Eremophobia
Harry spent two weeks straight in the boiler room after what had happened. He kept to his claim that it wasn't his fault and that if it had anything to do with him then he certainly had not meant it, but alas, Petunia and Vernon were resolute in keeping him locked up.
How they explained the incident to Miss Polkiss, Harry'd never know. He could wonder though. "Oh, you know how it is, the glass is... Flimsy on those enclosures," he could hear Petunia muttered to the overdressed woman. "Well," he could hear Vernon speaking, too, "maybe the screws came loose. Maybe your boy was to blame and not my precious son."
Any defence at Dudley's person and any dig at Harry's they could possibly muster, he concluded. It seemed the most appropriate, considering his previous punishments and how they explained away fantastical happenings whenever they allowed him access to the outside world.
When he was allowed to roam the property again, he found himself winding and winding a seemingly never-ending rope that hung off the edge of the steep hill at the back of the second courtyard. It wound around and around and around his arms and a few times, he had to drop it so he wouldn't be weighed down by it before he began to wind it once more.
"They've got an initiation," he heard Dudley approaching. His eyes flickered to the side and he could vaguely make out his wide figure, but he decided to pay no mind to him. "They stuff people's heads the down the toilet at Stonewall, want to practice?"
And, Harry's mouth had always moved faster than his brain did, so he in kind responded:
"No, thank you, Dudley, the poor toilet’s likely never had anything as horrible as your head down it--it might be sick." Naturally, he dropped the rope and hurried away from Dudley before his thick mind had a chance to register what he had even said to him. He thanked God later that Dudley didn't tell either of his parents what he had said, or more likely, he thanked God that Dudley was apparently so dumb he didn't even realise Harry had thrown an insult his way.
Then, when Harry emerged late from his room one day sometime in July, he found Dudley parading himself around the entirety of the house, including the servants quarters'--which annoyed Petunia's chambermaid to no end--in his tacky new uniform, it was all an ugly mesh of colours that didn't even work together shape-wise.
While Petunia fawned over her son's apparent accomplishment of moving up a year in his school and Vernon's suppose indifference but well veiled pride, Harry found himself half struggling not to giggle at the horrid display of half the rainbow and half genuinely confused. Surely they saw how detestable the uniform was but it was a uniform, it was required, so Harry could certainly get over it, but Dudley's behaviour was what stumped him most of the time.
Where the pair so love-blind to their son that they'd turned completely sightless to any imperfection that might make itself known to the general public?
Harry was unsure, but if they could ignore all of Dudley's mistakes, why couldn't they ignore his? Mistakes are mistakes and Harry was certainly one but he was only one mistake in a house of hundreds, he shouldn't cause his carers so much grief for just existing.
The next morning was one more mistake, as when Harry arrived late to breakfast, he found a stench emanating from the kitchen below. He winced without meaning to and covered his nose and mouth. If he had two eyes, they'd both be watering, but he only had one and it took on the burden of two, as such, it looked as if he were crying from the smell, which he most certainly was not, he can assure you.
"What is that?" He strained out, sitting at the far end of the table on the left side of the master's seat as he had been doing for the past seven years. "I've had the servants dye one of Dudley's old uniforms for you... School is happy to accept you back now," Aunt Petunia muttered.
What had happened was one of the desks had broken. One of Harry's bullies in the upper years. This was one particular situation that Harry took full responsibility for, as it was too funny to let anyone have the blame. Angry after being doused in several watering cans of water, Harry had seethed all lesson and only broke out of his anger-induced trance when he heard the loudest explosion from across the classroom.
His name was Bruce, the bully, and his desk had exploded, covering him in ash but most importantly, taking his trouser legs with it, leaving him bare on the lower half save his underwear.
Harry had giggled and been suspended since his record from Petunia showed he had some sort telekinetic wrath when it came to people he disliked or people who disliked him.
The doors to the dining hall opened, a tall, lanky woman with lopsided and oddly shaped glasses came hurrying in, she stopped at Harry, handed him a yellowed letter, then hurried to Vernon, handed him two and hurried out, casting a worried glance at Petunia and Vernon.
Harry beamed. Perhaps it was someone from his parent's family, saying they were alive and willing to take him now, or maybe one of his parents had survived all those years ago but had been mistakenly marked down as dead. His beaming dwindled as he read the front of the letter.
Mr Harry J. Potter
Boiler Room, Servants' Quarters
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
Before Harry managed to open it, Dudley had begun to scream.
"He's got a letter, Dad! Harry's got a letter!" And he sprang up, racing as fast as Harry had seen him move before to snatch it out of his hands. "That's mine! Dudley, hand that back!" But Dudley did not and thus, it ended up in his uncle's hands. Harry shrank into his chair, staring at his uncle with vitriol and despair, knowing he'd never get to see the contents of that letter now it was in his hold.
"Well, who'd be writing to you?" He glowered, wrestling to get the letter open and when it did, he went utterly white. Then green, then purple and landing on a vicious red. "Petunia," he stammered out, stuck between abhorrence and absolute fear. Holding the letter out Dudley's grasping hand and ignoring Harry's fruitless pleas of having it back, he handed it to Petunia, who nervously wiped a hand over her hair with a confused face.
The confusion, however, turned quickly to a shock of horror, eyes widening impossibly, face turning a horrid shade of purple-red.
"Oh, my Goodness," she turned a horrified glare at Harry, who stared at the yellowing letter, as if trying to will it to turn to him so he might read it. It did not turn but Petunia's hand shook violently as if it were trying. "Get out--the both of you. Now!" Vernon demanded, pointing to the double doors.
Harry, ever the obedient boy, shoved his chair back, despite his protests and complaints that he still wanted his letter back, hurried out of the hall, while Dudley whined and whinged that he couldn't get to read it or stay inside the hall while his parents were discussing it.
It was rather disgusting when the two managed some kind of truce and each pressed an ear to the dual keyholes, as Harry's face was so close to Dudley's he could smell the half-rotten egg on his breath and, in turn, held his own so to not inhale it. He near passed out, but he focused on listening to Petunia and Vernon talk about the letter in earnest fear.
"--the address, how might they know where he sleeps? Are they watching the house, Vernon? How frightening," Petunia muttered, and Harry could hear the clink of their matching rings and assumed (rightly so) that they had linked hands. "They might be following us on our outings," Vernon theorised, giving a curt him. "Following?" Petunia squeaked.
"Spying."
"Spying!" She shouted indignantly, "And what are we to do?"
"Ignore it," he said after a moment, sounding resolute. "They'll give up without a response."
Petunia didn't seem so convinced, "But," she began, although Vernon did not let her finish, "No, Petunia, we swore when took that bastard in that we'd stamp out that foolishness!" He was stern in his words and Petunia did not argue back.
Harry and Dudley scrambled back from the doors when they heard footsteps approaching. Harry clung to the hem of his shirt desperately, staring up while Dudley puffed himself out, probably preparing to have a screaming match with his father so he could see the letter and its contents.
"Where's my letter?"
"It was addressed to you by a complete mistake, the contents were of some lawyer requesting payment. Unless you have a lawyer, it isn't yours, boy."
"It was addressed to my cupboard, Uncle Vernon! Mine! That letter is certainly mine!" Harry pressed, hands clinging tighter as he prepared for a hit or a grab to his hair but Vernon did neither. Instead, slowly and painfully, his uncle forced a grotesque, crooked and twisted smile onto his wide face, which made Harry back up a few steps, face cringing. He looked to Vernon as if some devil had just possessed him as there was no way his uncle would smile at him unless some great misfortune was plagued upon him.
"Your cupboard," he clapped his hands, smile twitching. Petunia sweated beside him, wringing her now gloved hands. "We were thinking, Harry," he said his name as if it caused him severe pain to do so. Harry took another step back, eyes wide as he stared at Vernon with complete confusion and an odd sense of dread. "That we might move you from your cupboard, to one of the regular rooms."
"In... The main part of the house?"
"Yes," Vernon gritted out, hands clasping so tightly they went purple. Harry was two seconds away from refusing, thinking he just wanted his letter, that he'd be fine without the room, but then he thought about how cramped the cupboard was getting and finally, he relented. "Alright," he said hesitantly."
He didn't have much to move, in fact, he didn't have anything to move out--save for about five trinkets he managed to snag on his outings.
The whole thing felt a bit wrong, but he still took a wild pleasure in rolling over the double bed, on the softest sheets he'd ever felt and seen and on the squashiest mattress he'd ever felt. It was the only mattress he'd ever felt since his cot.
The next few days went without trouble, apart from Petunia's chambermaid mixing up his old room and his new room and staring in openly clear disgust at the fact that he was now in the main part of the house instead of mingling with the rats in the cellar.
And then, the same nervous maid entered the dining hall, handing the tray directly to Petunia.
"Another letter," Dudley spoke, sticking over the table and craning his head to see it under the pile, "To Mr Harry J. Potter, the Guest Bed--" but Petunia snatched it and ordered the woman to take it away. Dejected, Harry slumped into his seat, refusing to eat his breakfast, at which Vernon berated him for, saying he shouldn't waste such expertly prepared food.
The next day, Harry tried to flag down the maid, but she resolutely ignored him and, upon seeing Vernon, he retreated to his room and locked himself in there for the remainder of the day.
Over the following week or so, letters poured in, twelve one day, fourteen the next, seven the next and eight on the following. Yet none were in Harry's grasp.
That was, of course, until the fireplace in the drawing suddenly became very, very, smoky.
"Alfred, look at that will you?" Petunia complained, sewing one of her old dresses so it looked brand new again, reattaching the gems and diamonds and the tulle train. The moustached man nodded and grabbed the poker, stuffing it up the chimney. He was confused, as there seemed to be a solid blockage.
Harry watched curiously as Alfred knelt down, stuck his head under and jammed the poker up the chimney.
Within the next second, a thousand letters came flying through, most directed at Harry and some that seemed to purposefully spin around Petunia, Vernon and Dudley's heads. Dudley cried to make the barrage stop, while Vernon yelled in rage and Petunia shrieked in terror.
Harry found it quite amusing. He giggled, for the first time in a long while and caught at least five, shoving two in the inner pockets of poorly made blazer as he fled the room, screaming in response to Vernon demanding he get back there.
*
An indiscernible amount of time had passed and Harry found himself singing happy birthday on his lonesome to a cake drawn out of dust in a house missing its roof.
The Dursleys decided to go on an impromptu holiday which resulted in them travelling to about seven different locations before settling in a mangled house on a mangled island that could hardly house the house on its own at all.
It was storming terribly outside and Harry was half soaked, shivering in his clothes with his knees tucked to his chest. He kept glancing over at the cloak hung on the wall, only a few minutes to twelve, when he'd actually be turning eleven. At the same time the clock chimed midnight, the door broke down.