Harry stares at the bright red engine looming over him, clutching his trunk with sweaty palms.
He pushes down the prickling in his gut and starts searching for an empty compartment, away from all the noise and bustle of families saying their goodbyes and kids his age shrieking their excitement.
He passes a couple hugging their daughter, a bushy haired girl who was smiling widely and chattering as her father proudly patted her shoulder. Her mother looked anxious, "-call us anytime-ffessor said-an owl, wasn’t it? If you ever feel unsaf-", her worried voice gets lost in the noise.
Envy bubbles in his gut, Aunt Petunia would sooner have declared herself Queen of England before she said "worried" in the same sentence as "Harry."
(long mornings and nights spent scrubbing at the dishes, hands stinging at the harsh bleach when it was time to clean the bathrooms, do parents really tell their kids to pick their breakfast off the floor and clean up their vomit? Do aunts? Harry doesn't know. He's never gotten an answer, the only time he asked a teacher lots of people swarmed his house and there's a weird blank in his memory after that)
Harry settles in an empty compartment, thinking of the mischievous red-haired twins who'd helped him get his trunk onto the carriage. He shifts uncomfortably, remembering how they'd exclaimed about "-meeting Harry Potter Mum! He's your age Ronnie-", is Voldemort really that big of a deal? He wonders.
He doesn't want to be stared at, he's already had enough of being seen as a freak back in Privet Drive.
He pushes it aside. Hogwarts is supposed to be magic. Hagrid said it's run by one of the greatest wizards of the century. He doesn't think it would be that bad.
Harry befriends a ginger with a face full of freckles. He doesn't know it yet, but a Weasley's loyalty is for life. There will be battles, chess games where a lost King would mean a lost life, broken legs and crazy godfathers, but that is for later.
Now, he listens, fascinated, as Ron tells him about his family, something in Harry aching at the stories of a tight-knit family, at the fondness in Ron's voice even as he complains about his elder brother Percy.
A bossy, bushy-haired girl bullies her way into their compartment in search of a toad (why would anyone have a toad for a pet? Harry thinks), and consequently into their lives. Harry stares at her wild hair unapologetically taking up space around her and is sure Aunt Petunia would have hated her, the brazen way she demands answers from them. When she leaves Ron and Harry are left feeling like a very large bat hit them over their heads.
They gape at the grand castle looming over them, windows with warm golden light pouring out of them. Tiny black forms stare wide-eyed as they land on wet grass, hastily straightening themselves under the stern eye of the imposing figure of Professor McGonagall. As they enter the Great Hall, Harry overhears Hermione chattering about all the spells she had learnt, and wishes he had her confidence. He always did badly in all the tests he had taken in school (though that might have been because the Dursleys would have locked him in the cupboard for ‘cheating to get more than our Dudders! You’re just like your useless layabout of your father boy! Leaving you to us hardworking folks-don’t show me cheek, you nasty, ill-mannered–’).
He sorts into the bright gold and red house of Gryffindor (the same house his parents were in, he later finds out, and is glad he didn’t let the hat put him in Slytherin).
A fragile Remembrall, a sneering blond in green and silver, a daring dive. Harry gets a brand new broomstick and the coveted position of Seeker in Quidditch. He learns Professor McGonagall is far more passionate about winning Quidditch than sticking to the rules.
Flying is the freest he’s ever been.
He loves it.
Halloween arrives. Charms class, a stubborn feather and Hermione once again being the first to get the spell right. Ron’s grumbled complaint of how irritating she is sees them fighting for their lives in the girls’ bathroom, dodging an enormous, lumbering, smelly creature with a small brain and a large club. Ron’s Wingardium Leviosa, correctly pronounced this time, saves them. The professors finally arrive, far too late, and Hermione stares them down and stubbornly announces it was her fault they were there, Ron and Harry trying not to look like this is news to them.
She makes their duo into a trio right then, at Samhain, saving their hides from McGonagall’s white-faced fury and Snape’s suspicious glare, lying to take the blame on herself. They never speak about it again, but Ron and Harry silently make room for her at the Gryffindor table during breakfast the next day, Hermione taking her place with a shaky sniff and immediately starts to talk about their Potions class, Ron groaning and Harry grinning.
Friends who would fight a mountain troll for you are rather hard to come by, aren't they?
Harry marvels. He has friends now.
He's never had one before, much less two. Dudley and his gang always chased off anyone who didn't know it was that Potter boy and tried to talk to him. They learned quickly though, to not talk to the freak Potter, did you know he once climbed up the roof? Don't go near him Rob, he's not right in the head-. Harry soon learned fast to not expect any friendly faces at school.
.
The years fly by, filled with happiness and grief in turns, the naivete of children abandoned in the face of the next Wizarding War, forced to fight in a war inherited from their parents, a war not theirs.
Dread at end-of-the-year exams turns into dread at the sinister figure of the Dark Lord Voldemort, finally resurrected after fourteen years. Harry faces a fight he can’t run away from (weren’t all his fights like that? People older than him and claiming to be far wiser using him like a pawn). His protests fall on deaf ears as his best friends refuse to let him fight it alone. He's left relieved deep-down and is guilty with it.
Harry thinks of how he met them, every once in a while. Ron, with a corned beef sandwich and a bully with a rat bite, Hermione with a horned toad and Hogwarts: A History. Harry never loses that quiet feeling of happiness when he thinks of that day, not really, even after all the years trying to survive Hogwarts and Voldemort.
He always carries that small ball of warmth within his chest, even as he walks into the Forbidden Forest for a final time. Even when he takes off the invisible cloak and falls amidst poisonous green light and an Avada Kedavra.Harry thinks of Hermione, then. As he faces against a corpse-like face and predatory red eyes staring him down in anticipation.
He thinks of her warm brown eyes, her plans and her brilliance, how hard she'd fought to keep him alive. How she would be yelling at him right now, Ron beside her pale-faced and freckles standing out against his skin. Harry wishes he had told her he loved her just once, that he could have seen Ron and Viktor awkwardly dance around each other and Hermione sigh at the sight in exasperation, that he could have listened to them bicker one more time.
But there isn't. His heart is beating frantically in his chest, like it knows he's going to his death. He is too-aware of his every breath, of the air filling his lungs and leaving. His chest heaving with the knowledge Snape's memories had given him, the light of the pensieve washing the stone walls with a cold blue.
His time is up.
(He's wrong.
Harry discovers he still has more to live for, his sacrifice not in vain. They win.
They triumph, the Second Wizarding War against Dark Lord Voldemort coming to a close. Tom Riddle falls, and never gets up again.)
I'm trying to transition to a more simplistic comic style art, instead of trying to match the anime style exactly but...pretty sure my (lack of) success so far shows (´；ω；｀)
