Selfocracy

The summer air was thick and suffocating, hanging over Privet Drive like a curse—dense, oppressive, almost alive with malice. It clung to the skin like damp wool, making every breath feel labored, every step sluggish. The pale, sterile light of streetlamps barely pierced the deepening twilight, casting long, jagged shadows across the rows of identical houses, their manicured lawns and pristine windows eerily silent in the fading light. The street felt unnaturally still, as if the very air was holding its breath, waiting for something to snap.

But number four was different.

It pulsed with a sense of something wrong—something dangerous that seemed to throb beneath the surface. The neat facade, so carefully maintained by the Dursleys, was just that: a facade. Behind the drawn curtains and locked doors, darkness festered. A rot, hidden from the nosy neighbors who passed by without a second glance, oblivious to the horrors contained within. If anyone had bothered to look closer, if they had dared to approach, they might have noticed the odd stillness in the air or the faint sound of muffled breathing, ragged and uneven. They might have seen how the light around the house seemed to dim unnaturally, as though the warmth of the summer night could not penetrate the cold that seeped from the walls.

Despite the warmth outside, an unsettling chill permeated the house, like a breath from a crypt. It wasn't the natural cold of an open window or a draft—it was something more primal, something wrong, as if the house itself was rejecting the life that filled the streets outside. If anyone had paused near number four, they might have felt that cold—an insidious creeping sensation that sank into the bones, the kind that made your heart quicken with the fear you couldn’t quite name.

Inside, in the smallest bedroom, Harry Potter sat hunched over on his narrow bed, the worn and lumpy mattress digging into his spine. The sheets, rough with age and neglect, scratched at his skin, adding to the discomfort that had become so familiar it was almost a part of him now. His glasses lay discarded on the floor, the lenses cracked from the latest fight with Uncle Vernon, shards of glass catching what little light filtered through the dim room. But Harry hadn’t bothered to pick them up. He no longer needed to see clearly to know where he was. The darkness around him was not just external. It had long since seeped into his mind, clouding his thoughts, warping his sense of reality.

His hands trembled, but not from the pain of the bruises that mottled his arms—ugly, purpling marks that stretched like grotesque shadows across his pale skin—or from the fading marks of restraint on his wrists, left from the times Vernon had grown tired of yelling and used his fists instead. No, this tremor came from somewhere deeper, somewhere far beyond the reach of physical wounds. It was a trembling of the soul, a quaking of the mind, as though the very core of his being was starting to unravel.

He stared blankly at the peeling wallpaper, the faded green lines warping and twisting before his eyes, blurring into unfamiliar shapes. Sometimes he thought he saw faces in those cracks—mocking, cruel faces that whispered his name in taunting voices. His thoughts were no longer his own, erratic and fragmented, like broken glass scattered across the floor of his mind. Fleeting glimpses of memories would surface, only to vanish just as quickly, leaving behind the echo of nightmares. There were screams, disjointed and distant, sometimes his, sometimes others'. Flashes of green light—always that green light, the same that haunted his every waking moment. The light that had stolen so much from him. No matter how hard he tried to shake it off, it clung to him like a phantom, wrapping itself around his throat, choking him with the weight of everything he could not forget.

His chest heaved with effort, his breathing shallow and labored, as though each inhale was a battle against the invisible force that pressed down on him. He wasn’t just suppressing emotions anymore—he was suppressing a storm, a violent, uncontrollable storm that roared within him, demanding release. Rage, fear, grief—they twisted together, coiling tighter and tighter around his heart, suffocating him from the inside out. And yet, he sat there, silent, still, because to give in to that storm would be to lose the last piece of himself he had left.

It had been building for years—this slow descent into madness. Piece by piece, day by day, moment by agonizing moment. The Dursleys had laid the foundation for it, brick by brick, with every insult, every sneer, every cold meal tossed his way, every night spent locked in the cupboard beneath the stairs, listening to the world move on without him. They had built it out of cruelty, each bruise, each snide comment a new layer of torment. His childhood had been carved out of misery, each year bleeding into the next until Harry had become little more than an unwanted burden—a stain on their perfect suburban life. He had known no kindness here, only neglect and scorn.

But worse than the Dursleys’ casual cruelty was the hope that had once flickered within him. The hope that had kept him alive during those long, cold nights. He had survived it all, hadn’t he? He had endured the dark, lonely years with the quiet belief that one day it would end. One day he would escape. When he turned eleven, that hope had a name—Hogwarts. The castle in the distance, the promise of magic and wonder, a place where he could finally be something more than the "freak in the cupboard."

But that hope had died long ago. Hogwarts had become another prison, another set of walls to trap him, suffocating him in its expectations and its lies. There was no sanctuary. No escape. He had traded one set of abusers for another—a Ministry that twisted his every move, a headmaster who treated him as a pawn in a larger game, and enemies that lurked in every shadow, waiting for him to falter. His life had become an endless cycle of manipulation, betrayal, and loss. The Boy Who Lived had been stripped down to nothing more than a weapon. A tool. A figurehead for their war.

Now, all that remained was the anger. Cold, consuming anger that had grown in the cracks of his broken heart, filling the void where hope had once lived. Anger at the Dursleys for their years of torment. Anger at the Ministry for their ceaseless control. Anger at Dumbledore for his lies, his secrets. Anger at everyone and everything. The anger gave him clarity, a sharp edge to hold onto as his mind fractured.

The walls of his bedroom seemed to close in around him, the silence pressing against his ears like a vice. His breathing was shallow, uneven, each exhale a jagged, strained effort to keep it together. But he wasn’t sure how much longer he could. He could feel something lurking at the edge of his consciousness, waiting to consume him entirely. His vision blurred again, and for a moment, he thought he saw something move in the shadows. A flicker of something dark, something unnatural.

He blinked, and it was gone.

This summer had been different from the others, worse in a way that Harry hadn’t thought possible. The days blurred together, an unrelenting haze of heat and misery. The Ministry’s interference had turned the Dursleys into something far more sinister than the petty tyrants they once were. It was as if the constant owls and summons had given Vernon and Petunia tacit permission to unleash their worst impulses, their long-simmering disdain sharpening into something brutal. The Dursleys had always hated him, but now their hatred felt pointed, purposeful, as if they were being given permission—no, encouraged—to break him completely.

The Ministry's claws had sunk deep into every corner of Harry’s existence. His summer had been consumed by endless hearings, long, draining hours spent in cold, sterile rooms where faceless officials picked apart his every word, his every memory, with surgical precision. He could still feel the oppressive weight of those rooms—the dull gray walls closing in around him, the clink of quills scratching against parchment as they dissected his grief, his pain. The questioning had been relentless. Over and over, they had forced him to relive Sirius’s death, each recounting peeling away a layer of his sanity. His godfather’s fall through the Veil haunted him like a specter, replaying in his mind in excruciating detail. The way Sirius had smiled—that smile, just before the end—only for it to be wiped away by the cold, cruel hand of fate.

They questioned his memory, his reactions, the truth of his emotions. It was as if they were searching for cracks in his story, looking for any weakness they could exploit. They whispered about his instability, his supposed fragility, treating him like a ticking time bomb that might explode at any moment. The words swirled around him—“dangerous,” “unhinged,” “unstable”—as if they were discussing a creature rather than a person. They did not care about the truth. They didn’t care that he was grieving. They wanted to control him, to twist his narrative into something that fit their agenda. And worst of all, Dumbledore had let it happen. The headmaster’s silence was a betrayal sharper than any knife.

And so, every night after those grueling interrogations, Harry would return to Privet Drive, his mind raw, his emotions flayed open. Vernon had been waiting for him, his rage more volatile than ever before. The beatings were methodical, routine—punishment meted out for nothing more than Harry’s existence. There were no pretenses of control anymore. Vernon didn’t even bother with his usual snarling tirades; his fists did the talking. Harry had become numb to it, his body too drained to care, his mind too frayed to fight back. Each blow was just another nail in the coffin of who he used to be.

Two days ago had been the worst. The tension in the house had become unbearable, thick and suffocating, an undercurrent of violence lurking beneath every interaction. The air itself felt dangerous, heavy with the promise of something terrible waiting to unfold. Harry had been moving through the motions—sleeping in fits, barely eating, his body functioning on autopilot. But Vernon had been simmering, his anger brewing just beneath the surface, waiting for an excuse to erupt.

And it had.

Harry, too exhausted to care, had forgotten to clean up a glass he had accidentally knocked over in the kitchen. The sound of shattering glass had echoed through the silent house, and before Harry could even react, Vernon had stormed in, his face red with fury, his massive hands shaking with barely contained rage. It was immediate. He had slammed Harry against the countertop, the impact sending shockwaves of pain through his body. His head smacked against the hard edge with a sickening crack, stars bursting behind his eyes, his vision swimming. The room tilted, but Vernon didn’t stop. He grabbed Harry by the collar, yanking him up with a strength born of fury, and threw him into the cupboard under the stairs.

The door had slammed shut with a finality that echoed through Harry’s bones. The cupboard was small, suffocating, the walls pressing in on him from all sides. It was the same cupboard he had spent so many years in as a child, the same damp, dark space that had been his prison for most of his early life. The smell of dust and damp wood was overpowering, dragging him back to those long, lonely nights when he had been locked away for hours on end, wondering if he would ever be allowed out again.

In that darkness, curled up on the cold floor, bruised and bleeding, something inside Harry had snapped. It was subtle at first—a quiet shift, a breaking of something delicate and fragile. But as the minutes dragged on and the darkness pressed against him, that break deepened, fractured. He wasn’t a child anymore. He wasn’t the helpless boy who had once waited in the dark for someone to save him, who had clung to the hope that one day someone would care enough to come for him.

No. That boy was gone. And in his place, something else had begun to stir.

He was angry. He had always been angry, but it had been buried, hidden beneath layers of fear and grief, suppressed by the weight of expectations and the need to survive. But now, in the suffocating darkness, with his body aching and his mind unraveling, that anger began to seep out, black and viscous, crawling through his veins like poison. It filled the hollow spaces inside him, turning the fear into something darker, something sharper.

That night, when Vernon had finally yanked open the cupboard door, ready to drag him out and continue the beating, Harry didn’t flinch. He didn’t cry. He didn’t beg. He just stared up at his uncle, his eyes cold, hollow, devoid of any trace of fear. There was something there, something dangerous, lurking beneath the surface, something that made Vernon falter. For the first time, Harry saw it—the flicker of uncertainty in his uncle’s eyes, the hesitation in his movement. Vernon had taken a step back, his mouth hanging open, as if he had seen something monstrous in Harry’s gaze.

Harry had crawled out of the cupboard, ignoring the pain in his ribs, ignoring the blood trickling down his face from the cut above his eyebrow. He had walked past Vernon without a word, climbed the stairs to his room, and locked the door behind him. And then he had waited. Waited for what, he didn’t know. Maybe for the darkness to fully consume him. Maybe for the last remnants of his sanity to slip away, swallowed whole by the anger that now coiled within him like a living thing.

The next day had passed in a blur. Petunia’s shrill voice grated at his ears, Dudley’s piggish glares bounced off his mind without leaving a mark, and the hours drifted by in numbing silence. It all felt distant, as though he was watching his life play out from behind a veil, disconnected, removed. His mind had started to fracture, reality peeling away in thin, fragile layers. Sometimes he would see things—shadows that flickered in the corners of his vision, moving where nothing should have been moving. Sometimes he would hear voices, faint at first, whispers that slithered into his thoughts, wrapping around them like tendrils of smoke.

“Why do you fight it?” the voice would ask, low and serpentine, its tone dripping with malevolent curiosity. “You’ve been used, Harry. Abused. You don’t owe them anything anymore. Let it go. Let it all burn.”

The voice echoed in his mind, relentless, insistent. He wanted to fight it—he tried to fight it. But he was too tired. The endless manipulation, the cruelty from the Dursleys, the Ministry’s interrogation, Dumbledore’s silence—it had all worn him down, grinding him into dust. His bones felt heavy, his mind sluggish. He had nothing left to fight with. So, he stopped trying.

That’s how he ended up here, sitting on his bed, staring at the cracked wallpaper, his mind spiraling further and further into the abyss. The room around him felt oppressive, the walls pressing in on him, the air growing thicker by the second, like the house itself was trying to suffocate him. Each breath he took felt like it was being stolen, the weight on his chest suffocating, crushing. His head pounded with the pressure of it all, the sound of blood rushing in his ears louder than his thoughts.

The dim light seeping through the curtains was pale and sickly, casting everything in an eerie, jaundiced hue. The small room, with its chipped furniture and faded colors, had once been a place where he could find a sliver of solace, even in the midst of all the cruelty. But now it felt like a tomb—a prison he would never escape. The shadows in the corners seemed to move, twisting into strange, grotesque shapes that flickered just out of the corner of his eye. Harry blinked hard, trying to focus, but his mind was slipping away from him, sliding into the dark recesses where the nightmares waited, always there, always hungry.

His chest ached, not from the bruises or the cuts, but from something far deeper, something festering inside him. It had been building for months, maybe years, a slow rot that had finally reached his heart, his soul. He could feel it now, the darkness, slithering under his skin like a living thing. It moved with purpose, waiting for him to give in, waiting for him to finally let go of the last shreds of control he had left.

And perhaps… perhaps he already had.

The thought didn’t scare him the way it should have. In fact, it felt strangely comforting, like a warm embrace pulling him into the void. The struggle was over, and in its place, there was only a cold certainty that gnawed at his insides. He wasn’t the boy who had believed in hope and second chances anymore. He wasn’t the boy who had clung to the idea of Dumbledore as a savior, or who had trusted the Ministry to bring justice. All of that had been ripped away, torn apart piece by piece, leaving him hollow, a shell of who he once was.

The sound of a creaking floorboard outside his door jolted him from his trance. His eyes snapped to the door, his heart skipping a beat as the familiar weight of his reality came crashing back down on him. For a moment, the room was silent, save for the distant hum of the wind outside and the slow, labored thudding of his heart. He blinked, disoriented, his mind struggling to catch up as the doorknob turned with a slow, deliberate creak. The door opened just a crack, enough for a thin slice of light from the hallway to spill inside, casting long, jagged shadows across the floor.

Petunia’s thin face appeared in the gap, her lips pulled tight, her eyes narrowed with the usual mixture of disgust and fear. She stood there for a moment, her bony fingers clutching the doorframe as though she was afraid to step inside.

“Dinner,” she spat, her voice sharp and cold, as though speaking to him burned her throat. She glanced at him, her eyes flickering with that familiar disdain, but there was something else there too—something like fear.

Harry didn’t move. He didn’t look at her. He barely registered her presence at all. His mind was too far away, lost in the murky depths of his own fractured psyche, swirling with broken thoughts and fragments of memories. The silence between them stretched, heavy and suffocating, until finally, with a sharp huff, Petunia slammed the door shut. The sound echoed through the small room like a gunshot, reverberating in the stillness, but Harry didn’t flinch.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

The voice returned, louder now, more insistent, wrapping around his mind like a serpent tightening its grip. It was soothing, in a way—comforting in its dark promise.

"Take control, Harry. You’ve suffered long enough. It’s time to make them pay."

The words curled inside his head like a dark incantation, spreading through his thoughts like black ink bleeding into paper. He closed his eyes, feeling the weight of the Slytherin letter hidden beneath his pillow. His fingers brushed against the wax seal, cold and firm, a solid reminder that there was still a way out of this madness. Theo had written to him, and the words in the letter were burned into his mind, a lifeline he hadn’t yet grasped:

"You are never alone. We’re here. We’re waiting for you."

It was more than an invitation—it was a promise. A promise of something beyond the pain, beyond the torment. A promise of revenge, of power, of freedom. Harry’s fingers tightened around the letter, his pulse quickening as he stood, his legs weak beneath him but driven by something darker than strength. The voice inside his head grew quieter, more focused, as though it could sense his decision solidifying.

The voice was right about one thing: he had suffered long enough.

But it was wrong about something else. This wasn’t just about his suffering anymore. It was about all of them—about the years of manipulation, of being lied to, used like pawns in someone else’s game. It was about the broken promises, the betrayals, the way the world had chewed them up and spit them out. The Ministry, Dumbledore, the Order, the Dursleys—they were all part of the same machine, grinding them down until there was nothing left but anger, nothing left but pain.

But Harry wasn’t going to let them win. Not anymore.

This wasn’t just about him—this was about Theo, about Draco, about all of them who had been cast aside, left to rot while the war raged on. They were more than pawns in Dumbledore’s game. They were more than the Ministry’s scapegoats.

They were going to become the architects of their own revenge.

And Harry would lead them.

A cold smile curled at the edges of his lips as he moved to the window, his decision made. The air outside was thick, heavy with the promise of a storm, the sky darkening with rolling clouds that seemed to mirror the turmoil in his chest. The voice inside his head was silent now, almost as if in satisfaction, content to let him take the reins.

He unlatched the window with steady hands, the cool night air whispering against his skin as he climbed out, his feet landing softly on the ground below. The world outside was quiet, peaceful in its ignorance. Behind him, Privet Drive remained still and undisturbed, unaware of the monster it had helped create.

But it would learn soon enough.

The world would learn.