It was a particularly windy Sunday, which made the cool Scottish summer weather have a bite that was unaccustomed to late July. The shuffle of papers and the scratching of quill on parchment, in the distance the wind rushing through the empty castle corridors gave the school an earie feeling to it, the kind you get walking alone at night in the dark.

For Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, as she is to be called when the term has ended, who spent the better part of her life in the school first as a student, then as a teacher, making her way up that ladder to become one of the most respected witch in the country but seen as a strict authority figure in the lives of most of magical Britain, if not much of Europe as her reputation as a Master of Transfiguration is well regarded in academia.

The castle was home to her, to the students that came and went and those that had yet to come, no matter the student Hogwarts would be a home. And it was time to maker her family that much larger, so as she finally sat down her quill after finishing writing the last letter to a Blaise Zabini, she took her wand and with a wave the parchment neatly folded itself and slid into envelopes. She then gathered them up and walked over to a large tome, this would hold the addresses of all her students, or in this case the would-be students.

As she laid the stack of letters on the book, ink started running along the pages and over the letters forming the addresses and information needed to send an owl with, as they use magic to find their destination, the tome provided that for them to know.

With another swish of her wand the letters began to fly past her, the one's listed for muggleborn into a neat pile on her desk, while all the letters to pureblood and half-blood families made the way to the window. However, in some other timeline, she wouldn't have noticed but as the letters for the wizarding families made their way past her, she snatched one out of the air, her reflexes of being a feline animagus made the task simple, even in her middle age of 55.

She looked it over, reading the front to see who the letter was for:

Mr. H. Potter,

The Cupboard under the Stairs,

4, Privet Drive.

Little Whinging,

Surrey

Something about that letter stuck out to her, normally only purebloods named their houses, some were tongue in cheek others older than Camelot, so why would young Petunia Dursley have named her house The Cupboard under the Stairs, it was a right mystery. Now the procedure dictated that as a half-blood young Mr. Potter was to have his letter owled to him, but you Mr. Potter was different, instead of being placed with any wizarding family related to him by blood, even as tangentially as some would be, he was placed with in her opinion, the worst sort of muggles, his mother's sister. This had never happened before as even an orphaned muggleborn child would have been placed with a magical family to be raised by, especially after Voldemort's War, with so many families broken, there was no shortage of older magicals who would want to raise an orphaned child, especially one as famous as The-Boy-Who-Lived. But for some reason Dumbledore had insisted that Harry be placed with the Dursley's, even after ten years of asking, he always had an excuse.

"Well not this time", As Deputy Headmistress, it was her duty to see that each of the muggleborn students had a visit from a professor to see that they are properly inducted into the magical world. And Mr. H. Potter, might as well have been muggleborn as he would have known nothing else, besides what Petunia would have told him of his mother, her sister.

She then tied a few of the letters in bundles and sent them off to some of the other Professors, so that they can visit with some of the prospective students. She was going to keep Potter's visit to herself, she delivered Lily's letter herself all those years ago, it was only right she deliver Harry's. Sure, she was playing favorites, but she'd never admit it, nor would anyone accuse her of it.

So, with swiftness that belied her age she went over to the fireplace in her office and grabbed a pinch of green powder and with a forceful declaration she stated, "The Leaky Cauldron" and in a flash of green fire she was off on the other side of the U.K. in nearly an instant.

It was a warm Sunday in the dining room, off the kitchen of a suburban family home, joyful laughter as a child, if you could call a pig with human features a child, dug into a mountain of sausage and pancakes. Across the table was seated a man who had more in kind with a bull elephant than he did with his fellow man, in size and temperament. The final occupant of the room was a tall, thin woman in obvious knockoff clothes who seemed to be doing her best to fit the doting, upper-class housewife she sees on her soaps.

The way they were lazing about meant it truly was a lazy Sunday. Until a swift rapping on the front door, the man turned down his copy of Sunday Mail, there was a pause, until three more knocks came from the front door.

"Da, there's someone at the door," the fat boy stated, as if he was the only person to hear it. The man looked over to his son and said, "Right you are Dudders." Folding his paper, "BOY, get the door." Listening to hear the rattling of a small lock on a door down the hall.

"Vernon dear," chided the horse faced woman, "You said he had a week in his room, for what he did on Duddikins birthday." She placed another half dozen eggs on her husband's plate.

"Quite right Petunia. I did say that," he grumbled to himself, he had forgotten about the boy as it only the fifth day on his punishment, no food, no water, no light, for a week locked in his room. Teach him to sick a giant, poisonous boa constrictor on his little diddums.

As he made a movement to stand Petunia placed a hand on his shoulder, "Don't worry, I'll get it, probably just the milkman early today." She placed a platter that had even more food on it, down on the table, which the fat little boy grabbed more pancakes to add to his pile that was growing and shrinking at the same rate for how he replenished it as fast as he ate it.

At the next round of knocks, Petunia bustled her way down the hall, making sure to kick a door under the stairs, "Make sure you keep your whimpering down, you freak." Hearing a very faint and weak reply of, "Yes Aunt Petunia." She quickly closed the gap between herself and the door and quickly threw it open. "Good morning Mr. Acker." She began until she took in the visage of the person standing at the door. A green tartan topped with a ridiculous wizard's cap, that would have been enough to make her shout about freaks and how they need to stop trying to harass her, until she saw her face. The same fact that she saw twenty years ago, a face that looked like it hadn't aged nearly half that amount of time.

An ear shattering shriek rang out through the house, causing Vernon to drop his butter-soaked toast and Dudley to miss shoveling more bacon into his already stuffed mouth. "Dear, what's wrong" he shouted as he hustled down the hallway from the table.

Until he pulled his wife into his arms and looked at who was standing on the porch. Before she could even speak Vernon slammed the door shut and bellowed, "We will have none of your freakishness here, so you can just go back to whatever hell you dragged yourself from, or I'll get my gun."

Dumbfounded Minerva could only stair at the even painting on the front door, that was so rudely slammed in her face. She didn't expect a warm welcome, but to be this mistreated, was just not done. As she looked around her surrounds and saw that no one had yet come to their windows to see the commotion, she drew her wand in a flash and after a few seconds of flittering about, she had erected magic that would mask her presence from outsiders trying to pry into the lives of their neighbors.

Another swish and the locks on the door gave way and the door opened as she strode in, to be faced with the barrel of a Beretta A303, however it was clear that Vernon had no experience with the gun as she flicked her wrist faster than he could take the safety off and transfigured the gun into a long piece of licorice. "Maybe I am spending too much time with Dumbledore, if candy is the first thing I turn a weapon into", she thought to herself.

Vernon in fright of the magic used, yelped and dropped his gun, being so handily disarmed he did what he does best when faced with magic, he gave a roar that would be fitting of a hippopotamus and charged as fast as his wobbly, bloated legs could carry him, which wasn't far as he suddenly found himself on the ground, unable to move.

Having quite enough of the games, she turned to the woman, "Now really Petunia, is this how you greet all of you guests? You weren't so rude the last time I was here to deliver a letter." Petunia could only squeak in fear as the woman she held responsible for taking her sister away from her stepped over her paralyzed husbands body and strode towards the kitchen.

Minerva upon seeing the breakfast table laid out with enough food to feed a quarter of the Hogwarts student body, looked at the rotund boy who was barely noticing her for the amount of food he was packing away. It disgusted her greatly to see such a lack of table manners, she hopefully wouldn't have any Gryffindors who displayed such terrible manners.

As she heard Petunia following her down the hallway, she turned around and pointedly asked, "Where is your nephew, young Mr. Potter?" The first red flag was how Petunia couldn't even look her in the eye, she asked again more forcefully, "Where is Harry?" Petunia closed her eyes and refused to raise her gaze from the cheap linoleum.

It was instead the boy behind her that answered, "The freak is in his room, he's being punished." Petunia's gasp at her son's answer was the second red flag.

"Dudders no, don't tell her anything." Or at least she tried to say, her lips moved, and she thought the words, but no sound came out. McGonagall was very fast with her silencing spell, years of practice with unruly students made it nothing but mere child's play to maintain control of her classroom.

McGonagall turned to 'Dudders' and in a calm and soothing voice asked him, "Where is Harry's room?" Dudley's answer chilled her to the bone.

"The cupboard under the stairs." He spat out between mouthfuls of breakfast.

"The cupboard under the stairs. The cupboard under the stairs" McGonagall was in a state of shock, it couldn't be true, there is no way his room is that tiny cupboard she passed when she stepped over the fat muggle who tried to shoot her. She swiftly pushed past Petunia who was desperate to speak, to try to diffuse the oncoming eruption that would happen when the witch she feared saw what she and her family had done to the boy.

McGonagall stood in front of the stained little door, with a dead bolt, an iron bar slatted across and three comically large combination locks affixed to keep it shut. With trembling hands, she raised her wand and prayed that in recent years muggle humor had taken a decidedly darker turn and this was a prank sicker than anything the Marauders had ever pulled on anyone.

A slow and purposeful swish of her wand and a whispered, "Alohamora", the locks fell open, the iron bar fell off and the dead bolt slid out of place. A painfully slow creaking sound as the door that hadn't been opened in five days moved from its stationary position.

And inside, curled up in a tiny ball, quivering in fear, was a mess of matted black hair, and the most vibrant green eyes she had ever seen. As she raised her hand to reach in, he flinched away and whimpered. If not for how quiet the house was at the time she wouldn't have been able to hear him muttering, "Please don't hurt me, I'm sorry" over and over.

This was Harry Potter, the boy who saved the wizarding world and possibly the muggle world, the boy whose parents died protecting, the boy who made witches, wizards and many magical creatures the country over celebrating life on Samhain, a day to honor the dead, and he was the most broken child she had ever laid eyes on.

As the innocent child muttered his prayer that never worked before to prevent pain, McGonagall felt the world freeze, this wasn't right, they hurt this young boy. They hurt their own family. She stood with painful fluidity, raised herself to her full height, which wasn't physically impressive but there was a reason the Death Eaters respected her even as a half-blood. Locking eyes with Petunia, who now felt smaller than her nephew, began rapidly backing up, never taking her eyes off the cold fury of the witch before her.

Then Harry hiccupped, his tears and crying tiring him out to the point he struggled to breathe. She drew her wand faster than she ever had before. Petunia's silent screams wouldn't be heard.

"Hoo daur ye, he is yer fowk. yer bluid, yer nephew. an' ye treat heem waur than a dug, lower 'at jobby. Ah cannae believe hoo terrible ay a bodie ye ur tae dae sic' a hin' tae anither human lit aloyn ye kin. if Ah wasnae sic' a guid bodie Ah woods torture ye until ye cooldnae e'en beg fur mercy, ye utter huir, ye filth beyond filth" she began screaming at the retreating woman in her native Scottish tongue. Throwing hex and spell with reckless abandon, transfiguring and destroying objects around the house as she made her way into the kitchen.

Dudley noticing his mother backing up in fear as the lights began suddenly and the house turned into a twisted carnival of animals, sights and smells. He was almost about to cheer at the sudden show when his mother pulled him into the kitchen and grabbed a chef's knife from the sink, it having been cleaned the night before. Waving it in front of her, no sound still able to come from her lips as she watched the approaching enraged older woman. The knife was hit with a sickly yellow light and melted in her hands, she dropped the handle and shrieked silently once more. Until the spellwork stopped.

McGonagall in her rage and transfigured most of the first floor into intense disarray, she was contemplating causing harm to family just so they could experience a fraction of what they must have done to the boy lying a few feet away from her.

What stopped her, was a familiar hoot. An owl had come in and dropped a letter on the kitchen table, in the familiar brown envelope all ministry letters come in, she picked it up. The timing was too weird, addressed to Harry Potter, she opened and read.

Dear, Mr. Harry James Potter,

We at the Ministry Improper Use of Magic Office, a subsection of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, regret to inform you we detected numerous uses of the unlocking charm, silencing charm, body binding charm, transfiguration, and lastly a dark acid spell.

As such we have expelled you from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and an appointment has been made to have your wand snapped, this hearing is scheduled for Friday August 2, at 8:00am.

Sign Mafalda Hopkirk

Department Head of the Improper Use of Magic Office.

"This couldn't be happening", The Deputy Headmistress thought to herself, the Ministry is aware that the last week of July is when the Hogwarts professors go to the homes of muggleborn students to give them their letters and that all magic was excused since it would be more likely that one of the professors is the one performing it. "What is the Ministry thinking, that someone not even having begun their first year of education was performing magic at the Apprentice level" I'll just have to sort this out.

"But first," she muttered, turning to face the cowering Petunia, clutching her son to her chest in fear. "I cannot and will not leave Harry Potter with you or your family any longer, it was a mistake to think you had love in your heart for your sister or those like her." She turned and started walking back to the cupboard, reverting the damage she had done in her anger.

Stopping in front of the opened door, she crouched down and looked in on the boy who was simply staring at a corner, muttering to himself, at a volume so low even she couldn't hear. "Come on Harry, it's time to leave." She tried to coax him out of his hiding place, which was just a few inches further into the cupboard. He pressed himself against the wall, seemingly trying to force his way through it.

"Harry, please, I won't hurt you," she began once she realized he was terrified of her. "I am a friend of your mothers…" she began again, whatever she meant to say after that was stopped as the boy shuffled towards her into the light. She gasped, she shouldn't have but to see the emaciated boy, the scars and bruises littering his body through the thin fabric he wore, it almost made her go into another rage, but she controlled herself, it was time to help Harry.

"My, my mom," he sniffled, "My mom had friends." The hope and fear in his voice broke her heart, "What did these muggles tell this precious child"

"Yes, I was your mother and your father's teacher," she nodded, still leaving her hand reached out, he could take it at his pace. She was patient, she could wait. "I taught them all about magic", this was apparently the wrong thing to say as Harry squeaked and slinked back into his corner.

"A freak," he muttered, "Like me" McGonagall frowned, not at him but that he considered himself a freak, for only being able to do what was natural. "No, no, no" he began pounding at his head, "You can't, it's bad and dangerous, please get away." He started scratching his arms hard, drawing blood.

It probably wasn't the wisest of actions at the time, but she quickly drew her wand and stunned the small child. He fell limp into the light blue blanket that served as his floor and bed.

As she reached in to scoop him up, she felt a chill run down her body as a feeling of dread she had not felt since seeing Voldemort went deep into her core. Something was wrong with this child. A lesser witch might have left him there, might have called the Aurors to take the boy, but no, she wasn't a lesser witch and she was going to make up for the part of the mistake she made almost ten years ago.

She steeled her nerves and reached in and lifted the boy into her arms cradling him. He was so small, so starved, he looked years younger than he should have been. One last look at the home she had been in no longer than five minutes, she looked Petunia in the eye and the words would be the last time she ever spoke to the woman.

"I'm so disappointed with you."

Unsilencing the woman and apparating away.

McGonagall's Scottish home wasn't overly large, not a mansion by any standards, a simple two-story home, where she was going to make a family before the war took much of her future from her. It laid empty most months out of the year.

Only maintained by a house elf who spent most of their time at the school, it was with a thunderous crack as she appeared in her own living room. Her house elf popping in to see to her mistresses needs.

"Mistress McGonagall ma'am, hows can I be helping you." The elf bowed low.

The sudden rush of apparating even effecting the now sleeping child in her arms, stirred, but did not awaken. "Flipsy, this is Harry Potter," she stated showing the bundled-up child she carried. The house elf gasped, it had heard stories of the Great Harry Potter, even the house elves knew what fate awaited them should the Dark Lord have taken over.

She placed him on the sofa, which made him look even smaller as he curled up, "Please make some soup for him, so that you can feed him while he sleeps, then he will need a bath before he is put to bed, if he wakes up at any point come get me, it does not matter what I am doing, I want to be there when he wakes up."

The house elf nodded, ready to follow the commands of her master, "Yes, Mistress McGonagall ma'am. I is be doing that."

As the elf popped away to prepare the soup for the sleeping child, Minerva felt that same cold presence from earlier, looking around the room, she saw nothing, but she was cautious, something was here that shouldn't be. She had a thought, she crept down onto all fours and looked under the sofa, not sure what to expect, but nothing. There was no one but herself and Harry in the room, until she turned around.

There towering over her, were a pair of blood red eyes, surrounded by a face of smoke and for the first time in her life McGonagall wept in fear.

"Oh, dear Merlin no."

Author's Notes: Here it is, the poll has closed and I have now started the ground work for the Harry Potter story. This seems a bit dark, but trust me, it's always darkest before dawn. There will be bashing in this story, it will not get to Ron the Death Eater levels, but I will not tolerate shitty child supervision.

This does not mean I have abandoned A Magician's Secret or that the Boy Who Linc is on hiatus, I will continue to work on them all.

I hope the characters attitudes were in character, just a few shades darker to fit in with the universe I am building. This will not be a story that resolves all major plot points in a year, read enough of those where everything starts to fall into place and Voldemort is taken out in a few months. Ain't happening.

Since this is the first chapter I'm hoping to see a lot of reviews and feedback, if you read my other works BRUTAL REVIEWS. If you voted in the poll congrats, I hope you enjoy the monster you have created. Until next time, Deuces.

Updated: Vukk brought up a very important plot hole that completely slipped my mind and why I shouldn't write at two in the morning. I hope it doesn't irk people the quick shift, but VUkk was correct. Harry is a half-blood, not a pure blood, sorry for any potential confusion that caused, I did not intend to make a weird plot point about Lily's heritage. It's not going to be that kind of story. My B