The Abnormal.

Privet Drive, Surrey, was just one of the many normal residential streets in the suburbs of London.

Along the length of this normal street, built on both sides were normal two-storey houses that seemed to be made out of the same mould. They were of the same design, colour, size, and even had identical grassy lawns.

Only the different yet normal varieties of plants growing in these lawns, and their arrangement, along with a few other details, added to the personal touch to these houses as a whole.

But, this normal locality appeared desolate at that moment with nary an animal in vision, let alone a human.

Then again, it was a normal day in the month of June. The sun was, as usual, making it's glorious presence known to everyone with it's blistering, scorching heat with only the occasional clouds clouding the surface offering a few moments of respite to the needy.

Normally, no one of sane mind would want to leave the cool comfort of their houses to venture outside to face the sun's wrath if they could help it. And, according to the residents' belief, only normal people lived in Privet Drive.

So, it was totally, extremely, undeniably, undoubtedly, certainly normal that the streets were as empty as they were.

Indubitably.

Abnormal was the lone presence in the barren, somewhat of a playground, the sole playground, of this otherwise definitely normal neighbourhood.

The said presence was that of a boy who looked no more than eight years old lying on the irrefutably hard, positively uncomfortable ground. His thin body was clad in clothes that were a few sizes too big for him with his pants, even with what appeared to be several folds at the bottom, still almost covered his bare feet that had blistered.

His shirt seemed to be covered in dust and was ripped at a few places through which his unhealthily pale skin showed. His hair, his dirty, unkempt hair looked unaffected by the pull of the gravity as they still covered his forehead and the lightning bolt-shaped scar that peeked through the fringes.

Most striking, however, were his unusual, emerald eyes that despite the slightly foggy glasses of his broken, duct-taped spectacles shone with splendour under the sunlight.

He lied there, completely still, even as his eyes trailed the clouds with minute movements, looking for something only he could see.

Abnormal was the only word that any would-be passersby could have used to describe this scene.

But, it would not have mattered if the one to see him were a local, because that's what they now expected from the boy.

After all, from what they knew, the boy was a known ruffian, the scourge of their otherwise perfect neighbourhood.

He always bullied the lone, younger children he came across, and no amount of scolding seemed to set him straight. The situation was so bad that the older children, his well-behaved cousin included, were forced to beat some sense into him every two days to temporarily put a stop to his abhorrent behaviour.

Unsurprisingly for them, he was a failure at education and a miscreant at school too. Teachers were fed up of his abysmal dressing sense and his likewise abysmal grades. Rumours said that he even cheated in every test to get a passing grade.

They honestly felt pity for the boy's Uncle and Aunt who, despite their stringent finances took in the orphaned boy in only for him to spit at their efforts.

Oh, how many times had they heard the boy's Aunt sobbingly telling about his extremely picky eating habits and his stubbornness to not compromise on what he wanted to eat. The fact that he was way smaller than what his height that of a nine, almost ten years old, should have been didn't even faze him.

But it pained his Aunt, it pained her almost as much as it pained his Uncle, his not blood-related Uncle, when the ungrateful brat wrecked any and all gifts, clothes and accessories included, his Uncle purchased for his sake from the hard-earned money he got for working overtime.

They felt grateful for his Uncle and Aunt, who despite how much it pained them, made the boy do chores to try to instill a sense of responsibility in the thick-skulled, unrepentant boy. Chores that kept him busy for the most part of the day. They almost shuddered at the thought of that miscreant having time at his hands. After all, the boy had destroyed his Aunt's garden in one of his more 'playful' fits.

He was, he had been for a long time now, the pariah of their harmonious community.

He was the irremovable stain on the perfect, homely image of their residential street.

He was the bane to the normalcy of their lives.

He was a sore thumb.

He was a tumour.

He was Harry Potter, the abnormal.