Harry Potter had a talent for growing up without anyone noticing.
Days had blurred into months, months into years, and before anyone realised, he was ten. He wasn't exactly tall, but at four and a half feet, he could just about peer over the kitchen counter now, which Dudley found absolutely unacceptable. His complexion had improved over the years — less sickly pale, more pink and healthy, as though he'd managed to steal some sunlight when no one was looking. His green eyes had brightened too, though they held something behind the mischief — a quiet, almost secretive depth that nobody bothered to notice.
The lightning-shaped scar on his forehead remained as stubborn as ever, a peculiar signature of something he didn't understand, and his eternally untidy black hair still seemed engaged in a lifelong rebellion against combs. The round glasses perched on his nose, slightly crooked, had long since become a part of him.
What hadn't changed was his living situation. Privet Drive was still the same neat, suffocating prison of orderliness, and Number Four still felt less like home and more like a storage cupboard for unwanted things — namely, him. He'd managed to upgrade from the cupboard under the stairs to one of Dudley's discarded toy rooms, but this small victory hadn't been granted freely. It had required a dangerous game, a cunning plan, and what Harry proudly considered "advanced persuasion techniques" — though Aunt Petunia had called it "unacceptable cheek."
Harry didn't care what she called it. He had a door now. A door. With a lock. And that was enough.
Still, living with the Dursleys wasn't exactly a dream come true.
Uncle Vernon remained as intimidating as ever — a vast, red-faced man whose mustache looked like it could smother small woodland creatures. He had a laugh like a foghorn and a temper to match, and Harry was convinced he was growing wider by the year. Aunt Petunia was unchanged, too, still the same thin-lipped, sharp-eyed woman with a permanent expression of disapproval, as though she'd been born mid-frown and had simply… committed to the look ever since.
Dudley, though — Dudley was evolving.
Not in a good way.
At ten years old, Dudley had begun to take after Uncle Vernon so closely it was frankly alarming. He was expanding rapidly, in every direction, like a particularly aggressive balloon. Harry overheard the school nurses whispering about him once — words like "worrying" and "cholesterol" floated around — but Dudley proudly interpreted it as proof of his "manly build."
Harry, for his part, considered Dudley an early warning system. If Dudley was stomping around the house looking angry, Harry knew to stay invisible.
His invisibility wasn't entirely figurative, either. Over the years, he'd perfected the art of disappearing without ever leaving the room — ducking behind furniture, slipping into shadows, holding his breath at just the right moments. He liked to think he'd become something of an expert, though Mrs. Figg would probably call it "troublesome instincts."
Ah yes, Mrs. Figg.
Harry's visits to the eccentric old woman down the street were still a closely guarded secret. Not that secrecy was hard — the Dursleys never asked where he went, as long as he wasn't there. Mrs. Figg's house was a sanctuary, a place where the smell of baking cakes mingled with the ever-present scent of cats. Judgemental, plotting little creatures, those cats — Harry was sure of it — but he liked them all the same. Mrs. Figg liked him, too, in her own strange way. She'd always make sure there was sponge cake or ginger biscuits waiting for him, which was more affection than he ever got at home.
He'd asked her once, quite seriously, why her cats looked so different. That led him down an accidental rabbit hole about "Kneazles" after spotting the word in one of her books. When he brought it up, she brushed him off with an airy, "Not everything's in the books, dear," which only convinced him she was secretly breeding rare, magical cats to sell on the black market.
He kept this theory to himself. For now.
But it wasn't just the cakes or the cats that kept him coming back. It was the books.
Oh, the books.
Mrs. Figg had, quite suddenly, started collecting them — thick, leather-bound tomes full of strange tales and whimsical theories. She insisted he read them only at her house, which made the whole thing feel like a secret mission. Harry loved it. There were stories of enchanted forests and broomstick races, absurd diagrams of cauldrons that brewed themselves, and peculiar accounts of dueling societies where everyone wore pointed hats and spoke in riddles.
When she brought in a fresh stack one week, he nearly fell over with excitement. She'd simply smiled faintly and said, "Read them here, mind you," as though she wasn't letting him peek into another world.
He didn't argue.
Of course, Mrs. Figg wasn't his only companion. There was Pip.
Pip had a dog now — a clownish, bouncy Sussex Spaniel with ears that seemed far too big for its tiny body. Between playing with the spaniel and listening to Pip's endless tales, Harry found something resembling fun. Pip's stories were wild and exaggerated, packed with swashbuckling adventures and ridiculous characters.
"Better than that Beedle fellow!" Harry had declared once, earning himself a deeply affronted look from Mrs. Figg.
For all the small comforts — the books, the cakes, the spaniel — Harry's life was still… ordinary. Stubbornly, maddeningly ordinary. He didn't feel sorry for himself, not really. He'd long grown used to being different. But sometimes, late at night, staring up at the ceiling, he found himself wondering.
Wondering about his parents.
Sometimes, in his dreams, he saw them. A woman with red hair and a laugh like bells, a man with messy dark hair and glasses like his own. There were nights when he knew he'd lived with them — if only for a short while — and the warmth of those imagined memories clung to him like sunlight even after he woke.
And always, always, there was the green light.
He'd finally worked up the courage to ask Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon about them once, about how they'd died. He figured they must be dead, if they weren't here.
He didn't get an answer. Not really.
A tight-lipped frown from Aunt Petunia, an angry grunt from Uncle Vernon, and a quick subject change to something irrelevant.
It was what he'd expected.
So, he wondered. And dreamed.
After all…
A boy could dream.
Harry couldn't decide if it was the cake deprivation or the dueling manual, but his leg wouldn't stop twitching under Mrs. Figg's dining table.
The clock on the wall chimed softly as the last of the evening sun spilled through the lace curtains, bathing the cluttered little room in honey-gold light. Plates of half-eaten biscuits and crumb-strewn saucers littered the table between him and Mrs. Figg. She was perched stiffly on her chair, spectacles low on her nose, her attention buried deep inside a book titled Befriending the Magical Felines by Clamella Felinet.
Judging by the way her lips were pursed and her brow knitted, Harry suspected she was reading some very serious feline diplomacy.
Across from her, he was hunched over a much thicker tome — The Art of Dueling by Sorcerer Fascino Draoith — and if Mrs. Figg's cats had looked closely enough, they might have noticed his green eyes glinting like gemstones beneath the lampshade.
His heart was practically galloping.
The book wasn't easy to understand — half the time, Draoith seemed intent on using the longest, most pompous words possible — but Harry had persevered. And now, finally, he was on the good part.
The Notable Examples.
Legendary battles of wit and wandwork leapt from the pages: Alberta Toothill's crushing victory against Samson Wiblin at the National Dueling Championships of 1430; the Boot siblings, Chadwick and Webster, dueling alongside Isolt Sayre and William the Brave against the infamous Gormlaith Gaunt at Ilvermorny; and, best of all, the 1945 showdown between Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald.
Harry felt as though his very bones were vibrating with excitement.
In his head, he was already there — cloak billowing dramatically, wand raised, crowds cheering — except Dudley would be on the other end, naturally, and Harry would win in one glorious swoop.
Mrs. Figg's voice yanked him out of his heroic daydream.
"What are you reading and getting so excited about, lad?"
Harry startled, snapping the book closed on reflex before peeking up at her. Her sharp blue eyes were peering over the rims of her spectacles, narrowing at the manic grin spreading across his face.
"I'm reading about the Art of Dueling!" he blurted, pitching his voice several octaves higher than usual. "It's— it's so— it's very interesting!"
He sounded exactly like a ten-year-old boy who'd just been handed the latest Nimbus racing broom, and he knew it.
Mrs. Figg frowned suspiciously. "That sounds dangerous," she said slowly, tucking a loose curl behind her ear. "I'm not sure you should be reading that sort of thing — even though, of course, it's all fiction." She cleared her throat at the last word, perhaps a bit too quickly.
Harry blinked at her. "No! It's not that simple!" he said, waving his hands for emphasis. "It's all about the rules and history and techniques and—"
And then it began.
Mrs. Figg had triggered the beast.
Harry launched into an unbroken torrent of enthusiastic rambling, leaping from one duel to the next, summarising entire centuries of magical combat in between bites of ginger biscuit. He imitated the wand movements, stood up to demonstrate footwork, and gestured wildly whenever he reached the dramatic turning points.
Mrs. Figg listened with one hand cupped around her teacup and the other rubbing slowly at her temple. She made the occasional polite noise — "Mmm," "Oh my," "Really, lad?" — but Harry didn't notice the increasingly glazed look in her eyes.
By the time he finished, his voice had gone hoarse and his cheeks flushed pink with excitement.
"And then Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald right there, on November second, nineteen forty-five!" he concluded breathlessly, pointing triumphantly at the page. "The greatest duel in history!"
To Harry, it was like a fairy tale — a story of good triumphing over evil.
To Mrs. Figg, it was a memory she'd rather not think about.
'If only life were that simple,' she thought grimly, taking a deliberate sip of her lukewarm tea.
---
When Harry finally packed up to leave, dusk had swallowed the street outside. He lingered by the closet to stash The Art of Dueling, grumbling under his breath as he stacked the other books neatly in the corner.
Why she insisted on keeping them hidden in here instead of on her shelves was beyond him. Maybe she was embarrassed. Maybe she didn't want anyone knowing she owned books this strange.
His eyes wandered down the spines as he arranged them:
The Standard Book of Spells by Miranda Goshawk.
A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot.
Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling.
A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch.
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore.
Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander.
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble.
Harry adored them all — well, mostly.
The herbs book made him yawn so hard his jaw ached, and History of Magic could put even Dudley to sleep. But potions fascinated him; spells thrilled him; magical beasts delighted him; and the book on dark forces…
That one hooked him completely.
Creatures from bedtime stories — boggarts, kappas, red caps — described in painstaking detail, along with how to fight them if needed. Morbid? Perhaps. But there was something oddly comforting about knowing there were rules, tools, and tricks, even against monsters.
He ran a finger along the spine, sighing in quiet contentment. These books were his escape — his window into a world that felt so close he could almost touch it.
Almost.
---
By the time he stepped into the hallway, Mrs. Figg was waiting for him by the door, unusually tense.
She glanced outside, then back at him, her mouth pressed into a thin line. Without a word, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small pendant tied to a thin cord.
"A lucky charm," she said simply, looping it gently around his neck. "Picked it up from an antique shop."
Harry stared at it — a small disc etched with symbols he didn't recognise — then looked up at her, bewildered.
"It'll keep you safe," she added with a faint smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
He didn't understand why, but his chest felt strangely warm as he nodded.
---
The night was peculiar.
By the time he stepped off her stoop, the mist was already thick enough to swallow most of the street, curling around the lamp posts and softening the edges of the neat little hedges lining Privet Drive. Sounds were muffled — the distant hum of cars faded to nothing, even the rustle of leaves seemed swallowed whole.
Harry hugged his borrowed books close and started home, his mind still replaying scenes of legendary duels.
That was when he saw them.
At first, he thought it was a group of people huddled over a fallen man. The streetlamp nearby flickered lazily, throwing their shadows long and distorted across the pavement.
Harry slowed, curiosity warring with instinct.
The lamp buzzed, flared — and he saw the blood.
A dark pool beneath the still man.
His heart leapt into his throat.
The figure kneeling over him turned its head slightly, and Harry's stomach churned as he caught the faint glint of red smeared across its chin.
And then the lamp went out.
For one terrible, suspended moment, the mist was silent.
Then the figures shifted. Slowly, mechanically, as though pulled by strings. Their heads turned towards him.
The kneeling one hissed — a dry, scraping sound that clawed down Harry's spine — and the others began to rise.
In the brief flare of light before the lamp sputtered again, he saw their faces.
Loose, greyish skin clinging to bone. Hollow, sunken eyes. Mouths stretched too wide, lined with teeth too sharp.
Harry's breath caught.
Inferi.
They looked exactly like the illustration in Trimble's book on dark forces. Dead bodies, reanimated by dark magic.
'Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.'
He clutched the pendant Mrs. Figg had given him so tightly it dug into his palm and began inching backward, willing himself into the darkness, wishing desperately that he could disappear.
And then the kneeling figure screamed.
The sound was inhuman, a screech that tore through the mist like claws on glass. The others dropped onto all fours, scuttling unnaturally fast, circling him like starving wolves.
Harry's pulse pounded in his ears.
"Silly antique books, my arse," he whispered, voice trembling.
"These things are bloody real."