16Harry Potter: A Life before Hogwarts
Chapter 2 – Kimchi hits the fan
Minerva McGonagall had been teaching at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the last forty years. The last fifteen of those years had been as Deputy Headmistress of the school. During that time she thought she had seen everything. Between the Marauders, the Weasley twins and the stream of 'blood purest' that had come through, she thought nothing could get her excited – or mad, until she opened the last acceptance letter of the day on a scrap of mundane notebook paper.
As she read the note, the blood from her face drained in shock. And then she got mad.
It's not good to get Minerva McGonagall of the clan McGonagall mad.
She stormed out of her office heading to the person who was responsible for this situation.
Not waiting to be invited in, she burst through the Headmaster's door waving a piece of paper in her hand.
"Didn't I tell you they were the worst type of mundane Albus? Didn't I tell you there would be no love in that home for him? Just look at this letter! He thinks his acceptance letter is a joke! They haven't told him anything about our world! His aunt and uncle say there is no such thing as magic! Really Albus, just what were you thinking when you placed young Harry Potter with those beast?"
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore looked up from desk to see an irate Deputy in front of him.
"Really what are you talking about Minerva? I just received a letter from Mrs Figg stating that young Harry was fine, working out in the backyard
"I don't care what your local spy says. I'm going to go and have a talk with his uncle and aunt and get Harry out of there as quickly as I can."
"Now, Minerva, you know you can't do that. Harry needs to stay there for is protection. And besides, your time is much too valuable to spend taking Harry to get his supplies. I'll send Hagrid to get him and taking to Diagon Alley in the morning."
"You will do no such thing Albus! I will be going to those Dursleys in the morning and take Harry and that new mundane-born witch to Diagon Alley. It had been too long since someone has set eyes on young Mr Potter and I demand to know exactly what is going on with the young man!"
Albus knew he could not talk his Deputy Headmistress out of taking this course of action and so decided to let her go and see just how wrong she was concerning Mr Potter's health.
The next day, July 1st, Minerva left Hogwarts so she would be at the Dursleys at about 9:00 in the morning. She was sure that would give her plenty of time to talk to Harry and get a good look at the way things were there and still have time to get to the Granger's to take them all to Diagon Alley.
Arriving at Number 4 Privet Drive, she was somewhat shocked to see a young boy in the front yard with a hand-pushed lawn mower who could be no more than seven or eight years old.
"Excuse me young man." She said in her kindest voice. "I'm looking for the Dursleys at Number 4 Privet Drive. Could you please tell me where they might be?"
Without saying a word, the young man simply stopped mowing for a moment and pointed to the door of the house she was in front of.
"Are you saying this is Number 4 Privet Drive?"
Again the young man just looked at her and shook his head 'Yes'.
"Thank you my dear boy." Minerva said again with a smile on her face. That smile soon faded as she looked at the young boy who continue to mow the lawn with a contraption that was larger than he was.
She was also somewhat concerned about the young boy she had just seen. He had the most haunting green eyes, and that messy dark hair. If it weren't for the bandana that held the sweat out of his eyes, she would have sworn she was looking at a very young James Potter. 'But that just can't be. Harry is about to turned eleven and should be ready to be starting Hogwarts this year. That young boy must be a younger child of Vernon and Petunia.
Noticing that there were no cars in the driveway, Minerva thought that Vernon must already be at work. Good, that should give her a little time to have some girl talk with Petunia and catch up on how Harry was doing.
After knocking on the door for the third time, she heard some movement from inside, but whoever it was didn't sound too happy about being disturbed from whatever they were doing. When the door opened, a short fat boy stood there looking much put out that this person had disturbed him. "Ya, what do you want?" He asked coldly.
"I'm looking from Petunia Dursley nee Evans of Number 4 Privet Drive. Would she happen to be home at present?" Minerva asked as kindly as she could.
Without another thought the fat, little boy opened the door wider and yelled into the house, "MUM! Some old hag is looking for you!" He then continued into the house to resume his game he had hooked up to the television in the family room.
Minerva was a bit taken back by the child's action, but decided to come into the house and wait for a few moments any way. After a few moments she saw Petunia coming out of the kitchen still with a telephone receiver in her hand. Since Minerva was standing in the doorway with the light at her back, Petunia couldn't see her face clearly.
"Oh, that little scamp my Dinky Duddydums. Just give me a moment and I'll be right with you." Petunia went back to the phone to finish the gossip she was talking about before hanging up and coming to see who was standing in the doorway.
"Now, what can I help you with...? YOU! What are you doing here? I haven't seen you since you came to talk my sister into going to that freak school of yours. Well, it won't happen again. Dudley will go to Smelting just like his father and be all the better for it!"
"I'm not coming for Dudley Petunia; I'm here to take Harry to Diagon Alley to get his supplies for Hogwarts that will be starting on the 1st of September. Now if you would be so good as to call him for me?"
"I can't, I mean you can't take him! We've beaten all the magic out of him. He hasn't showed one bit of magic all the time he's been here... Well, except for his freakish hair. It seems to just grow right back whenever I cut it.
"But you just can't take him! I need him to do my house work, and cook our food and clean our clothes and..."
"YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT THAT LITTLE SLIP OF A BOY OUT THERE MOWING YOUR LAWN IS HARRY POTTER!"
For the first time during the conversation, Petunia started to get worried. "Well, of course it is. I mean, you are the ones that dropped him off on our front doorstep without so much as a 'by your leave' and you expect us to take care of him? He's just another freak like his mother. What did you expect us to do with him? We couldn't let his unnaturalness harm our little Diddy now could we?"
Minerva got a sinking feeling in her stomach when she thought of how Harry had signed his letter.
"Petunia, you will show me Harry Potter's bedroom right now!
"NO! You can't just come in here and demand that of us. You only need to know we put a roof over his head, food in his belly, and clothes on his back.
In less than a moment Minerva had her wand out, and Petunia was being force to show her where Harry had called 'home' for the last nine and a half years. To say she was shocked would have been a gross understatement. Compared to the rest of the spotless house, Harry's cupboard was a disaster area. Locked from the outside, the cupboard smelled of human waste. The walls were unpainted except for one spot where it read 'Hari's room'. What it was written in, she didn't even want to guess. The floor was bare except for a thin mat and what looked like a baby's receiving blanket for bedding. A single 15 watt bulb lit the space with the switch on the outside – of course.
"You made a human... You made your nephew live in that, that squealer! How could you! He's your blood! He's your family!"
"He's no family of mine! He just a freak like the rest of you! You come around here waving your little sticks, doing heaven know what unnaturalness, and you expect me to just except him! No! He's a freak! He's unnatural! He needs to have that unnaturalness beaten out of him whatever it take and we've done a pretty good job of it too if I do say so. We haven't had any ma… freakishness since he turned his teacher's hair blue four years ago.
"And he's an expense to rise too! He goes out and gets himself hurt three years ago and after coming home from the hospital hasn't said a word since! Do you know how expensive those specialists are? You know not everything is covered by the NHS you know (That was a lie)! The little bit of work we give him to do is how he can pay us back for being such a burden on us all!"
"Well, then your lucky day has come because I'm going to take that 'burden' away from you forever!"
"You can't! What would that old man say? He told us we would only be protected if that freak was here."
"You let me worry about what to tell Dumbledore. Right now he has more than a few things to answer for. Now, I'm going outside and getting Harry. We are coming back in here where he can take a shower and collect his things and we will be on our way."
It took all of Minerva's control not to turn Petunia and her son into farm animals just to keep them out of the way when she went out to get Harry and bring him inside. What made things even more difficult was that she couldn't get Harry to talk to her either. She finally had to show him the letter he sent to her and explained to him that she was here to help him get ready to go do some shopping so he could come to Hogwarts on September 1st.
She explained to Harry that she had to bring another student and her parents to Diagon Alley also so she could also buy her supplies for school. She explained that Harry would experience the three main forms of magical travel today: Apparition – being able to transport ones-self from place to place; Portkey – using an enchanted object to bring a person or group of people to a specific location; and the Floo Network – a method of using a person's fireplace to talk or travel.
From Privet Drive, they would apparate to a suburb of London to meet with the Granger's, and from there use a portkey to go to the Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley.
Harry really didn't know about leaving Privet Drive, after all, it was the only 'house' he knew. But he felt that just about any place would be better than where he was at now.
Upon arrival at the Granger's, he was face with a completely new experience. Here he found a young girl his own age (even if she was much larger then him) who seemed she could not stop moving or stop asking questions. The young girl, Hermione, was so excited to be a witch. She couldn't stop asking Professor McGonagall to show her more magic, and was always asking questions as to how this or that was done. Finally, with a firm hand on her shoulders from her parents, Drs Dan and Emma Granger, they got her to be quiet enough to stop moving to where they could all hold on to a piece of rope that would take them to the Leaky Cauldron.