5 — Dazed and Confused
Harry’s rumbling stomach woke him the next morning at the break of dawn, the normal time he woke so he could prepare breakfast for the thrice-damned Dursleys.
Here in the hospital, though, it was the staff who prepared breakfast. And at this early hour he could expect to wait for some time before anyone . . . anypony . . . brought him his breakfast. He stared at the guard by his room’s door and wondered if it really was the same guard from yesterday. Had they made the guy stand there all day and all night? That didn’t seem right. They must have changed guards at some point and he slept through it. Considering how noisy ponies were normally, and adding in their armour, it was surprising he hadn’t woken in the night when the new guard arrived.
He put it out of his mind. He had more important things to consider — with the Dursleys and revenge topping the list. For a few moments he dwelt upon what he wanted to do to them. Visiting upon his uncle every single broken bone he had received from the overweight whale, naturally, ranked first.
But before he could do that, he had to learn magic. Just knowing it existed wasn’t enough, he had to learn how to use it.
First, what did he know about it?
It happened when he really, really, really wanted something to happen. Escaping Dudley when he was trapped, wanting to escape the humiliation of being almost bald after his aunt’s haircut, and not wanting to wear an absolutely ugly sweater for the same reason. And then here, he had teleported when he desperately wanted to escape. So, it was emotion driven.
The ponies said he could only do magic with his horn. He looked up cross-eyed at the tip that he could barely see. Sweetie Belle had said that she “pushed” her magic out through her horn. Unfortunately, according to her, he had a magic suppressing ring on his horn, so that should mean he couldn’t do any magic. Was that why his head felt stuffy? It was hard to tell, really, he was used to that feeling, now.
But he hadn’t had a horn back home and he had done magic there, so maybe that really wasn’t true. Or rather, maybe he was restricted to magic that affected only himself . . . . like making his hair grow. But, covered with fur as he was, did he really want to make his hair longer? And how would he tell anyway? It had taken all night back at the Dursley’s, so it would probably take hours before he noticed anything.
He needed to start with something simple. The lady doctor yesterday had said something about “seeing” his magic. Maybe he should try that first? But how?
He stared at his hooves suspended over his head. Unlike horses and ponies he had seen pictures of in his old world, they were the same colour as his fur — one a yellow-gold colour and the other red. He squinted his eyes, staring at the red hoof and tried to “see” the magic in it. He tried making his eyes slightly out of focus. Then he looked over at the wall and tried using his peripheral vision to see his hoof. That was harder as he kept accidentally directly looking at his hoof. Or the wall.
All he got for his trouble was a headache.
He closed his eyes, and just thought. What was magic? An invisible fluid? An invisible gas? No, those could be sealed out of a room making places where magic didn’t work. It had to be something undetectable by any means, but was everywhere. And in amounts that made it easy to move and do things with the stuff that everyone could see.
Then he had a brilliant idea.
Once, while he was locked in his cupboard, Dudley had wandered away from the telly after his program was over. The next program had been a science program about astronomy and the commentator had mentioned stuff called Dark Energy and Dark Matter. According to the program, normal matter and energy was only about five percent of the total mass of matter and energy in the universe, the rest was invisible and can only be detected by its gravitational effect on normal matter — on a galactic scale. Its effects were undetectable on the planetary scale, not to mention the even smaller human scale, despite it out-massing normal matter and energy by over twenty times in the exact same space.
Was that what magic was? Dark Energy and Dark Matter were something that ponies — and apparently certain people — could somehow control with their minds?
The doctor had said she wanted to see how much magic he had. That meant that ponies, and people, it seemed, could somehow collect Dark Energy in their bodies. If that was true, then he should be able to see it in himself. The doctor had used a spell to make the magic visible to her. He didn’t know any spells to do that, so he had to use his mind to “see” it.
He closed his eyes. If his horn conducted magic, then if he looked at it he should be able to “see” the magic with his mind. After what felt like an hour of trying his only result was that his eye muscles hurt from looking up cross-eyed at the tip of his horn that he could see.
He had read magazines in the town library — the librarians kept Dudley out — about mysticism and this thing they called “the third eye.” Supposedly, this “third eye” could see things that normally were invisible, like chakras and energy points. Were they actually referring to seeing this Dark Energy in their bodies? The books had said that meditation was the way to “wake up” your third eye.
The hardest part of meditation, Harry discovered, was keeping his mind clear. That is, trying to think about nothing was hard. Just when he thought he had done it he found himself thinking about something his relatives had said, the situation he was in, the Princess, and just about any other random thing that suddenly popped up. Or, worse, he was suddenly aware of that itch at the centre of his shoulder blades that just wouldn’t go away! Each time he realized he was thinking, he consciously stopped doing that and tried to think of nothing.
He was concentrating so hard on not thinking that he jumped and screamed, “AHHHH!” when a voice beside him suddenly said, “Time to wake up for breakfast, dear.”
Taking deep breaths, he stared at the startled nurse, a female with a blue coat and green mane and tail, who had stumbled back and was staring at him in alarm. Like Nurse Redheart, she had neither wings nor a horn.
He said unsteadily, “Geeze, give a guy a little warning! You almost gave me a heart attack there!” He took a few more breaths, then apologetically said, “Sorry about that, but you startled me.”
The nurse nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, but I thought you heard me come in with the meal cart.” She smiled uncertainly. “I’m Nurse Tenderheart.”
“Hello,” he said, “I’m Harry Potter. It’s nice to meet you. Did you say breakfast?”
Abruptly all business, the nurse pushed the cart closer to his bed. “This morning it’s oatmeal with diced apples and maple sugar.” Surprisingly, instead of using a long-handled spoon held in her mouth, she used a spoon with a handle designed to fit a hoof. She held onto the side of the bed with her other hoof and fetlock to keep her balance.
It was simple, but good, Harry decided. “Thank you very much,” he said, “That was very good.” But like last night, he was still hungry when he finished. And like last night, he cautiously said, “I’m still hungry, can I have more?” And immediately regretted it. Nothing good could come of asking for more. That lesson he had learned well at the Dursleys’. Last night had been a fluke, he had surprised them. Today everything would go back to normal.
She looked at him, surprised that he had not only finished the bowl, but wanted more. “I’m sorry,” she said, “But there were no leftovers this morning.”
He blinked in surprise. No screaming or yelling about how ungrateful he was to ask for more and not appreciate what they had worked so hard to give him. Still, he reflected, he had eaten better in the last two meals than he usually got from the Dursleys in a weekend of six meals. And it wasn’t scraps, either.
It was only as she was preparing to leave that he noticed a certain pressure in his bladder. And what happened next, when he mentioned that, was the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to Harry. He decided that the less said about what the nurse did to help him, the happier he would be. And, surprisingly, the guard even seemed to cast a sympathetic eye in his direction when she left.
Continuing what he had started earlier, Harry relaxed and again closed his eyes as he tried to think about nothing and instead ended up thinking about the nature of nothing and how the little red lines on the inside of his eyelids looked like trees, branching rivers and streams, or odd characters from the cartoons on the telly.
He had barely started when he heard the sound of several ponies in the hall talking. Curious, he opened his eyes just as the door opened and Doctor Well Heart stepped in.
“Good morning, Harry, I trust you are feeling better?” he said walking up to the bed.
He left the door open behind him, Harry noticed. “I’m fine, sir,” Harry said. “Still a bit hungry, though.”
The doctor raised his eyebrows at that. “Really now? And the nurse brought you a full breakfast?”
“Yes, sir,” Harry guiltily looked over to the wall opposite his bed. He shouldn’t have said that to the doctor. This is where he would get yelled at for asking for more than his share. And for not showing proper gratitude for what he had received. As he had thought earlier, last night had been a fluke and now his brash demand for more would end in punishment. “It was very good, though,” he said, vainly hoping that might head off the worst of his punishment for being ungrateful.
The stallion gave Harry a smile. “Well, we’ll see if we can bring you a snack in a couple of hours to tide you over until lunch.”
Startled at the generous offer, Harry looked at the doctor wide-eyed. “Thank you sir,” he said with heartfelt gratitude. No yelling at his ingratitude in asking for more? An unheard of situation in his experience. Would the nurse really bring more, as she had last night?
The doctor floated over his stethoscope, and a clipboard, saying, “Let’s take a quick look shall we?” The exam was fairly quick, ending with the doctor declaring, “You are doing much better than I expected. You might be able to get the casts off in a few days instead of a week!”
He put away his stethoscope and clipboard and became very solemn. “The other reason I am here is to tell you that Princess Celestia would like to speak with you. She’s not angry with you or upset with you, she merely wants to talk with you.”
Harry looked at the doctor, suddenly afraid. He blinked rapidly as he tried to think why a princess, the ruler of a country, would want to talk with him, a kid lost in a strange land. He wished that ring wasn’t on his horn. He wanted the option to teleport away.
“It’s alright, Hahry, she just wants to understand what happened to you. Okay?”
He nodded fearfully.
“Okay.” Doctor Well Heart turned and left the room. Once he was in the hall, he turned to the right and dipped his head. “Your Highness, he’s ready to see you.”
Harry gulped as he heard a kindly and polite, “Thank you,” and then the huge pony — no, she had to be a horse considering she was so much bigger than the others — daintily walked into his room. The new doorway meant she didn’t have to half-crawl to fit through it.
Harry gulped again as he watched her. She was as big as he remembered. Now that he wasn’t terrified out of his mind and trying to escape what he thought was certain death, he could see she was beautiful.
Her white coat seemed to shine, almost glow, even though the room was well-lit. Her mane was a rainbow of yellows and reds given form and life, with dazzling stars embedded in it. It drifted around her head like a large cloud, changing shapes on an unfelt breeze. It was easily long enough to reach the floor below her head — with a lot left over. It moved almost as if it were alive.
Then he noticed her tail. It was as long as her body. It, too, floated and drifted above the floor behind her. Just as with her mane, with its length it should have pooled around her hooves instead of drifting gracefully behind her in an invisible breeze.
And there was the smell of a warm summer day around her.
All this combined into making an imposing and beautiful figure that was enormously intimidating at the same time. Fortunately, she exuded an aura of calm imbued with an attitude friendliness that slowed his frantically beating heart and helped calm him, although he still shivered a bit.
As soon as she was in the room she laid her barrel down on the floor with her hooves gathered beneath her. She still towered over him, but was at a comfortable distance. Or at least comfortable for him. The advantage for her was that she didn’t have to duck her head to avoid the ceiling — she could hold her head up as was normal for a pony. The door behind her closed in a golden yellow glow.
He noted her horn was the purest white he had ever seen, and that she had wings, something he hadn’t noticed the previous day. Was she a unicorn and pegasus hybrid? A unipeg? A pegacorn? A Cornus?
“Good morning to you, Hahry Potter,” she said. Her voice, while deeper than those of the smaller ponies, was still definitely feminine in nature.
Harry barely managed to squeak out a “Hello” in reply.
“Have they been treating you well here?”
He nodded, afraid to try to say anything.
“I heard that you are still hungry.”
He shivered, but slowly nodded again.
She smiled and turned her head to the guard. “Please get me a tea and something appropriate for a hungry colt to eat and drink.”
The guard bowed and left the room.
She turned back to Harry.
“Now then, my little colt, could you tell me about yourself?”
Harry was staring at closed door, surprised that she had ordered more food for him. Slowly he returned his gaze to her and then quickly looked back down at the blanket covering him.
He could hear the smile in her voice as she said, “Perhaps it would help to start with your name and where you were born?”
Hadn’t the other ponies already told her? He swallowed nervously, then said, “My name is Harry James Potter. I was born on July 31st, 1980, in the early morning in Godric's Hollow, in the West Country.”
She tilted her head slightly, clearly not understanding.
“Erm,” he continued, “That's in England?”
Still no sign of recognition, so he went on. “My father was a Potter and my mother was an Evans. They both died on Halloween night, 1981. My aunt says they were drunken wastrels who died in a car accident.” He turned his eyes towards his right forehead. “That scar I got in the accident.” He paused. “I don’t believe that’s how they died. I remember a man laughing and then a flash of green light lit up the room.” He stared at the blanket.
“What were your parent’s names, dear?” Princess Celestia asked softly.
Harry couldn’t shrug his shoulders, so he looked out the window. “I don’t know,” he said softly, “Aunt Petunia refuses to talk about them, and Uncle Vernon . . . .” Harry shuddered.
He looked back at the huge white horse just in time to see her tightened lips and slight narrowing of her eyes return to a relaxed and kindly sympathetic look. She had not liked what he had said. He quickly looked down at his blanket and shivered. Restrained by his casts as he was, he couldn’t flee as he had tried before.
“Go on,” she softly coaxed him.
Before he could say more, the door opened and the guard returned, followed by a nurse pushing a cart with a tea set on it, a glass of orange juice, and a plate with pancakes! Beside the pancakes was a small jar of something blue. As she wheeled the car to the bedside, he caught a whiff of blueberries.
As the Princess poured herself a cup of tea, using her magic to lift the teapot, she said to the nurse, “You may leave,” interrupting the nurse as she picked up the knife to section the pancakes. The Nurse bowed and quickly left.
Harry watched, entranced, as the Princess used her magic to wield the knife as she cut up the pancakes. “Do you like blueberry syrup on your pancakes?”
Harry stared at the pancakes. He’d never had pancakes before, Dudley had always made sure to polish them off to prevent Harry from getting any. The blueberries he knew from late-night snacking and raiding the blueberry jam jar for a sandwich. “Yes, please,” he said, swallowing the drool that had so quickly pooled in his mouth at the sight of his “snack.”
For the next few minutes nothing was said as the Princess of Equestria used her magic to feed him while he blissed on the delicious tastes that filled his mouth. Blueberries at the Dursleys’ had never tasted this good. He sighed, his eyes closed, as the last bit of pancake melted in his mouth. Too bad there wasn’t more, he could have demolished another stack of those wondrous fluffy pancakes.
He looked up to see her eyes sparkling, a soft chuckle on her lips. “I do so love watching somepony enjoy their food.”
He looked down, embarrassed. “The food here tastes just so much better than I’ve ever had before,” he half mumbled as an explanation. And his stomach had never felt so full in his life.
She took a sip of her tea. “Now, then, you were telling me your relatives never talked about your parents?”
Harry’s good humour disappeared and he scowled.
“My Aunt told me that after Halloween, on November second, when she went to get the milk and newspaper at the door, there I was in a basket with a letter saying her sister was dead and that I was their responsibility.”
Caught up in his story he almost missed the princess narrowing her eyes in displeasure. Scowling, Harry continued, “I never understood that. If the constables had found me, then one of them would have brought me over. And the constables never send a letter to tell a relative that a close relative is dead, they always go in person — I’ve seen that on the telly about Scotland Yard. And the same for the Social Services people. Who leaves a baby in a basket on a doorstep? That sounds more like something in a fairy-tale, right? Or a badly written fantasy novel.”
He looked up at the Princess and shivered. Horses and ponies here had huge eyes that were remarkably expressive. And right now he could see the glimmer of rage in hers. He shrank back into his bed and really wished he could hide under the bed, having learned he couldn’t make it through the walls.
She blinked a few times and the calming aura that had momentarily disappeared returned.
“And you’ve been living there ever since? At number Four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, England?” She managed to say it without stumbling over the unfamiliar names.
He nodded.
Her expression went blank for several moments. Clearly she was thinking about what he had told her.
“They must have been very poor, and taking care of you must have been difficult for them.”
He looked up, frowning. “Oh, no, they weren’t poor. Uncle Vernon works at Grunnings Drills and is a sales manager. He gets a new car every year and they go on vacations a lot. And they live in a ‘normal’ neighbourhood with ‘normal’ neighbours, as they like to say.” He looked out the window. “No freaks like me,” he said almost too softly for her to hear.
“I see,” she said slowly, nodding. “Then why are you so skinny?”
“Oh, well, um,” Harry stumbled as he tried to think of an excuse, but then he stopped. He realized something important. This wasn’t a nosey teacher, school nurse, or doctor who would later ignore him. This was a Princess asking the questions. Someone very important. Someone who could help him.
If, that is, she wanted to. She might just do like all the other adults in his life and listen to his stories, promise that things would change, and then do absolutely nothing.
He looked at her with narrowed eyes. He would try once more. Maybe, just maybe, something good would happen this time instead of a beating. Plus, what did he have to lose? If nothing happened then he was no worse off than before.
He looked back at his blanket and swallowed. “My relatives hate me,” he said quietly as he shivered. “My bedroom is the cupboard under the stairs while my cousin gets two bedrooms for his stuff. My cot barely fits, and I barely fit on the cot. The only space I have for stuff is under my cot. All my clothes are worn-out cast-offs from my whale of a cousin.
“The only food I get are the leftovers, if there are any. What makes it worse is that I usually fix breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When I tried to fix more so I could eat properly, I got punished for wasting food.”
He smirked at her, “However, I’ve learned to pick the lock on my cupboard door, and I can usually get late-night snacks while they’re sleeping.” He sighed and shivered again, “But I can’t take too much or they’ll notice. And Dudley sometimes says I ate his snacks just so I get punished. I don’t think he even notices if it’s true or not.”
She nodded, not smiling, just acknowledging that she heard him, and encouraging him to continue.
Once he started he couldn’t stop. He told her about the beatings he got when they blamed him for “freaky” things that he now suspected might have been magic. How he didn’t know either his name — he thought it was Freak — or his birthday until he started school. How Dudley “discouraged” other kids from befriending him and how the game of Harry Hunting got started. How he had never had a birthday party, while having to fix the food for his cousin’s parties. How the Dursley vacations never included him, leaving him with a babysitter while they visited the beach. Only allowed out of his cupboard to clean the house, work in the garden, or go to school — and rarely allowed to go to the local park, such as the day he ended up in Equestria. Not to mention his punishments for daring to get better grades in school than his cousin — he had to be cheating or using his freaky powers!
And that the only friends he really had were the spiders in his closet. They never grumbled about everything he did. They never demanded he do things for them. They quietly listened to his complaints, and even played games with him sometimes.
Then he explained about this latest episode of Harry Hunting and how he had arrived where the three girl ponies had found him.
Finally, he looked up. “And that’s pretty much it,” he finished.
۸-~-۸
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Interesting, Flurry already born or no? Because, as far as I remember, she not only able to teleport herself but also have control over her teleportation. And she... several month old at best? Well, that and she an alicorn :).
oh damn shots fired
8900491 I’ve heard people use coat in the fur context enough times that they’re interchangeable.
8901497
It's a holdover from when people primarily used fur as coats. Now that artificial insulation is superior, most younger people do not make that association.
8901531 Huh. Now I know.
8901448
It's one year after Twilight arrives in Ponyville, and shortly after the Crystal Empire episodes. So Twilight is wingless and Flurry is still a twinkle in her parents eyes.
Keep up the story, I want to see how this story go's
Please tell me there will be divine retribution in the Dursleys future??
I hope Harry doesn't become a bully.
Keep the awesomeness of this epic story coming!!
I have to say I am thoroughly enjoying this so far. There are far too few HP/MLP crossovers for my liking, and most of what there is is either incomplete, abandoned, or not worth reading. This, however, is very good and I hope you finish it out.
I am especially intrigued at how vindictive your Harry is. Most fics don't portray Harry as even considering vengeance against the Dursleys, but your Harry thought of it practically right away. I can only imagine what Dumbledore would say if he knew Harry was considering using magic to punish his relatives. Probably he'd freak out thinking he'd created another Tom Riddle. I would also like to see Dumbledore attempt to convince Celestia to send Harry back to Privet Drive. I can only imagine he'd end up Nightmare Moon's new roommate.
Dumbledore : "So you see, your majesty. Harry must go back. It is for the greater good!"
Celestia : "Interesting, Mr. Dumbledore. Now allow me to present my counter-argument. Girls?"
Mane 6 : *Elements Of Harmony*
Dumbledore : *Mooned*
Celestia : "Welp, that's taken care of. Whose up for some cake to celebrate?"
Anyways, great job so far. Keep it up. Can't wait for more!
You have a new fan.
Yayy!!! New chapter! I'm happy and it was a good chapter too.
Wow. These Dursleys are WAY harsher than their canon counterparts.
8902572
Not especially. In canon, remember, they ignored Dudley when he was Harry Hunting, laughed when he was bitten and treed by Marge's dog, and encouraged Dudley to hit Harry with his stick. Usually, household punishments were to banish him to his cupboard for days at a time. That doesn't exclude corporal punishment, or at least, what Vernon considered corporal punishment. And, somehow, I don't think Vernon was one of those anti-corporal punishment people, quite the opposite, if you ask me.
8902719
Ok, perhaps not WAY harsher. But there was never any evidence that Vernon actually beat Harry, certainly not to the point of bone-breakage. The extent of Harry's chores is up to interpretation, but I don't think Harry making the Dursley's three-meals-a-day was a terribly common occurrence. It certainly happened once, and given Harry's lack of complaining it might have happened before then. But that was Dudley's birthday; there was no indication that it 'usually' happened in the house.
As for the Dursleys never letting Harry know his parents names, headcanon accepted.
8902781
Well, there was that one scene in canon where Petunia took a swing at Harry with a frying pan. Though this is written as a single incident and no indication is given that it's a common thing. The physical injuries seem to be the domain of Dudley and his gang. In fact I recall Vernon lamenting that they hadn't beaten Harry when Hagrid comes to find him.
"I admit that there is something strange about you, boy. Nothing a good beating mightn't of cured."
This tells me that the Dursleys didn't take the step of actually beating him, but also that Vernon was considering it, and probably only didn't do so for fear of the "freaks" finding out. However, while the Dursleys (except Dudley) hadn't abused Harry physically, they certainly did so psychologically. The fact that they got away without any punishment for the years of shit they put Harry through is one of the biggest problems I have with the series.
8902937
yep. i have to agree.
Hey I like this story. It's a nice take and I'm excited to see where this goes. I wish you the best and look forward to the update!
OK, this is a bit of a problem.
Up until this point, it was a bit unusual, but believable for Harry to know about things like Dark Energy and the irreproducibility of ESP phenomena under controlled conditions from being nearby when the TV was on, and reading what materials he could get his hands on... but this is different.
It just doesn't feel plausible for him to be able to rattle off all of that without any in-story explanation/justification. How can he possibly know the time and place of his birth? That doesn't seem like the kind of thing the Dursleys would let him know. ...and why is he able to rattle it all off like that without any pauses, like a solider refusing to answer his captor's questions? The delivery feels oddly practiced and the content more like a pseudo-exposition dump that was included, not because he'd know it, but because it was convenient for the plot.
8926480 It was in the letter the Dursleys got. it must have been something he found while cleaning the house
8926480
Is it impossible to believe that Dumbledore ensured that a copy of his birth certificate made it to the Dursley's? If nothing else but to support their assertion that he is their nephew and not some child they kidnapped from somewhere? And they would make sure that he told everyone that he wasn't their child, but Petunia's sister's. Hence his spiel. The time of birth was something Pertunia would bring up if she were contrasting how a proper baby doesn't arrive at such an ungodly hour, and again using it to put down Harry.
I'm liking this story so far but I gotta ask what is up with the ponies having difficulties with his first name? It's Harry like the word hairy which I have to believe ponies are familiar with. As far as human names go it really isn't that different from a pony name, at most they might not know how it's spelt.
8983590
You're thinking American terms. In England they say Harry as Hahry.
9010185
Honestly I thought they were pronouncing it phonetically, I kept expecting to see it spelled "Hah-Ree" at some point.
some how i can see Princess Celestia going full Daybraker on the Dursleys.
Some uppity school headmaster, who is also the head of his society's court system, and the head of his society's version of the UN (how does he find enough time to properly cover all three jobs' responsibilities?), did that.
He couldn't verbally convince your relatives to take you in, no; he wanted you, Harry, out of the way until you were 11, where you would see him as a saviour and not really question his decisions or motives.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Well, later on, Sirius (your godfather) would ask you if you wanted to live with him; the only reason nothing came of that is because he was never given the trial he so rightfully deserved. Not his fault in the slightest.
I simply have to state firstly you're writing is impressive. The story is intriguing and the look into the abused mind of Harry is a change from the movies where we can't truly see what happens inside his head. Thank you for this story.
9084620
Firstly, the movies are inferior; because of the somewhat-strict 2-hour running time, many "unimportant" plot threads have to be changed or abandoned; for example, Dobby only really appears in HP movies 2 and 7 (also maybe 8; don't quite remember), when he also appeared in books 4 and 5.
Peeves, a recurring character in the books (and who gains more prominence in book 5), never appeared on-screen.
In book 4, when Harry's name comes out of the eponymous Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore 'calmly' asks him if he submitted his name. In the movie, Dumbledore grabs him and strictly demands the teen answer. Video
Secondly, the books kinda cover Harry's mental state, but never in much detail; Rowling wanted the books to be more about the overall action, adventure, mystery and narrative than the effects Harry's upbringing left on him. In the end, it's as if the book's Dursleys aren't as harsh as the ones in this story; canon-Harry never gets overwhelmingly terrified of the half-giant intruder, nor does he question magic much at all.
9088578
That's because they're not, in the books they are jerks but they don't want Harry dead. They are overly strict but will only punish Harry when given a reason, they just don't care if that reason is magic Harry has no control over or Dudley making something up.
The fandom tends to blow it out of proportion, yeah it was bad but the way some people talk about them you'd think they were worse than the people who actually wanted to kill Harry.
9088678 Rather like how certain segments of the Brony fandom decided Celestia was a tyrant for imprisoning NMM for a thousand years and deserved to die in all manner of insane fanfics which yet portrayed NMM as an insane nymphomaniac who raped and murdered ponies... yet was somehow justified.
Let's face it, fandoms often attract wackos.
8901820
pffffffft (epic level spit-take) what? why would you subjetct Nyx to such a horrible fate as getting the MOG as a roommate?
8902572
not really. at least these ones occasionally feed him.
9059244
he doesn't. he has not done anything school related outside of feasts and dropping important classes and dumbing down the few remaining classes for over 20 years.
*harry and celestia arrive at the Dursleys house*
“This the place?”
“Yep”
“I’m gonna burn those bastards to the ground.”
*fire ensues*
9138522
I see it like this:
pre00.deviantart.net/7363/th/pre/i/2015/183/b/4/diplomacy_by_doublewbrothers-d8zm7a1.jpg
Forth panel
9134305
Except he's already done that song and dance a couple of times in the story already.
To the author: Let me begin by saying I deeply appreciate that you forthrightly described the significantly non-canon behavior of the HP characters and let me know what to expect. Sometimes such warnings let me amicably depart without wasting a bunch of time, and sometimes they let me enjoy the story more by being mentally prepared.
I personally find crossovers with this "feature" to be most tolerable when there is a "clean break": the OOC parts are as minimal as can be managed to extract the character from his original setting and get him to the new one, and once that's done focus is taken away from the past OOC events as much as can be managed. So far, that hasn't been the case.
(The sad thing for me is that I don't think it would even be too hard to shoehorn the precipitating event into what I'd perceive as a more canon-compliant setting: Dudley is definitely a bully who doesn't mind getting physical, and he's not too bright. So it's not too hard to imagine that he would react enthusiastically if some random sadist wandered by and decided to give some tips just for the hell of it. His parents obviously look the other way for "schoolyard fight" level injuries, but I doubt the Dursleys would treat hospitalization-worthy injuries so cavalierly; but Dudley is not too bright, and shortsighted, and he's just going along with the fun—the escalation wasn't his idea, after all, and I would not expect him to have a keen eye for the damage he's doing. Harry cannot be expected to realize that Dudley has finally passed the limit of what the Dursleys are willing to overlook, and escapes as in your story, thinking they are willing to let their son all but kill him. Honestly, I thought that you wrote Dudley and his friends pretty well in that moment: "we have no idea what we're getting into but it seems cool". It's the backstory that bothers me.)
Anyway, once in Equestria I certainly didn't expect everypony to ignore the question of how Harry came to be in this condition, but I was hoping it would not be the overriding focus of the story, even over the process of recovery and over his finding himself in a new world with a new body with new friends bent on educating him on the joys of getting a cutie mark. But not only has it been the focus so far, but Harry's thoughts are turning to revenge—understandable but worrisome for my hope that this will get swept under a rug, plotwise.
What precipitated this comment was the line about Harry growing up thinking his name was "Freak". I've seen it in other stories but it never fails to strike me as the worst sort of melodrama. I obviously don't expect you to rewrite your story for me but I don't know if I can take any more of that level of this. I need to stop for the night. I'll come back later and hope that's the high-water mark and the floodwaters recede from there.
[edit: P.S. I love you for this: "And if anyone notices a grammatical or spelling mistake, please tell me. It's never too late to fix a mistake."]
You have an extra letter here. Drop the bolded y.
Dark Energy wasn't discovered until 1998, which is when Harry was 18. They knew about Dark Matter then, but not Dark Energy, which is quite different.
Everyone jumping to defense of the Dursleys... I remind you people that these were the people that kept a child in a closet for 11 years, treating him as a slave instead of their ward and nephew, treating him like dirt at every turn, while letting their son use him as his personal punching bag. It is entirely believable that their abuse could have been as worse as in this fic, as in canon we only ever really saw the tail end of it (and the books/movies were intended for kids-teens so they weren't supposed to get that sort of dark). It was only after Hagrid turned up, tried to transfigure Dudley into a pig while implying dire consequences if Harry wasn't allowed to attend school that his situation improved at all, not that threat of magic kept them from continually doing what they could to make him miserable, and the second they found out about the underage magic restriction they tried to revert things back to before his letter(s) came. And then in book five we find out that they only kept Harry at all is because Dumbledore threatened them! If there were no actual beatings in canon, it's likely only because they were afraid of possible retaliation.
And honestly, the implication that Dumbledore and/or the Ministry were obliviating people to keep Harry's abuse under wraps so the muggle authorities wouldn't remove him from their 'care' makes a lot of sense too, since even without anything here that wasn't explicitly in the books, Harry's situation can only be described as an abusive home, and I can't believe no one in Surry aside from Ms. Figg(who even had to keep him miserable enough that the Dursleys wouldn't keep her away from him too) had enough heart to try and do anything.
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... KABOOM...
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To be entirely honest, Dumbledore keeping an eye on him the entire time and actively threatening the Dursleys to keep looking after him just makes their treatment of him worse, since that makes it DUMBLEDORE-APPROVED abuse/neglect. It's just one of those unfortunate details I think Rowling likely never bothered to think about too hard.
I'm surprised no one has pointed this out, but I find it highly improbable that Harry would say he slept on a cot. You're using "cot" as meaning a simple (usually small) bed, but that's only accurate in American English.
In British English, "cot" is synonymous with "crib". It's for babies, and sometimes toddlers.
To quote the first book of the Harry Potter series... for the first few years of his life, he thought his name was "boy", not "Freak"- Vernon always called him "boy", and told him he was "a freak". Unless that's something you're doing differently under the AU tag.
I have noticed that a lot of HP fics discount Harry's canon not-nearly-that-bad reactions to the Dursleys. Sure, it was terrible- but he clearly had a coping mechanism in place, so he didn't actively dread it with a mortal fear like most people seem to think. That said, and acknowledging that I'm on a re-read through your fic here, I like how you've done it- the HP side of things feels very in-character. At least so far- last time I read this story, it had been a few years since I read the HP books, and now I've recently listened to the first HP audiobook. I like how you're handling it, what with Harry expecting punishments, knowing he should keep his mouth shut, but forcing himself to say it anyways. There were quite a few times in the HP books he did just that with the Dursleys, just to have a little fun- even if he knew he would pay dearly for it... and old habits die hard.
And that's completely not considering any potential magic-help-him-speak-up-spells that may or may not be going on (I don't think so, but it's possible).
After that day Celestia banished Dumbledore to the Sun
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Nope this time it's the dursleys fault and the sun is too good a place for them and i doubt celestia would want that filth on her celestial body.
Her mane in the show is a rainbow of various colors, unless you’re hinting at the rage she’s feeling over his treatment.
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Or the author could be changing how she looks. It isn’t necessarily cannon.
I just realized, since "food" is singular, shouldn't the next word be "is" instead of "are"? The other "are" is fine, as that's referencing the plural "leftovers". Alternatively, you could replace the word food with "meals" (including the quotation marks), and then the first "are" would be targeting a plural.
Normally I wouldn't bring up an issue that small in a story this old, but the A/N was asking for it.
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Very good catch, by the way.
While you are certainly correct, because this is Harry speaking, we can accept his non-grammatical structure, in view of his age.