Acquired Perfection Syndrome

WARNING: If you want the plot to flow exactly as it did in canon, don't read further. I have a habit of being incapable of doing that.


Number four Privet Drive was about as far from abnormal as you could possibly get. A resident of this cookie-cutter house was about as far from normal as you could possibly get.

Harry Potter was said to be many things, chief among them being an attention-seeking liar with a penchant for mischief, but what many did not know was that he was magical. Alright, all of the wizarding population did, but they hardly counted. At least, not at Number four Privet Drive.

Petunia Dursley, as she got into the passenger seat of the car, next to her husband (bless his heart, he was so good to her and her Duddikins. Couldn't have picked a better man to spend her life with if she tried!), spared a very fleeting thought for her nephew and the violent nightmares he'd been having, before promptly squashing any burgeoning sentiment.

It wasn't, after all, her fault that he was a freak.

The Dursley family, consisting of Vernon, Petunia and Dudley Dursley, drove to the prize-giving ceremony of the All-England Best-Kept Suburban Lawn Competition, where they would find that they'd been tricked—by the abnormalities they had the misfortune of knowing.

Meanwhile, Harry was equal parts fuming at the injustice of being kept in the dark while his right to Magic was being stripped away, and gazing forlornly at the ceiling and wondering why on earth he even bothered to care.

It was at this precipice that he was teetering at that he thought, Well, if no one tells me anything, I'll have to find out myself. However, being a fifteen year old teenager with far too much sincerity to be even a passable liar, he was hard-pressed to accomplish this. He then thought, I wish someone would. It's not like I can't be trusted. I've faced Voldemort twice. Thrice if you count Hallowe'en. He's after me, and I have no clue what's going on!

His thoughts eventually turned to his godfather, Sirius Black. Sirius, Harry felt, would have been the most likely person to tell him things, seeing as how, of all the adults Harry knew, Sirius was the only one to treat him like an adult. However on that front, at least this summer, Sirius had disappointed him. I wonder if my parents would have treated me like an adult…

Two thoughts merged, the sky grew dimmer, the Advanced Guard arrived at Number four Privet Drive, and two corpses had new life breathed into them.

The world would never be the same again.


It's short, but it'll get longer, I promise. I hope I got Harry as in character as possible, and that I don't make any of the characters too OOC. With regards to Lily and James, they'll be different from most mainstream interpretations, but not, I hope, too left field. Fair warning, I live in England, so I may or may not use colloquial terms. This story will see change in characters' psyche, which shouldn't be too much of a surprise considering AN ORPHANS' PARENTS COME BACK TO LIFE.

Please read and review!