Warnings: Slash – probably smut at some point, violence, child abuse, language, eventually powerful!Harry, brief mentions of suicidal thoughts. Eventually, expect torture, murder, non-consensual magical binding(nothing sexual), sedition, and possible genocide. I will update the warnings as necessary as the story develops. There are a lot of dark elements to this story, but I hate too much unrelieved angst, so I don't plan to have a great deal of that.

Disclaimer: I am not J K Rowling and I do not own Harry Potter (though Rhast is mine). I am not making any money from this. It is purely for entertainment purposes. This chapter contains some material quoted and/or paraphrased from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, chapter 4.

Summer 1986

Harry was working in the garden when he saw the tiny green snake, almost the same color as his eyes. Casting a cautious eye back toward the house, he determined that he wasn't being watched right that moment. "You'd better get out of here, little guy," he whispered. "My aunt will take the spade to you if she sees you."

The tiny snake lifted the top of his body up to stare at Harry, miniscule black tongue flicking out. "You will protect me, large one."

Harry shook his head slightly and moved down along the row of flowers to continue his work. "I can't even protect myself," he muttered unhappily.

"If you protect me until I am bigger, then I will protect you," the snake bargained.

Harry blinked at the little snake, certain that this was the weirdest conversation he'd ever had in his life. He was pretty sure that talking to snakes wasn't natural. He knew that doing anything unnatural was sure to get him a strapping and a week in his cupboard if he was caught. But this little fellow was just so cute! And he talked to Harry like he wasn't a worthless freak. "Don't you have a mum worrying about you somewhere?" he tried one last time. He had no idea if snakes even had mums that stuck around.

"I'm alone, large one," the tiny snake said with such loneliness in his voice that Harry couldn't help but feel bad for him. They were both alone. Both orphans. He couldn't make this little snake unwanted like he was. Besides, the snake wanted him. Maybe he could make this work.

"Okay…" he said slowly. "I'll try, but you'd better be really good at hiding, because I'll get the strap if my aunt finds you in the house."

They only made it a week before Aunt Petunia threw open the cupboard door, surprising him while his little friend was resting on his knee where they'd been talking. He looked up at her in complete horror and she looked around suspiciously. He watched her eyes go right over his knee without seeming to notice the little green snake, and then she just barked at him to get started on dinner and walked away.

Harry breathed a sigh of bewildered relief and looked back at the snake only to find him gone! "Rhast!" he gasped worriedly.

To his complete astonishment, the snake appeared on his knee where he'd apparently been invisible all along.

"How did you do that?" Harry breathed.

"I am very good at hiding," was the smug reply.

December 1986

Harry sunk his teeth into his filthy blanket and struggled to stifle his sobs, which were only aggravating the blazing pain in his back.

He wished the pain from his uncle's belt hitting his back was the worst thing that he was feeling, but it wasn't. His chest and his stomach hurt like his insides were being torn out. That small, stupid part of him that still held onto stubborn hope that the only family he had may someday not hate him was crying out at the injustice. He could feel it shriveling up inside of him. Hardening and dying as it did a little bit every time he was forced to see that they would never care about him.

Dudley got a new bicycle for Christmas this year, and he'd been riding it in the living room where Harry was cleaning after Vernon had gone to the den and Petunia to the kitchen to set out the dinner Harry had prepared. Harry had been on the other side of the room when Dudley had ridden the bicycle right into the Christmas tree. It somehow fell over on top of him, and Dudley got a tiny little cut on his arm. Dudley told his parents that Harry had pushed it over on him.

Like every other time Harry was punished for hurting Dudley – most of the times, he'd had nothing to do with it – Harry had gotten a beating so much worse than the usual ones. When Dudley got hurt, Harry thought that Vernon went a little bit mad. Every time, he wondered if his uncle would kill him. Sometimes, he hoped that he would. And as that increasingly small part inside of Harry died a little more, that wish grew stronger. He wondered what he'd have to do to push Vernon into killing him next time. No doubt it would hurt a lot, but then it would be over. Maybe his parents were even waiting for him wherever people went when they died. Maybe Freaks were welcome there.

"I smell your pain, master," a small voice hissed near his ear, pulling Harry from his dark thoughts with the reminder that he wasn't alone anymore. He had Rhast now, the snake that called Harry "master" and didn't treat him like a Freak. He said that it was an honor for a serpent to bond with a speaker. Rhast seemed to know a lot and very little. Speakers were people who could speak with snakes. Apparently, they were very rare and all snakes liked them. Rhast didn't seem to know how he knew that, or he didn't know how to explain it, maybe. When pressed, he tended to say things like, "it just is" or "everyone knows this". Harry had given up.

The boy winced slightly as he shifted to run his fingers lightly over the cool scales of the only creature in the whole world that cared about him. Harry was so glad for the snake. He didn't know what he'd do without him. He couldn't imagine surviving some of these beatings without the snake's calming presence. Rhast was growing fast though, and Harry hoped he was almost full grown. The snake was already half a meter long. Harry had found a little information about snakes at the school library, but he hadn't been able to figure out what kind of snake he had. The bright green snake was almost the same color as Harry's eyes, and he was beginning to get a few small black scales too. Rhast spent most of his time in the cupboard, which was close to a furnace vent and therefore one of the warmest places in the house.

"They hate me, Rhast," he hissed softly. "I wish I knew why. I know it's because I'm a freak, but I don't know why I'm a freak. I just want to be normal like them," he babbled, struggling to muffle his hiccoughing sobs without smothering his words.

The snake hissed a decidedly disagreeable sound. "Why would you want to be like them? They are vermin. They are worth only to feed their betters. You are better, Master. You are still small, like me, but one day, you will be bigger. You will be great, and then you will destroy them, and they will know that you are better."

Harry's sobs eased away as he listened to the snake's words. The boy loved Rhast, but sometimes he wondered if he understood humans at all. How could he ever be better than the Dursleys? He was just a freak. "But I'm not better than them," he argued reasonably.

Rhast's mouth opened wide with his furious hiss and Harry would have flinched away from him if he wasn't so exhausted. "Lies, master! They speak in lies! You are their better! You are powerful!"

Harry sneered slightly. "I'm not…"

That was as far as he got before Rhast launched himself toward him. For a moment, Harry thought the snake would bite him, but those small, sharp fangs were closed inside his mouth when his nose hit Harry in the chest with almost bruising force despite his small size. "Here!" Rhast said forcefully before hitting him again, right in the center of his chest. "Your power is here. It is coiled tight because you are too young, but when you are larger, it will relax. Like my venom, it is not yet dangerous, but it will be. When that happens, you will be predator and they will be prey. Every time they hurt you, remember that. Remember that you grow stronger each day, just as me. Every hurt makes you stronger. Remember them all, and when they become your prey, make them hurt for every time they hurt you."

Harry thought about that for a long time. He still wasn't sure about being powerful, but maybe it was true. He was getting bigger and stronger – though not as fast as Dudley because they never let him eat much. But maybe one day… Yes. One day he wouldn't be a kid anymore. It seemed like it would take forever, but… Someday he would be powerful enough to make the Dursleys feel every pain they'd ever given him. That was the best reason to go on living that he'd ever heard.

"Okay, Rhast," he finally replied. "Someday we'll both be powerful, and… And then I'll show them just how dangerous a freak can be."

If it was possible, he'd say the snake grinned at him, though the not-yet-deadly venom dripping from his fangs made it a pretty scary grin.

"Hey, Rhast," Harry said after a minute. "How big are you going to get?"

Rhast made that raspy hissing laugh that had earned him his name. "Very big, master. Very big."

July 1991

Harry cursed under his breath as he drew the threadbare blanket closer around him and tried to stave off the ridiculous cold that tried to sap the life out of him. The icy coils of scales wrapped around his stomach under his shirt weren't helping either, but Rhast needed the warmth more than Harry did. He wasn't doing well in this icy hut.

The snake hadn't been kidding when he'd said that he would be big. The damn thing never stopped growing. In the five years since Harry had found him, the emerald snake had gone from ten centimeters to a full four meters, almost crowding the growing boy out of his cupboard, and if not for his ability to turn invisible, he'd have been found out a long time ago.

Rhast claimed that his venom was strong enough to kill now, and they had discussed the possibility of the snake just biting all three of the Dursleys in their sleep, but in the end they'd decided against it. First, Harry didn't want to find out if Vernon was telling the truth about how horrible an orphanage was to live in. Second, Harry had a lot of hurt to repay his relatives. If they died now, it might save him a lot of pain in the future, but ever since that conversation with Rhast that had started him thinking about it, Harry had been making a lot of plans on how to repay his "family" for their treatment of him. None of the ways were legal, and he spent a good bit of time also thinking about how he would get away with it and not go to prison. Some of the ideas were impractical, but still fun enough to think about that he'd literally whiled away days on the fantasies while he was locked in his cupboard.

Harry had never figured out exactly what Rhast meant when he talked about Harry's "power", but he did know that the snake didn't mean his body. The snake didn't have a word for what it was other than power, but he claimed that he could feel it growing, the coils relaxing so that soon it would be able to strike. Though it didn't make sense, Harry chose to take the words on faith, and take heart in them.

Harry looked at Dudley's watch where it clung to his bloated wrist hanging off the side of the sofa. In two more minutes, he'd be eleven. Though the Dursleys never recognized Harry's birthday, he always did. It represented one more year survived. It represented one less year before he was free of them.

One less year until he was strong enough to repay them for everything. It seemed incredibly unlikely that he'd be able to keep them alive long enough to hurt them as much as they deserved, but he'd do his best. Part of him knew that it was wrong to hurt and kill people. It was that same part of him that had held onto the wish for the Dursleys to come to love him.

Harry thought that part of him was naïve, and he was doing his best to crush it out entirely. Maybe some people didn't deserve pain and death. He didn't think that he deserved it. And that was the point. It didn't matter if anyone deserved it or not. Life wasn't "fair". If you didn't want to be hurt, then you just had to be stronger than the people who wanted to hurt you. Hurt them first. Harry knew from painful experience that no one else was going to protect him. The few people who had tried had failed or been talked out of it. The Dursleys were good at that.

Expecting or even wishing for life to be fair had only ever caused him pain. Someday, he would be powerful. Someday, he would be the one deciding who was hurt and who was spared.

Harry glanced at the watch again. Ten seconds.

He flinched as he heard a sound outside that didn't quite fit in with the other noise from the storm that he'd been hearing. He looked toward the door cautiously even as he felt Rhast tighten slightly around him, either hearing it as well or picking up on Harry's anxiety.

Just as he was thinking that it must have been nothing, there was something like a footstep and then…

BOOM!

Harry flinched badly, and he felt Rhast all but fly out of his shirt. Though the reptile was invisible, Harry could feel the snake at his side. He could hear the quiet, warning hisses.

BOOM! The pounding on the door came again and Dudley jerked awake, mumbling something about a canon that Harry ignored.

There was a crash behind them and Vernon came skidding out of his room holding a rifle, which turned most of Harry and Rhast's attention onto the known danger rather than the unknown. He'd never seen his hateful uncle with a gun before, and it terrified him. He didn't know a lot about guns, but he'd caught enough snatches of Dudley's movies and games while he was cleaning to know that it only took one shot to kill someone. It would only take a moment of anger for Vernon to squeeze the trigger, and all of Harry's plans for eventual revenge would be blown out the back of his head.

Harry didn't emerge from his terrified daze until the front door hit the floor with a resounding BANG. Even then, Harry didn't spare much more than a glance at the giant man with the pink umbrella that was now stepping inside. The giant was freaky, but not nearly as scary as Vernon Dursley with a – presumably loaded – rifle.

The giant man said something about tea, apparently not the slightest bit afraid of the gun, which Harry thought made him extremely brave or extremely stupid – possibly some combination of the two. Harry was too afraid to even take much pleasure in Dudley squealing like a terrified piglet as he leapt off the sofa and ducked around behind Vernon.

"An' here's Harry!" the giant said jovially.

Harry flinched and tried to hunch down and look as pathetic as possible. The last fucking thing he wanted was to have attention drawn to himself when Vernon was holding a gun. He chanced a momentary glance at the giant's face and found that he seemed to be smiling. He quickly looked at his uncle again, gazing up through his fringe and taking some small reassurance in the fact that the man still seemed focused more on the giant than on him.

The giant went on, saying something that Harry distantly registered as talking about his resemblance to his parents. Harry wasn't paying enough attention to know exactly what it was. All he could think was that the giant was going to die, and he hoped desperately that he wouldn't be next. The Dursleys always got very angry whenever they talked about Harry's deadbeat parents. Apparently, they took it personally that the idiots had gotten themselves killed, thereby leaving Harry to them. Harry didn't completely blame them for that. He wasn't too fond of his parents either for getting themselves killed and leaving him with the Dursleys.

"I demand you leave at once, sir!" Vernon shouted, his face turning frighteningly puce. "You are breaking and entering!"

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," the giant said disdainfully. Harry flinched as the giant reached over the back of the sofa and jerked the gun out of Vernon's hands.

Harry stared in awed horror as the giant got the gun away without being shot, then proceeded to bend it into a knot in a terrifying display of strength. He tossed it into the corner of the room without concern.

Vernon squeaked, and Harry relaxed marginally as he turned his attention to the most dangerous person in the room now that Vernon was unarmed. This giant didn't seem to be a danger to Harry, but he'd probably be almost as deadly as that gun if he decided to be.

"Anyway – Harry," the giant went on as though nothing unusual had just happened. "A very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here. I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right."

Harry's stomach turned slightly with uneasiness as the giant of a man went on talking to him like they were old friends instead of perfect strangers. This man had mentioned his parents. And he knew that it was Harry's birthday. It was shockingly strange to hear someone recognize his birthday. No one had ever done it before – even Rhast, though that was mostly because the snake didn't seem to understand the purpose of birthdays. It made Harry instantly wary. He'd spent the last five years beating it into himself that no one would ever care about him. That he didn't need anyone to care about him. It was a silent mantra that he'd adopted with every lash of his uncle's belt, every fall of his heavy fists, and every swing of his hard shoes. The fact that this man seemed to be insinuating that he cared by getting him a birthday cake, was extremely unsettling.

And he had in fact, brought a cake. He pulled it from one of his enormous pockets and when Harry didn't immediately reach for it, he opened it to display a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in green icing.

Harry's stomach turned at the sweet scent. So many years of cooking sweets only to watch his cousin and uncle gobble them down like great pigs while Harry wasn't even allowed to lick the batter from the bowl had disillusioned him to the "treats". Instead of wishing for what he couldn't have, he'd come to associate anything sweet with the sight of the swine consuming it. It had been over two years since Harry had wished to taste the sweets he made. He didn't even eat the desserts at school anymore.

He pushed it away and tried not to think about it as he looked up at the giant man. "Who are you?" he asked very quietly, glancing warily toward his family. He suspected that he'd get a strapping later for asking the question, but one look at them and he thought it was likely they wouldn't even remember it. They seemed terrified and still in shock over that bit with the gun.

"True, I haven't introduced myself," the giant chuckled. "Rubeus Hagrid, keeper of the Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

He held out an enormous hand and Harry instinctively inched away from the appendage, which could probably crush Harry's whole forearm with one squeeze.

The giant – Rubeus, apparently – frowned at Harry's move, evidently unable to understand why Harry might not wish to put his hand in that bear trap.

"What about that tea then, eh?" he said after a moment. "I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."

Harry shivered at the idea of this giant man drunk. Vernon was much scarier when he drank, though he didn't get drunk very often because it seemed to make Petunia cross with him.

Rubeus looked at the empty grate with shriveled chip bags in it and he snorted. Harry eased away as the giant leaned toward the fireplace, and he felt the comforting, cool weight of his only friend at his back. He still flinched when a roaring fire suddenly sparked up. He knew that there wasn't any gas hooked up to that fireplace, so he was extremely curious as to how the giant had got it burning so quickly.

Despite the uneasy situation, he felt Rhast shift instinctively toward the warmth, and once the giant sat back, Harry followed the example, feeling his shoulders relax slightly as the aching cold began to abate.

It was a few minutes later before Harry comprehended what the giant was doing now. He'd been pulling strange things out of his pockets for some time now, and Harry realized that he seemed to be carrying an entire tea service in there, in addition to a poker and some amber liquid that he took a swig of before he started fixing the tea. Harry contained a flinch when he realized that the liquid must be alcohol of some kind. The bottle didn't look nearly big enough to get this man drunk, but who knew how much more he might be carrying in those enormous pockets…

The room was silent but for the crackling of the fire until Rubeus slid six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker. Dudley fidgeted a little, and Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley."

Rubeus chuckled darkly. "Yer great puddin' of a son don' need fattenin' anymore, Dursley. Don' worry."

He held the sausages out to Harry then. Despite his misgivings, Harry's ravening hunger had him devouring the offering so quickly that he burned his mouth and hardly tasted it. He did have the presence of mind to slip one of the sausages onto the floor next to his leg. Rhast preferred his food raw and bloody, but lean winters in the Dursley house had taught them that he could digest any meat, even if he did whinge about the taste. He felt the invisible snake snap up the small morsel.

Another long silence passed before Hagrid finally gulped some of his tea and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand before turning another too-warm smile on Harry. "Lookin' forward to Hogwarts, then?"

Harry frowned and glanced minimally at the Dursleys, who still seemed too distracted by the giant to pay him any attention. "I'm not sure that I know what Hogwarts is," Harry said carefully, keeping his voice low and trying to make it sound like a statement rather than a question. Statements might get him a smack, but questions usually got him several smacks and then locked in his cupboard without dinner.

Rubeus looked shocked.

"I'm sorry," Harry said quickly, glancing between the giant and the Dursleys. He was sure he'd said something he shouldn't have.

"Sorry?" Rubeus barked and Harry forcibly contained a flinch to avoid drawing any unnecessary attention to himself. Then the giant turned his attention on the Dursleys though, and growled out, "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't getting' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?"

Harry winced at being backed into a corner. He strongly suspected that any answer he could give was only going to make things worse, but he'd been asked a direct question. He didn't have any choice but to answer or the consequences would probably be even worse. "All of what, sir?" he asked, barely able to make his voice loud enough to be heard.

"ALL WHAT?" Rubeus thundered.

Harry tensed further. His shoulders were so tight that he could feel a headache beginning at the base of his neck. This was quickly getting out of hand.

"Now wait jus' one second!" Rubeus leapt to his feet. As he rounded on the terrified Dursleys crowded against the wall, Harry sank back closer to the fire and stuck one hand behind his back, resting it on cool scales and trying to estimate his chances of living through the aftermath of this mad night. The Dursleys might be terrified now, but they were going to be furious about it later. And Harry had no doubt that they would happily take it out on him.

"Do you mean ter tell me," Rubeus growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy – this boy! – knows nothin' abou'… about ANYTHING?"

Harry closed his eyes for as long as he dared and tried to focus on his breathing so he didn't hyperventilate.

"Nothing about his world? His parents' world?" Rubeus spun on Harry again – the boy barely contained his flinch – and the giant's eyes widened as though begging Harry to tell him that he knew exactly what he was talking about.

Harry hadn't been asked a direct question, but that look made it as good as one. He hesitated a moment before shaking his head slightly.

"DURSLEY!" Rubeus boomed, rounding on them again.

Vernon was very pale now and barely managed to mumble something unintelligible.

"But yeh must know about yer mum and dad," Rubeus almost begged Harry. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."

Harry's brain picked that particular time – that single word, stressed twice – to decide that enough was enough. All of his very rational fear that had been keeping him meek and quiet just snapped. "What?!" he demanded incredulously. His worthless, drunken parents were famous? He was famous? For what? Being the biggest freak there was?!

"Yeh don' know… Yeh don' know…" Rubeus ran a hand through his wild hair and looked somewhere between incredulous and just plain lost.

Harry was finding it both annoying and frightening. "Don't know what?!" he demanded, exasperated and stressed beyond anything he'd ever known in his life.

"Yeh don' know what yeh are?" Rubeus said finally.

Harry glared at the man who apparently could not just come out and say anything.

Then Vernon found his voice and Harry flinched instinctively at the shouted, "Stop! Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!"

Harry silently added this moment to the list of offenses that the Dursleys already had against them in his mental tally.

Rubeus didn't seem the slightest bit intimidated though – not that he should, being a terrifying giant of a man who could make pretzels out of rifles. He turned pure rage on Vernon and Harry contained a groan, certain that he was going to pay for that later with the skin off his back. The bruises from his last lashing – inspired by the arrival of the letters – weren't even gone yet.

"You never told him?" Rubeus demanded, his booming voice trembling with rage that somehow didn't frighten Harry as much as the beating that he knew would come from this. "Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from him all these years?"

Harry frowned, his curiosity trying to eat him from the inside out. He couldn't help but feel that he was so close to answers for the first time in his life, if this idiot would just say something! And then he realized that the beating that would result from this night really couldn't get any worse. He wasn't even sure that he'd live through it, but by the way Vernon's face kept turning colors, he really didn't think that any obstinacy or questions from him could make it any worse than it would be anyway.

With that in mind, he dredged up courage – or perhaps stupidity – he hadn't known that he had, and opened his mouth. "What have they kept from me, sir?"

"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" Vernon yelled in panic. Petunia gasped in horror.

"Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh," Rubeus dismissed them both. "Harry. Yer a wizard."

Harry's eager anticipation dropped into his feet in a cold, unremarkable lump. "A wizard," he said flatly, disappointment coiling unpleasantly in his stomach. He had no idea what he'd been expecting, but he was abruptly convinced that this massive man was some kind of nutter. He was going to get the worst beating of his life because of some lunatic. Shit…

"O' course," Rubeus said as though it was the most natural thing in the world. He lowered himself back onto the sofa with a smile. "An' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."

Harry stared at the giant, disgruntled and firmly stomping on the little part of him daring to hope that this was real. He had learned better than to hope for impossible things. It only ended in disappointment.

Then Rubeus handed over a letter identical to the ones that had started all this nonsense and gotten him that last memorable strapping. No, not identical, he realized. This one was addressed to The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. He frowned at it and wondered who thought it was funny to enumerate his sleeping place with such insulting detail.

When Rubeus just continued to stare at him expectantly, Harry held back a sigh and opened the cursed letter.

He read through it quickly. He'd become very fast at reading from pure necessity. The little time that he had to read during recess and library time at school and by the light seeping in around his cupboard door before the lights were turned out – when he managed to smuggle books from the library – had forced him to read very quickly.

Dumbledore was apparently headmaster of this alleged school. Rubeus had mentioned Dumbledore leaving a letter for Harry at some point in the past. He wondered about the man with so many titles, but pushed passed it quickly. More than likely, this man was simply a kook, he reminded himself. No sense reading too much into this elaborate delusion.

The letter was brief and explained almost nothing. From what it said, he'd been accepted to attend a school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, starting September 1st. Something about an owl by no later than today, and it was signed by the Deputy Headmistress. They awaited his owl? What the fuck did that even mean?

He glanced quickly at the supply list, then blinked and looked again. Well, of course he needed a cauldron. He shook his head faintly. This was the most ridiculous thing that had ever happened to him. "What's this about an owl?" he posed when he looked back up to find Rubeus apparently expecting him to say something.

"Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," Rubeus literally smacked himself on the forehead, forcing Harry to repress the urge to roll his eyes. Then the giant reached into his many pockets and pulled out…

…an owl. A real, live owl. From his pocket.

Harry twitched slightly and put a quelling hand on Rhast, who had immediately perked up at the easy meal. The snake really hadn't been eating enough lately with the impromptu trip to try to escape the letters. Harry had barely been able to keep him from being found, much less find a chance to feed him or let him go out to hunt.

Rubeus also pulled out a single long feather and a roll of that stiff, yellow paper. With his tongue between his teeth, he put the end of the feather to the paper and started writing. With a mental start, Harry realized that he was looking at a real feather quill, though where the ink was coming from, Harry wasn't sure. He read the note upside down as the giant wrote in blocky, childish letters that instantly knocked Harry's impression of his intellect down a few notches.

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

Given Harry his letter.

Taking him to buy his things tomorrow.

Weather's Horrible. Hope you're well.

Hagrid

He then rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw it out into the storm.

Dumbledore again, Harry noted. That little part of him daring to hope that this was real was growing just a little bit larger. There were so many things about this man that just didn't fit with anything Harry had ever known that it was making it a little easier to believe, though he was still approaching the idea with extreme caution. He'd learned before his seventh birthday that hoping only ever ended up hurting him.

"Where was I?" Rubeus muttered as he resumed his seat as though he'd not done anything unusual.

Vernon, still pale, but looking angry enough to make Harry instinctively cringe, stepped into the firelight.

"He's not going," he said definitively.

Harry felt his stomach sink. Of course not. Even if this madness was real, of course he wouldn't be allowed to go to this school that apparently taught something that was never to be thought of, much less spoken of.

Rubeus just grunted. "I'd like ter see a great muggle like you stop him," he said.

Harry frowned cautiously and inched a bit further from his uncle. "What's a… muggle?" he asked, going still on the idea that he couldn't possibly make this situation any worse.

"A muggle," Rubeus said, "is what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest muggles I ever laid eyes on."

Rubeus made it sound like something foul, to be a muggle, which made perfect sense if the Dursleys were shining examples. Of course, if it only meant people without magic, then it described everyone Harry had ever known. The conversation still going on in the room drew him out of his ruminations.

"We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," Vernon snarled. "Swore we'd stamp it out of him!"

Harry's breath grew short and he felt something hot beginning to swell in his chest. He normally only felt that heat while he was thinking of all the ways that he was going to repay the Dursleys while he endured a lashing or a beating. "You knew," Harry realized. "You knew I'm a… a wizard. That's why-"

"Of course, we knew!" Petunia shrilled before Harry could voice the rest of his thought.

That was why they hated him. Why they treated him like a slave. Why they beat him. The question that had been eating him alive for most of his life had just been answered. It left him feeling so dazed that he almost didn't hear the bitter diatribe Petunia had just launched into.

"How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that – that school – and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was – a freak!"

Harry was too numb to even flinch at the word that made sense of his whole life. Freaks were wizards. He was a freak. He was a wizard.

"But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"

Oh, witch. Female wizard. That made sense. And he could practically taste the jealousy rolling off Petunia in waves as she went on. It was an emotion with which he was intimately acquainted, having grown up in Dudley's massive shadow.

"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you! Of course, I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as… as… abnormal – and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!"

Harry's mind stuttered to a halt again. "Blown up?" he breathed. "You told me they died in a car crash…"

"CAR CRASH!"

Rubeus' roar had Harry instinctively flinching again, jarring his stuttering mind into gear as he automatically focused once more to protect himself if necessary. Rubeus leapt from his chair, filled with fury again, and the Dursleys scuttled back into the corner once more. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!"

Harry's eyes widened. Every kid? He remembered Rubeus saying that he was famous, but… How could he possibly be famous? Weren't famous people always in the spotlight, followed around by the press? How could he be famous and not know it? It didn't make any sense. "Why does everyone know my name?" Harry risked asking.

Happily, the anger faded from the giant's face as he turned to Harry again, and he suddenly looked anxious.

"I never expected this," he said in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble getting' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know."

Dumbledore, again! Who was this man? Before he could decide if he should press for details about his fame or divert the subject to this Dumbledore person, Rubeus was going on. "Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh. But someone's gotta. Yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'."

He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys before focusing on Harry again.

"Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh – mind, I can't tell yeh everything'. It's a great myst'ry, part of it…"

He sat down and stared into the fire for a few seconds. "It begins, I suppose, with… With a person called – but it's incredible yeh don't know his name. Everyone in our world knows…"

Just like everyone apparently knew him when Harry hadn't known the world existed. "Who?" he pressed.

"Well – I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does."

"Why not?"

"Gulpin' gargoyles, Harry. People are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went… bad. As bad as you can go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was…"

Rubeus gulped, but no words came out.

Harry withheld a sigh of annoyance and didn't let himself snap at the annoying man. "Could you write it down?" he finally suggested.

"Nah. I can't spell it."

Harry very carefully did not roll his eyes as his assessment of the man's intelligence dropped a little more. He didn't have to spell it right. He just had to sound it out so that Harry could sound it out. For Pete's sake…

"All right," Rubeus visibly braced himself. "Voldemort." He shuddered while Harry frowned. It didn't sound that scary. It sounded French. He didn't know a lot of the language, but he was pretty sure "mort" meant dead or death, and "de" was of… Death of Vol or Vol to Death, maybe… whatever vol meant. "Don' make me say it again. Anyway, this – this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too. Some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was getting' himself power, all right."

Harry forcibly kept his face blank, though he did glance slightly at the still cowering Dursleys. Power. Ever since his talk with Rhast five years ago, Harry had lived to build this elusive power that the snake claimed he had. Power enough to destroy the Dursleys. To make a real life. To never let anyone hurt him again.

"Dark days, Harry. Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches… terrible things happened. He was takin' over. 'Course, some stood up to him – an' he killed 'em. Horribly. One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway."

Harry mentally moved Dumbledore way up in terms of danger. If people were afraid to even say Voldemort's name, and Voldemort was afraid of Dumbledore, then he wasn't someone to trifle with. And Harry really wanted to know a lot more about both of these apparently powerful wizards.

"Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew."

Harry frowned silently as he tried in vain to align his mental image of his faceless parents to being powerful or skilled or anything other than worthless. He found himself unequal to the task and decided to just take that out of the equation for now and imagine Rubeus was talking about someone else.

"Head boy an' girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before… probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anything' ter do with the Dark Side.

"Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em… maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an'… an'…"

Rubeus pulled a very dirty, spotted handkerchief from a pocket and blew his nose very loudly.

"Sorry, but it's sad. Knew yer mum an' dad. An' nicer people yeh couldn't find. Anyway…"

Harry contained his frustration. He didn't care if they were saints. All he cared about was figuring out his own past and how it was going to affect his future. His parents were just two faceless people who had brought him into the world and then left him to hell. He wanted to know why, but he suspected that he'd spent too long hating them to stop now.

"You-Know-Who killed 'em. An' then… an' this is the real myst'ry," Harry was already getting sick of that word, "he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead?"

Harry frowned as his hand immediately went to his scar. What was there to wonder about when he'd been told that it came from the car crash? Physical proof of his parents' stupidity that had killed them and landed him with the Dursleys.

"That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh. Took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house even – but it didn't work on you. That's why yer famous, Harry. No one ever lived after he decided to kill 'em. No one except you, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches and wizards of the age – the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts – an' you was only a baby, an' you lived."

Harry stared at the man, his face blank while his mind whirled with incredulity. He was famous because he didn't die? It said something about how much everyone feared Voldemort that they'd make Harry famous just because he didn't die when Voldemort wanted to kill him. He'd been a baby, which made it seem crazy, sure, but it also seemed like it couldn't have been his doing because he was just a baby. Voldemort must have screwed up somehow, and everyone credited him. …and, he was apparently a freak among freaks. No wonder he was famous.

And that's when it hit him. A blinding flash of green light, a woman screaming, and a man laughing. Fuck… He remembered it! For the first time in his life, that old nightmare made sense.

"Took yeh from the ruined house meself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought yeh ter this lot…"

The heat in Harry's chest abruptly flared back to life, hotter and wilder than ever. He'd always blamed his parents for dying and landing him with the Dursleys, but it was apparently this Dumbledore person who had done that. "Dumbledore's Orders". Dumbledore was the reason that Harry had been left in hell. But then, his parents were close to Dumbledore. Damn it. Damn them all. His parents, Dumbledore, this weird, giant man…

"Now, you listen here, boy!" Vernon's bellow broke Harry from his thoughts and he tensed, expecting pain that didn't come. Instead, there were words. He wouldn't start hitting until Rubeus was gone. "I accept that there's something strange about you, and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion. Asked for all they got, getting mixed up with those wizarding types. Just what I expected, always knew, they'd come to a sticky end…"

Vernon was right, Harry dispassionately noted, hardly noticing Rubeus lurching to his feet again – he was doing that a lot. Harry didn't often consider anything Vernon said as possibly having any sense to it, but he could see it now. Well, of course his parents probably hadn't had much choice about getting "mixed up" with "wizarding types" being that they were witch and wizard. But they had done something to make Voldemort want them dead. Maybe they hadn't been dumb enough to drive drunk, but they were still responsible for getting themselves killed.

"That's better," Rubeus was saying when Harry focused on the others in the room again. Apparently, he'd subdued the Dursleys once more.

"So what happened to Voldemort?" Harry inquired once Rubeus was seated again. He ignored the way the man shuddered at the sound of the name. He might be afraid of it, but Harry hardly saw the point in being afraid of a name. It wasn't like the name itself was going to hurt him.

"Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill yeh. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see. He was getting' more an' more powerful. Why'd he go?

"Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there, bidin' his time, like, but I don' believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta kinda trances. Don' reckon they could've done if he was comin' back.

"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere, but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. There was something' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on. I dunno what it was, no one does, but somethin' about you stumped him, all right."

Rubeus looked at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, and Harry decided not to voice his thought about Voldemort having just randomly done something wrong that had nothing at all to do with Harry. It seemed more likely, but the idea of this powerful man being on his side was too good to jeopardize it by asking good questions like that.

"Jus' wait. Yeh'll be famous at Hogwarts," Rubeus beamed at him.

Harry frowned thoughtfully, ignoring Vernon as he again dredged up enough courage to complain about Harry going to Hogwarts. What would it be like to be famous? Would people follow him around with cameras? Would he be in the papers and on the telly? Would… Wait a minute. How come Harry had never heard of any of this before? He wasn't stupid. He read a lot. He memorized all of his school books, even if he did have to get poor marks. He even listened to the news when he was locked in his cupboard in the evening – well, assuming that he wasn't all but unconscious with pain, anyway. How could he be famous in a world that didn't seem to exist?

Before he could form a question about that, the rising anger in the room drew his attention again.

"If he wants ter go, a great muggle like you won't stop him," Rubeus growled, strengthening Harry's impression of the word "muggle" as a slur. He was liking it more all the time. "Stop Lily an' James Potter's son goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer mad. His name's been down ever since he was born. He's off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and he wont' know himself. He'll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an' he'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had, Albus Dumbled-"

"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" Vernon shouted.

"NEVER INSTULT ALBUS DUMBLEDORE IN FRONT OF ME!" Rubeus bellowed furiously. He swished his umbrella down through the air to point at Dudley. There was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot, hand clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Harry clearly saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.

Harry watched the scene in silence and made a mental note to never insult Albus Dumbledore in front of Rubeus Hagrid. Harry may instinctively hate the asshole that sent him to the Dursleys, but he was very good at not saying what he really thought of people. He'd never have survived the Dursleys if not.

"Shouldn'ta lost me temper," Rubeus was muttering to himself while Vernon and Petunia chased their slightly more pig-like son around the room trying to calm him and determine the damage. "But it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left to do."

Harry smirked slightly. It was quite funny, though he did suspect that that little detail sticking off Dudley's butt might just be what pushed Vernon from a beating to homicide once Rubeus was gone.

"If he gets carried away, I'll bite him," Rhast hissed right next to Harry's ear, the pandemonium more than enough to cover the quiet sound.

Harry was prevented from responding by the fact that Hagrid was now focused on him again.

"Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts. I'm – er – not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an' get yer letters to yeh an' stuff – one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take the job…"

Harry wondered why the man wasn't supposed to be doing magic, but he wanted Rubeus to stay on his side too much to badger him with questions like that. Besides, it seemed like a good thing if Harry was keeping one of this man's secrets. It would make Rubeus trust him more, and be more amenable to doing maybe not strictly legal favors for him in return. So he just nodded and smiled his best shy smile, "Of course."

Rubeus gave him a beaming smile in return and tossed his coat at him. "You can kip under that. Don' mind if it wriggles a bit. I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."

"Why are there mice in your pockets?" Harry asked curiously.

"Fer the owl, o' course," Rubeus said as though it should be obvious.

Harry just nodded along. If the mice were intended as food, then they may as well be food. He knew that Rhast had come to the same conclusion as he was already sniffing around for the pocket with mice in it while Harry tried to shield any suspicious movement from view.

A/N: Yes, I'm still alive! *sigh* I make no apologies for starting a new story while I have so many WIPs already posted. My muse decided that it was time to share this one, so that's what I'm doing. I should (I hope) be updating My Brother the Hero Version 2 point 0h soon. I've nearly finished the next chapter. Other than that, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter and please leave a review on your way out. They feed my muse and she's a glutton so she needs all she can get.