The first thing Harry ever remembered being told was that he was a hero. According to his nurse, he’d saved the world.
He didn’t feel much like a hero then, though. He spent every waking hour in the children’s ward in St Mungo’s magical hospital, and he doubted greatly that heroes, even child-heroes, didn’t get to go home and spend time with their family. He knew that heroes were brave, but he doubted that heroes had to go through the pain he did every day and be brave. He doubted that heroes needed potions every hour to make sure that they were alive, or that they had days where they couldn’t lift their own arms because they were so weak.
Heroes were meant to be strong, after all. Harry wasn’t strong. He could barely stand up by himself, and he couldn’t walk very far without a nurse beside him to make sure that he didn’t fall.
It wasn’t just his own body that told him otherwise, either. It was the way that everyone there seemed to look at him. In the stories he’d read, people were inspired by heroes and they looked at them in awe for what they’d accomplished. People don’t seem very impressed by him, though. Even if they say what he did was impressive, they mostly look sad whenever they see him. Even Nurse Johnson, who always made sure he had new books to read and brought him his first ever birthday cake when he turned six, still had worry lines around her eyes whenever she looked at Harry.
He was not popular like heroes were, either. He didn’t have many friends. He’d tried to make friends with the other ones on the ward, but they’d leave quickly before he could get a chance to get to know them. They only had broken arms or poorly stomachs. After they were better, they got to leave.
Harry wasn’t allowed to leave, not that he’d be able to try to. They said that the dark magic of the killing curse had tried to kill him, but he’d been too strong and too brave to die to it though, so it had tried to poison him. The dark magic stayed in his body and tried to weaken him, but he was told that he was fighting it and he was winning. He didn’t feel like he was winning, though.
By the time that he was ten, his life became more clear.
He’d never really gotten better, but he’d not gotten worse for a while.
Harry came to realise that the nurses had told him what the rest of the wizarding world believed. He’d grown to become quite famous through his survival of the killing curse. There were books about him, about his family’s sacrifice, though none of them seemed to mention that he was living in St Mungo’s. Harry didn’t blame them for that, as it was hardly the life he’d want a hero to have.
He’d known his parents weren’t alive for a long while by then, but he wondered what had happened to the rest of his family. The hospital was never a fun place, but he would have thought that, if he were someone’s cousin or nephew or grandparent, he’d have visited them.
When he’d asked Nurse Johnson she had told him, with eyes older than he’d ever seen them, that he didn’t have any other magical family members. That just as no-one else seemed to stick around on the ward with him for very long, none of his family members were with him either.
The world, he learned, was not a kind place to him. So he left it as often as he could.
He couldn’t escape his body’s pain through exercise or other people, but he could escape through books. He read all the muggle world’s fantasies and all the wizarding world’s too. He read about new worlds and worlds totally different from his own quiet, lonely one. He liked reading stories about people being friends and solving mysteries together and making each other laugh. He wanted to know what a friend was like to have so that if he got the chance to make one, he’d not mess it up.
He liked reading about magic, too. He thought he might not like it, or might be scared of it after what it’d done to him, but he realised that magic was for more than just for harming people. It kept him alive after all through his potions. He’d liked to wish about going to Hogwarts, after hearing how amazing it was and how beautiful the castle was said to look, but he doubted he’d ever get to go.
Even if he could survive living outside the ward, he’d not really done any magic that he could remember. His nurses said that he had magic, that if he didn’t he wouldn’t have survived, but he doubted he really had enough to learn in a place as special as Hogwarts. He’d love to though.
Harry shouldn’t have looked forward to his eleventh birthday, but he couldn’t help it. He held a stupid hope that, on that day, suddenly everything would turn out okay. He’d wake up with a healthy body and his family would be back and there’d be a letter waiting beside his bed. He’d get to leave his life inside the hospital and have a normal one like everyone else.
He didn’t get his wish, obviously. He still couldn’t stand up for very long on his and his family was still gone. There was no letter waiting for him either, but he did get a visitor for the first time in his life.
It wasn’t Professor Dumbledore, with his grey beard and his strange robes, but instead it was a younger adult that came to visit Harry. He wore a brown suit to match his brown hair, and his clothes were not in the best of condition, not nearly as pristine as the nurses’ robes.
And, as the older man approached Harry, he realised that the man had scars on his face, just like Harry did. They weren’t totally similar, as the man had several scratches around the edges of his thin face and Harry only had one, which jagged from his forehead down to the top of his cheekbone, but it was nice to share something in common with someone.
“Happy birthday Harry,” the man said, with a kind voice and kind eyes. “I’m Professor Remus Lupin, and I work at Hogwarts as the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.”
“Hello, Professor,” said Harry with unconcealed excitement, raising his arm to a slight wave. “Am I getting my letter today?”
Professor Lupin seemed to fold in on himself then. “Hogwarts will have a place for you, Harry. But, with your condition being as it is, it wouldn’t be safe for you to go just yet.”
Harry swallowed, sadness prickling behind his eyes. “I understand, Professor,” he said, quietly.
“I’m sorry, Harry. I really am,” Professor Lupin replied, just as quietly. “I have a present for you,” he reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out what looked like a book covered in wrapping paper that was folded perfectly neatly. “I know it doesn’t make up for the news, but I thought you might like to have it.”
Professor Lupin handed the gift to Harry, staring at Harry expectantly as he held it rather than try to unravel it and open its contents.
“I can’t tear the paper,” Harry told him. “My hands shake too much.”
Remus gave a small smile, before he pulled out his wand and cast a charm onto the present, the wrapping paper simply untangling itself by magic. Harry gasped softly at the sight; he didn’t get to see much magic in the hospital, save for the medical spells that the nurses used to check on him.
The gift, Harry learned, was not a book. It was a photo album. Harry didn’t look through it then, but he did look at the picture on the front. A man and a woman, young and happy, holding each-other on their wedding day. The woman had red hair but his eyes, and the man had brown eyes but his hair.
“Your Mum and Dad loved you very much,” Professor Lupin said, with a voice more confident than Harry had heard from him yet. “They were wonderful people. They were great friends to me when I was younger, and they always helped anyone that asked or needed their help.”
Harry felt guilty that these wonderful people gave their lives just for him to live in a hospital.
“You knew my parents, Professor?” Harry asked all of a sudden, his green eyes brightening.
“I did,” Professor Lupin confirmed with a nod. His eyes held discomfort and so Harry didn’t ask the question he wanted to. He didn’t ask why they’d never met before. Remus’ eyes searched Harry’s room, looking at all of the books that were on his shelves and stacked beside his bed. “Your mother loved to read too.”
“What kind of books?” Harry asked eagerly, sitting up in his bed despite the strain it took to do so.
“She liked to learn about Charms,” Professor Lupin told him. “She used to read every book on the theory of Charms that she could find, and she spent hours in the Hogwarts library trying to learn as many spells as she could,” Remus looked up to him, then. “You know Harry, just because you aren’t going to be studying at Hogwarts, that doesn’t mean that you can’t study just like other people your age. If you’d like me to, I could send you all of the books that students study, and if you have anything that you’re interested in, I’ll do my best to find you a book about it. Then, once you come to Hogwarts, you’ll be able to catch to your peers in no-time.”
“I’d love that,” Harry said, smiling, and happy for the first moment in a long time. “Professor?” He looked to Harry expectantly. “Do you really think I’ll be able to go Hogwarts?”
“I know you will, Harry,” the Professor replied. “You’re so strong, and you just need to keep being strong and you’ll get better.”
And, though he did not know why, Harry did feel strong. He felt like he could better. He had a great reason to, too.
So for the next year, he read the books that the Professor sent to him and tried to will his own body to health and, whether it be by magic or his condition healing, he did start to get better. He could walk by himself for the first time in his life and he could lift some of his books without Nurse Johnson casting a feather-light charm onto them. He grew a little bit too though he was still small, no bigger than any of the six-year-olds that came in for flu vaccinations. He could eat more than he could before too and so he gained some weight that his body desperately needed.
Professor Lupin came on his twelfth birthday, just as he had the year before. Harry was not strong enough then, either, but the Professor said that Harry looked far healthier than he did before, which made him happy. That year, Harry was allowed to go out of the hospital for the first time. He went to Hyde Park with Nurse Johnson and he was allowed to have an ice-cream. They went to a cinema after that, and he was allowed an ice-cream. And, they went to Buckingham Palace after that and he was allowed an ice cream then, too.
Despite his excursions, Harry wasn’t surprised when Professor Lupin said that he would not be able to come to Hogwarts, on his thirteenth birthday. His tremors had gotten worse in the winter and, despite a slight growth spurt, he was still half the size of the Professor’s slight frame.
Thankfully, in that year his body grew enough so that he was of the same height as most eleven-year olds. The tremors that plagued him did not go away, though they stabilised so that he could write legibly, though poorly. He was strong to survive a hug without wheezing too, which Nurse Johnson celebrated by giving him one. Harry enjoyed it, despite the unfamiliarity.
And, on his fourteenth birthday, Professor Lupin came not with a book, but with a letter.
...................................................................
“How are you feeling?” asked Nurse Johnson of Harry, as he stood at the edge of his bed for what would likely be the last time. If he could survive a year at Hogwarts, then he would no longer need the use of St Mungo’s care, after all.
Harry’s smile was earnest.
“Excited,” he said, turning to look at her. “I’ve waited a really long time for this.”
The corners of the nurse’s eyes crinkled, an odd look floating within them. “I’m so proud of you.”
Harry looked down to the ground. He didn’t know how to take compliments, and certainly not ones from people he liked as much as he liked Nurse Johnson.
“I don’t want to wait anymore,” Harry told her. “Could we go to King’s Cross now?”
Nurse Johnson nodded and so Harry ushered himself out of his room for what felt like the last time. The walls and floor were bare of all of his books, and his clothes, small in number though they were, were packed into his trunk and made it too heavy for him to pull with any ease.
Harry didn’t know what to make of how he felt, as he left. The hospital, though it kept him alive, in his mind had been his cage for a long time. While he was grateful for the support of its staff, he could not look upon it with any great joy. He’d spent most of his life thinking he would never escape and he couldn’t be anything but happy that he had.
Nurse Johnson led the pair of them to the fire-entrances of the hospital, having deemed Harry healthy enough to survive using it. Harry had only ever used the floo-system once before, on the summer’s journey to Diagon Alley, and he did not greatly enjoy it. He was unsurprised to discover that he didn’t enjoy the journey to the wizarding entry of King’s Cross either.
However, as he dusted himself off and took a look at the wizarding side of platform nine-and-three-quarters, he found himself too stunned for words. The fire he’d fallen from deposited the pair of them into a sea of Hogwarts students and there was something brilliant about being immersed in it all.
He had no doubt that, for most of the people there, the sight would be totally mundane - even most of the first-years. But Harry had never known a world so lively, so magical as the one that stood before him. Summoning charms flew through the air, taking forgotten luggage and, in some cases, forgetful siblings. He couldn’t wait to be part of it.
Most of the people there wore their own robes, or their own muggle clothes, and not the school jumper and trousers that Harry wore. He’d thought that he ought to have felt odd about sticking out in such a way, but any embarrassment he might’ve felt couldn’t last very long with the excitement that filled him.
“I’m sad to see you go, Harry, but I’m so happy you’re able to,” Nurse Johnson said, her eyes crinkling as she looked at him. “You’re going to find friends and do everything you’ve wanted to do,” she met his eyes for a moment, before looking away as hers threatened to tear. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I promise, Nurse Johnson,” Harry told her. She swept him into a fiercely warm hug.
“I better let you go,” she said, her voice thick with emotion, before she pulled away from him, though her arms still rested upon his shoulders, her eyes meeting his. “If you need anything, you know you can write to me. My daughter is still at Hogwarts and I’ve told her about you, so you have someone looking out for you inside the school too.”
Harry hugged her a final time. “Goodbye, Nurse Johnson.”
“Goodbye Harry.”
Harry allowed himself a moment more with the nurse, before he turned away from her and made his way onto the train, offering a wave back to her as he found the doors to the nearest carriage and walked in amongst the masses that were bound for Hogwarts. He fought to savour that feeling, of being amongst those just like him, amongst his peers.
He’d read about the Hogwarts Express, and how it magically transported the luggage that was placed in its holdalls straight into the dormitories, though that knowledge did nothing to aid in the physical struggle of heaving his small trunk into the overhead storage. His excitement had allowed him to forget his own body for a moment, though as his trembling hands could barely lift the trunk off the ground, such forgetfulness was soon forgotten.
Around him, he watched other students lift their bags with ease, or levitate them with a wave of their wand. Harry would’ve done the same but he didn’t quite trust his own ability to do so given that, even though he was fourteen, he was still yet to cast a spell himself and he did not want the first time to do so to be in public in case it went wrong and he made a fool of himself.
He knew the theory of the levitation charm - he probably knew the theory as well as anyone his age - but the last thing he wished to do was show himself to be any different than everyone else. There was no doubt that he was different, and Harry would never lie to himself to think otherwise, but he didn’t wish to demonstrate those differences. He just wished to blend in and be normal.
Harry would succeed in, he thought, if he could just lift his trunk, for God’s sake.
“Would you like some help?” asked a voice to his left. The sound robbed him of his focus and he dropped his trunk, though his own body could stand to take some of the blame for that, too, as it sagged with relief as the trunk slammed noisily onto the floor.
Harry looked to his left, and then upward, to meet the eyes of the person who’d spoken. He found a boy, older than Harry, who looked down to him kindly, though not with any pity. The older boy’s eyes traced the line of the scar that ran from his forehead to the eyelid of his right eye, though he only did so once before he returned to look at Harry properly.
Harry nodded once, and seemingly instantly the boy had his wand in his hand. Without a word, he levitated the trunk above them and into the overhead storage. Harry fought the urge to gasp the display of ability. Other than Professor Lupin, he’d never seen anyone cast a spell silently.
“I’m Cedric Diggory,” the boy said, offering a hand to shake which Harry took. The handshake was slightly firmer than Harry’s arm could comfortably handle, which Cedric immediately noted and corrected. “I’m in Hufflepuff.”
“I’m Harry,” replied Harry, quietly.
Cedric smiled. “This is your first year at Hogwarts then, Harry?” he asked, turning his shoulder away from Harry and leading him toward the train compartments. “Looking forward to it?”
Harry couldn’t stop a smile from forming on his face. “Definitely.”
The two of them walked through the train in search of an empty space. Despite the leisurely pace, Harry really had to fight to keep up with older, taller boy, though he did not wish to show himself to be doing so.
In the few times he’d gone out it had been with Nurse Johnson, who was not a great deal taller than Harry and who’d made a direct effort to stop every so-often and point out the mundane sights that Harry had never seen before, giving him a moment to catch his breath. But, if he was to be at Hogwarts, he wouldn’t have the nurse taking care of him. He’d have to take care of himself, and if walking was to be too much, he should’ve stayed cooped up in his hospital bed. So, he resolved himself and continued on.
Thankfully, Cedric soon found a compartment for Harry and so their journey ended. Harry sank happily into a seat.
“Is there anything you’re wondering about?” Cedric asked. He sat down across from Harry, though his back did not meet the chair’s cushions.
Harry nodded. “I was wondering about the sorting?” he ran a hand through his hair. “I read about the houses and everything, but none of the books ever mention how they choose which house you go into.”
“You’ve managed to pick the one thing I’m not allowed to tell you,” Cedric said, laughing. “First-years aren’t allowed to know about that. It’s tradition.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “I’m not a first-year though, am I?”
“It’s still your first year at Hogwarts though, isn’t it?” Cedric asked rhetorically, not budging. He smiled, amused. “It’s nothing difficult or embarrassing, I promise,” he stood up suddenly. “I’m sorry to leave you, but I have to go to the prefects’ meeting now, Harry. But, if there’s anything you need, I’ll do my best to try and help,” he pulled open the compartment door. “Good luck for this year, Harry. I hope you end up in Hufflepuff.”
Cedric left him with a departing wave and the sound of the door slamming shut, then Harry was alone again. The prospect didn’t sadden him as much as it once did, though, for he knew that there were good things to come. The train’s whistle sounded, and Harry looked through the window to find Nurse Johnson. He waved to her as the train began to move, though soon she disappeared from his sight.
He’d never been on a train before, though he found the feeling to be quite relaxing, if slightly odd to get used to, especially as he’d chosen by accident to face the opposite direction as to where they were going. To fill the time, Harry got his wand out and thought to make use of the fact that he had hours to himself, and he was at last finally able to do magic.
He recalled Cedric’s hand motion; a motion he’d seen in his textbooks a thousand times. He pointed his wand toward his bag on the ground, his hands tremoring, and with a swish and a flick he spoke the words he’d read so many times before. “Wingardium Leviosa.”
To his own great amazement, he could feel the beginnings of something flowing through him beginning at his chest and travelling down his arm until it passed through his fingertips. Then, the bag that sat upon the floor begin to rise gently, slowly, until it sailed above Harry’s eyeline and hit the roof of the train compartment with a muted thud.
Harry gave a thought for the magic to stop, and the bag fell the moment he did so under the suddenly-returned force of gravity. Harry found himself breathless, not out of exertion as he had been before, but out of shock. He couldn’t believe that it was he himself had managed to cause the bag to float.
Harry had known that he possessed magic, and he’d felt it before at Ollivander’s shop when he bought the very wand he used then, but to think that all of a sudden he’d managed to actually use was astounding. He’d waited so long to use it, and he at last could.
He did it again and again, pointlessly raising the bag into the air until he found himself ever-so-slightly light-headed, feeling as though he’d stood up too quickly. That, Harry decided, would be quite enough excitement for one journey. The rest of the journey was a silent one, with Harry’s nose buried into a book about defensive Charms that Professor Lupin had bought him last Yule. Harry couldn’t focus much on the words though, for his mind was entirely too preoccupied with the feeling of magic passing through him and the friends he hoped to make.
A knock on the door of his compartment shook him from his thoughts, though, and the noise heralded the return of Cedric from his prefects’ meeting. He opened the door, though only poked his head through the gap.
“I was just wondering how you were getting on?” he asked, his voice quiet though clear in the silence of Harry’s carriage.
“Really good,” Harry replied, earnest. He didn’t tell him why, though. The last thing someone as talented and competent as Cedric needed to hear was how amazing the feeling of a first-year charm was, especially from a fourteen-year old of all people. “How long is it until we get to Hogsmeade?”
“An hour or so,” answered Cedric. His focus drifted away from Harry suddenly, his eyes looking down into the corridor of the train beyond Harry’s sight. “Hi Angie. Good summer?”
“Not bad, Diggory,” a girl’s voice answered. Said girl quickly drifted into Harry’s view, her face oddly familiar, though he could not point out why. “What’re you doing out here?”
Cedric shot a glance to Harry, then offered Angie a crooked smile. “Just talking with a friend,” he said. Harry fought not to smile stupidly.
She peered into Harry’s compartment, meeting his eyes for a moment before her eyes traced the line of Harry’s scar just as Cedric had done, before her eyes widened. “Harry Potter?” she asked, his name sounding familiar to her voice. Harry nodded. “You know my mum!” She walked confidently toward Harry, with a hand offered. “My name’s Angelina Johnson.”
Harry shook her hand, her grip gentle. “Nice to meet you.”
“I tried to get mum to let me visit you, but she never let me,” Angelina said, her eyes oddly apologetic. “Said it was too dangerous.”
Had she asked when he was younger, it likely would’ve been. His body wouldn’t have been able to handle any infection or flu that a stranger might have brought, so the only ones allowed to visit him in his youngest years were the nurses that brought him food and potions. He’d been eight before he was allowed outside of the ward and into the hospital’s apothecary garden and only then for a short while.
“There wasn’t much to do,” Harry told her, trying to sound nonchalant. He knew from the books that he’d read that nonchalant people were cool, and cool people generally were popular. From the soft look in Angelina’s eyes, a look she shared with her mum, he didn’t succeed.
“How does your mum know Harry?” asked Cedric, his eyebrows bunching together though his voice was pleasant.
“Work.” Angelina told him quickly.
Cedric still held a curious look on his face. “Doesn’t your mum work at ‘Mungo’s?”
Harry sighed, a spike of worry going through him as Cedric began to join the dots. He knew that people would find out about his life at some stage, but he didn’t quite wish for it happen so soon, and especially not for someone as popular as Cedric undoubtedly was to find out, either. He’d likely tell everyone he knew, which was probably everyone, and they’d all look at him with either pity or disgust or both.
Angelina looked apologetically at him, before she turned to Cedric with a sharp look in her eyes. “You can’t tell anyone,” she urged. “It’s not your secret to tell.”
Harry smiled slightly, grateful at the thought. “It doesn’t really matter though, does it?” He looked at himself for a moment. “Other people will work it out. It’s not as if I look like any other fourth year.”
An irritating amount of sympathy flashed through both of their eyes. There was little they could do to refute what he said, though. If he walked in with the first years, he’d not stick out from them by height. The rest of the world would soon enough know that their hero wasn’t really a hero. He was just a weak child.
Harry just had to hope that there were some people that were not too disappointed and might want to be his friend.
“You two probably have other people to talk to, and I’d quite like to read my book, so you don’t have to stay,” he told them, the tremor in his hands growing worse as he spoke.
They were older, and no-doubt popular. Angelina was only talking to him because her mum told her to, and Cedric was just being polite because he pitied a boy too weak to even lift his own trunk or use the easiest spell in the world. They were not likely to ever be his friends.
“Are you sure?” Angelina asked, her eyes still soft. She looked at him in the same sad way her mum often did.
“I’m sure,” Harry said, with a short look up to the two of them, before he picked up his book again. “It’s a good book.”
They both laughed, which Harry was happy to hear despite himself, and left him to his book.
With any luck, Harry thought in the silence, the novelty of him being at the school would disappear quickly and he’d soon be a normal member of the crowd.
The train’s whistle sounded before Harry realised the time had passed, and he was soon following the throngs of people clad in robes out of the train. He knew that Professor Lupin would be waiting for him at the platform as the man had wrote to him and said as much, and he found the man stood beside what looked like a giant, the two of them directing the first-years to line up near them.
The professor met his eyes and offered him a slight, kind smile. “Harry!” He called out. “How was your journey?”
“Good.”
“Good,” Professor Lupin replied, with a nod. “Now, you’ll just have to line up with the first years and you’ll get sorted. Is that alright?”
Harry didn’t really know why the professor thought it was necessary to meet him at the platform to tell him that, as he’d assumed as much, but he nodded nonetheless. Harry ran a hand through his hair so that his fringe covered most of his scar, not wishing for any questions, and joined the line of first years that stood before the two Hogwarts professors.
“Righ’ then, firs’ years follow me!” bellowed out the giant professor. Some of the students in-front of Harry jumped at the sound.