Elias Ashford had lived with the Dursleys for five long, uncomfortable years—long enough to learn that everything in the house existed in a careful, silent balance. Vernon Dursley liked things normal. Predictable. Proper.
Elias was none of those things.
Harry Potter was even less.
Though the boys were the same age, shared chores, and sometimes exchanged the weary, knowing glances of people who lived under the same roof of disapproval, they weren't allowed to be friends. Vernon made sure of that.
But the Dursleys couldn't control everything.
Especially not letters.
It started on a dull, grey morning.
The post slid through the slot, landing on the doormat. Elias crouched to collect it—bills, catalogues, a postcard from Aunt Marge—and then something strange.
A thick envelope made of yellowish parchment.Emerald-green ink.A wax seal he didn't know but somehow recognized.
Harry PotterThe Cupboard Under the Stairs
Elias froze. Harry, brushing his messy hair from his eyes, leaned over his shoulder.
"What's that?" Harry whispered.
"Dunno," Elias whispered back. "It's— it's addressed to you."
Elias didn't even get the chance to hand it over. Vernon swept into the hallway like a tidal wave, snatching the envelope with a grunt.
"Nothing but nonsense!" he snapped, tearing it in half.
Harry and Elias exchanged a look—confused, frustrated, and just a little bit terrified.
That was the first letter.
It wasn't the last.
Every morning brought more envelopes.Some slid under doors.Some burst from the fireplace.Some were tucked into eggs.
And every morning, Vernon turned redder, sweatier, more frantic, like a man being hunted by words on paper.
"NO ONE IS TO TOUCH THESE LETTERS!" he roared at dinner, slamming his fist on the table. Dudley jumped. Harry flinched. Elias swallowed hard.
"But… someone clearly wants us to," Elias murmured before he could stop himself.
Vernon's head snapped toward him. "Absolutely not! Do you think I don't know what this is?" His moustache quivered. "We are normal, do you hear me? Normal!"
Harry stared at the dozens of torn envelopes piled in the rubbish bin.
Elias stared at Harry—at the questions burning behind his eyes, at the hope neither of them dared voice.
They both knew this wasn't normal.
Not even close.
When Vernon announced they were leaving the house, Dudley didn't argue. Petunia didn't blink. They simply packed as though a bomb were seconds from exploding.
Elias didn't have much to bring anyway. A few clothes. A worn blanket from his mother. And the strange nervous feeling in his chest that told him something was coming—something important.
They drove for hours. Then a ferry.Then finally, impossibly, a rickety shack perched on a desolate rock in the middle of the sea.
Wind howled through the boards. Rain hammered the roof. Harry pulled his thin coat tighter around himself; Elias tried pretending he wasn't shivering, even though the cold bit straight through him.
They sat together on the dusty floor, Dudley snoring loudly nearby.
"Do you think the letters were… for real?" Harry asked quietly.
Elias hesitated.He didn't want to say the wrong thing. Not to Harry. Not when Harry was the only other person who seemed to understand what it felt like to not belong anywhere.
"I think they were meant for you," Elias said gently. "Someone wants you to know something. Something important. And Mr. Dursley is terrified of you finding out."
Harry exhaled slowly. "That makes two of us."
A crack of thunder shook the hut. Rain came harder.Midnight approached.
Harry counted down the seconds to his birthday, muttering softly under his breath. Elias joined him, the numbers whispered in the dark.
"Ten… nine… eight…"
Wind rattled the windows.
"Seven… six…"
The whole shack groaned.
"Five…"
The waves crashed louder.
"Four…"
The door hinges creaked violently.
"Three…"
Something heavy hit the outside wall.
"Two…"
Harry and Elias exchanged wide-eyed looks.
"One—"
BOOM.
The door flew open. Dudley screamed awake. Vernon jumped to his feet holding a rifle.
And towering in the doorway stood a giant of a man with a wild mane of hair, soaked to the skin, looking equal parts furious and delighted.
"Couldn't make a quieter entrance?" Elias whispered.
Harry almost smiled. "You think he knocked lightly?"
The giant's voice boomed through the hut.
"Sorry 'bout the door! Shouldn't'a sat on it."
He stepped inside, filling the entire room with presence alone.
"Who—?" Vernon sputtered.
The giant ignored him completely, turning instead to Harry.
"Happy Birthday, Harry."
He handed Harry a slightly squashed box. Inside was a homemade cake—chocolate, a bit crooked, but beautiful in the way only something made with care could be.
Elias glanced between them, awe and warmth blooming in his chest.
No one ever made Harry a cake.No one had ever made one for Elias either.
The stranger finally noticed Elias and blinked.
"Ah. There yeh are. Elias Ashford, right?"
Elias tensed. "How—how do you know my name?"
"Same way I know Harry's." The giant beamed. "Knew I'd be pickin' up two o' yeh. Hogwarts don't forget its young'uns."
Harry froze. "Hog—Hogwarts?"
Vernon sputtered again. "I demand you leave—!"
"I demand YOU SHUT UP!" the giant barked, and Vernon fell silent so fast his moustache quivered.
Harry whispered, "What's Hogwarts?"
The giant straightened proudly.
"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
Silence.
Wind whistled through the open doorway.
Elias felt something electric run through him.A warmth he hadn't felt in years.A rightness.
Harry finally spoke, voice thin.
"We're… we're wizards?"
"A' course yeh are."
Elias exhaled shakily.Harry looked like he had just been handed the sun.
The giant stuck out a huge hand.
"Name's Rubeus Hagrid. Keeper o' Keys an' Grounds at Hogwarts. And I've come t' deliver yer letters personally—seeing as someone's been tryin' awful hard to keep 'em from yeh."
He shot Vernon a look that could shatter stone.
Elias and Harry stepped forward together, not alone anymore.
Not unwanted, and for the very first time, standing in the doorway of a shack on a stormy sea, holding their Hogwarts letters…
They felt like they belonged somewhere.