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Harry Potter was not your average six-year-old, thank you very much. You see, by that age, young Harry had experienced more horrible things than most adults experienced in their whole life. Harry’s parents had been murdered in front of him when he was only fifteen months old, and while his Aunt Petunia kept claiming that they had been killed in a car accident, due to his father's drunk driving, Harry remembered the screams.
Harry may have been only a year old at the time, but the poor child still remembered his mother begging to spare his life and the green light that silenced her forever. He remembered the man that cast it turning to him after his mother's now lifeless body hit the ground in front of his crib. He remembers the green light rushing at him then, until he suddenly didn't remember, as he passed out when it hit him. Little Harry woke up an hour later to a man crying in front of him on the floor, his mother's body clutched in his arms. The man never turned to look at Harry, but he eventually left the destroyed house once a loud engine was heard outside. That was when he finally turned to look at the now bleeding Harry. He sneered at the child and simply said, "I dread our next meeting." Once the man was gone, Harry remembered his Uncle Pads rushing into his room. His tear-filled eyes glanced only momentarily at Lily’s body on the floor before he rushed to Harry and picked him up from his crib. Harry remembered burying his head in the crook of his Uncle Pads neck as he rushed them outside. Once outside of the slowly collapsing house, another new man came into Harry’s eyesight. This man was larger than both his Uncle Pads and Uncle Moony combined. Harry barely remembered the hushed argument that took place between the two men as he quickly fell asleep in his Uncle Pads protective arms.
The next thing Harry could remember was waking up to the outraged screeches of his Aunt, a noise that he quickly learned to get used to after that. Harry spent the next six years being used and abused by his 'loving' relatives. So, when a freshly six-year-old Harry was told that he would be going on the Dursley’s family vacation to America, he was shocked. Little Harry did not voice his shock though, as he had learned by the time, he was three that asking questions did not get you answers it just got you bruises.
One month after he was told about his inclusion on the trip, little Harry was sat on his first ever plane. The Dursleys had to buy him a seat close to them as to not draw concern, but Harry at least had an aisle between him and his kicking cousin, who did not want to have to be seated for a 7-hour long flight. Harry slept most of the flight as his Uncle had a firm talking to with him an hour before they left Number 4 Privat Drive, that left Harry’s little body bruised.
Once the flight had landed, the four collected their belongings and headed to their hotel. The next week was one of the most confusing weeks of Harry’s young life. He got to sleep on the most comfortable bed that he had ever felt, he was given food from the vendors when his cousin got some, and he was even able to go sightseeing. Harry had never been included like this before.
But then little Harry woke up on what was supposed to be the eighth day of the vacation, though instead of being in the comfy bed, he woke up in the alley beside the hotel. He had run in at once when he realized this, certain that his Uncle would be furious with him. He had thankfully remembered what rooms that the family had booked, so he went up to them, only to find the Dursley’s belongings gone and a maid cleaning the rooms. It was then that he realized what had happened. His family had abandoned him in a different country so that they would no longer have to deal with him. Little Harry slinked out of the hotel as his mind began spiraling for what he was meant to do.
The first year that Harry spent on the streets of New York City was not a good one. It was always either too hot or too cold to be able to sleep and the other people did not like him being close to their own makeshift shelters. He ate little, but did manage to learn a lot, like how to slip someone's wallet out of their pocket, or when certain restaurants threw out food, or which shelter offered clothes without asking questions, but the most important thing he learned was what to watch out for in the eyes of someone that was telling him to trust him. Little Harry had fallen for that one too many times and it had never gone well for him, so he learned to look out for sinister smiles and too excited eyes. So, while that first year was rough, nothing could have prepared him for what was to come during his second year on the streets.
On May 4 the aliens came. Harry watched in horror from his run-down fire escape, that he had claimed for his own a week prior, while ginormous whale like aliens flew through the air. One of the smaller aliens, that was the same size as the man that took him away from his Uncle Pads when he was one, tried to attack him. Thankfully over the previous year alone, Harry had somewhat figured out how to control what his relatives labeled his freakishness. So, Harry climbed on top of the building that his fire escape was on, as he had learned that when his enemy was with him in a small space, he was trapped, and Harry did not like being trapped. Once he had both feet on the gravel of the roof, the fight began. The alien attacked mercilessly, while Harry dodged this way and that, using his magic to create a shield in front of him whenever the aliens staff got to close to him. Once the fight had been going on for ten minutes, little Harry began getting tired, as his magic tended to make him sleepy after he used it for too long. So, Harry blamed his tiredness for what happened next. The aliens swung his staff again, but this time, Harry’s shield did not withstand the hit, allowing for the sharpened object to tear a gash all down the right side of his face. Harry instantly dropped to his knees at that and clutched his hands to his bleeding face. He looked up at the alien after only a second to see it raising its staff to strike him, but something magical happened, and not the kind of magic Harry has. An arrow suddenly cut through the head of the alien, causing it to instantly crumble to the ground in front of Harry. As he stared at the now dead alien, a man landed just to the left of a still bleeding Harry, drawing his attention away from the slain being.
"You need some help kid?" The bow and arrow clad man questioned as he took a step toward Harry, who tried to quickly scramble away. "Woah, woah," the man said as he raised his hands in surrender and stopped approaching Harry. "I'm not going to hurt you, I just wanted to bring you somewhere safe." This did nothing to settle Harry as he had heard those words many times before, so the seven-year-old just shook his head aggressively, splattering blood everywhere as he did. The man stared at the clearly frightened child for a moment before muttering to himself for a second. "Listen kid, everyone's being evacuated outta here and you clearly need medical help, I'm just gonna take you to one of the places that got set up for that so someone can stitch up your face and find your parents." After he spoke the two stared at each other for a moment before Harry finally nodded. The man approached again, slower this time, then picked Harry up in his arms. It took around three minutes for the man to get them to a place where Harry could be passed off to an officer who quickly brought him to a trauma tent where a nurse stitched up his face.
After that, people in the tent that had clip boards and name tags kept asking Harry his name and his parents name, but he kept his mouth shut, slipping out of the tent when a new batch of injured people were brought in. Harry watched for two more hours as aliens massacred the city he had been abandoned in.
The rebuilding of New York City after the Chitauri was a long process. Harry had to move his sleep place far more frequently now with all the construction going on, so he was only able to stay in the same place, three maybe four days, a week at the most. Harry had kept the stitches in his face for seven days as the book he snagged from the library said that face stitches were meant to stay in for five to seven days. Taking it out hurt, but not as much as it would have if not for his magic, which he was exceedingly grateful for. And while the gash had mostly healed, he was now left with a scar covering one half of his face.
Harry was no stranger to scars as he had them on his back, his stomach, his hands, arms, feet, legs, everywhere really. But up until the Chitauri attack, he had only one scar on his face, a lightning bolt shaped mark on the center of his forehead that was barely the size of his pinky finger. And as that scar was mostly faded, still visible but not noticeable at first, suddenly having a huge mark on his face was somewhat off putting for the soon to be eight-year-old.
After the attacks Harry spent another three smoldering summers on the streets of New York City. He spent it much the same as the year before, keeping his head down and eating when he could. But as summer turned to fall and fall into winter and winter into spring and spring into summer and summer back into fall, something happened that Harry was not anticipating. In November, a lady began giving him food and clothes. She wasn't like the other ones that Harry had seen offering some of the other kids on the street things, as they wore name tags and carried bibles, instead this lady wore hospital scrubs and talked more about her husband, Ben, and her nephew, Peter, than she ever did about God.
It took months of work from the lady, who told Harry to call her May, for Harry to be convinced to go with her to Central Park to meet her husband and nephew who she was having a picnic with. Once Harry had arrived, May ushered him over to a spot under a tree where she promptly introduced Ben and Peter.
Peter looked exactly opposite of what Harry himself looked like whenever he was living with his Aunt and Uncle. Peter looked well taken care of and loved and he looked happy to be there with his Aunt and Uncle. Harry felt jealousy churn in his stomach at this but pushed it away as he knew if he was cold toward Peter, May would stop bringing him food.
Once the initial awkwardness had passed of Harry’s almost jealousy, the two ten-year-old boys hit it off great, surprising the two adults and themselves. The picnic went so great in the fact that it accomplished more than anyone thought it would, so when May approached Harry asking if he wanted to spend the night, as Peter had a bunk bed, it only took two minutes of Harry weighing his options for him to give an answer of sure.
After that first night, Harry just never ended up leaving, and by the time Peter's eleven birthday rolled around, which was ten days after Harry’s, adoption papers were signed for custody of the now eleven-year-old. Harry was even put into a homeschooling program once the adoption was finalized, as he had never received a proper education do to the 'loving' care of the Dursleys.
The next two years passed with ups and downs, as there is only so much one can do to help a traumatized child, as recovery is not a straight road, but the now family of four took each day as it came. Some days it was May in an overworked state crying at the drop of a hat, other days it was a sleep deprived Ben unable to focus on anything, some days it was Peter refusing to come out of his bed because he wanted his parents, and other days it was Harry refusing to talk to anyone or let anyone touch him, or Harry apologizing with tears streaming down his face for simple dropping the remote onto the floor. But those days compared little to the days when the family was happy, safe, and content together, none of them mentioning the extra firm hold that Peter kept on his family and friends when giving hugs, or that the only people that could touch Harry being May, Ben, and Peter, and how his eyes searched every room he entered for a danger that was not there.
Yes, you see Harry Potter-Parker was a happy, safe, and content twelve-year-old on July 24 when the strange man, that he remembered clutching his mother's dead body and crying, arrived on the Parker's doorstep with a letter in his hand and a sneer on his face.
