"Get up! Get up! Quickly!"
Rapid, impatient knocks on the door tore Harry Potter from a restless sleep. His eyes flew open.
Instinctively, he reached beneath his pillow for his wand—but his fingers grasped nothing but air.
His green eyes narrowed. Harry raised his arm… and froze.
Too thin.Too frail.
What was going on?
A cold sensation ran down his spine. He sat up and looked around, recognizing the narrow, stifling, suffocating space.
The cupboard under the stairs.
The Dursleys' cupboard.
A distant memory—or at least, it should have been.
Had he returned to 1991?
"Get up!"
The shout snapped him fully back to reality. That voice…
Petunia Dursley.
Six years without hearing it. For a brief moment, Harry had almost believed he'd forgotten that family entirely.
He sat up slowly, studying the cramped space. Compared to the dormitories at Hogwarts, it felt like a cell.
Ever since the day he'd found that acceptance letter right there, in that very cupboard, his life had changed forever. Hogwarts. A school of magic. A place where he had lived and studied for six years.
And then, inexplicably, he had been thrown into the past—more than a hundred years back.
Now, he was back.
Harry picked up the glasses beside his pillow. The arms were held together with yellowed tape. He touched them lightly with his finger.
The tape crackled.
As if alive, it slid along the frames, wrapped around the lenses, and vanished. In the blink of an eye, the glasses were restored, good as new.
Harry put them on.
As he pushed open the door, he realized his aunt had already walked away. A strange, unpleasant smell hit his nose. He followed it into the kitchen, where he discovered its source: a large iron basin near the drain.
The Dursleys were already seated at the table. It was almost a miracle they could eat in the presence of that stench—but considering Dudley's personality… and physique… perhaps it wasn't so strange after all.
When Harry appeared, Uncle Vernon's face darkened instantly.
Before he could say anything, the letterbox clicked open, and several letters fell onto the doormat.
"What are you standing there for?" Vernon snarled. He turned to his son. "Dudley, use your Smeltings cane to fetch them."
Seeing Dudley reach for the cane with a malicious grin, Harry shot him a cold look and turned away.
Three letters lay scattered on the floor: one from Aunt Marge, one that looked like a bill, and the last one—
Mr. Harry Potter4 Privet DriveThe Cupboard Under the Stairs
The envelope was made of thick parchment, addressed in dark green ink. There was no stamp.
Harry took a deep breath and turned it over.
The Hogwarts crest stared back at him.
He had seen that symbol before.
Yesterday—no, six years ago—in that very same place.
That was the moment his life had changed… and the moment he had been cast into another era.
Holding the letter, Harry walked calmly back into the kitchen. Ignoring Vernon's impatience, he placed the other two letters on the table and opened his own.
"Dad!" Dudley suddenly shouted. "Dad! Harry's got something!"
Before he could finish, Vernon lunged at him.
By reflex, Harry raised his hand.
Uncle Vernon's body lifted into the air, floating absurdly before stopping, suspended just inches above the floor.
A wandless spell.Silent.
Wingardium Leviosa—the standard levitation charm.
Combined with Descendo, a modification he had learned from Sebastian Sallow of Slytherin.
Given his uncle's enormous size, Harry knew a direct impact could be fatal. So he halted the spell midway.
Vernon's nose hovered mere inches from the ground.
Harry fanned himself with the letter while his uncle continued to shout muffled curses. With a snap of his fingers, Vernon's mouth sealed shut like an invisible zipper.
"Do you mind?" Harry asked politely, raising an eyebrow.
Petunia let out a sharp gasp.
"You… you never went to Hogwarts!" she cried, trembling. "That strange school! So how do you know magic?"
Harry caught the detail in her words.
He lifted his gaze, emerald-green eyes meeting hers.
"That isn't what matters," he said calmly. "What matters is how you know about Hogwarts. How you know about magic."
He waved the letter gently in the air.
"I—"
Petunia's mouth went dry.
"It seems you've been hiding quite a lot from me, Aunt," Harry said with a soft laugh, his courteous tone sharply contrasting the fear on her face. "Would you mind telling me?"
"No! That's impossible!" she screamed hysterically.
Harry let the parchment letter fall onto the table. As he watched Vernon suspended in midair, struggling helplessly, memories surged back.
Years of abuse didn't simply vanish. Six years at Hogwarts hadn't erased them—if anything, they had sharpened them.
He felt no hatred.But he felt no pity either.
"You should know," Harry continued elegantly, "that wizards possess a spell called Legilimency. It allows one to access another person's memories."
He smiled faintly.
"I don't think we need to resort to that just yet… do we?"
Petunia stared at him as if he were a stranger. How had that boy become so… refined?
She recognized that demeanor. It was the same as the important people she mingled with alongside Vernon.
What she didn't know was that under the eccentric headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black, Hogwarts students were forced to learn etiquette—particularly the infuriating etiquette of so-called pure-blood nobility.
Six years were enough to shape anyone.
"All right… all right," Petunia finally gave in. "Your parents were wizards. They were killed for offending a powerful Dark wizard. That's all I know!"
"So you're not a witch," Harry concluded, watching her expression darken.
"Thank you for clarifying, Aunt," he said gently. "I suppose that means I don't need to attend Stonewall High, do I?"
Harry chuckled softly, snapped his fingers, and released Vernon from the spell. Without another word, he returned to the cupboard under the stairs, under the family's wary stares.
Back inside, he opened the envelope again.
And frowned.
Albus Dumbledore.
Harry immediately thought of his former headmaster.
Phineas Nigellus Black.
Was Phineas Black dead?
The irritation he felt toward the Dursleys vanished instantly.
By Merlin's billowing sleeves…
That was truly something worth celebrating.
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