I hate it here
July 26
Harry wondered, not for the first time, if he had simply dreamed up the last four years. If his years at Hogwarts, his friends, his magic…if all of it was something he had imagined for himself out of sheer desperation to escape Privet Drive.
Maybe even the Dementors that attacked him two weeks ago weren't real. Maybe it was all just a fantasy.
After all, Harry had nothing tangible in his room he could use to remind himself of what was real. After the Dementor attack, after the letters from the Ministry, from Mr. Weasley, and from Sirius, he was left completely and totally alone. A final letter from Mrs. Weasley telling him to "keep his head down and stay out of trouble" and that someone would be sent to retrieve him the morning of his hearing for underage magic, and then there had been radio silence from any and all persons related to Wizarding Britain.
After realizing Harry wasn't immediately being removed from their presence, the Dursleys resorted to confiscating his things and locking him in his room. Harry couldn't even sense a magical aura with any and all objects that hinted at magical origin locked away in the cupboard under the stairs - which had two new locks with keys that Vernon kept on him at all times. He had nothing to prove to himself they had ever existed at all.
Vernon had even taken Hedwig's cage and shook it outside with the gate open until she flew away, screeching indignantly. Watching from his freshly barred window, Harry hoped she flew to the Weasleys or maybe all the way back to Hogwarts. He hoped that wherever she was, she was safe.
Petunia, blaming him for her son spending days in a near comatose state, had shown an even more vicious side of herself than usual. It was probably a good thing Hedwig was gone. The tiny amounts of food his aunt gave him weren't enough to sustain him, let alone another mouth to feed.
Considering Petunia found any opportunity to pinch and slap him, he didn't want to consider what she might be willing to do to his owl purely out of spite.
If Hedwig was real, that was, which Harry had seriously been debating for the last few hours.
He just couldn't believe that if it all was really real - if he had found friends that would follow him into danger, met adults like Mrs. Weasley and Sirius, they would just leave him here like this. They all knew exactly what he had been through. The monster he had faced and had to fight in that graveyard, the other, just-as-terrifying-but-in-a-different-way monsters he had singlehandedly defended himself and his cousin against just a few weeks ago.
For the first two weeks of summer - before the dementor attack - he had even sent out frequent letters, begging for information, for updates. Hedwig hadn't returned any of his letters unopened, so he knew she had gotten through to the recipients - Sirius, Ron, Hermione, even Ron's parents and Professor Lupin.
But he'd had no responses.
Just a thunderously loud silence, like he was sending letters into a void.
Rolling onto his side, he ignores the lumpy mattress and crushed flat pillow underneath him and lets his hand drape over his waist, fingering absentmindedly at his clearly defined rib bones.
Gazing sightlessly at the wall inches from his face, Harry ponders again if he's gone insane. Maybe he's actually been attending Stonewall High this whole time. Maybe he was committed years ago. Maybe everything - even the current moment - is a dream, and soon he'll wake up eleven years old in his cupboard.
Maybe one of those options would be better. Then he'd be - normal. Or at least not hunted. Not abandoned. Not left out in the cold, with enemies slowly circling him, just waiting to pounce.
But no.
Whenever he's nearly convinced himself that magic isn't real, whenever he's decided it was all just his imagination, he feels something rise up inside of him. Something staticky and swirling, and so hot it feels icy cold. When this happens, if he runs his fingers down his skin, small lines of electricity jump from his hands like little lightning bolts. It doesn't hurt him; it just fills the room with enough static electricity that if he looks in the mirror, his hair will have risen slightly into the air.
Once, three days ago, he had caused the lighting to start and then sat up and had actually managed to cup it in his hands. The bolts of white power had sent ricochets around his curled palm and between his hands when he brought the other up to mirror it.
This was magic. It had to be. There was no other explanation.
So, if magic was real, his time at Hogwarts had to be real, too.
This meant that all those lovely people, his friends, his godfather, adults he trusted and respected and had started to count on, despite plenty of evidence telling him adults couldn't be trusted…it meant they had actually left him here.
It was like a logic puzzle or something from primary school maths class.
If A equals B, and B equals C. Then A must equal C. If A is true, then C must be true as well.
But C being true would mean that everyone Harry considered family - the people he would do anything for - had really and truly abandoned him here.
Left him with a family that they had to - had to - know didn't care for him. Harry hadn't shared details, but he dropped enough clues over the years so that anyone would know precisely how the Dursleys had treated him. Dropped hints like breadcrumbs, hoping, praying, that someone would follow them and actually do something to help him.
Lifting his hand in front of his face, he tries to find that cold, floaty headspace he has been retreating to more often this summer. When it felt like Harry was watching the world from behind a glass case - or perhaps while frozen in a block of ice, his only source of warmth - of life - that crackling power deep within him. He could still see everything about his situation clearly, maybe clearer than ever, but it was like he was viewing it through another person's eyes.
But that cold, removed place he sometimes was able to find, it helped him not feel anything. He didn't feel frustrated when his uncle smugly locked him in after a trip to the bathroom. Didn't feel unwanted and alone when he went days without speaking. Didn't even really feel the pain when his aunt viciously pinched the skin of his arm, leaving little bruises like polka dots.
It was like he sank into himself, into a well of icy cold water. Water that was somehow electrified.
As sparks began forming in his hand, Harry smiled.