5 Chapter 5— Primary School and Scheming

~Fun Fact: Fred tells Harry that the Gryffindor Quidditch team hadn't won a championship "since Charlie left." Charlie attended Hogwarts from 1984-1991 and so he had only just graduated as Harry arrived – Harry filled the seeker vacancy left by Charlie. It is a strange way to put it since no time had really passed since Charlie left.

**************************************

After my accidental teleportation, I ended up sleeping through the better part of the day. Almost as soon as I woke up, dad came sprinting through the living room door.

'Damn this is becoming a recurring theme....' I mused to myself.

"Sophie! Sophie, Voldemort's dead! haha! The bastard's dead! Sophie!" Dad laughed. Relief, joy and a hint of sorrow present on his face.

Mum came running down the corridor and leapt into dad's arms. Her body shook and she didn't even bother to reprimand his use of inappropriate vocabulary in front of me.

It took me a while to realise that she was crying. Upon realising it, a feeling of sorrow enveloped my being as my mother's crying continued...

"T-thank god." she said, sniffling "You can rest easy now, mum."

Upon hearing her words, rage flooded my very being as I struggled to rein in the rush of energy I felt in my stomach.

'That bastard Tom, killed my grandmother!' I thought furiously.

Granted I didn't know her, I had only assumed that since my mother looked the same in this world, my maternal grandparents would too. The image of my grandmother from my previous life appeared before my eyes.

And that, my friends, was the straw that broke the camel's back as my rage and sorrow broke forth like a dam. I cried and cried, as windows broke in the wake of my sorrow for my grandmother. Irrational as it may be, it felt as if I had known her my whole life. And in a way, I had. My parents' heads turned to me as my mother slowly walked towards me after using a quick repairing spell on everything that I had broken.

"Little Yan, did mummy crying make you sad?" She said softly, wiping both our tears away, "Don't worry, mummy's okay now. You don't have to cry anymore."

But I couldn't, the tears and grief wouldn't stop as I cried myself to sleep in my mother's arms.

*****

A few years had passed since the fall of Tommy and his dickeaters. I was now a cute 5 year-old with long, curly black hair, chocolate brown skin, and navy blue eyes. Similar to how I looked in my previous life except with longer hair, courtesy of my father.

Ironically, I had been living in Surrey my entire life, but I didn't know that up until a few weeks ago when dad told me I was going to St. Grogory's Primary School. The very same school Harry Potter was going to be attending.

'Holy shit, what a twist' I thought as I remembered the afternoon when dad told me I was going to school.

This is where I would start to change the canon. The Harry Potter that would be going to Hogwarts was not going to be a naïve boy who knew nothing of love and acceptance, ready for Albus 'For the Greater Good' Dumbledore's many years of manipulation. Harry was a little boy who knew absolutely no love in his life to the point where he let himself be hurt by Ronald Weasley's jealousy and lack of trust if it meant keeping his very first friend. Though my behaviour was manipulative, and I wouldn't disagree, I was doing this for his sake as well as mine. It wouldn't hurt to have someone who was as loyal and kind as Harry as your first friend. And on the other hand, I would save him from loneliness and abuse far earlier than it happened in canon.

'What that boy needs is a friend' I thought 'And I'll be that friend for him.'

"Are you ready yet, little Yan?" Dad asked, interrupting my thoughts as he stood waiting at the living room door.

"Yup, let's go daddy!" I replied happily, grabbing his outstretched hand as we walked out the front door and off to St. Grogory's Primary School.

"Have a good first day at school Yan!" I heard my mother shout as we turned the corner. Smiling to myself I thought,

'Damn, I love my family!'

*****

"Alright Yan, we're here." Dad said "I can't pick you up from school because of work so mummy will be here, okay?"

"Okay daddy! Have a good day at work!" I said, amplifying my cuteness to the max with a smile.

"Aww~ come here ya little rascal!" dad said, pulling me into a hug as he ruffled my hair. He then released me as he walked off and waved goodbye. I did the same and turned around as I walked into priso— I mean school.

Five minutes later, 19 children as well as myself sat in the classroom facing a tall, brunette with a neck that could rival Petunia Dursley and a face with a length that could put a horse to shame.

"Alright children, my name's Miss Katherine!" the teacher said in a sickly sweet voice, positively beaming at us all. That was until she laid eyes on me and her gaze narrowed and a disgusted look appeared on her face.

'Ah, great. Welcome to the eighties. The time of rock, Mike Tyson, oh and did I mention racism?' I thought while rolling my eyes internally.

"I'll be teaching you for Year 1 here at St. Grogory's." She said in an annoying voice that grated on my nerves. She almost reminded me of a certain pink toad that I refused to think about for another ten years.

"Since I'm such a lovely teacher, you guys can pick your seats for the term" She said egotistically.

'Yup, that settles it. She's Dolores Umbridge 2.0. What kind of teacher flexes her superiority on a bunch of 5 year olds who can't even understand the nuances of the English language yet?'

Not too long afterwards, there was a sound of collective shuffling and the scraping of chairs on the floor as I stood to the side, waiting for the kids to finish so I could find a seat. When everyone had finally picked their seats, I saw a small, malnourished looking boy sitting on his lonesome at the back of the class. He was wearing oversized, scruffy-looking clothes and glasses that had been taped over to prevent them from falling apart. I walked over to him.

"Hey, mind if I sit here?" I asked, pointing at the seat next to him.

He looked at me, his emerald-green eyes widening in shock.

"If he isn't comfortable sitting with you, find somewhere else." Miss Katherine said to me derisively from the front of the class.

I ignored her.

"So, can I sit here? I repeated to the boy again, who still didn't seem to process what I had asked him.

"Y-You want to sit with me?!" He asked, almost shouting.

"Yup!" I replied, popping the 'P' in the end.

'Jeez, the Dursleys sure did a number on this kid if he's able to rival Quirrell in stuttering' I thought, my blood boiling as I imagined what Harry must have gone through in order to have a reaction like this. 'Oh they'll get what's coming to them...' I thought ominously.

"S-sure." he stuttered out as I sat next to him.

"Thanks!" I said, cheerfully.

"My name's Aayan Barak by the way, but you can call me Yan." I said, stretching my hand out.

"I- I'm Harry Potter, nice to meet you" he said, grasping my hand tentatively as if afraid it might disappear.

'And so begins a beautiful friendship' I thought as Umbridge 2.0 began to go through phonics on the blackboard.

*****

It was lunch time as me and Harry sat on the steps of the stairs that lead back into the building.

"And that's when I—" I stopped talking as a shadow blocked my view of the sunlight. Looking up, I tried to keep my face blank as a giggle threatened to escape my mouth. I was face to face with the little whale, Dudley Dursley himself.

"Hey you!" He said boisterously.

"Yes?" I replied, looking at him with a bored expression on my face.

"Why are you friends with that freak?!" He shouted as if he had asked the most important question in the world.

I looked around me. "I'm sorry, but I don't see any freaks around here."

"Him!" He said, pointing at Harry. "Look at him! He's wearing scruffy clothes and broken glasses. And look at me! I've got the coolest stuff like my new bicycle and nice clothes. So why are you friends with him?!" He questioned with a voice filled with self-entitlement.

I now knew what the Dursleys' biggest failure was. It wasn't what they did to Harry, no, it was the life of the poor boy they ruined. In my eyes, the only thing Dudley had ever done wrong was be born to the Dursleys, for they had ruined him this early into his life. He was shown to be different to them in the end as he tried to make up for his past behaviour. But by then, it was already too late and things between him and Harry were too far gone for them to build any kind of familial relationship, what with Voldemort gunning for Harry.

'Let's see if we can start the Dudley redemption arc earlier than planned...' I thought curiously, gazing at the balloon in front of me.

"He's not a freak, he has a name. He's Harry, a really nice person and my friend." I replied measuredly, almost how a teacher would talk to a student.

"My daddy says people like you aren't smart and have to listen to their superr-, no sooper-"

"Their superiors?" I said, trying to help the poor boy.

"Yes! That word" He said as if he had just solved a complex and difficult maths problem.

"Who says you're my superior Dudley?" I asked him, looking at him straight in the eyes.

"M-My daddy.." Dudley stuttered, flinching under the seriousness of my gaze.

"I don't think your daddy is a very nice person" I said, childishly shaking my head.

"And isn't Harry your cousin? Why are you calling him a freak?"

"T-That freak isn't my cousin!" He shouted in indignation.

"Then I don't think we should speak to each other anymore." I said with blunt finality. "Come on Harry, let's go!"

"O-okay!" Harry said, as if he were surprised I was talking to him after Dudley came over.

"D-Do you think I'm a freak, Yan?" He asked nervously.

"Now why on earth would I think that?!" I shouted, surprised at his question.

"N-nothing!" He said quickly, as the bell signalling the end of lunchtime rang.

*****

Our last lesson of the day was maths which I breezed through easily while stopping to occasionally help Harry out.

Soon enough, it was the end of the day as I walked out the school gates with Harry.

Seeing my mum in the distance, I waved at her and ran towards her, dragging Harry along with me.

'And so begins my masterplan...' I thought as we arrived in front of my mother.

"Hello little Yan!" Mum said happily, ruffling my hair. "How was your first day at school?"

"It was really nice!" I replied. "Look mum! I made a new friend! Harry, mum. Mum, Harry"

"H-hi Yan's mummy, I'm Harry Potter." He said timidly looking down at his feet.

The shock was very apparent on my mother's face but she hid it almost as quickly as it had appeared.

"Well aren't you a well-mannered little boy. Hello Harry, you can call me Sophia. No need to call me Yan's mummy."

"O-okay—"

But before he could say anymore, the big walrus himself, Vernon Dursley waddled his way over into a conversation he wasn't invited to.

"Boy!" He snapped. At the sound of this, Harry flinched; probably expecting a slap to come with it.

"We're going home!" Dursley said, dragging Harry by the arm to the waiting Petunia and the complaining Dudley.

"S-see you tomorrow Yan!" Harry said shyly as he was dragged away by Dursley.

"Mhm! See you Harry!" I replied.

I may be unable to help him now, but the seeds of doubt had already been sown. I would do my utmost best to save Harry from his pathetic excuse of an aunt, who couldn't let go of her petty childish resentment towards her sister even well after her sister had died. She allowed her own blood nephew to be beaten and treated like a slave by Dursley who, by the loosest of definitions, counted as a human.

"Alright, mummy!" I said, catching my mother's attention by grabbing her hand. "Let's go home"

"Okay little Yan, let's." She replied in a somewhat dazed voice as she let herself be dragged by me as we walked out of the gate and onwards back home.

**************************************

*A/N: Next in the improved chapters series is Chapter Five! Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed, please do throw some power stones my way, it would really help. I also have a community server for you guys to join that is below so you can also do that.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DISCORD SERVER: https://discord.gg/HT3VeC26fb (See paragraph comment)