. I made sure that Vernon kept up with the property taxes and the mortgage by telling him that if he let anything lapse that would result in me losing my shelter, I'd make sure the authorities knew just how badly they'd treated me. In order to keep their absence from being noticed, Vernon Dursley left behind an inoperative automobile, to make it look like there was someone staying there with me. All in all, it was a relatively perfect setup, until that owl came with a letter from Hogwarts and I found out that what I could do wasn’t a sign of Satan, but an inherited gift from my parents.”

They had stepped into shops and completed their shopping as they talked, Narcissa having put up a privacy ward around the three of them to keep all the information Harry was sharing with them confidential. “You don’t wish to go to Hogwarts?” the Malfoy matriarch asked as they approached the apparition point.

“I’d heard a lot about Albus Dumbledore from Tom, and I’m not terribly keen on putting myself within his sphere of influence,” Harry told the woman with a grimace. They had stopped at the exit point, and Potter was resigned to returning to that empty house alone. He’d finally found a friend he could call his own, after years of Dudley’s abuses, and he was reluctant to let that go. “According to the goblins, he’s my magical guardian, whatever that is, and he has control over my placement and custody. Since the Dursleys have abandoned me, there’s no telling with whom he’s bound to leave me now, if he ever finds out.”

“Your great-grandmother was Dorea Black,” Narcissa told the child with a small smile. “That means I have more of a claim for custody than the headmaster, and I’d be happy if you came home with us. I’ll work on making sure all the paperwork is filed and that I have guardianship over you before you leave for school in a month. Would that be acceptable to you?”

“Really?” Harry asked eagerly, voice quivering with suppressed emotion. This was the very first time that anyone had bothered to offer him something that most children have, and he was a little overwhelmed.

“Yes, really,” Lady Malfoy agreed with a grin. “Since you’ve told us that you’ve never seen a Healer, I think that should be one of the first things we arrange when we get home. It will offer evidence of the abuse and neglect inflicted on you by the muggles, and it’ll be the beginning of our takedown of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.”

Chapter Text

Harry settled into Malfoy Manor as if he’d lived there all his life. Custody arrangements went rather smoothly, considering who was requesting it, but Fudge’s pockets were lined handsomely for the ‘help’, so he was able to push forth the petition, and with proof of lineage and relationship, Narcissa Malfoy, née Black was the proud guardian and soon-to-be parent of the Boy Who Lived. Albus Dumbledore wasn’t the only one wary of the woman getting custody; Amelia Bones added her concerns about it, but when the eleven year old showed up for the hearing, one look at his ravaged face and damaged eyes had everyone falling all over themselves to ensure that he had proper custodians, rather than the abusive muggles with whom he’d been left.

When Albus protested the placement, insisting that Harry Potter’s aunt and uncle would provide better protection for the boy, all anyone had to do was point at the child’s face and listen, again, to his explanation of how he was blinded and the old man had no choice but to back down from his stance. His reputation was going to take a hit no matter what he did; to try and force the boy back to the very people who had catastrophically injured him in the first place would cause the Chief Warlock to lose whatever small support he still had, once Rita Skeeter put her spin on the article to come out in a few days.

“In less than a month you and Draco will be going to Hogwarts,” Lucius intoned quietly. The family was spending the day together in the salon so that they could get to know their new addition better, as well as allow Harry to become even more comfortable around them. The healers that the Malfoys provided for the boy all said the same thing; the damage was too severe and had been left alone for too long for them to be able to fix anything. Harry’s blindness was, unfortunately, permanent. “I think we should set up a blood adoption for you tomorrow, Harry, so that you can be assured that no one will be able to take you from us. It will strengthen your connection to the Black family, and put you on the Malfoy family tree, as well. If you and Draco would like, he could be included, and a brother by blood ritual could be done at the same time.

“We’ll be inviting a couple of guests to participate, so that they can be included as your godparents, for even more safety and guidance; especially once you start school. One is Severus Snape. He’s an old friend who attended school the same time as we did, and he’s been Draco’s godfather from birth. The other is a man by the name of Tom Riddle, who…” The Malfoy patriarch didn’t finish; Harry had quickly interrupted him as soon as he heard the familiar name.

“Tom will be here?” the scarred boy asked eagerly. All set to rip into the preteen for cutting in on his speech, the blond hesitated as he realized that Harry already knew the Dark Lord; or, at least, some vague representation of the Dark Lord.

“How do you know about the Dark Lord?” Malfoy queried, voice a little harsh in his surprise. The brunet flinched away from the controlled anger in that voice, face closing off as he leaned back in his seat.

“Tom is my friend,” the boy replied flatly, face expressionless. The horcrux within the child frantically whispered its reassurances, not wanting anything to interfere with both his and Harry’s ability to remain safely out of Dumbledore’s hands. “He’s been with me for as long as I can remember, and he’s helped me when there was no one else.”

Wincing at the cold way Harry was talking, and sure that his Lord would be most displeased if the child were to decide to flee, Lucius quickly apologized, trying to excuse his shock at the fact that the boy was already in some sort of communication with his Lord. “I do apologize for upsetting you, Harry. The night that you allegedly ‘vanquished’ him, many of us mourned his loss. We had no idea that he’d explored some arcane magics that were able to keep him connected to this world, and it was quite startling when he popped up out of nowhere just a few years ago, all set to do things differently than he had before his fall.

“You are his prophesied enemy, and to hear that you have some sort of relationship with him already was a bit of a surprise.” Harry nodded his acceptance, face still closed off; a subtle warning that Lucius only had his forgiveness this once. That if he screwed up again, the last Potter heir would walk way and never look back. “And yes, Tom will be here tomorrow, along with Severus, to meet you and get to know you before we ask them to participate. I must warn you that Severus might be a little...salty toward you at first. He was good friends with your mother growing up, and some things happened during his fifth year that ended that friendship, instigated by your birth father and his friends.

“With your disfigurement, I doubt that he’ll see any sort of resemblance to James Potter, but he might still have some preconceived notions of who you are based on your parentage. I’m sure that, once he sees that there’s absolutely no way that you could ever be like your father, since you weren’t raised by him and had suffered catastrophically at your muggle relatives’ hands, he’ll back off of that stance and see you for who you really are, instead of who he believes you to be.”

“I’ll give him a chance,” the white-haired preteen agreed grudgingly. “If, however, he proves to be an unmitigated arse, I’m sure Tom will set him straight, and I’ll happily watch through Hisstine’s eyes. I’ve had more than enough of people ignoring my plight or trying to marginalize me because I have magic, or because I’m some sort of violent delinquent, set to kill all the neighbors in their sleep. I want to be treated as a person; an individual in my own right, with my own thoughts, feelings and personality.”

“If I might ask, how did your relatives explain you disappearing from the neighborhood after they deliberately blinded you?” Narcissa queried softly, trying to avoid upsetting her soon-to-be adopted son but wanting to understand his circumstances a little better, so that she might be able to help him move past those painful experiences.

“I heard Petunia talking to Mrs. Number six across the street, and she said that I was so violent and irredeemable that I became a permanent resident of St. Brutus’ Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys. I think it’s hysterical that those people living in Little Whinging actually believed that there was a prison that housed six year old kids on a more or less permanent basis. That none of them even made an effort to look up the name of the supposed institution to see if it existed just proved to me that most sheeple followed the easiest, least troublesome path down which they were led, all so that they could have the illusion of a safe, secure, uncomplicated world. Tom was adding his own opinions to what I thought, and he told me that even if there was no one else in the whole wide world who gave a tinker’s damn for me, I still had him.

“He’s the reason I didn’t die from those injuries. He decided, after I was in the cupboard for a few days, suffering and dying, to migrate to my soul; the seat of my magic, and he added his own bit of power to what I already had, and with his knowledge he was able to teach me how to access that part of my core that healed me, and I was able to survive. He also taught me how to escape my prison, and with his direction I was able to locate some antibiotics and bandages, and self-treated the worst of the damage and staved off sepsis. I would do anything for him; be anything for him. He was the only being in the universe who cared about me.”

“I love you, too, brat,” said a voice from the doorway, which had all the occupants jumping in startlement. Turning toward the voice, a wide smile on his scar-puckered face, he made his way unerringly to his hero, wrapping thin arms around the older man’s waist and burrowing in.

“My Lord,” Lucius whispered as he got down on his knees and bowed his head. His son followed suit, Narcissa sinking into a low curtsey and holding it remarkably well until he acknowledged them.

“Rise, Lucius, Draco, and Narcissa,” Voldemort intoned imperiously, head tilted at an arrogant angle for several long moments, a cold look on his face. The Malfoys started to shiver, wondering what they had done to incur the Dark Lord’s wrath, and the moment was broken when Tom started snorting with laughter. “You should see the looks on your faces,” he chortled fondly as he walked the rest of the way into the salon, sitting in a wide squashy chair and scooching over enough so that Harry could squeeze himself in beside Riddle. “Have a seat, everyone. We have a lot to discuss, and plans to make if we’re to take control of our world back from the goody-goody sycophants of St. Dumbledore.”

“Lucius?” Severus Snape called out as he exited the floo room, arriving a few hours after Voldemort had. He had an open invitation to come to the manor any time to visit with his godson, or to take advantage of the fully stocked, state of the art potions lab in the basement. “I’m here as you’ve requested. I know I'm a day early, but I have nothing pressing going on right now. Where is this child you wish for me to meet?”

An elf popped in right in front of the Potions Master, causing him to stumble to a stop before he tripped over the little being. Scowling, he stared down at the shivering servant, but before the elf could say anything, there was a young voice coming from up the hall, and it sounded a little out of sorts. “Please don’t tell me that you abuse house elves,” echoed down the passage, and ebon eyes looked up to see who dared to speak to him in such a disrespectful manner. His mouth, which had opened to excoriate the interloper, snapped shut, and he couldn’t hold in the gasp of horror at the sight of the visage of the boy who was approaching him.

Scars twisted and ran over most of his face, and his eyes were a pale, milky green, the pupils pin dots in the center. Around his neck was a European viper, its tongue flickering in and out as it scented the air. The boy’s hair was stark white except for a streak of black just slightly to the right of the center of his forehead. There was something vaguely familiar about the shape of the boy’s chin and lips, and the tousled, tumbled way his hair lay was also niggling at the potions professor’s distant memories of someone else. “Merlin,” he finally gasped, staring at the boy with a mixture of horror and pity. “What happened to you?”

“You mean it didn’t make the papers yet?” Harry asked sarcastically. “Will wonders never cease. My name is Harry Potter, and when I was six years old, my aunt Petunia decided that my punishment for burning the bacon was to receive a face full of the hot grease. Unfortunately, it’s left me looking less than presentable, and it blinded me. Now, may I ask who you are?”

Severus fought to get his tumbling thoughts in some semblance of order, as he stared at what would have been the bane of his existence, had circumstances been a little different. “I...I am Severus Snape, Potions Master and professor at Hogwarts,” he finally stammered. His knee-jerk reaction of overwhelming rage at the mention of the name ‘Potter’ had fled in the face of the child’s flat, unemotional recounting of his experiences with Lily’s wretched sister.

Snape realized that he couldn’t possibly hate a boy who had been more severely damaged by his experiences with his muggle relatives than Severus’ own wounds, inflicted upon him by his drunken muggle father. “I’m here to become your godfather, and protect you from Albus Dumbledore. I’m just sorry I couldn’t be there from the beginning, so that all of this could be prevented.”

“I’m pleased to meet you,” the preteen replied with a grin. “Mum and Dad are waiting in the salon, and uncle Tom is there, too. We’ve been talking about the bloodless conquest of the wizarding world, and returning it to its former glory, before Albus I-have-to-make-the-world-in-my-godlike-image Dumbledore interfered. Care to join us?”

Chapter Text

August 9, 1991

The Daily Prophet

BOY WHO LIVED BLIND!

Custody taken from muggles who injured him!

Rita Skeeter, reporter

It is this reporter’s sad duty to tell you, my faithful readers, about the tragedy that befell our own Savior of the wizarding world, Harry James Potter. As you all know, he was violently orphaned on Samhain night 1981, and had mysteriously disappeared shortly after the attack was discovered. We now know, gentle readers, to where he was taken after the tragedy that befell the last Potter heir.

It seems that Albus Dumbledore, the man who believes himself to be the next Merlin, had spirited the boy away from the ruined home and dropped him on the front stoop of his mother’s sister’s house in the middle of the night in November. The child was stated to have been picked up from the cottage in which his parents were murdered before midnight on October thirty-first. Gauging the speed of the motorbike on which he’d traveled at approximately 241km per hour, it should have taken Rubeus Hagrid about twenty four minutes to reach the muggle home of Harry Potter.

However, the child didn’t arrive until after midnight November third, since the boy was found on her stoop by the muggle woman on Tuesday (as the thirty-first of October fell on Saturday) when she went out to pick up her milk delivery and the newspaper. This reporter was able to speak with both Hagrid and the muggle woman, who is named Petunia Dursley, and they had much to tell me. The woman spoke from an undisclosed address, as the scars that we’d all witnessed on the Savior’s face were caused by her in a cooking accident when the boy was very young.

RS: Can you tell my readers exactly what happened that you found a baby on your front stoop?

PD: All I know is that I got up to get the milk and the paper for Vernon before he had to go to work, and I found a basket on my doorstep with a toddler in it. There was a note pinned to the blanket in which he was wrapped, telling me that my freak of a sister died and that I had to take in her abnormal offspring. There was an implied threat to the letter that if I didn’t house the little bastard, something dire would happen to me and my family. I don’t know what kinds of things you freaks can do, and I wasn’t going to take the chance that whomever had left him there would come back and make good on the threat.

RS: (I was quite shocked at the obvious hostility from the woman, and I had a sneaking suspicion that what happened to little Harry Potter wasn’t an accident, so I might have cast a spell to get the truth.) I see. We were rather stunned to see the horrific scars covering his face, and that the emerald color of his eyes, which he’d gotten from his mother, had been wiped away. Care to tell me what happened there?

PD: There’s nothing to tell. Since we were expecting to support the little monster, we decided that he would earn his keep by doing the chores around the house. I started teaching him how to prepare my family’s breakfast when he was four; plenty big enough to manage the stove. He’d been punished before for burning the bacon, and when he was six, it was especially bad. I’d had about enough of the interloper into our nice, normal home, and as punishment for being so worthless and stupid, I flung the hot grease into his face. I fully expected him to duck out of the way, but he didn’t move fast enough, and you saw the results.

This reporter didn’t want to stay there for much longer; I was fighting an overwhelming rage by that point, so I made my excuses and left to speak to Rubeus Hagrid, the keeper of the grounds and keys at Hogwarts. He was much easier to talk to, and I didn’t blame him at all for his part in what happened to the last Potter scion.

RS: Hello, Hagrid. I’m glad to see that your lack of OWLs and NEWTs hasn’t kept you down. Since we know who opened the Chamber of Secrets all those years ago, I might have a chat with Amelia Bones to see if we can get you up to snuff enough to use a wand.

RH: That’s mighty nice of you, Ms. Skeeter. Now, what may I do for you today? (I was actually surprised at how smart and gentlemanly he sounded, so I asked about that first.)

RS: I was given to believe you were rough and uneducated, but it appears I’m mistaken.

RH: A couple of terms ago, I’d overheard some of the students making fun of the way I spoke, and it hurt me rather badly. So, over the past two summers, I’ve been going to France to meet with Olympe Maxim, who is also a part-giant, and she’s been helping me with my regular education. If you’re able to gain permission for me to take my classes and get another wand, I’ll ask her to tutor me so that I can pass my tests.

RS: Consider it done. Now, then, you were the one to pick up Harry Potter and take him to Dumbledore, correct?

RH: I was, although I didn’t think it was right to drop him off in the muggle world, but since the headmaster is my employer, and I do owe him something for giving me this job, I did what he’d asked.

RS: Did you know anything about Lily Potter’s muggle sister?

RH: No, I didn’t. If I’d been aware of how she felt about magicals, I would have taken Harry anywhere else but there, and hang Dumbledore’s plans.

RS: That’s good to hear. I’m sure that someone from the Ministry will be in contact with you soon about replacing your wand and expunging your ‘criminal’ record.

Now, I know that a lot of you are wondering how I was able to get enough information to find the people who’d had contact with Harry Potter after his parents were murdered. The Ministry has spoken with Daily Prophet editor Barnabas Cuffe and asked that I be the primary investigative reporter on behalf of the Ministry and the British wizarding world. I have certain skills that allow me access to information that’s hard to discover otherwise, so I used those skills to check into the circumstances surrounding Harry Potter’s disability. What is in this article is not the sum total of the information I’d gleaned in my investigation. Suffice it to say that the more relevant data has been given to the appropriate authorities to decide what charges, if any, need to be leveled against the guilty parties. When I can, I will update you on the progress of these investigations.

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“Are you ready for Hogwarts, Harry?” Severus asked softly. Two days after the boy was brought to Malfoy Manor, Lucius and Narcissa performed a familial blood adoption ritual for the white-haired preteen. Once that was completed, they moved on to a brother by blood ritual before finishing with a godfather ritual. The Malfoys and Blacks always used blood based spells for every event, since blood was the most powerful magical element in the world. Snape was honored to be asked to mentor and protect the child of his very best friend growing up, and he only hoped that Lily was happy to have someone who would actually be in her son’s corner, watching out for him. Tom was included for both Draco and the last Potter heir as an uncle, through a ritual to make him brother to both Lucius and Severus. Their family was tight and as close as any blood-born family could be.

“As I’ll ever be,” the youth snarked back with a grin. He’d smiled and laughed more in the last few weeks than he’d ever had since that horrible night ten and a half years earlier. The families had celebrated a belated birthday for Harry, since he’d never really had one before, other than his first birthday when his mum and dad were still alive. He was gifted with all manner of protective jewelry, clothes and books unrelated to schooling but nevertheless still important for every witch and wizard to own. The best gift he’d received by far, however, was a seeing eye dog to help him navigate the halls of Hogwarts better. Though he had the wand-cane, it wouldn’t work very well to guide him when the halls were crowded with students going to and from class. The dog would help him wend his way through the masses without too much interference; at least his parents and uncles hoped so, anyway. “I’m...I’m a little nervous, to be honest,” the young man continued hesitantly. “I don’t know how people are going to react to me, and I don’t want to be an outcast in a different world for the same reasons I was an outcast with the relatives and that neighborhood.”

“I understand pretty well how you feel, Harry,” his godfather/uncle said, placing a gentle hand on the kid’s shoulder. He ignored the minute flinch, knowing that the preteen was still a bit wary about anyone being near enough to him to hurt him. Those lessons he’d learned at the hands of the Dursleys had sunk deep within his psyche, and it would take quite a long time before he would be able to relax enough to trust that others weren’t out to get him. “If I hadn’t have had Lily as my very best friend before I started school, I would have been lost in the weeds. My mother and I didn’t have much, thanks to the sperm donor drinking up all the money she made with her potions. If he wasn’t doing that, he was blaming us for his inability to hold a job, and punishing us for his failures.

“I told you some of what I’d lived through, just to let you know that I understood from where you come, but what you don’t know is that he beat my mother to death near the end of my fifth year, and when I returned home, he was passed out drunk in his favorite chair, with mum’s moldering corpse at his feet. I saw red and blacked out, but when I finally came out of my fugue, I had obliterated him. I sat in that house for nearly a week, mourning my mother and lamenting my fate, when Lucius showed up at my door, wondering if I was okay. We were supposed to get together the day before, but in my grief and rage I’d forgotten the appointment. He came to my house to check up on me, and seeing both my mother and him dead on the floor, quickly pulled me out of the house and set it on fire.

“We returned here, and the muggle authorities chalked it up to a faulty gas line that had been leaking, and the pilot light from the cooker caused the explosion. Then, his father introduced me to Tom Riddle, and things changed for the better from there. But, until I’d been welcomed into Lucius’ family, I had been bullied by your father and his friends for being friends with your mum, so I understand what it’s like to be an outcast. Just remember that I’ll be there in the school with you, and if you need someplace to hide and decompress, you’re always welcome to my private quarters. I suspect you’ll be sorted into my House, so you’ll have a great deal of support from the snakes, as well.”

“Thanks, uncle Sev,” Harry said with a hug and a smile. “You always know what to say to make me feel better.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“That’s the fifth time he’s passed the door,” Draco groused angrily, frowning as a heavy-set redhead their age marched past their compartment. Inside was Theo Nott, Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter-Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe and Greg Goyle. The other three had been friends with Malfoy since childhood, and when they met the white-haired boy they instantly became good friends. They passed no judgments on the pale-eyed youth; they all had relatives that were on the ‘wrong side’ of Dumbledore’s war and had been grievously injured because of it.

“Who?” Harry queried, since he couldn’t see what was going on.

“Looks like a Weasley,” the blond retorted with a frown. “Not sure what he’s looking for, but it can’t be good.”

“What do you want to bet that he’s looking for the Savior of the wizarding world?” Theo posited flatly. “His family’s well known to be Dumbledore supporters, and after Skeeter’s article in the paper, the old man’s name can’t be as revered as it once was. If the headmaster can get the Boy Who Lived under his control, his power would be assured.”

“Good luck with that,” Vince chimed in, staring at Harry and noticing the scowl on his face. “I’m pretty sure Dumbledore burned that bridge to the ground the moment he abandoned Harry on those muggles’ doorstep.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t play with the old man for a bit,” Draco murmured with a malicious grin. “Help Harry get some justified payback for what he’d suffered all these years...”