I don't own HP

The world is an illusion.

Some people change the phrase to say the world is a lie, but that isn't the whole of it. A snail, which the world can see and believe is a rock, will not stop being a snail. The snail never told anyone it is a rock, others simply see what they can believe and move on, never stopping to question. It's simply human nature, to take the easiest path available, passing off potential issues with not so much as a by your leave.

It's that line of thinking that allows a passerby to see a small child working hard in a garden and believe he is earning some pocket money. A teacher to see a smaller than normal child with bruises on his arms and think him accident prone. A classmate to see him alone and move on, to avoid drawing attention to themself.

The snail is only ever just a snail. It will move forward at a slow and determined pace, carrying its burden and shield as it goes. It may take months or even years, but that snail will reach its destination, a place to rest and shed the burden it has carried for so long. It may seem like a simple, a common garden snail, but in a world of rocks,

He can change everything.

Harry Potter woke quickly when his Aunt rapped on his cupboard door. He threw his covers off gently, careful not to knock spiders loose from their perches, and slipped out. After washing up quickly, Harry began the arduous task of making enough food for both Vernon and Dudley Dursley. If he was honest with himself, Harry didn't think it could be done, but he was forced to try everyday at breakfast and again some days at dinner.

The morning rush in the kitchen began just as Harry finished the bacon and had moved onto the eggs. As usual, Vernon was down before Dudley, and, after giving it a cursory glance, dug into his first helping of breakfast. The meal finished almost twenty minutes later as Dudley made sure there were no scraps left for Harry to filch, making sure he watched him finish the food as he washed the dishes. The pair of boys were then herded out of the house with their bags and sent off for another day of school.

Harry sighed as he and Dudley walked, the chills of October already frosting the tips of the fine cut lawns in front of each and every house on all of Privet drive. As the duo reached school without incident, a rarity Harry was grateful for, he stopped for a brief moment to glance at his reflection on the school doors.

Harry wasn't like either of the Dursley men, compared to their girth, he was skinny as a rail, nothing more than a toothpick. His natural thinness was further accented by the saggy jeans held up only by an old used belt and a baggy gray shirt whose bright logo had long since faded away. His black hair gave Aunt Petunia fits, she had tried many attempts to tame it with no success, even cutting it off didn't stop the mop from standing out against Harry's scalp. His face was thinner than most children, devoid of the soft edges most parents would fawn over.

The only part about his appearance Harry took any pride in were his eyes, and his scar. His scar was a jagged little thing, just above his right brow. Unlike other scars, this one remained red, like it was still healing despite the fact Harry had had it since he was a baby. According to his Aunt and Uncle, he had gotten it the night his parents had died in a car crash. It was all he had left of his parents and no matter what Vernon and Petunia said about them, he would cherish their memory with the reminder he had.

His eyes on the other hand, were alive in a way no old scar ever could be. They were the finest shade of emerald, too dark to be called sea green and too bright to resemble a forest. Despite the rest of his body, Harry's eyes always had a life of their own, sparkling in the light and almost glowing in the dark.

His moment of self reflection was cut short however as the school bell rang and 9 year old Harry rushed inside for yet another day of standard education with the little bits of fun he would bring with the deck of cards he had tucked in his pocket.

**break**

Lunch was a simple affair for most people. Sit down, eat something, usually some kind of sandwich and that's it. Simple. For Harry Potter, who was never allowed to bring a lunch like the other students, he had to earn his.

While most students would open their lunch boxes, Harry opened an old card box and slip out a deck of common playing cards with a grin on his face, and the show began.

While Dudley wasn't watching, Harry would perform cards tricks for a small group of students. His little show each day only lasted a few minutes, but when it was over, the watchers would give him small bits of their lunches as payment for the show. Nothing much, just sandwich butts, chip crumbs, and the odd candy bar on a good day, but for a boy who would otherwise only get one meal, if that, a day it was well worth the effort.

He knew he had to be careful though, performing the same trick in front of the same people would ruin the fun, and if Dudley ever saw his little act, Aunt Petunia would be the first to know and that would be the end of that, not to mention the punishment for performing 'magic'. His Aunt and Uncle had a real trigger for any mention of harmless tricks and the like, while normally a very easy button to avoid pressing on his cold hearted relatives, Harry knew it was only a matter of time before he was caught.

But Harry didn't worry about that as he cheerfully used a thin fishing wire to make it seem like he was levitating several cards as a trio of girls watched in awe. He loved to do his tricks and the food was an added bonus, he was content. Harry wasn't struck unless he broke something or mentioned magic, he found ways to get enough food to survive, and he had his tricks.

That positive outlook on a rather dreary life was about to change though, change triggered by a bushy haired girl who was watching his card tricks with a sharp eye and hated the unexplained.

**break**

"As you can see, the card floats by itself, its like real magic!" Harry told his captive audience some three weeks after his first performance of the floating card trick. This was his riskiest trick and the only one Harry performed with something other than just his cards.

"I know how you're doing that." a shrill voice cut off Harry, who jumped in shock. A brown bushy haired girl marched in and swiped her hand in the space between the card and Harry's hand.

Time slowed for Harry as he watched the girl's hand neared the fishing wire, which would ruin his trick, leave him hungry, and if he was unlucky, someone would tell Dudley, which meant a beating that night. The normally carefree Harry panicked and closed his eyes, hoping beyond hope that the girl's hand would miss, that anything would happen to keep his trick safe.

And much to both his and the girl's shock, her hand passed unobstructed over the card, which remained floating. Taking the miracle in stride, Harry quickly ended the trick and snached the card.

"Like I said, magic." Harry intoned the last word loudly as he took a bow to his amazed little audience and a seperate bow to the bushy haired girl who almost ruined his gig. Harry ate well that day, a whole sandwich for his miraculous tricks that day had him smiling on the walk home.

What he didn't see was the fuming girl storm away and spill the interaction with his cousin, who smiled from ear to pudgy ear at Harry's breaking of rule number one in the NORMAL Dursley household, no magic.

After the two boys got home, Harry began trimming the back bushes while Dudley spilled his considerable guts to Petunia, whose face grew dark and glared at Harry's back. Dudley just smiled his piggy smile and knew his cousin was going to get it when Vernon got home.

That night Harry heard Vernon's car door slam with more force than normal, and the front door slam shut behind his giant Uncle. He wondered what could have set his Uncle off so badly as he moved through the kitchen, preparing dinner. Hearing his uncle's heavy footsteps behind him, Harry turned around in time to catch an empty beer bottle smashing down on his head. The bottle shattered when it landed, knocking Harry to the floor, sending his glasses skittering across the floor, a cut opening above his hairline.

His uncle's kicks rained down on Harry, who quickly put himself in the fetal position to weather the beating. Whatever had happened, it had been bad, and the alcohol in his system had completely removed any restraint Vernon may have shown.

"You think it's funny boy, you think its funny to disrespect everything we've done for you. Feed you, put the clothes on your head and the roof over your head." Vernon spat, and Harry just waited for the blows to continue, he knew from his rare past beatings that answering his uncle would only make things worse for him.

"All we've done and you spit on our efforts by being a FREAK!" Vernon's kicks became heavier and Harry felt one of his ribs give way, causing him to scream in pain. So his uncle had found out about his routine at school, and this was the beating he had been dreading for years.

Vernon paused in his kicking to grab Harry's hair and pulled him to his knees, his lightning bolt scar in clear sight aggravating the drunken Vernon even further. "I'm going to beat the freak right out of you boy, starting with erasing that freaky scar." Vernon spat as he brought the broken bottle up and then down right over Harry's scar.

The broken bottle carved a thick path through the lightning scar, but the bottle didn't stop there, it continued downwards and into Harry's eye, carving the optical organ from his head. Harry shrieked in pain, thrashing in pain as Vernon lifted the bottle again. Before he could swing however, a black smoke poured from the slash he had carved through his nephew's face. The smoke gave a wild howl before dispersing and vanishing.

The sight was enough to shock Vernon back to his senses. He dropped his bleeding nephew and tossed the broken bottle into the garbage. "Get to your cupboard freak, you'll not be going to school any longer." Vernon spat and made his way towards the sitting room to watch the television. "And clean up that blood, I won't have the kitchen left a mess!"

It took Harry most of the night to stop his face and head from bleeding more, pressing a worn rag Petunia had tossed down on him and one of his few shirts to stem the crimson flow, before setting to work mopping his own blood from the kitchen floor until it was shining white once again. Bland normal white, like a child hadn't just been bleeding out over the cold linoleum. When he was finally done, Harry curled up in his cupboard and let the tears pour from his remaining eye.

He knew he was going to be beaten, he knew that he was going to be hurt, but he had kept on performing anyway. It was like an addiction, once he started, he couldn't just stop, it just felt right, like his little tricks were what he was meant to be doing.

The more he thought about it, the more Harry came to the conclusion that there was something more to his parlor tricks. When the girl from lunch tried to out his, the card actually began to float and the fishing line vanished, as Uncle Vernon beat his, black smoke poured from his head. And no matter how much blood poured from his wound as he tried to hold his face together, he never felt light headed from blood loss. Those things weren't normal, they were almost…...freakish.

Freak had always been the go to name from his Aunt and Uncle, and it was beginning to become clear as to why.

As he lay in his cupboard, an old shirt bandaging his bleeding head and face, Harry James Potter accepted the fact he was different from everyone else, he could do things no one else could, and he would learn to use it, he would better himself, he would be better than people like the Dursleys, so obsessed with normality. He would be better then the girl, a devout follower of the rules of others.

That night a spark was ignited, a small flame flickering in the depths of the world. How big the flame would grow to be, and how much it would consume, only time could tell.

**break**

The next day, it was a very smug bushy haired girl who went home from school. She had been frustrated when the boy who was tricking other kids out of their lunches, defying the teachers behind their backs.

But he hadn't been back today, and when she asked his cousin, he told her his cousin had been punished and would be shipped off to a reform school, and that made Hermione Granger's day.

After-all, she thought to herself as she entered her parent's dental practice, magic wasn't real.

Ok, It's been a while. I've had this idea stewing in my head for months and I've got two more chapters written out, but after that I have no clue what will happen with this story. I'm going to finish Magical Sense, but making changes to the arcs within the Harry Potter world are seriously fighting me, and a part of that is rereading things now and cringing at what I wrote going, how did I think this was a good idea at the time.

So this might just end in a few chapters, this might go on and become a full story, both are completely possible. I'm just getting the idea out into the world and seeing what happens. Restless author syndrome and something along those lines. I've got other ideas like this where I've written the first chapter and two and it's just sitting on my computer so I might blast those out and just keep going for what grabs interest.

So as always, Happy Reading -Centurion Africanus