Mr. Vernon Dursley was having a very good Friday. No day was perfect, as he was coming home to see to an issue his wife had called about, but he had just settled a major deal with a large Cornish construction firm, been given a free birthday cake to give to his son by his senior staff members, and had managed to give himself a massive pay raise by firing 20 employees. Grunnings was doing better than ever. He was planning to go shopping over the weekend to buy Dudley that 37th present he had been meaning to buy, and now he didn't even have to buy a cake. Saving money was always a favorite activity for Mr. Dursley. He had just been saying to his wife Petunia that very morning,

"Petunia, if I've said it once, I've said it at least 20 times. Being rich is good. Being even richer is great."

As he drove into number 4 Privet Drive, he thought again about how much great it feels to fire someone. The look of shock, full of the feeling that "this can't be happening to me! I'm far too important! You can't do this!". But of course he could. A West Indian man, Mr. Copeland, had slunk out with a dead look rivaling the potter boy on his more pathetic nights.

"The scrawny negro." Mr. Dursley thought. " He didn't even have the dignity to yell at me. Most of those black bastards try to take your head off when you chuck 'em out the door. If only they were all as spineless as that we could deal with them in this country."

Mr. Robert Copeland was having a very bad Friday. His husband had been on the verge of recovering from a bad case of the flu, when he got the call that he had been diagnosed with Lung cancer. He had gone into the boss's office to tell him the news and to ask for the day off, when Mr. Dursley had laid him off. He came in the door and Mr. Dursley said,

"Ah, Mr." Looking down at his desk at a sheet of paper, "Copeland. I was just going to have my secretary call you."

"What? Oh, well what it is?" Robert was really hoping to not have some major piece of work dumped on his plate right as he was about to leave.

"If you could please sign this form, we can have this all settled as quickly as possible. I'm really in rather a hurry. My wife has called with the worst news I could imagine. My boy has had a bit of a scuff at school, and I must see to it before I can get anything else done."

Robert gave a quick glance at the paper, and was shocked to see that is was a pink slip.

"What is this?"

" Your kind, I mean, you can read English right? Really I don't want to waste any time with this. We're simply looking towards new direction at Grunnings, and some sacrifices must be made. Your last paycheck will be sent to the address you write down, so make sure to get it right."

Robert was astonished. He couldn't even choke out an angry stutter. His eyes felt lidless as his hand went through the motions of signing his name and address. He got up and walked out the door with a blank mind. He vaguely noticed the eyes of his former colleagues looking at him as he walked out the door, forgetting even to pack up his meager desk supplies. Once he had gotten to the car, the horror set in. Phillip has been out of work for a month. He definitely won't be able to get back to work now. I might not be able to find work for a year, and we'll be kicked out of the apartment if we can't pay the rent next month. A scream ripped out of Robert and he broke down right there in the car.

Harry Potter was having a fairly ordinary Friday. That is to say he had received the same amount of bruising he received from Dudley and his gang that he did on most days, and he had even managed to get a pathetic swing in at Dudley. That one success though might quickly turn the day much fouler, as his Aunt Petunia was making an absolute fuss over her "poor duddy-kins".

Dudley was of course putting on the amazing act he had been using for years to trick the incredibly doting Petunia into thinking her 200 pound, nearly 11 year old son had been beaten by the 60 pound, clearly bruised Harry.

"Oh, Duddy, as soon as your father gets home, that boy won't be able to hurt you anymore!"

"It hurts so much!" Dudley wailed in a way as convincing as a dog standing in front of wrecked room claiming to have done nothing.

Harry listened from his room, the cupboard under the stairs, waiting until his Uncle got home. By this point he knew that this lockup was only the beginning, but that eventually this too would pass, and the ordinary stasis of being, until the next minor slight elicited some new punishment.

After about 20 more minutes of waiting, Harry's Uncle Vernon arrived home. Upon seeing his crying son, who had raised his volume yet again, went straight to the cupboard and yanked out the struggling harry.

"What kind of an ingrate do you think you are?" Uncle Vernon seethed at Harry. The smell of rank fish and pickles was on his breath. "I let you live in my home, eat my food, and this is how you show your appreciation?"

Harry knew that by this point he could not avoid a beating if he sprouted wings and tried to fly away. That would probably only cause him to get starvation for a week added to the list of punishments.

"I'm sorry!" Harry tried to squeak out, but a new tirade of insults, primarily about his ungrateful, pathetic existence, with a few jibes at his useless dead parents. It was at this point that Harry muttered a short "I wish you were the dead ones…", but unfortunately for him his uncle had better ears when it came to hearing anything that could excuse some violence.

"You'll get it for that one!" His uncle took his meaty paws and lifted the small child up and carried him off to be belted. The last thing Harry heard before his uncle locked the cupboard door that night was Dudley's joyous cries upon hearing that they would be getting ice cream that night.

"Actually," thought Harry, "that was much worse than usual." His skin was raw all over except for his face and hands. Wouldn't want the police or teachers to suspect anything. Harry squatted in his cage seething with rage. He couldn't even sit properly due to the beating, and couldn't stand anymore in the cupboard, even though he was so short for his age. Every few minutes or so he would lash out in a brief moment of excess anger, punching the door fruitlessly before succumbing to the dullness of being in the cupboard.

The house was very quiet without the Dursleys around. The last dog Dudley had owned had died about a year ago under mysterious circumstances, and so of course harry had been blamed. Harry had hated that dog nearly as much as the dogs Uncle Vernon's sister would bring from time to time, but he hadn't done anything to it. It had just keeled over one day, and the vets had no idea why.

Harry set about doing the few things he could do while it was dark in his cupboard. He played with the toy horses that had stopped being so fun after the 10,000th charge to kill Dudley had failed. He thought about Dudley's birthday that was coming the next week, and how he had been told that he would be able to come along, even though being left in the house unlocked would have been a minor dream come true. After the 20th time he tried to sit and felt the sting on his bum, he lost control. He couldn't stand to stay in this cramped hole anymore! He smashed his small frame against the door, even though his shoulder hurt immensely. After three good charges, a miracle seemed to happen.

The lock seemed to melt straight through.

Harry was stunned. It didn't make any sense, but the fact was that he was free. He sprung forward and without thinking for more than a moment, unlocked the front door and simply walked outside. It was about 9:00 at night in mid July, so there were still a few people outside on Privet Drive, but not enough to notice the young boy bursting out of the Dursley's door. Harry looked around and started to just walk off. In his mind there were a thousand thoughts.

"I could just go. No one could stop me. The Dursley's wouldn't call anyone. They'd probably even throw a 'we hate Harry Potter' party to celebrate." After three blocks of this type of thinking he turned around and stopped. He had nowhere to go, and no prospects but homelessness or foster care to look forward to. Harry kept walking forward shaking with anger over his predicament, when he spotted something odd in the road.

There was a notebook sitting there, with a pure black cover. Attached to the spine was a holster for an ornate white pen, topped with a pen cap in the shape of a white heart. It looked to be made of some type of leather, but when Harry picked it up it felt strangely warm and soft. It looked like one of the expensive notebooks that Dudley was given when the Dursley's bought his school things and then was inevitably used to shoot spit wads at Harry's head. It was at that moment that a car chose to speed by and Harry had to quickly rush to the sidewalk or get run down.

Harry started randomly walking while looking over the notebook. He didn't know why he felt so drawn to it, but he reasoned that anything that he could call his own possession would be alluring. There was no insignia or writing on the cover or back to indicate who made the notebook, or even where it came from. As he quickly flipped through the pages, he saw a large amount of writing in languages he didn't recognize or understand, though there were some written in Asian characters, and a few in English mixed amongst the rest. As he read the English passages, it took only a short while to realize what they were.

One said "Joseph McArthur, 12:37 pm, head crushed by falling rocks." Another said "Phyllis Adams, 2:37 am, shot by ex-boyfriend when he finds her in bed with her lover". A third was immensely complicated filling the entire page, detailing the times and places of a dozen different people that ended in the suicide of a woman named Ankita Patel.

"Whoever wrote this really wanted these people to die", thought Harry. Imagining the person who would hate someone enough to detail a page long description of their death made Harry imagine the Dursley's in that position. He imagined them suffering in the same way that they made him suffer everyday, and then being free from them forever. About a block away from Number 4, Harry sat on the curb and uncapped the pen. On a fresh page he wrote this:

Vernon Dursley. Petunia Dursley. Dudley Dursley. 12:15 am. July 13th. Having returned safely to their home at Number 4 privet drive after leaving for ice cream fall asleep, a disgruntled employee of Vernon, enraged by his boss's mistreatment, breaks into their home and stabs the three Dursleys to death after telling them how despicable they are. Having no knowledge of the Dursley's unwanted and unloved nephew he leaves him alone in his cupboard. They suffer incredible pain as they die.

Harry stared at what he wrote feeling a strange combination of joy and sickness. He felt every sting of his injuries as he wrote about a world where his "family" was gone. But even an eleven year old knew how sick the idea of murder was. In anger at himself for even considering the idea, he ripped the page from the notebook and hastily shoved the crumpled page down the nearest storm drain. He almost threw the notebook down the drain too, but there were enough empty pages that he could make use of it. He made his way back inside Number 4 without too much trouble, as even he was allowed a key so as not to annoy the neighbors if he got locked out. The Dursleys had taken no notice of the cupboard as they went to bed, doing their best to ignore Harry's existence as usual. Sulking at his inability to effectively run away, he snuck back into the house and tried to go to sleep.

Late that night Harry awoke to hear what sounded like an explosion. There were lights all over the front of house, so Harry couldn't see anything. He was still incredibly groggy, and tried to peer through the grate on his cupboard door. It took about a minute but he managed to see that someone had crashed their car directly into the front door of the Dursley's house, and it was the headlights that were blinding him. It was at that moment that he heard the screams and the silence. Harry heard another door slam and a crashing as someone came running down the stairs. Harry stayed hidden, but managed to get a glimpse of a Black man holding a large knife and some of his Aunt's Jewels in another hand. Harry went white to see that his hands were covered in blood. He quietly huddled in the back of his cupboard clutching his blanket to him as close as he could.

Without noticing Harry, the man rushed back into the still running car and started to pull back out of the front door. His car stalled several times with all the wood that had splintered around gumming the wheels, when the wails of police sirens began to arrive in the distance. When that happened, the man turned off the car and quickly ran back up the stairs. Harry started to gather up the few things he had. Even in his shocked state he knew that he had to run now. Even if the police did make it inside, he couldn't be sure the man with the knife wouldn't find him first. He grabbed the toy soldiers and horses, his glasses case and extra tape, a rain jacket full of patches, and the leather notebook. Before he could turn around to make a break for it, Harry was being rudely grabbed by a skinny arm. He was terrified to imagine that man coming back for him and lashed out wildly, and another mad event happened. A slurry of fiery sparks leapt into the air, causing the figure behind harry to yell "What the blazes! Harry calm down!" The smell of cats made harry realize that the person who had just tried to grab him in the dark was Mrs. Figg.

The batty old cat lady who lived down on a nearby street was somehow in his house trying to grab his shirt collar. Nothing was making sense anymore, and Harry was fighting a war in his head between screaming in fear, running as fast as he could, or just collapsing from the madness of the last 20 minutes. What did end up happening was a squeak, and then a:

"Mrs. Figg, what are you doing here?"

"Never mind that yet Harry, give us your hand."

"What?" Harry couldn't process the question for more than a second when Mrs. Figg quickly grabbed his arm and shoved it into her massive old purse. She made him touch something cold and metallic, and then the whole world collapsed around him.

There was an intense yanking on his midsection, as if someone had put a fishhook into his spine and pulled back. Mrs. Figg kept a firm grasp on his arm as the world spun madly, with only the two of them standing still.

"What is happening?!," Harry screamed against the wind surrounding them.

"Just relax! Dumbledore will explain everything once we get to Diagon Alley!" Mrs. Figg said as calmly as one could while speaking in what appeared to be gibberish. He was just about to try to wrench his arm away when it felt like the ground rushed up to meet him and his legs buckled under him. Mrs. Figg managed to keep her balance, but only barely.

"God blasted Portkeys!" Mrs. Figg swore. Nearly broke my back the last time I had to use one of these. Harry was quickly losing track of the random words she was spewing. He would usually think that this was proof the old lady had finally lost her mind, but the vortex they had apparently just traveled through proved that something else was going on. Harry looked around and it appeared that they were in a room in what looked like a hotel room from the 19th century. There was a large bed with gold colored posts, a nightstand with a lit candle on it, and a large wooden wardrobe standing in the corner.

"Wh-Where are we?" Harry looked out the window and saw that it was still dark out. "What's going on? What's happening? What's…"

"Stop there Harry, and sit down please. I'm very sorry about what's happened, but we needed to get you out of that house before the Muggles streamed in." Mrs. Figg attempted to give harry a highly awkward hug. It was after a minute of silence that the truth of the situation settled in on Harry. "My aunt and Uncle and cousin are dead." The words fell out of his mouth in the same mixture of happiness and disgust he had felt earlier that night. The horror of that moment made him think of the notebook again and wonder aloud, "It's my fault."

"Oh I'm so sorry Harry." Mrs. Figg said with what was surely a very good attempt at sincerity. Anyone who knew the Dursleys couldn't have sounded 100% unhappy at that moment. "I know they were your family, but you had no part in it. It was just some muggle burglar. We're not really sure who he was yet, It's all moving too fast."

"What do you mean 'we'. Who are you? What the hell was in your purse! And what is this place?!" Harry started off quiet but his voice ended the last question something between a scream and a choke.

"I think I can answer some of your questions Harry, but first you need a cup of tea."

A tall man with a long silver beard entered the room. He was carrying a cup filled with piping hot tea, but what was most remarkable was that following the man were two more cups, a lantern, and a kettle, all floating in midair. Harry jumped off the bed and stared open mouthed and wide eyed at the floating tea set, nearly forgetting the fact that his only living family was now dead.

"The cups are…"

"Very hot, so I hope you will be careful." Said the old man, handing him the cup.

"I guess I'll just leave you two here." Said Mrs. Figg. "I'll be heading home now. It's nearly 1 in the morning, and I'll need to feed my cats in the morning.

"Thank you Arabella. I will make sure that you are not troubled regarding your presence on Privet Drive tonight, and I thank you for bringing Harry so quickly. No one else would have done so with such celerity and grace." Mrs. Figg blushed at the old man's words, and gave a muffled "Of course Professor Dumbledore. Goodnight", before leaving with her cup of tea.

"To begin, Harry, my name is Albus Dumbledore. Welcome to the Leaky Cauldron. We have brought you to London so that we can protect you. I am here to help you through this difficult time and to answer any questions that you may have."

Harry had no idea where to begin, but thought that he might as well start with where they were.

"So what happened when Mrs. Figg grabbed my arm? It felt like the whole world was spinning."

"Ah yes, that is what we call a portkey. They are magical devices that allow us to travel great distances in mere moments."

"Magic?" Harry exclaimed. "And who are 'we'? I still have no idea who you are."

"Of course. Harry, I am a professor at a school of Magic. A place called Hogwarts where we teach young witches and wizards in the arts of spellwork, enchantments, among others. Just like you." He said this with a small smile on his face. Despite the strangeness of the situation, Dumbledore's voice made Harry feel safe.

"I'm a what?"

"A Wizard. Just like your parents before you. Oh I almost forgot," Dumbledore reached into his robe pocket, "to give you this." He handed Harry a letter that said:

Mr. H Potter

Third Room on the right hand side, third floor

Leaky Cauldron

Diagon Alley

London

He quickly opened the letter and put it near the lantern light. It spoke of wondrous things. A school of magic far away. Lists of spell books and potion ingredients. A magic wand. All of it meant that he, Harry Potter, was a wizard. He thought back over all of the odd events in his life, especially those from that night. The melted lock. The sparks that appeared. The death of his aunt and uncle and cousin.

"I killed them. It's all my fault. I must have used magic to kill them."

"Nonsense Harry, nonsense. I am so sorry about your family." He looked sincerely sad when he said it, astonishing Harry. "But I have looked into this myself with the help of some friends that live in Surrey. Apparently a man by the name of Robert Copeland had been fired by your Uncle yesterday afternoon, and was driven to violence. And even if that was not the case, it is impossible that a wizard as young as you could kill, even with the intent." Harry wasn't so sure, but he was still excited by the prospects of a wizard school.

"And Mrs. Figg? Is she a witch?"

"No, Arabella is what we call a squib, a child of Wizarding folk without magic. This is distinct from Muggles, completely nonmagical people like your aunt and uncle."

"And so were my parents magic as well?" Harry asked, hopefully.

"Yes. And I shall tell you more about that tomorrow. We have burned the midnight oil for too long as it is, and you need your rest. Just know that you are safe, and that we at Hogwarts always have a system in place to help those in times of need. I will meet you in the pub downstairs for breakfast. My room is right next door." The professor took his leave of Harry, and for the first time since the car crash woke him, Harry was alone.

He thought over everything that had happened to him that day. His family was all dead now and he was sitting in some room he had teleported to by magic. He took out the notebook from his backpack and looked at the pages again. If Dumbledore could be trusted, and Harry couldn't help but trust him, then there was no way that what he wrote had anything to do with his family's death. He was finally free of the Dursleys and he was going to go to Wizard school.

"I'm free." Harry chuckled in the dim light.

"I wouldn't say that."

Harry turned his head to a dark corner of the room and a monstrous creature appeared, and Harry felt the air leave his lungs. It appeared as a 7 foot tall man-shaped being, but unlike any human alive. The eyes were massively large and yellow. The creature had a small mouth with blue lips, and a chin that was split down the middle. There was a long mess of pure black hair that fell to the floor, draping the arms that were nearly the length of its body. It had two huge black wings that spread as it floated towards Harry.

"I believe you are the one who found my Death Note. I don't think you're going to be free for quite a while."

End of Chapter One