Harry Potter, age eight, lived at Number Four Privet Drive with his Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and Cousin Dudley. The Dursleys are his only living relatives and Harry had ended up living with them after his parent's deaths. All Harry knew about his parents passing was that a family friend had gotten them killed. Supposedly Harry had a Godfather that had hunted down the family friend and brought him to the police, but was severely injured in the process. If his supposed Godfather ever awoke from his coma Harry would be given the chance to live with him. But it had been seven years and the supposed Godfather still hadn't shown up.
The Dursleys were a normal family and proud of it. They took Harry in fed and clothed him and sent him to school, all perfectly normal things for a family to do when taking in an orphaned family member. Vernon worked at a company called Grunning's that made drills and supplied them to large construction firms in bulk. Petunia was a stay at home mother and looked after Dudley and Harry. All in all a completely normal family, Vernon had recently renovated the attic for use as Harry's new bedroom. The small second bedroom on the second floor was better to keep for guests. Vernon had been advised that the resale value of the home would increase with a fully finished attic bedroom by a colleague at work. If the smile on the large man's face after the appraisers left was any indication his colleague had been correct.
So now Harry was situated in his new bedroom with all his things neatly put away. If Harry had anything he liked better about his new bedroom it would be the increased space and the larger window that overlooked the backyard. He looked forward to being able to see the stars at night. Harry was a fairly perceptive boy, especially for his age, so he'd noticed over the years that while his Aunt and Uncle took care of him they still kept him at arm's length emotionally. They never got very attached to him and he sometimes caught them looking at him if something odd happened for no apparent reason. But Harry couldn't really complain about his life much. He was fed, clothed, educated and left to play when his chores were done.
"Harry, we're going to have to store a few of the old boxes back up here again. There isn't room in the garage for the car with all the boxes in it." Vernon informed his nephew as he carried up a cardboard box with the words 'School Things' written on the side in marker.
"Ok, Uncle Vernon. Do you need help?" Harry asked politely.
"If you'd bring up some of the small boxes that would be brilliant." Vernon nodded as he placed the 'School Things' box in the furthest corner of the attic bedroom.
"Alright." Harry replied as he made his way down the short staircase that Vernon had replaced the old trapdoor with. The brand new wooden door that separated Harry's room was at the top of these stairs and it made accessing the new room much easier. It was only about twenty minutes later that the furthest corner of Harry's new room had about a dozen cardboard boxes stacked against it as well as eight shoeboxes filled with bits and bobs Vernon and Petunia had collected over the years.
"Well dinner won't be ready for another two hours, wonder what's in some of these?" Harry wondered aloud as he approached the cardboard boxes. Going through a few of them revealed ordinary things, a few holiday decorations, some extra winter clothes, old baby toys from when he and Dudley had been toddlers. It was only when Harry looked into the first box Vernon had brought up, the 'School Things' box, that he found something interesting. Old leather bound books, quills and inkwells, a strange type of heavy paper he thought might be called parchment, and most curiously a notebook that had the word 'Notes' written on it with a name under it. The name is what was truly odd to Harry, 'Lily Evans' was his mother's name before she got married according to Aunt Petunia. But the sisters had grown apart after they went to different Secondary Schools. As far as he was aware neither sister had kept the things of the other. Unknown to anybody at the moment there was a box nearly identical to the one Harry was browsing through sitting in the Potter Family Vault in Gringotts. It was filled with Petunia's old Secondary School textbooks and other school supplies.
Eager for a chance to know more about his mother, Harry cracked open the notebook and started to read. Harry had a high reading level, one of the best in his class, and was able to understand most of the words. Though several of them sounded like gibberish. But for the next hour Harry read his mother's old school notes and learned that Magic was real. Harry came across terms he didn't understand; Runes, Arithmancy, Occlumency, Potions, Charms, Transfiguration all marked with their own place in the notebook. Looking back into the box Harry found that these unknown terms had matching textbooks. With a strange sort of giddiness at possibly learning from his mother, even if only indirectly, Harry packed the books back up and headed down for dinner. Just as he descended the short staircase onto the second floor Petunia called for Harry and Dudley to come down for dinner. The evening meal was filled with chatter between the three Dursleys with occasional input from Harry.
"So, Harry, did you enjoy the day camp this summer?" Vernon asked his nephew. Vernon had paid just under three hundred pound sterling to send Harry to a summer day camp for two weeks near the end of July. Harry had actually celebrated his Birthday only two days after the camp ended.
"Yes, Uncle Vernon, it was fun." Harry replied getting a short nod from Vernon.
"Good, glad they kept you interested, shows they're doing their job right." Vernon commented. The main reason Vernon had paid for such a camp, besides it being relatively cheap for two weeks of day camp, was because it was a camp that taught old craftsmen skills and focused on helping children become independent and confident. Harry had always been a little closed off from the other kids his age, somewhere between shy and too far ahead of his peers intellectually. This camp was supposed to help kids break out of their shells by teaching groups of children a new skill or craft together. They offered things like needlework, wood carving, the basics of blacksmithing, and even pottery making. Harry had shown prodigious talent in his Arts class in school so Vernon had signed him up for the camp. The boy hadn't been anymore talkative but it gave him somewhere to go for the day for at least two weeks of the summer. Harry had at least enjoyed himself and had tried his hand at practically everything offered, even the needlework course which was considered 'girly' by the other boys his age. Harry had thought learning how to stitch and sew hand been fun.
After dinner Harry went back up to his room and continued from where he had left off in his mother's notes. Deciding to pick up the first book mentioned in his mother's notes, 'Magical Theory' by Adalbert Waffling, Harry set to reading about Magic. He stayed up late that night reading, only stumbling over completely unfamiliar terms and resolving to look up in the dictionary as many of the words that he didn't recognize as he could.
It was the week before Harry and Dudley returned to Primary School when Harry started practicing what was called Occlumency. While Harry didn't think he'd ever met a Wizard or Witch, except maybe that one guy in the top hat who'd given him a bow at the store, the thought that someone could read his mind was scary. So he'd set about trying to practice and learn this Occlumency. The first step involved meditation, a word Harry had needed to look up, so he sat on his bed in the attic and tried to focus on his breathing. After failing the first night and the second, Harry finally felt like he had managed to get his head clear for at least a minute or two on the third night. These nightly meditation attempts bore fruit in late November when Harry finally found himself able to slip into what the book called a meditative state. After continuing to practice throughout the remainder of the year Harry took his first leap into learning Magic when one night he found himself imagining a void of dull light filled with small orbs of slightly brighter light.
'This is weird.' Harry thought as he observed the orbs, each no bigger than a ping pong ball, as they drifted through this space. 'I thought I wasn't supposed to think of anything?' The boy wondered to himself before blinking and finding himself sitting on his bed again.
"What in the world?" Harry questioned himself as he tried to make heads or tails of what had just happened. The next night's session brought him back to the dull void and its numerous floating orbs again. Harry watched on and observed to try and figure out what this place was. He took note that some of the orbs where a blueish-white while the others where a purplish-black. He tried to count them and lost track when they kept moving around. He eventually was able to get a count of one small area and counted thirty two orbs, with about seventeen blue-white ones and fifteen purple-black ones. Just before he opened his eyes in his bed again Harry noticed one of the blue-white orbs and one of the purple-black orbs colliding and becoming a single orb of silvery-grey.
These nightly sessions continued through the rest of winter. Harry would find himself in the dull void and watch the orbs. He'd discovered that the orbs would sometimes collide and form a silvery-grey orb for a good length of time. Though Harry noticed that time may be a bit off considering he never knew how long he was in the dull void. Eventually Harry couldn't hold back his curiosity and touched one of the blue-white orbs. It didn't have a real feeling was the only way to describe it, sort of like trying to hold a breeze. He could move the orb in whatever direction he wanted but other than that he couldn't interact with it. Next he touched a purple-black orb and the feeling was similar, only this one felt like trying to stop a chill in the air with your hands. No substance just a coolness that was there and then gone. Harry's eyes snapped open in his bed again and he flopped back as he tried to sleep his mind buzzing with curiosity.