When Darkness Falls

Chapter One - Letters From A Liar

'HARRY POTTER, THE BOY WHO LIVED' was plastered in dark, bold letters across the top of the Daily Prophet, its words screaming 'saviour' to the wizarding world, showing that the dark days were finally over.

Ten years later, that article would still be able to be found in the houses of witches and wizards, preserved by a spell, a memorial for their hero. Yet at that moment, that boy, who lay on the cold, hard ground in a small shack on the centre of a craggy island, had no idea that he was a saviour, nor that he was special. Instead, this boy had never been made to feel like either of those things, the way that he would have done in a loving family. However, the Dursley's were far from loving, Harry had been made to grow up on his own, to feed a family he never cared for and to become just as cold as the floor he had to sleep on, just as dark as the small cupboard that had been his home. Using a small finger, Harry slowly drew himself a birthday cake in the dirt and made a wish, he had never been one for wishes, there was no need to put your faith in something so nonsensical when all you could rely on, was yourself. In spite of that, in this particular moment of time, Harry Potter wished that he could have just one of those letters and the reasons why it was so important that he should receive one. He reopened his bright green eyes and a loud crash banged against the rickety door of the shack, for a moment Harry had thought it was the wind, but he was proved wrong when the loud bang came twice more. There was someone outside. Harry found it rather odd that someone had come to this crumbling island, in the middle of a stormy night and then proceeded to demand entrance to the single shack on it. Uncle Vernon hurried into the room and in his hands was a large rifle, which was aimed towards the door. "Who's there?" Uncle Vernon's voice was barely heard above the wind. "I warn you - I'm armed!"
As soon as those words had left the balding man's mouth, the door fell to the floor with an almighty crash. The man who had kicked down their door could barely be seen in the darkness but appeared to be taller than the doorframe itself. He ducked under the entrance to the shack and forced his way inside, this man, Harry decided, was dangerous and could quite possibly break him in half with his bare hands. In this situation, the only logical thing to do would be to get out of this man's way and let his Uncle deal with him, after all, Harry would not have been saddened if his Uncle came to an early demise, he would deserve it.
Nevertheless, the giant did the opposite of what Harry had expected, instead of murdering them on the spot, he put the door back on its hinges and turned to them with a warm smile on his face, "Couldn't make us a cup o' tea now, could yeh?" He asked, as though he expected a small, decrepit place such as this to have a warm drink, this man was as smart as he appeared. This man quickly made himself comfortable and sat down on the rotting sofa next to Dudley, who scrambled away and hid behind his father along with Aunt Petunia. "An' here's Harry!" The giant exclaimed as he turned to face Harry. Harry looked at this man in surprise, he would surely remember meeting a man like this, and yet, this man seemed to know who he was. "Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby." Continued the man, as though he had not just broken into the house, demanded tea and started to make small talk with an eleven-year-old boy. "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mum's eyes." Now Harry was curious, this man knew his parents, he had never been allowed to talk about them, it was forbidden, just as many things were in the Dursley household. The strange squeak that Uncle Vernon emitted proved Harry's train of thought.
"I demand that you leave at once, sir!" Growled Uncle Vernon, in a tone that Harry was very used to hearing, though it had never been aimed at anyone else. "You are breaking and entering!" Judging by the look on Uncle Vernon's face, he was terrified of what else this stranger might say, Harry had never understood why his Aunt and Uncle had refused to tell him about his parents, so it seemed like he was finally going to get some answers. Uncle Vernon was right to be afraid of this man, as he had taken the rifle from his hands, bent it in two and thrown it into the corner of the room.
The man turned back to Harry with a smile on his face once again and carried on as though nothing had happened. "Anyway—Harry, a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here—I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right." Harry was more than shocked, this stranger knew a lot about him, and in the space of five minutes, he had shown more interest in Harry's life than the Dursleys ever had. The giant handed him a medium sized box, albeit slightly squashed, but Harry didn't mind, as he opened it carefully and saw a cake inside. The cake appeared to be homemade, it was chocolate and on the top, in wobbly green icing, it read 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY'.
Now Harry was able to ask the question that he had been urging to ask since the man had barged his way in. "Who are you?"
The man chuckled at Harry's bluntness. "Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts." Hogwarts? That sounded like a made-up place, yet, the man looked completely serious, and Uncle Vernon looked as though he was about to explode. Rubeus Hagrid offered him his hand, which Harry accepted, and then shook all of Harry's arm. In usual circumstances, Harry would have felt it necessary to introduce himself, however, these circumstances were far from ordinary, and the man already seemed to know who he was.
"I'm still not sure who you are," Harry admitted to the man, unashamed of having to ask since, for the first time in his life, questions seemed to be welcomed.
"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts—yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course." Hagrid still did not appear to be joking, as he repeated his formal title once again, with as much sincerity as the first time.
"I've never heard of it." Answered Harry, still wary of the man, however, instead of laughing at him and revealing the whole thing to be an enormous joke, Hagrid looked flabberghasted.
He even turned to look at the Dursley's with a sneer before he answered. "Never heard of- Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?"
"All what?" Harry asked in confusion, he was beginning to doubt everything that the Dursleys had told him, yet, he didn't trust what the man was telling him to be the truth either.
Harry's lack of knowledge just seemed to make Hagrid even angrier. "ALL WHAT?' He repeated Harry's words in a roar that shook the walls of the shack before he rounded on the cowering Dursleys. "Now wait jus' one second. Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that yeh never told this boy ANYTHING?" Harry could feel the anger being emitted from the man, which confused Harry further, he knew that he did well in school, but this was clearly about something else, something that Harry really was clueless about.
"Tell me about what?" Harry asked.
Hagrid seemed to calm down slightly when he turned back to Harry. "Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."
"What world?" Now Harry was sure that this man was at least slightly insane, there was only one world, unless his parents were part of a secret society, Harry briefly wondered whether his parents had been secret agents, but that idea seemed highly unplausible.
"But yeh must know about yer mum and dad," Hagrid now seemed to be desperate for Harry to have known something. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."
'What? My parents weren't famous, were they?" Harry was sure that he had never seen his parents in any book at school and if they were famous, Harry imagined that their deaths would have been memorialised like other celebrity deaths.
"Yeh don' know... yeh don' know..." Hagrid seemed to be completely bewildered and unprepared for the situation as he continued to stare at Harry. In a final attempt to get Harry to remember something. "Yeh don' know what yeh are?"
It seemed as though Uncle Vernon had finally had enough, his voice had returned and he stared at Hagrid directly when he spoke. "Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!" Though his bravery vanished once more when Hagrid shot him a furious look, and Uncle Vernon backed away again.
You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it! An' you've kept it from him all these years?"
"Kept what from me?" Harry asked angrily, he couldn't believe that the Dursleys had kept something so big from him, and now he was adamant to know.
Now Uncle Vernon's voice was laced with panic. "STOP! I FORBID YOU!"
"Tha' tone don' work on me Dursley," Hagrid growled in response, to which Aunt Petunia let out a slight whimper. "Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh." Now Hagrid turned to Harry and told him the answer that he had been waiting for. "Harry - yer a wizard."
"What?" Harry replied and a bubble of amusement escaped in shock. Right now the secret agent idea was seeming more realistic, magic was just fanciful thinking for the fainthearted. Harry had never even thought about the possibility of magic existing because the idea of it just sounded completely nonsensical.
"A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, as though it was the most ordinary thing to tell a person. "an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. Now, here's yer letter."
"Right.. obvious," Harry mumbled as he took the thick envelope from Hagrid and opened it suspiciously. Upon inspection, the letter appeared to be rather ordinary, made out of thick parchment - an odd choice but not dangerous - and was written in a fine, green cursive. Still, Harry was still not very trusting of its contents, was it really all that safe to believe a complete stranger on all of this. Harry shrugged that thought away, anywhere would be better than having to live with the Dursleys.
"He's not going." Uncle Vernon said firmly, Harry just stared at him as though he were stupid, the old codger would never learn his lesson.
"I'd like ter see a great Muggle like yerself stop him," Once again it sounded as though Hagrid had made up a word.
"A what?" Harry asked, to him it sounded like an insult of some kind, which he hoped it was.
"A person withou' magic." Hagrid explained.
"We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," Uncle Vernon retaliated in a defiant manner.
"You knew," Harry said quietly. "YOU KNEW?' This time the words came out louder than before, Harry was beyond angry, he was tired of being lied to, everything he had ever known, was just one big lie. "Oh, and while we're at it, I suppose my parents didn't die in a car crash?"
"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, who was now standing. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal!"
"Why is that a scandal?" Harry asked, he now realised that his parents must have been important as Hagrid was showing emotions of great horror.
"Right, now what yer have teh understand is that not all wizards are good," Hagrid began to explain, Harry listened carefully and his horror grew the more he learned. His parents had been murdered, by the darkest wizard in history, Voldemort. But he, Harry had been able to survive and send Voldemort away in the process.
"But how does that me a hero? I was one year old, has no one ever considered external factors?" Harry asked, a world he did not even know existed until moments ago had no right to make him their hero, especially for something he cannot even remember doing.
"Yer a symbol o' hope Harry. Yer the saviour of the wizarding world." Hagrid said.