The next morning, Harry heard the click of the letter box and the flop of letters on the doormat. He went to retrieve the mail. Three items were on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that appeared to be a bill, and a letter addressed to Harry.

Harry picked up the letter and stared at it, feeling his heart twang like a giant elastic band. No one had ever written to him in his entire life. Who would? He had no friends or other relatives. Yet, here it was, a letter addressed so plainly that there could be no mistake.

Mr H. Potter
The Cupboard under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey.

The envelope was thick and heavy, crafted from yellowish parchment, with the address written in emerald green ink. Surprisingly, there was no stamp affixed to it. As Harry turned the envelope over, his hand trembling, he noticed a purple wax seal imprinted with a coat of arms: A lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a larger letter 'H'.

Harry returned to the kitchen, his gaze fixed on the letter in his hand. He passed the bill and postcard to Uncle Vernon before carefully unfolding the yellow envelope.

Uncle Vernon tore open the bill, snorted in disgust, and then casually flipped over the postcard. "Marge is ill." He informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk."

"Dad! Look!" Dudley suddenly yelled. Harry was about to unfold his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was abruptly jerked out of his hand by Dudley and passed to Uncle Vernon. "Harry's got a letter!"

"Give it back it's mine!" Harry said, trying to snatch it back.

"Yours? Who'd be writing to you?" Uncle Vernon sneered, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it.

Uncle Vernon's face changed color rapidly, shifting from red to green like a set of traffic lights. Aunt Petunia glanced at the first line and seemed on the verge of fainting for a moment.

Dudley, Uncle Vernon, and Aunt Petunia all looked at Harry, who was completely confused.

••••

On Friday, Harry received at least twelve letters. Since the letter box was blocked by Uncle Vernon boarding it up, the letters were pushed under the door, slipped through the sides, and a few were even forced through the small window in the downstairs toilet.

Uncle Vernon remained at home once more. After incinerating all the letters, he retrieved a hammer and nails and proceeded to board up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed 'Tiptoe through the Tulips' as he worked.

Things started to spiral out of control on Saturday. Twenty-four letters addressed to Harry mysteriously appeared in the house, concealed inside each of the two dozen eggs that the bewildered milk man had delivered to Aunt Petunia through the living room window. As Uncle Vernon angrily made phone calls to the post office and the dairy in search of someone to complain his frustration to, Aunt Petunia took to shredding the letters in her food mixer.

On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.

"Fine day, Sunday. In my opinion, best day of the week." Uncle Vernon said with a smug smirk. "Why is that, Dudley?"

Dudley shrugged his shoulders as Harry handed biscuits to the family.

"Because there's no post on Sundays?" Harry answered confidently, offering a biscuit to Uncle Vernon.

"Right you are, Harry! No post on Sundays. Ha!" Uncle Vernon cheered. "No blasted letters today! No, sir. Not one single bloody letter. Not one! No sir, not one blasted, miserable-"

As he spoke, something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney and flew straight at his face. In the next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry laughed, standing on the coffee table, and caught a letter.

"Give me that!" Uncle Vernon ordered as Harry leaped over the couch and headed towards the stairs. "Give me that letter!"

Harry reached his door, but Uncle Vernon grabbed him around the waist as letters continued to fly around the entire house.

"Get off!" Harry shouted as Aunt Petunia and Dudley ran out with their arms over their faces. They stopped in the hall, witnessing his struggle to break free from Uncle Vernon's grasp. "They're my letters! Let go of me!"

"That's it! We're going away!" Uncle Vernon bellowed over the letters. "Far away, where they can't find us!"

••••

They ended up staying in the most miserable two story shack perched on a rock surrounded by water. The inside was horrible; it reeked of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls and the fire place was damp and empty. There was only one bed.

As night fell, the storm flew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in a cupboard and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed upstairs, leaving Harry to find the softest bit of floor he could and curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.

The storm raged more ferociously as the night progressed. Harry couldn't sleep; he shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned out by the low rolls of thunder that began near midnight.

Harry then began to draw a birthday cake in the dirt on the ground. He glanced at Dudley's watch, which was hanging over the edge of the sofa on his chubby wrist and it beeped.

"Make a wish, Harry." He said to himself before pretending to blow out the candles.

Boom.

The entire shack trembled. Harry sat bolt upright and hid around the fireplace as Dudley snapped out of his sleep. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon descended the stairs, switching on a light as Uncle Vernon gripped the rifle in his hands.

Boom. They knocked again.

"Who's there?" Uncle Vernon shouted.

Smash.

The door was struck with such force that it was knocked off its hinges and landed on the floor with a deafening crash.

A giant of  man stood in the doorway. His face was mostly obscured by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled bear, but his eyes were visible, glinting like black beetles beneath the hair.

The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stopping so that his head just brushed the ceiling.

"Sorry about that." He apologized before bending down to pick up the door and effortlessly fitting it back into its frame. He then turned to look at everyone.

"I demand that you leave at once. You are breaking and entering." Uncle Vernon said.

"Dry up, Dursley, you great prune." The giant replied. He grabbed the barrel of the rifle and bent it upwards. A gunshot rang out, creating a hole in the roof. He then walked over to the sofa where Dudley stood, frozen with fear. "I haven't seen you since you was a baby, Harry. You're a bit more along than I expected. Particularly in the middle."

"I'm n-n-not Harry." Dudley stammered in fear.

Harry stepped out from beside the fireplace and looked up at the giant. "I-I am."

"Well, of course you are. Got something for you. Afraid I sat on it, but I imagine it'll taste fine just the same. Baked it myself, words and all," the giant said. He reached into an inside pocket of his black overcoat and pulled out a slightly squashed box, handing it to Harry.

With trembling fingers, Harry opened the box. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with 'Happy Birthday Harry' written on it in green icing.

"Thank you." Harry said gratefully to the giant.

"It's not every day your young man turns eleven, is it?" The giant smiled as he sat on the sofa, pulled out a pink umbrella, and bent down over the fireplace. Sparks of small flames shot out of the umbrella and into the fireplace.

The flickering light filled the entire damp hut, enveloping Harry in a comforting warmth, as if he had just settled into a hot bath. His eyes widened in surprise.

"Excuse me, but who are you?" Harry inquired as he placed the cake onto the other end of the sofa.

"Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts." He replied. "Of course, you know about Hogwarts."

"Sorry, no." Harry said.

Hagrid looked shocked. "No? Blimey Harry, didn't you ever wonder where your Mum and Dad learned it all?"

"Learned what?" Harry asked.

"You're a wizard, Harry." Hagrid informed him.

There was silence inside the hit, with only the sound of the sea and the whistling wind filling the air.

Harry's eyes widened. "I'm a what?"

"A wizard." Hagrid said with a smile. "An' a thumpin' good'un, I'd wager, once you're trained up a little."

"No, you've made a mistake. I mean... I can't be a w-wizard. I mean, I'm just Harry. Just Harry." Harry stated.

"Well, just Harry, did you ever make anything happen? Anything you couldn't explain when you were angry or scared?" Hagrid asked. As Harry thought back to the incident at the zoo, Hagrid got up from the sofa and handed a letter to him.

Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope. He pulled out the letter and read: "Dear Mr. Potter, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"He will not be going!" Uncle Vernon exclaimed as he rushed to Harry's side. "We swore when he took him in we'd put a stop to all this rubbish."

"You knew?" Harry questioned. "You knew all along and you never told me?"

"Of course we knew." Aunt Petunia shrieked. "How could you not be? My perfect sister being who she was. My mother and father were so proud the day she got her letter. 'We have a witch in the family. Isn't it wonderful?' I was the only one to see her for what she was. A freak! Then she met that Potter, and then she had you... and I knew you would be the same. Just as strange, just as abnormal. And then she got herself blown up, and we got landed with you."

"Blown up? You told me my parents died in a car crash." Harry said.

"A car crash?" Hagrid roared. "A car crash killed Lily and James Potter?"

"We had to say something." Aunt Petunia said as Dudley grabbed Harry's cake and took it to the corner of the room.

"It's an outrage! A scandal!" Hagrid yelled.

"He'll not be going." Uncle Vernon stated.

Hagrid grunted. "I suppose a great Muggle like you is going to stop him."

"Muggle?" Harry asked, intrigued.

"Non-magic folk." Hagrid explained. "This boy's had his name down since he were born. He's going to the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. And he'll be under the finest headmaster Hogwarts has seen, Albus Dumbledore."

"I will not pay to have a crackpot old fool teach him magic tricks!" Uncle Vernon yelled.

Hagrid grabbed his umbrella and held it in front of Uncle Vernon. "Never insult Albus Dumbledore... in front of me."

He swung the umbrella down through the air, pointing it at Dudley. There was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned away from them, Harry noticed a curly pig's tail poking through the hole in his trousers.

Uncle Vernon roared, pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley towards the stairs. He cast one last terrified look at Hagrid before racing up the stairs himself.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone at Hogwarts about that. Strictly speaking, I'm not allowed to do magic." Hagrid told Harry.

Harry nodded. "Okay."

"We're a bit behind schedule. Best be off." Hagrid said, checking his clock before he went over to the door and casually removed it from its hinges. "Unless you'd rather stay, of course."

With that, Harry made up his mind and followed Hagrid.

_______________
PUBLISHED: 08.02.20

A/N: I hoped you liked this chapter!

Votes and comments are very much appreciated!