Valerian James Potter had just finished his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry when he had to make the biggest decision in his life.

What kind of seeds to get for his aunt's garden.

His Aunt Petunia sent him onto the store as soon as he was off the train home from school, with strict instructions to pick the kind of flower that would win her the neighbourhood "Best Yard Competition". He was having a very difficult time deciding between the purple irises, the mostly white cymbidiums, the pink orchids, and the pink/green/white mix of the alstroemeria. (1) Last year, he had planted petunias and carnations, upon the orders of his aunt, but she had only won second place to the Polkiss', who got a round trip for their family to Paris for a week. When you compare that to the Tops Pizza gift card Petunia received, you could understand why she wanted to win so badly.

Valerian knew that he has been standing there for at least five minutes now, and also knew that if he didn't hurry up he wouldn't get supper for the next two nights, which wasn't much of an improvement of what he regularly got anyway. Mostly it was just a piece of bread with a slice of cheese and a glass of stale water, but when he got lucky it was some soup with actual meat chunks in it, instead of just little bits of fat.

He still had yet to pick the type of flowers he was going to plant, because there was no way that Petunia would ever get her hands dirty doing something that she thought was beneath her. Valerian put the purple iris seeds back. Even though he still has three types of seeds, and Petunia wanted one, Valerian knew that in order for his aunt to win the competition this year, she would have to have complementary flowers interwoven with one another.

When Valerian went to the till to pay, the cashier started up a seemingly long-since started conversation. "I see you found our new inventory for the season Rian." He put the three seed packets onto the counter and nodded.

"Yeah, Petunia wants me to win the garden competition this year for her. Again." Charlotte, the cashier, tsked and shook her head. She has been hearing about Petunia Dursley for four years, since the first time the woman made the then ten year old boy come in without her accompanying him.

"Well, at least you're doing something you love?" Charlotte tried to lighten the mood, and Valerian, better known as Rian to his friends, laughed and put the money up on the counter for the purchase. Charlotte shoved the money back, "Oh no, this one's on the house, consider it an early birthday gift."

"...My birthday isn't until the end of the month." He stated dryly.

"I know." She grinned, then started shooing him towards the door, "Go on, get out of here Valerian!" Rian laughed and waved as he went to the exit back towards his doom - I mean his home until he goes back to school.

When Rian got into his aunt's car, she was already halfway through telling him off. "You're lucky your uncle isn't here boy, if he was he would give you the beating of a lifetime for wasting my time for that long. Any longer and I would have left you here to rot. And you can be sure that I will be telling him about this when he comes home from taking Duddy out to get the pizza." The rest of the car ride back to the house was spent in silence, as Petunia couldn't stand the sound of her nephew's voice, and Rian couldn't stand being belittled for every single thing he said.

Vernon's company issued car for Grunnings was already parked in the driveway when Petunia and Rian got to the house, and you could hear the football (soccer) game going on in the living room as if the telly was in the yard. "Put your trunk under the stairs then plant those flowers boy. Those flowers need to look 110% better than they do in the pictures." Rian did as he was asked without comment, as to not give Petunia a reason to not let him have food that night.

After carefully putting his belongings away, Valerian began to head back down the hallway towards the front door, only to be halted in his short journey by Dudley coming out of the living room. Dudley stopped once he seen Rian in front of him. "Can I help you Big D? I need to get these seeds planted."

"You can't talk to me like that freak! My gang and I'll beat your runty ass for that." Dudley looked proud of himself for threatening Rian, but Rian brushed him off and started edging around his much bigger cousin to get to the door. Dudley looked shocked that he ignored him, and his face turned to vicious satisfaction as he shouted, "Mum, Dad, the freak's not doing what you asked him to!"

Valerian's face turned from confused to horrified as he heard Dudley finishing what he was saying, followed by the unmistakable heavy footfalls of his Uncle Vernon coming from the living room.

Rian tried to move to the door faster, but Dudley moved to block his way so that he would be trapped with nowhere to go. The living room door burst open, and Vernon's purple face of rage came into view. Contrary to Vernon, Valerian was stark white in fear for what was about to come. Vernon grabbed Rian by the collar of his shirt and dragged him down to the basement so that it was harder for the neighbours to hear what exactly was going on in the house.

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It was many hours later when Rian woke up sore and bleeding on the concrete floor of the basement, with quite possibly a few broken bones. He had had bad beatings before, but something must have tipped Vernon over the edge this time, as the pain Rian was in was worse than he ever remembered it being. He looked down, and gagged when he caught sight of his damaged form. His torso was black and blue, and he was pretty sure he had at least one broken rib, if not more with the cracked ones. His legs were just, if not worse, than his torso. His legs had blood all around them, and it looked like his left knee was at least three times as big and purple as the other one. His head fell back onto the concrete floor underneath of him, and he winced once again as the pain re-ignited from the back of his skull. He started to cry, not only out of pain, but out of frustration as well at the fact that he knew that nobody was coming to save him from his personal hell.

Rian began to think back to the previous events that happened in the past year that he found out about. He had learned that Professor Dumbledore, the man that was supposed to look after him as his magical guardian, had ruined his life by telling his parents a false prophecy, and advocating that his now dead godfather needed to go to Azkaban for betraying his parents, when he was the one to supervise the switching of the Secret Keeper for his childhood home. Rian was pretty sure that Dumbledore wasn't even supposed to be his magical guardian. At some points during the school year, Valerian wasn't sure his friends were 100 percent either in all the scheming, but they had proven at the end of the year that they would go through any length to make sure Valerian would succeed in anything, even taking veritaserum to prove they had nothing to do with the old manipulative coot that thought himself a headmaster.

Rian began whimpering quietly in pain, and quietly started saying under his breath, "Please, please, somebody, please, please…" and trailed off. He knew it was hopeless to beg, nobody even knew he was down here besides the monsters upstairs living the perfect suburban life.

Rian slowly dropped off into unconsciousness once again, whether from bleeding out or otherwise, he didn't quite know. He was haunted by terrorizing dreams while he slept, each one worse than the last, until an unknown figure appeared out of the light that was slowly filling his unconscious state.

"It's alright dear one," said the magnificent, somehow familiar figure, "No one shall hurt you now. I shall protect you my sweet." The figure faded away, but somehow the light only got brighter until it was all consuming. Valerian was lost in the endless sea of the welcoming white light.

A/N: Hey guys! Welcome to the rewrite of my other story A Chance for Family. It is different, because Rian has a different godly parent, and obviously a different longer name that can be shortened down to Rian.

(1): flowers found on content / mostpopularflowers / more-popular-flowers