A/N: Most of this chapter is from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This story will have the basic plotline as Harry's First year, but there will be differences, i won't say what they are, but i am pretty sure it won't be too hard to figure out :). All characters, most of the places etc belong to J.K Rowling.

Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to realise that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realise he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at a cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, 'I should have known.'

He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again - the next lamp flickered into darkness. twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left in the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back insode his cloak and set off down the street towards number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.

'Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall.'

He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her Black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.

'How did you know it was me?' she asked.

'My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly.'

'You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day,' said Professor McGonagall.

'All day?' When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here.'

Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.

'Oh yes, everyone is celebrating alright,' she said impatiently.

'You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no - even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news.' She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. 'I heard it. Flocks of owls ... shooting starts ... Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent - I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense.'

'You can't blame them,' said Dumbledore gently. We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years.'

'I know that,; said Professor Mcgonagall irritably. 'But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumours.' She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on: ' A fine thing if it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles have found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?'

'It certainly seems so,' said Dumbledore. 'We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a sherbet lemon?'

'A what?'

'A sherbet lemon. They're a kind of Muggle sweet i'm rather fond of.'

'No, thank you,' said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for sherbet lemons. 'As i say, even if You-Know-Who has gone -'

'My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this "You-Know-Who" nonsense - for eleven years I have been trying to pursuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort.' Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking two sherbet lemons, seemed not to notice. 'It all gets so confusing if we keep saying "You-Know-Who".' I have never seen any reasonto be frightened of saying Voldemort's name.'

'I know you haven't,' said Professor McGonagall, sounding half-exasperated, half-admiring. 'But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know - oh, all right, Voldemort - was frightened of.'

'You flatter me,' said Dumbeldore calmly. 'Voldemort had powers i will never have.'

'Only because you're too - well - noble to use them.'

'It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs.'

Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, ' The owls are nothing to the rumours that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?'

It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a women had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever 'everyone' was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another sherbet lemon and did not answer.

'What they're saying,' she pressed on, ' is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumour is that Lily and James Potter are - are - that they're - dead.'

Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped.

'Lily and James ... I can't believe it ... I didn't want to believe it ... Oh, Albus ...'

Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. 'I know ... I know ...' he said heavily.

Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. 'That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potter's son. Harry. But he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke - and that's why he's gone.'

Dumbledore nodded glumly.

'It's - it's true?' faltered Professor McGonagall. 'After all he's done ... All the people he's killed ... he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding ... of all the things to stop him ... but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?'

'We can only guess,' said Dumbledore. 'We may never know.'

Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said 'Hagrid's late, I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?'

'Yes,' said Professor McGonagall. 'And i don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?'

'I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now.'

'You don't mean - you can't mean the people who live here? cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. 'Dumbledore - you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son - I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets, Harry Potter come and live here!'

'It's the best place for him,' said Dumbledore firmly. 'His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter.'

'A letter?' repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. 'really Dumbledore, you think you can explain all of this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He'll be famous - a legend- I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter Day in future - there will be books written about Harry - every child in our world will know his name!'

'Exactly,' said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half moon glasses. 'It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't remember! can't you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it?'

Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed and then said, 'Yes - yes, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore? she eyed his cloak suddenly as though he might be hiding Harry underneath it.

'Hagird's bringing him.'

'You think it - wise - to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?'

'I would trust Hagrid with my life,' said Dumbledore.

'I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place.' said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, 'but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to - what was that?'

A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at yhe sky - and a huge motorbike fell out of the airand landed on the road in front of them. If the motorbike was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild - long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of dustbin lids and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.

'Hagrid,' said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. 'At last. And where did you get that motorbike?'

'Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir,' said the giant, climbing carefully of the motorbike as he spoke. 'Young Sirius Black lent it me. I've got him sir.'

'No problems, were there?'

'No sir - house was almost destroyed but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarming around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol.'

Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forhead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightening.

'Is that where -?' whispered professor McGonagall.

'Yes,' said Dumbledore. 'He'll have that scar for ever.'

'Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?'

'Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in useful. I have aone myself above my left knee which is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well - give him here, Hagrid - we'd better get this over with.'

Dumbledore took Harry in his arms and turned towards the Dursley's house.

'Could I - could I say goodbye to him, sir?' asked Hagrid.

He bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whispery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.

'Shhh!' hissed Professor McGonagall. 'You'll wake the Muggles!'

'S-s-sorry,' sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. 'But i c-c-can't stand it - Lily an' James dead - an' poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles-'

'Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found,' Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blankets and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.

'Well,' said Dumbledore finally, 'that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations.'

'Yeah,' said Hagrid in a very muffled voice. 'I'd best get this bike away. G'night, Professor McGonagall - Professor Dumbledore, sir.'

Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself on to the motorbike and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night. Professor McGonagall left, a minute later, leaving Dumbledore alone.

'Don't worry Harry, I will be back soon,' murmured Dumbledore. 'I will find another way to hide you and live in the world you belong. For now, farewell.'
And with that, Dumbledore walked to the end of the street. Before he reached the end, he clicked the Put-Outer. With a turn, he disappeared as if he was never there. Many witches and wizards, across the country lifted their glasses to toast the boy who lived.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter, The next will be completely AU... or will it? Review and let me know what you think, yes?