The Little Potter (Re-Written)

Diagon Alley

01/08/1991

Harry awoke to tapping on the window, jolting him awake. Tap. Tap. Tap.

"All right," Harry mumbled, "I'm getting up." 

He sat up and Hagrid's heavy coat fell off him. The hut was full of sunlight, the storm was over, Hagrid himself was asleep on the collapsed sofa, Sevina asleep on a bundle of blankets next to the fire, and there was an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.

Harry scrambled to his feet, a smile on his face. He went straight to the window and jerked it open. The owl swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who didn't wake up. The owl then fluttered onto the floor and began to attack Hagrid's coat.

"Don't do that," Harry tried to wave the owl out of the way, but it snapped its beak fiercely at him and carried on savaging the coat.

"Hagrid!" said Harry loudly. "There's an owl!"

"Pay him," Hagrid grunted into the sofa.

"What?"

"He wants payin' fer deliverin' the paper. Look in the pockets." 

Hagrid's coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets -- bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags... finally, Harry pulled out a handful of strange-looking coins.

"Give him five Knuts," said Hagrid sleepily.

"Knuts?"

"The little bronze ones."

Harry counted out five little bronze coins, and the owl held out his leg so Harry could put the money into a small leather pouch tied to it. Then he flew off through the open window.

"Is it gone?" Sevina's tired voice called out.

"Yeah," Harry replied as he sat down next to her by the, still lit fire.

"Good, the owls can be so annoying," Sevina yawned, sitting up.

"Do you live in the...other world?" Harry asked.

"Do you mean the wizarding world? Yeah. I live with Professor Dumbledore - he's the headmaster of Hogwarts and my papa - and Professor McGonagall - the Transfiguration professor and my mama," Sevina explained.

"Mama and papa?" Harry asked, confused. "Our parents are dead."

"They're my adoptive parents, I was only a day old when our parents died so they took me in."

"Why you and not me?"

"I showed a lot of power, the muggles wouldn't have been able to take care of me," Sevina explained softly. "You needed to be away from our world, to grow up normally."