Title: Object of Power
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: G
Length: 1k
Summary: There’s a pin in Harry’s cupboard.
One end is a too short, blunt metal tip, but the other, the plastic flared middle and flat top is bright purple with silver glitter. It looks like a magical starry sky.

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@ AO3

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There’s a pin in Harry’s cupboard.

One end is a too short, blunt metal tip, but the other, the plastic flared middle and flat top is bright purple with silver glitter. It looks like a magical starry sky.

Harry stole the pin several years ago, at school. No one seemed to notice a missing pin, but Harry is always aware that he stole it. And that he must hide it at all time, or Petunia will get rid of it immediately.

Petunia is ‘Petunia Dursley’, Harry’s ‘aunt’. He doesn’t actually consider the woman as being family because the books in the library all agree that family takes care of each other. Petunia does not care for Harry. Never has, never will.

In the same vein, Petunia is not to be believed in any matter, ever. Harry has ample proof she lies, all the time and to everyone, even her own husband.

One of Petunia’s strongest mantra is ‘there is no such thing as magic!’.

Knowing Petunia’s predilection for lies, Harry has promptly decided that magic must exist, then. It has the bonus of explaining quite a few of Harry’s ‘freak’ accident then. The logical explanation is that he must be magic.

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Studying everything about ‘magic’ isn’t exactly easy, for Harry. Petunia keeps a close eye on him and while the library has a good selection of magic or fantasy related stories, there is not much about ‘real’ magic. The closest Harry has found are the Arthurian legends, in which kings and knights fight along with sorcerers and enchantresses.

Harry has copied several of those examples of magic on loose sheets of paper and pinned them in his cupboard. There are rickety wooden shelves half-hiding his mattress and one side of the shelves faces toward the back of the cupboard. Harry pinned the sheets on that side, near the bottom. He can see them from his bed while keeping them out of sight of Aunt Petunia.

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In many stories of magic and elves and dwarves, the magicians (whatever their name is in the relevant story) usually have one object of power. Exhibit A, the One Ring.

Harry decides that his object of power will be the little magical sky pin.

Every night before bed, and several more times during the day if he can wing it, Harry puts his finger on the flat head of the pin, closes his eyes tightly, and thinks very hard about how this pin is my object of power.

Sometimes, his hand tingles afterward.

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Harry is eleven, and he was right. He is magical!

A wizard, apparently. He doesn’t think he looks much like Gandalf, but he wouldn’t have minded being a dwarf. They’re not tall like him (though he’d have had to be a hobbit if he tried to keep accurate sizing) and the dwarven princes were badass. He wants a bow like Kíli. But it would have to be a magical bow. Maybe with flaming arrows.

When he gets mobbed in the pub, Harry wishes he’d had his trusty pin to prick all those overbearing, rude busybodies. He makes a mental note to keep it with him when he goes on quests(visits places). (there’s a jewelry store in Diagon Alley. The owner is quite put out that ‘Harry Potter!’ won’t buy an actual necklace, but Harry does finally get what he wants: a chain with a weird clasp that the owner swore up and down will fit anything that Harry wishes to wear as a pendant, and which will be as solid as reinforced titanium, with half a dozen privacy wards and protective spells.)

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In another world, Harry Potter might have been meek and quiet, too worried to make waves.

In this world, Harry Potter feels vindicated (he was right! He’s magical!) and also he has his trusty ‘object of power’ hanging from his neck, he fears nothing.

-

“Do you have—the scar?”

“What?”

“Can I see?!”

“No, I don’t show off body parts to random boys.”

“… what?”

-

“Are you really?” said Hermione. “I know all about you, of course—”

“No, you don’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t. Know about me.”

“I say! I read the books!”

“Well, obviously you can’t tell lies from truth, because everything those books say about me has to be hogwash since I have had no contact with the Wizarding World since Voldemort killed my parents and I apparently took my revenge. Though I don’t remember that, mind you. Also, you’re rude. Even I know to say ‘hello’ and to not barge in on other people's conversations. Now, goodbye. Oh, Neville! If I find your toad, I’ll keep it and give it to you the next time we see each other.”

“Than—thank you, Harry.”

-

“You’ll soon find out 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.”

“Hum, I agree that Ron was rude—don’t be an ass, Ron, no one likes a bully—but I’ll make my own mind, Draco, thank you. As I said, I don’t like bullies.” Cue pointed look. “So I think I’ll wait a few weeks and see how everyone behaves before I make up my mind.”

“Ah, well—that’s—well, sensible, I suppose?”

-

“The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history, and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards,—”

Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin.

Harry had already heard a lot about those houses. Enough to help him make his mind quickly enough. Slytherin, half the population saw them as terrorists and evil people (at eleven? What was wrong with adults they branded eleven years old kids as future evil people. Self-fulfilling prophecy, thy name is madness).

Hufflepuff, again, two camps. Shy and quiet children didn’t say a word against the house, while the others all rolled their eyes or scoffed. Nope.

Gryffindor, the house of the brave and the reckless. Incidentally, the house in which everyone expected Harry to be sorted. Harry had no intention to step into the spotlight. He had way too many things to do and too much knowledge to catch up.

Therefore,

“Better be RAVENCLAW!”

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