Chapter Text
Harry is five when he realizes something is very wrong.
Ever since he was born, he hasn’t been able to see at night. He thought it was normal, that nobody can see at night, but he brings it up at four to his aunt and she informs him, very rudely, that he’s not normal and even more of a freak because of it. He gets glasses later that year but they do nothing to help him at night.
When he finally goes to school, it’s his teacher who notices he’s acting differently. His teacher notices how he’s squinting so much that his eyes are almost closed behind his glasses. His teacher notices that when he writes something on the board, Harry will stand up and get closer to the board just to see it. His teachers notices all of these things and places him at the front of the class and further up without him asking him to. It definitely helps for the remainder of that year.
When he turns six and goes back to school, his new teacher has already been informed by his old teacher that he needs to sit at the front. But the front doesn’t help anymore because he can’t see, his glasses don’t help. He has to stand up and almost place his nose against the board to make out what might be in front of him.
When he turns seven, he starts going to special classes every other day to help him learn how to live now that he’s totally blind. Luckily for Harry, the Dursley’s aren’t informed of this class because his teachers assume the Dursley’s know, that it was them who suggested he take the class. Unbeknownst to them and Harry, it was Harry’s first teacher who suggested Harry start learning braille and how to navigate properly.
He spends all year in pre-Braille training and the next year actually learning the language. When he’s nine, the teachers pitch in to buy him a cane because for some reason, he doesn’t have one yet. He stopped wearing his glasses the year before and gets complimented all the time on his green eyes. He’s glad he has a distant idea of what green looks like because nobody seems to know how to describe it.
He’s honestly surprised by how little this has affected his life with the Dursleys. He used to drop things and burn things and mess up the garden but now that he’s had a few years of getting used to being blind, he doesn’t do those things as much. Sometimes he burns the food, sometimes he messes up the garden, sometimes he bumps into Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon and they yell at him, but not much has changed, if he’s being honest, other than Dudley grabbing his cane and whacking him with it sometimes.
When he turns ten, he makes a friend who isn’t totally blind like him but still understands him better than any other kid or teacher does.
When he turns eleven, Hagrid tells him about a new world he’s not used to. One he doesn’t know how to navigate, one where people like him and praise him.
It’s the first time his blindness truly affects him. It’s the first time he realizes that he can’t talk his way out of this one. He can’t make up excuses or push people away because people are going to be watching his every move. His every uncoordinated move.
He has his first panic attack in the middle of the Leaky Cauldron. People were touching him and calling his names and thanking him for something he doesn’t know anything about and it was just too much. Hagrid helps him through it with expertise, something that should be unusual but isn’t. Afterward, Hagrid keeps a soft grip on his shoulder and guides him through Diagon Alley, making sure to keep him away from hands and feet and anything else that might make him feel uneasy or make him panic.
When he gets his wand, Harry realizes he might be able to do this. Magic isn’t all about sight, like he previously thought. He could feel it coursing through him, could feel it run all the way down his arm and out of his wand, and he loved it. He tells his owl all about it later, about how it felt, and he doesn’t care if she’s asleep or not.
His books, he realizes the next morning, are in Braille. He wonders if Hagrid bought them specifically for him or if the books are magical too and know that he needs them to be in Braille. He spends hours reading books and his fingertips go numb but he continues reading. He finds the name Hedwig and thinks it’s fantastic for his new owl, who is apparently a snowy owl and very beautiful, if Hagrid was correct.
He thinks that his previous panic was ridiculous. He can do this. He’s never backed down before, though he seriously thought about it when he was in pre-Braille training.
He’s Harry freakin’ Potter and if the world thinks he can do anything, then he’s going to prove them right.
OoOo
“Excuse me,” Harry hopes he’s speaking in the right direction.
“First time at Hogwarts, dear? Ron’s new too.” the lady speaks gently.
Harry swallows, “Yes. The thing is — the thing is, I don’t know how to —“
“How to get onto the platform?” she finishes and Harry nods. “Not to worry. All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don’t stop and don’t be scared you’ll crash into it, that’s very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you’re nervous. Go on, go before Ron.”
Harry blinks, “Er… I’m sorry, I don’t mean to bother, but I can’t see. Where exactly should I walk?”
The woman pauses, “How do you mean, dear?”
“I’m blind, ma’am.”
“Oh!” she exclaims. “Silly me. I’m sorry. Here, you can run with Ron, he can lead you there.”
“Thank you,” Harry says. “I can just hold your elbow, if that’s alright.”
“‘Course,” a different voice, it must be Ron’s, says. When Harry holds his hand out, Ron places his elbow into it and Harry grips it tightly. “I’m going to run but I won’t go too fast. It’s just straight ahead.”
Harry nods. Ron counts down from three and Harry runs with him straight into… a barrier, if the woman is to be trusted. It doesn’t feel like one, though, because there’s no resistance nor does Harry crash into a wall. Suddenly, the quiet of King's Cross is replaced by loud chatter and the sound of what must be the train. It’s kind of overwhelming but Harry made it through Diagon Alley so he can get through this.
“Do you want me to help you get on the train?” Ron asks him.
Harry looks at the direction of his voice, “Really?”
“Well… you said you were blind. I don’t know, I felt like you might want somebody to at least lead you to an empty compartment.”
Harry nods quickly, “Yeah! That’d be great.”
“I’m Ron, by the way. Ron Weasley,” Ron is walking now and Harry follows suit.
“Harry Potter.”
Ron freezes and Harry stumbles on his own feet but manages to stay upright. “Harry Potter? Like… like the Harry Potter?”
“Yes. I am him, last I checked,” Harry shrugs. “At least I hope so.”
Ron laughs and Harry smiles. He starts walking again and Harry does too. “Sorry. I just didn’t expect to meet you so soon. I knew you’d be at school this year but I never thought we’d meet before we got to school.”
Harry hums, “I’m glad we did. I wouldn’t have known how to get to school in the first place.”
“Oh, Ronald, you've got something on your nose,” the woman, who Harry’s assumes is Ron’s mother, starts talking again and Harry doesn’t know if she’s been walking with them the whole time. He shuts his mouth as Ron starts whining as his mother, Harry assumes, starts to clean his nose off.
“Aw, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nose?” a different voice says. Harry looks at it and tries to glue it to his memory.
“Shut up,” Ron mumbles.
“Where’s Percy?”
Harry stays silent as their mother says goodbye to ‘Percy’ who is something called a ‘Prefect’ and when she tells the two boys Harry heard earlier pretending to be each other to stay out of trouble. They must be twins, Harry thinks.
Eventually, Harry gets on the train with Ron and Ron helps him put their trunks and Hedwig in the corner. Harry sits down and Ron sits across from him. The train jerks and starts moving.
“I don’t mean to be rude but, um… you’re blind?” Ron says after a few minutes of silence.
Harry nods, “I wasn’t always. I’ve never been able to see at night but by the time I was seven, I couldn’t see at all. I learned how to use a cane and how to read Braille in school, though I forgot my cane at home.”
“Right. I heard you lived with muggles.”
Harry’s nose scrunches up, “With my aunt, uncle, and cousin, yeah. I didn’t know I was a wizard until my birthday.”
“Really?” Ron says. “Wow.”
“Are all your family wizards?”
“As far as I know, yeah,” Ron says. “I think Mum’s got a second cousin who’s an accountant but we don’t talk about him.”
“I wish I grew up with wizards,” Harry grumbles. “Three brothers, that’d be cool.”
“Five,” Ron says. “I’m the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I’ve got a lot to live up to. Bill and Charlie already left. Bill was Head Boy and Charlie was Quidditch Captain. Now Percy’s a Prefect. Fred and George mess around a lot but they get good marks and people think they're funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as they did but even if I do, it’s no big deal because they did first. And you never get anything new, with five brothers. I’ve got Bill’s old robes, Charlie’s old wand, and Percy’s old rat.”
There’s rustling and Harry assumes Ron just pulled the rat out.
“His name’s Scabbers and he’s useless. He hardly ever wakes up. Percy got an owl from my dad for being made a Prefect, but they couldn’t aff— I mean, I got Scabbers instead.”
Harry frowns. Ron had fallen silent and Harry quickly starts to tell him about having to wear Dudley’s old clothes and never getting birthday presents to try and cheer him up about not being able to afford an owl. It seems to work.
At some point, they fall silent and Harry enjoys it. He’d never talked so much, not even with the girl he made friends with the year before.
An old lady, Harry thinks she’s old by the sound of her voice, comes by and asks if they want any sweets. Ron mumbles something about sandwiches but Harry perks up. He asks for a bit of everything, not wanting to miss out on anything, and dumps the candy and pastries on the seat next to him.
He picks up something and runs his finger along the top of it to see if his theory of magical things knowing he’s blind and changing to Braille holds up and finds that it doesn’t, meaning Hagrid must’ve bought the books specifically for him without him having to ask. He finds himself wishing he would have thanked Hagrid even more than he already did.
“Ron,” Harry says. Ron hums. “Do you want some of these?”
“What? Harry, you don’t have to—“
“I want to. Plus, I want to know what everything says and I can’t see it,” Harry says. “I think it’s a fair deal. You read everything to me and get sweets in the process.”
Ron lets out a little laugh, “Okay then. You’re holding a pumpkin pasty right now.”
Harry perks up and, after Ron helps him find the seam so he can open it, eats it and decides that wizarding candy is just as amazing as Muggle candy. He still wants a Mars Bar but he can deal with not having one for the rest of his life if it means he gets wizard sweets.
Ron tells him about Chocolate Frogs and reads out every card to Harry happily. They eat Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, Ron messing with Harry and not telling him the color so he can’t try to guess the flavor, and then some Cauldron Cakes and Licorice Wands.
There’s a knock on the compartment door that interrupts the conversation the two were having about a wizard on a Chocolate Frog card. The door slides open.
“Sorry, but have you seen a toad at all?”
Harry shakes his head and the boy lets out a cry, “I’ve lost him! He keeps getting away from me!”
“He’ll turn up,” Harry says awkwardly.
“Yes. Well, if you see him…”
The door slides shut again.
“Don’t know why he’s so bothered,” Ron says. “If I bought a toad I’d lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can’t talk,” he pauses and then scoffs. “He might have died and you wouldn’t know the difference. I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting but the spell didn’t work.”
“Try it again,” Harry suggests. “If it doesn’t work, you don’t have to tell me because I won’t be able to see it.”
Ron laughs despite himself and Harry smiles.
“Maybe,” Ron mumbles. There’s rustling and before Ron can say anything else, the door slides open again.
“Has anyone seen a toad? Neville’s lost one,” a girl’s voice says. She sounds kind of bossy, her tone reminds Harry of Aunt Petunia telling him to do chores or cook breakfast but it isn’t as mean as Aunt Petunia.
“We’ve already told him we haven’t seen it,” Ron says. Harry snickers and Ron snorts. He’s never had somebody who would tolerate his numerous jokes about his blindness so he’s glad that Ron isn’t afraid to laugh with him. His teachers and other students used to tell him not to be so rude and he would have to remind them constantly he, himself, is blind and doesn’t find the jokes rude. But Polly, the girl he became friends with, didn’t like joking about it so he was the odd one out again, even with somebody who also couldn’t see.
“Oh, are you doing magic? Let’s see it, then,” the girl says.
“Er… okay.”
Ron clears his throats and says, “Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid, fat rat yellow.”
There’s a beat of silence.
“Are you sure that’s a real spell?” the girl says. “Well, it’s not very good is it? I’ve tried a few simple spells just for practice and it’s all worked for me. Nobody in my family’s magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course. I mean, it’s the very best school of witchcraft there is, I’ve heard. I’ve learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough. I’m Hermione Granger, by the way. Who are you?”
Harry blinks. He didn’t learn the course books by heart, he didn’t think that would be necessary.
“I’m Ron Weasley.”
“Harry Potter.”
“Are you really?” Hermione says. “I know all about you, of course. I got a few extra books for background reading, and you’re in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.”
“Am I?”
“Goodness, didn’t you know? I’d have found out everything I could if it was me,” Hermione says. “Do either of you know what house you’ll be in? I’ve been asking around and I hope I’m in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best. I hear Dumbledore himself was in it but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn’t be too bad. Anyway, we’d better go and look for Neville’s toad. You two had better change, y’know, I expect we’ll be there soon.”
The door slides open and shuts a second later.
“Whatever house I’m in, I hope she’s not in it,” Ron says and Harry nods. “Stupid spell. George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud.”
Harry hums, “What house are you brothers in?”
“Gryffindor,” Ron says. “Mum and Dad were in it too. I don’t know what they’ll say if I’m not.”
Harry hears him slump against the seat.
“Y’know, I think the ends of Scabbers’ whiskers are a bit lighter,” Harry says in hopes of cheering up his new friend. Ron laughs and Harry smiles.
Ron tells him about the Gringotts break-in and then moves onto Quidditch just as quickly. Harry finally learns the rules and everything else about Quidditch. It sounds amazing — he wishes he could watch a game to see it in action. As he starts talking about smaller details of the games, the compartment door slides open again.
“Is it true?” The voice is vaguely familiar and Harry wonders where he’s heard it before. “They’re saying all down the train that Harry Potter’s in this compartment. So it’s you then, is it?”
“Yes.”
“My name’s Malfoy, Draco Malfoy,” he says his last name with pride and Harry doesn’t understand why.
Ron coughs and Harry knows it’s covering up a laugh.
“Think my name’s funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father”—the way he says it makes Harry remember that he heard the same voice talking to him in Madam Malkins and he finds himself disliking the boy more and more as he continues speaking—“told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford.”
Red hair? Freckles? The person Harry is thinking up probably looks nothing like Ron but the vague picture is helpful.
“You’ll soon find out that some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.”
Harry raises his eyebrows, “I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks.”
Malfoy scoffs, “I’d be careful if I were you, Potter. Unless you’re a bit politer you’ll go the same way as your parents. They didn’t know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Weasleys and that Hagrid and it'll rub off on you.”
Harry hears Ron stand up and Harry quickly follows suit.
“Say that again,” Ron says.
“Oh, you’re going to fight us, are you?” Malfoy says.
“Unless you get out now,” Harry says, not wanting to just stand there silently.
“But we don’t feel like leaving, do we, boys? We’ve eaten all our food and you still seem to have some.”
There’s a rustle of movement and a different boy lets out a yell that has Harry flinching and almost falling back into his seat. After more yelling and a single thump, the compartment goes silent. Harry stands up straight and attempts to compose himself. He hadn’t known there was more than one boy with Malfoy and it scared him more than he’d like to admit.
“What has been going on?” the voice of… maybe Hermione Granger exclaims and Harry jumps again.
“I think he’s been knocked out,” Ron mumbles. “No. I don’t believe it. He’s gone back to sleep.”
He must be talking about Scabbers. The thump must’ve been the rat, meaning he most likely bit the boy who yelled. Good, it’s what he deserves for being that silent and scaring Harry.
Hermione reminds them to put their robes on and leaves them to do just that. As Harry struggles to find the second arm hole, a voice reaches them and tells them they’ll be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes and to leave their luggage on the train.
The train comes to a stop eventually and Harry takes Ron’s elbow as they get off. It’s cold outside and Harry can barely hear over the sounds of excited students. One thing he can hear, though, is Hagrid’s familiar and recognizable voice calling for first years.
He lets Ron take the lead as they walk and helps him not trip and make a fool of himself when they reach the boats. Harry feels left out as everyone takes in the sight of what must be a beautiful castle.
When the boats comes to a stop, Harry takes Ron’s elbow once again and follows him. Hagrid gives the Neville boy his toad back and then they’re walking again. Ron comes to a stop so Harry does too and after Hagrid asking if everyone has made it, there are three loud knocks on what must be very large doors.