Chapter 1
The immaculately groomed yards that surrounded Harry aren't very alive in his opinion. He has peered through the windows of the schoolbus and seen the patches of trees and dense foliage that Aunt Petunia seemed to despise. Or maybe it was the people that were around them. She hates him more than usual when he's dirty from the outside chores, and that was when there was just a tiny bit of pruned back life to make a mess.
A properly alive place would be very messy, he thinks.
His uncle and his cousin certainly qualify. They're loud and large and everything that Harry isn't. Aunt Petunia is more like the yards she gossips about over the fence, all nice and neat and very visible, with harsh borders and lots of daily tending so as to fit perfectly between their neighbors.
Harry isn't dead, but he knows he isn't entirely alive either. The Dursleys have told him that something is wrong with him for as long as he can remember, that he's wrong; it makes perfect sense really. He has more in common with the robots from Dudley's cartoons as he picks up after the boy than with the other people around him. They both have their tasks and are stored away nice and neat in the closet (or cupboard in Harry's case) so that they don't get in the way of the real people.
Real people like the Dursleys get beds and sit on couches, and eat whenever they like, and talk to other people with smiles on their faces. Even if it's a rather nasty smile like Aunt Petunia gets when she hears something particularly scandalous and cannot wait to pass the word on.
Harry probably only barely qualifies as a boy, due to his freakishness. It's hard to work out exactly what will set off his Aunt or Uncle and launch them into a lecture about not being such a disgrace and a drain on precious resources, but at least that often repeated tirade is one that has provided answers. He is a blemish on their perfect, lively household and is best kept with the other dusty but occasionally useful things.
So he learns to keep quiet. Talking to the Dursleys was not something his family ever liked, and their attention is best directed elsewhere so that they won't find some way to wring more use out of his little body; he's always tired and the chores and lack of proper meals when he misbehaves make it worse. They never want to see him anyway unless Dudley wants the amusement of chasing him around to shove or kick, same as most of the toys he goes through so quickly.
He knows that the Dursleys are nice people because they let him stay under their roof and feed off their scraps like a helpful sort of beetle, or maybe a spider. He spends enough time with the ones that live above his cot that he drops small bugs into their webs when he can, as thank you for keeping him company.
Sometimes it feels like there's hardly any life at all in the lawn aside from the grass and maybe himself. Some bugs and sometimes worms if he was digging a hole for the latest flowers. Birds now and then, but they stayed far away from the ground where local cats could reach. One of the neighbors used to have a bird feeder but it got taken down for attracting pests, though Harry hadn't heard what type.
The patch of tightly controlled land is practically worried flat under his aunt's judgemental gaze, with every weed plucked before it can blossom and the overfed grass kept a millimeter below the neighborhood limit, for fear that anyone would think her lazy. It's hard work to scold a child into doing so much on a regular schedule.
Half dead thing that he is, Harry feels a kinship with the dying bird he finds in the hedges one afternoon. It's so panicked and he can feel the little heart racing the same as his own would when fleeing a round of Harry Hunting. Cradling it in his hands, Harry whispers to it that it isn't so bad, being dead. When you're dead nothing can hurt you and there's no reason to be scared.
If Harry had died properly with his parents instead of lingering, things would be better off. Aunt Petunia said as much to him as she shoved him back into his cupboard on a particularly odd feeling fall night, and he knows she's right as usual. If he was fully dead he would be with his parents, and he wouldn't even have to mind that they were drunkards and layabouts, because dead people don't need to work or be presentable. If he was fully dead he wouldn't feel the sting of his Uncle's backhand when he brings the dead bird inside to put with his other treasures, or hear his aunt's harsh reprimands for dirtying their home with such putrid filth. They have enough of that with him staying there.
But if Harry had died he wouldn't have been there to tuck the broken bird back into the shade where it had felt hidden and remained untouched by hungry things until Harry is certain his nameless friend has stopped breathing and cannot feel the gathering of ants that he had kept brushing away.
If he were fully dead he wouldn't get to giggle as the dead bird stiffly writhes in Uncle Vernon's hand while Aunt Petunia shrieks at new pitches. His uncle flings the tiny carcass like it's a live (ha!) explosive, only for it to make a piercing whistle and flip around mid air to divebomb the man. It didn't even need to really flap its wings properly, just go through the motions while it moves as though puppeted by unseen strings.
It was very impressive, but not half as much as how the bird burst into a ball of fire in the most lively greens, like the freshest grass before he had to trim it back to the proper length for a good, respectable neighborhood.
So lovely.
He hopes his body will do something half so interesting and pretty when his body finally remembers that he should be buried years ago.
While he's put off that his new friend-to-be hadn't lasted long enough to play with, the way the Dursleys avoid looking directly at him for a while is nice. It makes him feel like a ghost that nobody else can see, a friendly one that tidies up the dishes and dusts the picture frames. Whenever they start talking to him again instead of shoving chore lists into his face and walking off, all he has to do is stare at the chicken bones in the trash a little too long. Petunia stopped buying them whole after the bird incident, despite her preference for making his tasks unnecessarily time consuming.
He does wonder if the bones would end up like the songbird if he put them all in order. Like a puzzle.
He's enjoyed the few pieces he can find scattered on the floor from Dudley's mountain of toys, completely sure that his cousin wouldn't even notice. They don't all fit together, but some do, even if they are from different sets and their colors don't match the way their shapes do. Most of the time they only mostly fit, but there's a couple that snap together perfectly despite their obviously not being intended to join. He wonders if bones might work the same way.
The weather is nice enough for Harry; the chilled drizzle keeps Dudley and the like inside, and his aunt and uncle are content to have him out of the house with the warning that if he gets himself sick they won't be indulging his recklessness. Harry is fairly sure they would like it if he got sick and died far away from them, but the damp and cold doesn't bother him.
His fingers might go numb where he grips the swing he's claimed, and his clothes are sticky and heavy with water, but he wrings them out and enjoys the fresh air and scent of decay that creeps out from under wet concrete and uniform woodchips. Harry can't remember ever getting all that sick before so he'll probably be fine.
Out of sight from Aunt Petunia's shrewd eyes, he is free to kick off his nearly worn through shoes and threadbare sock so he cam squash his feet into the muck of grass clippings and mud that pools around the park. It's peaceful in a way that goes beyond the lack of his family and he could never describe why. Probably because he's stupid, as they'd say, but that's fine with him because, as they made certain to drum into his head, he's a freak. Of course he isn't the same kind of smart, he's not supposed to talk to people unless spoken to, and that is such a rare situation. He's smart in a Harry way, he thinks. He knows how to cook bacon and eggs better than Petunia and how to dust those hard to reach spots without getting on the furniture. He knows that when his aches and tired eyes almost pull him down he can stop needing to breathe and keep warm for the night until he's almost good as new in the morning, if a bit stiff. Sudden cold makes his bones ache but feels so good on fresh bruises.
It's an awful lot of work to be somewhat alive but he thinks it's worth all the bad stuff for the moments where he feels nearly all the way alive, or when he feels death playfully curling around his ankles and breaking down the weeds too tough to pull with bare hands. Normal people don't get to feel that, as he'd worked out from the yank to his ear for mentioning something so unnatural.
Unnatural is a very silly thing to call death. It's the most natural thing there is, the default state really. Life all springs from death, that's why the flowers grow best when he sneaks them bones from dinner and scraps too rough for him to eat.