Harry Potter had vague memories.
A woman's laughter, high and bright like bells.
A man's voice, low and warm, calling him champ.
A flash of green, always green, though it left him trembling whenever it came unbidden.
And then—silence.
What little remained of his memories about his parents, he was to young to really remember them only these fragments remains.
After that, there had been Privet Drive.
~
The cupboard under the stairs had been his world for almost as long as he could remember.
The door squeaked, the light was thin, and dust always settled on his hair no matter how often he brushed it off.
Sometimes he would lie awake and wonder if the spiders in the corners were his only real family.
His Aunt Petunia told him his parents had gotten themselves killed in a car crash.
His uncle would snort when she said it, muttering about irresponsible drunks.
Harry had stopped asking questions after the third time a frying pan came dangerously close to his head.
He was fed scraps.
Half a slice of toast if Dudley didn't want it, watery soup ladled from the bottom of the pot.
Birthdays were never mentioned at least not his own.
Christmas meant socks with holes, or sometimes nothing at all.
School wasn't much better.
Dudley's gang followed Harry like a pack of wolves, and teachers seemed blind to everything but Harry's "attitude."
But the anger—oh, the anger—was there.
He would lie awake in his cupboard, fists balled tight, whispering to himself.
Why did they leave me here?
Why didn't anyone come back for me?
What did I do wrong?
~
Strange things happened around him, things no one could explain.
When Dudley tried to shove him headfirst into the gutter, the bully slipped instead, skidding across the pavement as though the ground itself had tilted.
When Petunia had once tried to cut his too-long hair down to the scalp, he woke the next morning to find it all grown back.
And when Uncle Vernon locked him in the cupboard for a whole day without food, the lock snapped itself free halfway through the night.
Every time, Harry swore he hadn't done anything.
But the Dursleys grew more furious, not less.
They called him freak.
They called him unnatural.
Harry began to think maybe they were right.
But even still they did not get rid of him, perhaps they enjoyed having a live in servant.
On his walks home from school Harry would passby an orphanage and watching the kids within those gates walls, he couldnt help but wish his Aunt would abandon him, letting him get to live the life of these kids in an orphanage.
Getting the chance to be raised up by the New Dawn Alliance who clearly cared about children far more than his own family ever did.
~
It was July 28th, 1991.
Harry was just about to turn 11.
The summer heat baked Privet Drive, leaving the air thick and stifling.
The Dursleys were preparing for Dudley's own birthday trip to the zoo, and Harry was told he could come if he was good for a change.
But that morning, a sound came at the door.
The soft flap of mail.
Harry heard it land on the doormat, heard Dudley thump down the hallway to fetch it.
And then—his name.
Clear as day.
"Hey, Dad, look at this!" Dudley shouted, holding an envelope aloft.
Uncle Vernon, newspaper spread wide, lowered it with a grunt. "What's that you've got there, boy?"
"It's not for me," Dudley said, squinting at the writing. "It's for… Harry."
Harry froze in the doorway.
For him?
Mail never came for Harry.
Never.
Not once.
He stepped forward, heart hammering, reaching out before he could stop himself.
The envelope was thick, heavy.
The parchment was cream-colored, the ink deep green.
And the address—
Mr. H. PotterThe Cupboard Under the Stairs4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey
It was like being struck by lightning.
The letter knew.
It saw him.
But before his fingers could close around it, Uncle Vernon's meaty hand snatched it away.
"Not for you," Vernon growled.
"But it has my name—"
"I SAID, not for you!"
The envelope crumpled in Vernon's fist, veins standing out on his forehead.
He stuffed it into his coat pocket, glaring at Harry with eyes full of something more than anger—fear.
Harry's throat burned.
He wanted to scream, to claw the letter free, to know what it said.
But Petunia's shrill voice cut across the hallway:
"Vernon, don't let him touch it! You know what it is!"
The words silenced Harry more effectively than a blow.
They knew.
They had always known, something was being kept from him probably all his life and he wanted to know!
Harry was locked in the cupboard the rest of the day, the trip to the zoo was cancelled.
He lay on the thin mattress, fists trembling, rage boiling up until his head pounded.
They knew.
They had always known.
That letter—whatever it was—had been meant for him.
Not Dudley.
Not Petunia.
Not Vernon.
Him.
And they had stolen it.
All the years of scraps, of lies, of punishments.
All the years of Dudley's smirks and Vernon's fists and Petunia's scorn.
It wasn't just cruelty.
It was deliberate.
They had hidden something from him.
Something that mattered enough to send a letter that could name his cupboard, that could find him even here.
Harry pressed his face into his thin pillow, teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached.
"I'll find out," he whispered into the dark. "You can't stop me."
~
That night, he dreamed of that green color again, a flash of green before his eyes and with it his parents vanished again.
But this time, there was more.
The laughter of his mother, not faint but clear.
His father's voice calling his name.
And over it all, a whisper—not the Dursleys, not his own—something colder, older.
Harry Potter.
He woke gasping, the cupboard pressing in around him like a coffin.
He did not sleep again.
~
In the days that followed, the dursleys were harrassed in a way most befitting of the Headmaster dumbledore as every owl within britain was enlisted to deliver hundreds if not thousands of letters over the coming day all addressed to Harry.
Each one was collected, torn to shred or burned before harry's own eyes.
This carried on whittling away at Vernon Dursely's sanity until finally on the one day he felt he was finally free of this curse, only to have that be the moment of his fall.
Letters flying in through the mail slot, flooding into the room via the chimmney.
Unable to handle it he quickly gathered everyone up and threw them into the car driving away, far away where 'they' couldnt find them.
This marked the beginning of Harry's journey as he would make his first acquaintence just a day later when he met the half-giant hagrid who not only delivered the letter personally, but also dropped off a cake for harry, his first ever birthday present and fufilling the wish he'd made to the drawing of a cake with candles in the dirt. (Having someone remember his birthday)