Friendship with chemists is not good

It was morning in the town of Little Wiggling. Tees Street was quiet; all the good citizens were asleep at this hour, except for an elderly woman at No. 4 banging on the storeroom door.

- Get up, you naughty boy! Now!!!

Harry Potter, and it was he, woke up and, without waiting for his aunt to start banging and shouting again, put on his glasses and climbed out of the cramped room under the stairs.

There was only room for a bed and a few shelves of cleaning supplies that Aunt Petunia used to clean the house.

As soon as Harry entered the kitchen, his aunt pounced on him.

- You're too slow to get up, you silly boy! I should have woken you earlier! Now go and make breakfast! I can't look after you all the time!

Aunt Petunia took one last threatening look at her nephew and hurried up the stairs. From there, she soon heard the sound of affectionate babbling.

- Vernon, darling...

- Dudley, darling...

Potter's day was the same every day. He woke early in the morning, made breakfast, ate what was left for him, then walked to school, trying to avoid Dudley and his friends, sat in class, returned from there, also trying to prevent his cousin, did the cleaning, the garden... He had little time to study.

Only in the evenings, when the Dursleys gathered in the living room and sat down to watch television, could Harry afford to relax and do his own thing - study, read...

Of course, he couldn't expect to get good grades that way, but Dudley's were even worse, which greatly offended his cousin. Every C Harry got - and every D Dudley got - meant a slap from his cousin.

It was the same that day.

By the time Uncle Vernon and Dudley entered the kitchen, Harry had already finished preparing breakfast, but as usual, no thanks were forthcoming.

After breakfast, Uncle Vernon went straight to work, and Dudley went to his room to prepare for school. Harry quickly finished what was left of the family breakfast and decided to leave early. That way, he could at least avoid being bullied by Dudley's friends. Their favourite game seemed to be chasing Harry. They didn't have the brains for anything else. But catching Harry, beating him up, leaving him lying in an alley somewhere...

They liked that.

So Harry tried to avoid unnecessary encounters but wasn't very good at it. Little Wiggling wasn't London, so the boy's bruises never healed.

Harry loved to study, but how could he do so well when every good grade was followed by a lecture from the Dursleys. They said Harry couldn't be more intelligent than their son, that he was cheating his teachers, and that he was copying Dudley's work when Dudley barely had enough brains to keep from dropping out of school.

Harry strongly suspected that Dudley had no brain - just a spinal cord, but there was no way of checking.

Harry tried to absorb all the knowledge he could at school and was curious. But when he happened to answer a question in class that Dudley had missed, and Pierce, one of his cousin's gang, started shooting at him with chewed paper, Harry realized another hunt was imminent.

He decided to sneak out of the school through the backyard after class, but that's where they were waiting for him.

-You're the smartest?

The ringleader, of course, was Pierce. Dudley needed to be more clever but easily and willingly picked up on other people's malice. Harry looked around hysterically but to no avail. There was no chance of escaping.

Dudley in front, Pierce beside him, his two friends at the back and sides.

- Yes," Dudley said.

- I...

A hard kick threw Harry forward, just under Pierce's fist. The blow was unavoidable, and Harry crouched in the dust, covering his head as usual.

They didn't strike him today, just kicked him a few times to give him a break, threatened to get him again, and then left. Harry was left in the dust of the schoolyard.

Little did he know that his fate was about to take a sharp turn.

The twist was called Elizabeth Bird (Liz to her friends), and she was a chemistry teacher at Little Wigging School. Liz was 27 years old and had spent the previous three years working in the laboratory of a large commercial company, but she was quickly becoming bored. Liz wanted to make discoveries, investigate the properties of substances and their compounds, and do scientific work, not choose forty-two lipstick shades.

If the head of the laboratory had at least allowed her to do her own research in her spare time, she would have stayed with the company. Still, he disapproved of his subordinates' initiatives, particularly Liz's. Especially after two flasks had accidentally exploded during one of her experiments.

Nobody was hurt, of course, but... the people around him never understood geniuses.

So the work was frankly dull.

A small inheritance from a distant relative came in handy. A small house in Little Wiggling and a small amount of money gave her a sense of independence. Liz quit her job with a bit of a bang, moved to Little Wiggling, set up a small laboratory, and, for fun, started teaching chemistry at the local school.

The headmistress was quietly pleased - such specialists would not be in the way. Liz's lessons weren't over for the day, but she needed a cigarette.

Smoking at school?

Not ethical. Fi!

But she wanted to...

So Liz made her way to the backyard.

Shit! The cigarette was delayed.

In the garden, huddled in the dust, was a black-haired boy dressed in rags.