Petunia woke up cold on November first. Her first stop was the thermostat, second was the kettle and the third was to her front stoop to collect the milk. Petunia screamed when instead of the quart of milk, there was a baby, sleeping in a basket clutching a letter.
Petunia scooped the baby up and sighed in relief when he felt warm. Her eyes narrowed. The only thing that would have kept this baby warm was magic. With trembling hands she pried open the envelope and read.
Petunia tumbled through all of the stages of grief as she read. If only she’d made up with her sister, maybe she wouldn’t feel so terrible. But, no that’s not right. This isn’t the kind of bad she should be feeling. There was something wrong here.
The baby stirred awake and let out a coo. Petunia, trying to keep composure went to go scoop the baby back up and feed him, but when he opened his eyes, Lily’s eyes, Her Father’s eyes, Petunia felt something unnatural staring back at her through them.
An all consuming and totally encapsulating fear radiated through her body. This boy wasn’t a freak like her sister was a freak. This Harry was the freak to end all freaks.
Heart racing, Petunia grit her teeth and scooped the basket, baby and all up and deposited it into the cupboard under the stairs. She swung the door shut and the feeling lessened quite a bit. She brushed her hands together and the kettle went off.
“Can’t we take him somewhere, do they not have orphanages?” Vernon asked.
“They do not, and we’re stuck with him, Vernon.” Petunia said flapping the letter toward him. Vernon snatched the letter and read.
“You mean to tell me that we will be killed if we turn the freak out?” Vernon asked as quietly as he could.
“That’s what the letter says, Vernon there’s nothing for it. He’s stuck with us and we’re stuck with him for the next 9 years.” Petunia said.
Vernon couldn’t quite take that for an answer. He tried, in vain to deposit Harry at a Church, Fire Station, City Hall, Hospital, Orphanage and the one time, he felt the finest bit bad, just on the side of the road. Each time he did the freak showed right back up in the cupboard. There really wasn’t anything for it.
Petunia felt that all consuming fear and the wrongness radiating from the little freak for years and years and there wasn’t anything they could do. But Vernon just knew that if he didn’t try to stamp out the freakishness he and his family were definitely going to regret it, even if he couldn’t feel it like Petunia did. He and Petunia had permanently tabled any plans on more children when no matter how hard they tried they couldn’t fix the boy. And he grew up.
They tried not feeding him, but they really couldn’t.
They tried talking down to him, but the bugger had a smart mouth of his own.
They tried turning Dudley against him, but it never really went farther than a couple of beat downs.
So they just kept him in the cupboard. He really didn’t seem to mind. But at least they couldn’t feel the Freakishness with him in there.
Harry sat in his cupboard that morning, green eyes glowing, as usual. He felt safe and hidden in there. He really couldn’t blame his aunt for shutting him up, he knew why. He’d always known. They don’t hate Harry, they hate the evil freak living in his forehead.
Harry had always been able to sense it. The evil living just behind his scar. He knew that what ever or whoever, because it felt like a who, not a what, it was wanted Harry to like the scar and not draw any attention to it.
Harry sometimes bemoans the way that his aunt treats him, he remembers that night the flash of green, the flying motorbike, the old man, the cat woman, and then the look in his aunt’s eyes. The look she gives Dudley turned in an instant into the look she’s had since, fear. Harry knows she’s afraid of Freak and not Harry, but he can’t really explain it and no one can really stand to talk to him longer than a few minutes. So Harry sits in the cupboard day after day hoping that one day he’ll be free and able to remove Freak from his scar. Maybe then his aunt will love him like she had for the first 25 seconds. Or maybe not. It doesn’t really matter, everything else that Harry needs comes to him. He gets oversized clothes from Dudley, and as soon as he puts them on, they clean and repair themselves and shrink to fit his skinny frame. Food appears for him, his homework finishes itself, books read themselves to him and no one bothers him.
Well, that was until he stepped foot in Hogwarts. He’d tried to ask Hagrid, The Goblins, Ollivander and Madame Malkin if there was a way to remove Freak, but every time he tried he found himself tongue tied. Harry hated Freak for ruining his life and the moment that he heard the name Voldemort, he knew that’s who Freak was, the evil bastard who killed his mother, right in front of him. Harry knew about souls from the multiple exorcisms he’d been subjected to over the years. (The Priests never could sense what Aunt Petunia had felt, neither could Dudley, but his cousin was just an ass.) And Harry knew in the safe part of his mind, the part he keeps separate from Freak, that Freak was a chunk of soul.
But when Harry got to Hogwarts, no one treated him like The Dursleys did. Everyone treated him like a great conquering hero and Freak hated it. It made Harry so uncomfortable that he shied away from any attention. Every once in a while Freak would stab Harry with pain in his scar, Harry didn’t know really what it was, but he started to be suspicious of his Potions Professor. He didn’t know why just that he felt like Snape couldn’t be trusted. That feeling didn’t change even after he realized that his scar hurt around Quirrel and not Snape, but logic is lost on that one. He knew that Snape was the bad guy, but just not why.
He was wrong.
Harry looked down at the smoldering remains of Voldemort’s ride. His ex-professor had burst into flame when harry’d touched him. And harry didn’t feel bad one bit. He tried to ask Voldemort to take his soul back, but couldn’t voice the words. It seemed like Freak didn’t want to be a part of Voldemort anymore. And Harry Hated it more than ever when everything went black.
He woke to the headmaster crunching down on a candy in the hospital wing, the next morning.
“Harry, my boy, how are you feeling?” Headmaster Dumbledore said.
“It was Voldemort!” Harry exclaimed
“Yes, My boy, yes, it seems that—— hmm, curious. Voldemort is truly not gone, I fear.” Dumbledore said, confused why he couldn't say 'Tom'.
“No because his soul is still here!” Harry said and Dumbledore was shocked. He looked into Harry’s eyes and Harry began remembering the times he differentiated himself from Freak, the time he managed to wall off Freak from his own mind and all of the times he tried to explain that a chunk of Voldemort’s soul is in the scar. Dumbledores eyes widened, then narrowed, then twinkled.
“Harry, my boy it seems like you have discovered something and have done the right thing!” Dumbledore exclaimed and scooped the sore Harry into a hug. Harry had never been hugged by an adult so he was taken aback.
“What have I done, Sir?” Harry asked.
“Occlumency!” You have built walls in your mind, and it seems as though you’ve sectioned off “Freak” as you call it! This is wonderful! POPPY!” Dumbledore called for the Mediwitch, waved his wand and a white phoenix made of light appeared, he said "go to Severus, Minerva and Filius and ask them to come to the Infirmary." The phoenix, made of light, nodded, split into three, and zoomed out.
“Yes, Albus, what’s wrong?” Madame Pomfrey asked.
“Nothing, everything is right! When the others get here we will have to prepare Harry, here for a ritual.” He told her. He wiggled his fingers and twirled his wand and several books appeared. He waved his wand again and they all started opening to various pages, floating around the Headmaster.
“What is it, Albus, is Potter alright?” Minerva asked, as she bursted into the Hospital wing, panting. Followed shortly by Snape and Filius.
“He will be, but we have to extract the remnants of the Killing Curse from the boy’s scar. I didn’t believe it would be possible, but Harry has developed Occlumency shields on his own and there’s no time like the present!” Albus said and everyone gasped. They didn’t know what he was talking about, but they all knew he wasn’t giving the whole truth. He waved his wand and certain pages copied themselves from his books and he sent them to each respective expert in the room.
“Minerva, we need you to transfigure those items into the crystal on that page. Filius, you need to charm the crystal with that charm on yours, Severus, I know you already have that potion from the project we were working on, I need you to make this elixir with this stone, he produced the Philospher’s Stone from his sleeve. Poppy, we need a basin and the herbs on your page. Harry I need you to keep that wall up and imagine it surrounding Freak in a bubble, better make it a water droplet shape.” Albus then called several elves to the wing and asked them to make a transmutation circle in the center of the room.
The five professors, Mediwitch, and Harry all had to give the elves seven drops of blood. They mixed it with the Elixir of Life and painted the circle on the floor. Minerva created the crystal and Filius charmed it as requested.
Harry was placed in the center of the circle with the Crystal on his forehead and blindfolded with an acromantula silk tie.
“Harry when I tell you when, push the droplet into the crystal.” Albus said
“Yes, sir.” Harry replied.
The adults and elves set up the ritual and when everything was perfect they all began chanting.
Suddenly, Harry felt his scar burning and he could feel Freak writhing, he concentrated and closed it off into the droplet.
“Now, Harry!” Dumbledore said and Harry imagined pushing Freak out of his scar. The pain was excruciating, but Harry was determined to be free of it.
The adults and elves picked up speed in their chant and all at once they said something Harry couldn’t understand and he felt a snap as Freak was disconnected from him.
The, now black, crystal flew off of Harry’s forehead, toward Dumbledore but it slammed against an invisible wall at the ritual circle. Before the crystal could try and attack Harry, an elf levitated him up and out of the circle without smudging the blood and potion mixture.
Harry was gently set down back on his hospital bed and the removed the blindfold.
The crystal was violently flinging itself from wall to invisible wall and the ritual circle began shrinking down on it holding it in place.
All of the adults rushed to Harry to check on him and Albus signed in relief when he couldn’t see ‘Freak’ inside Harry’s mind anymore.
Poppy ran diagnostics and nodded to Albus. Severus looked pained. And Minerva and Filius looked calm and accomplished.
Petunia was nervous the whole drive to the train station. She wouldn’t want the neighbors to see her nephew dragging a big trunk up the street when they had two perfectly good, new cars and it being a Sunday, no excuse for letting the freak walk home alone.
Petunia and Vernon stood outside the platform and waited for Harry. Nerves increasing, they were just about to say ‘bugger what the neighbors think’ when Harry came walking out of the wall with a bushy-haired girl.
Petunia stomach dropped when she saw him. And a smile crept, unwittingly, across her face when Harry’s face lit up and he started running toward her. The closer he got the more she worried that she would feel the fear again but it never came.
Unbidden, Petunia crouched down and caught the small boy in her arms and hugged him. She looked into his eyes and saw only Harry. Her nephew. Who she’d kept in a cupboard for nine years. She was about to beat herself up when Harry whispered “It’s not your fault. Dumbledore removed Freak and now I can be normal! It was in the scar!” Petunia squeezed the last link to her baby sister closer and kissed his cheek.
On the ride home, Harry told his Aunt and Uncle all about Hogwarts, how he’d made the Quidditch team and how he stopped Voldemort from returning.
All was well.