The Boy Who Lived

Meeting Draco Malfoy

The year that Harry was due to start at Hogwarts as a student was also the year the Minerva was promoted again, this time to the position of Deputy Headmistress.

'You'll have to call me "Professor", like everyone else,' she forewarned. 'I can't be seen to be favouring you. I'll have to call you "Mr Potter" too.'

Harry wrinkled his nose.

They decided together that when Harry started properly at Hogwarts, he would start school openly as Harry Potter. Not in a 'ta-da' kind of way, just in a *shrug* this is who I've always been. As the summer approached, Harry also made the decision that he didn't want to Glamour his scar anymore.

'If they see it, they see it,' he'd mutter. 'They're all going to be staring at it in September anyway,' he shrugged. Though he started to consciously brush his unruly hair forward, as if to hide his scar.

That summer, Minerva also made Harry read the books about himself, just so he understood the change that was going to happen.

'It's all bollocks!' he muttered.

'Language, Harry!' Minerva exclaimed, quite shocked. 'You need to stop hanging around those Weasley twins, they're a bad influence. What's... rubbish?'

'This stuff they've written about me. None of them actually know.'

'That's why I'm making you read it, so you understand what you're about to face. And you'll get more of this when it becomes public knowledge who you are. Everyone will have an opinion about you based on suppositions like this. It was the best thing to hide you in plain sight. Those that know you, those that matter, know you for who you are from you and not from this fiction.'

'Everyone except Snape,' he muttered.

'Professor Snape,' she corrected.

'I don't want to be famous,' he would grumble over dinner. 'I want to stay as just Harry.'

He'd got his round glasses now and he would push them up his nose with his index finger and then run his hand through his messy hair just as James had done. It made Minerva smile. She had never tried to tame his wild raven locks; he wouldn't have been his father's son if she had.

'You'll be just Harry to most of us, that's who we know you as.'

As July came to an end, Minerva was becoming more and more involved in the preparation for the new academic year and as Hagrid was running some errand for Dumbledore in London, it was arranged that he should collect Harry from his annual trip at Little Whinging and take him to Diagon Alley for his school things. It would be the first time Harry would be allowed to access his parent's vault at Gringotts Bank too.

Harry was tremendously excited. It was also to be his first trip to London. Minerva avoided the place at all costs, not least because she didn't like the smelly choked din of town and the way it reminded her of her early days in the DMLE and of Elphin, but also because the risks of Harry being recognised rose exponentially in the city.

Minerva Apparated them both to Privet Drive and for the first time in nine and half years, she felt an awful lump in her throat and horrible nerves in the pit of her stomach because she was leaving him there and not staying.

Petunia withered slightly under the glare of the older woman and reluctantly took in her nephew. Dudley just stared at his cousin with his mouth hanging open; Harry was still scrawny and not particularly tall; Dudley could have taken him out by just puffing in his face but everyone was scared of him and even more scared of the Witch that accompanied him every year.

The stay was uneventful for all three, they mainly sat in awkward silence as there was not an ounce of commonality between them. Eventually, Harry took himself off to bed, to his room. He had gone to kiss Petunia goodnight first and she'd recoiled, unused to such behaviour, though she relented and stuck her head forward, twisting her head away from him on her long neck so he could give her a peck on the cheek. It felt odd for a boy who was used to the affection he and Minnie showed each other.