The Seven Spies of Privet Drive

The first time Harry met someone odd was when he was five years old and Uncle Vernon took him and Dudley to the park.

"I wanna do the monkey bars," Dudley said, and Uncle Vernon hoisted his son's round little body up onto the metal structure. Harry tried to follow, but as soon as he jumped up to grab a bar Dudley began to cry, and Uncle Vernon told his nephew that he had better go play on the swings instead.

"You can have your turn on the monkey bars when Dudley's done," Uncle Vernon said over his son's sobs. "Run along to the swings, now."

Harry jogged over to the swing set, holding his slightly-too-large glasses in place with his hand. He didn't mind the swings. He quite liked them, actually - they made it feel as if he were flying, which was something he had secretly always wanted to try. Once he had jumped off of the swing as it hit its apex, and in the split-second before he hit the ground and broke his arm, he'd experienced a rush of adrenaline that had made him feel invincible.

(Dudley couldn't go on the swings. Dudley was too heavy, even at age six.)

And maybe that, too, added to the appeal of the swing set - the fact that it was the one place where Dudley was not allowed to follow.

Harry slowed as he reached the swings, and then stopped short. His tiny face fell. There would be no flying today.

Because there was a fully-grown man draped across the swings with his eyes closed and a horrible stench emanating from his body, and Harry was ninety percent sure he was dead.

"Unca Vernon!" he shouted, turning to run back to the monkey bars. "Unca Vernon, there's a man on the swings."

(Uncle Vernon was too busy dodging Dudley's freely-swinging feet to do anything more than tell Harry to stop whinging and go back to the swings.)

Harry approached the swing set cautiously and sat down in the seat at the far end of the row. He watched the man from the corner of his eye; he had his head lying in the seat of one swing and his bottom cradled by a second one. One of his legs was held up by a third swing, while the other leg lay sprawled out on the ground. The man was dressed in a long brown coat with a with a grimy bowler hat balanced on his head. On his feet were two different socks and a pair of bright red shoes. He had a scruffy beard and dirty fingernails that Harry thought would have given Aunt Petunia a heart attack, and poking out of one of his pockets was a smooth, thin stick.

Harry swallowed and began to pump his legs. The swing set rocked gently, but the man didn't move. "Unca Vernon?" Harry called again, but over on the other side of the playground Dudley was laughing loudly, and Uncle Vernon couldn't hear.

Harry dragged his feet on the ground and slowed his swing to a stop. Carefully, he walked around until he was standing by the man's head. "Hello?" he whispered, leaning over to prod his arm.

The man's eyelids pulled back suddenly, revealing a pair of brown eyes. "Harry Potter," he said, inclining his head slightly.

Harry jumped backwards. "You're alive," he said.

"Of course I'm alive." The man sat up carefully and arranged himself on one of the swings. "Some guard I'd be, if I were dead."

"How did you know my name?" Harry asked, backing away.

"Don't worry," the man said. "I'm a spy. I'm here to protect you."

"How can you protect me if you're sleeping?"

The man fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a silver flask. "I wasn't sleeping," he said, raising the flask to his lips. "I'm always alert. Constant vigilance, boy, that's the key."

"You looked like you were sleeping," Harry said.

"I'm in disguise." The man stowed his flask and winked one of his brown eyes. "In case of - " He broke off, staring at something over Harry's shoulder. "Damn," he muttered. "I wasn't supposed to talk to you."

"Why not?" Harry turned around to look behind him, but there was nothing there but a stray tabby cat, licking one of its paws. He turned back to the man. "Why aren't you supposed - "

But the man was gone. The swing he'd been sitting in was swaying slightly, as if pushed by some breeze, but there was no sign of the guard.

"Harry," called Uncle Vernon. "Time to go home, boy!"

"No monkey bars for you!" Dudley cried gleefully.

Harry looked back over his shoulder to find what had spooked the guard, but the playground was deserted; even the cat had disappeared.

"Harry!" shouted Uncle Vernon, and Harry walked away.

When Harry was six he had a teacher called Mr. Bolt, who was everybody's favorite because he gave lollipops to the students who got the answers right. Nobody but Harry seemed to notice the way Mr. Bolt's eyes were always darting towards the windows, or the way his hand sometimes twitched towards his pocket, as if he were hiding a gun or a knife and his reflexes told him to pull it out.

"Mr. Bolt," Harry asked one day during recess - Dudley never let him on the swings, so Harry had taken to sitting in the classroom with the teacher during his weekday afternoons. "Did you always want to be a teacher?"

Mr. Bolt flashed his teeth in a grin; they stood out like stars against his dark skin. "I wanted to be a police officer when I was young," he said. "I wanted to keep people safe."

"Why didn't you do that, then?"

Mr. Bolt's hand twitched for his pocket. "Circumstances change all the time, Harry."

There was a scream from outside on the playground.

"What was that?" Harry asked, standing to look out the window.

Mr. Bolt was on his feet. "Listen to me, Harry," he said, grabbing his student by his slim shoulders and gently pressing him into a crouching position on the ground. "Listen very carefully. Don't leave this room for anything. Wait for me to come back. Don't go to the window. Stay right there - don't go near the window, and don't open the door." He had his hand hovering just over his pocket as he strode out of the classroom. "I'll be back," he said, closing the door behind him. The lock clicked.

Harry waited, heart pounding, until Mr. Bolt's footsteps had faded down the hallway. He rose up from his crouch and peeked out the window in time to see Mr. Bolt running across the playground, arm outstretched (what was that stick he was holding? A knife? A sword? Harry couldn't tell). Mr. Bolt slowed when he got to the jungle gym, where a girl was lying on the ground in tears. She was surrounded by the three teachers on recess duty, who were all fussing over her. Mr. Bolt shoved his stick back into his pocket and, without speaking to anyone, turned on his heel and started back toward the classroom.

"False alarm," he told Harry when he had unlocked the door and come back inside. "Just a student who fell off a swing. But I suppose you can never be too careful."

"Constant vigilance," Harry said with a nod, quoting someone he'd heard long ago and half-forgotten about.

Mr. Bolt's eyes widened at the words, and his dark-skinned hand twitched for his pocket again. "Yes," he said. "Constant - where did you hear that phrase?"

Harry shrugged. "I met a man who said it. A long time ago. Why?"

But people had begun to file into the classroom, and the teacher didn't answer.

The next day, Mr. Bolt was not in school. Harry's class had a substitute named Miss Vance, who stayed for the rest of the year and whose eyes also darted toward the window when they weren't trained on Harry.

He was seven when Mrs. Figg moved in next door and insisted he come round for tea.

"Tell me, sonny," Mrs. Figg said as she wove between her cats to bring Harry a cup of tea. "What's it like, living with your aunt and uncle?"

Harry shrugged. "It's okay."

Mrs. Figg sat down on the couch next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. She craned her neck down so they were eye-to-eye. "I mean it," she said, eyes open wide as if she were trying to tell him something. "You can tell me the truth. Are they kind to you?"

"They like Dudley more," Harry said.

Mrs. Figg clicked her tongue. "If they ever lay a hand on you, you come straight here and tell me," she said. "I mean it, Harry. I'll have you out of that house and living with me in a heartbeat."

Harry sipped his tea and privately thought that he would rather spend the rest of his life in the cupboard under the stairs than move in with this woman and her cats.

"Your poor parents," Mrs. Figg was saying. "If they could see how you were living. . . ."

"You knew my parents?" Harry asked.

Mrs. Figg turned beet red. "I just - your aunt told me the story."

"She told you about the car crash?"

Mrs. Figg's jaw tightened as she nodded. "Yes, my dear boy. She told me about the crash." Her knuckles had gone white around the handle of her mug. "Any time you see anything that makes you uncomfortable, or scared, or even - even angry, Harry, you just come along over here, and I will make sure it goes away."

"Okay," Harry said through a fake smile. "I will."

"Anything."

Harry left Mrs. Figg's thinking that she was one of the oddest people he had ever met; when he looked over his shoulder, he saw her staring at him through her window, and for some reason his mind flashed to Mr. Bolt.

It went on like that for years. When Harry was eight, it was the postman, who winked at him and gave him a business card with the name Elphias Doge and no phone number. When he was nine, the blonde woman who came over to help Aunt Petunia with redecorating the living room gave him a large container of lemon drops, told him he had his father's disposition, and warned him to watch out for nargles. At age ten he saw the milkman driving his truck apparently without using his hands or looking at the road, because he had binoculars pressed against his eyes aimed at Number 4, Privet Drive.

And then, on his way home from school two weeks before he turned eleven, Harry ran into a man who wore a long brown coat, a bowler hat, and two different colored socks.

"All right, there, Harry?" he said as Harry walked by him.

Harry froze. "How d'you know my name?"

The man tipped his head slightly so Harry could see beneath the hat. "You don't remember me?"

Harry peered up into the man's face and let out a gasp.

He'd seen glass eyes before - a boy at school called Marv had one - but the orb in this stranger's eye socket was like nothing he had ever imagined. Instead of sitting still like Marv's, this glass eye spun every which-way. Its bright blue pupil was a blur that made Harry feel sick.

"Constant vigilance," the man said, tapping his scarred nose with a large forefinger. "I've been watching out for you. Have you been watching for me?"

Harry swallowed. "The guard," he said slowly. "From the swings. From all those years ago!" He was trying not to look at the glass eye. "What happened to your - "

The stranger waved the question away and pulled an envelope out of his pocket. "I came to give you something."

Harry squinted at the envelope. "What is it?"

"Harry." Both the glass eye and the real one were fixed on him. "Have you ever felt as though you were being watched?"

Harry shrugged.

"By your teachers, perhaps?" the stranger pressed. "Or your neighbors?"

"Mr. Bolt," Harry whispered. "Mrs. Figg."

"They're all spies, Harry. Kingsley Shacklebolt and Arabella Figg are watching you. So is your postman."

Harry screwed up his eyes, trying to remember. "Mr. Doge?"

"Yes, Elphias Doge. Emmaline Vance. Pandora Lovegood. Sturgis Podmore."

"A man bowed to me in a shop once," Harry offered.

"Dedalus Diggle? He's no spy, he's just a nuisance."

Harry blinked. "But why are people spying on me?"

"Not on you." The stranger shook his head. The envelope was still clutched in his hand. "For you."

Harry still didn't understand, but he nodded.

"You aren't like other boys, Harry Potter," the stranger whispered. "You are very, very special."

"I'm just Harry," Harry said, shuffling his feet awkwardly.

"No." The stranger was still facing him, but the glass eye had begun to spin again. "No, when you were very small you became a hero, and there are people out there - villains - who want to destroy you." He touched his own forehead. "Where d'you think you got that scar, boy?"

Harry had begun to think this man was insane.

"You're a wizard, Harry," the man said, and he handed over the envelope. "A wizard who defeated the most powerful evil the world has ever seen, and if you want it, there's a spot at a wizarding school reserved especially for - "

"MAD-EYE!"

The shout came from behind Harry. He jumped away from the stranger and turned around to see an old woman in a pointed hat striding down the street.

The stranger swore under his breath. "They didn't want me to tell you," he explained hurriedly. "They wanted you to wait, but I say that's nonsense, I say the earlier you know the truth the better, because how can you fight if you don't even - "

"SILENCIO!"

The stranger opened and closed his mouth, but no words came out. Looking furious, he turned on the spot and disappeared into thin air with a loud crack.

"Harry," the old woman said, kneeling down next to him. "Harry, dear, give me the letter."

"Who are - what's happening?" Harry asked, clutching the letter to his chest. "Where did he - that man said I'm a wizard?"

The woman rose back to her feet and pointed a long stick at Harry. She muttered a word under her breath, and suddenly the envelope was tugging itself out of his hands and flying toward her. "Two weeks," she said angrily. "He couldn't have waited two weeks."

"Two weeks until what?" Harry asked. "My birthday? What happens on my birthday? Who are you?"

The woman looked down at him and smiled sadly. "You will learn it all in due time," she said. She still had her stick pointed at him. "I'm very sorry about this."

"About - "

"Obliviate."

Something blue was flying at his face, and then -

Harry blinked and tried to remember what on Earth he was doing standing in the middle of the street like this.

(Behind him, a tabby cat slunk away into an alley.)

"Yer a wizard, Harry," a giant man called Hagrid was saying to him two weeks later.

And Harry didn't know why it sounded so familiar, or why he wanted so badly to believe this Hagrid, but something in the very back of his memory was stirring as he took the envelope from the giant's hands.

[Disney Character Competition: Arthur/Wart - write about Harry becoming a wizard]

[Greek Mythology Mega Prompt Challenge: Coeus - write about a pre-Hogwarts Harry]

[2015 New Years Resolution Competition: Kidfic - write something from the point of view of a small child (age 9 and under)]