First Bite

Petunia Dursley watched the skeletal figure next to her by the kitchen counter. She had to help him cook now as he, for some unfathomable reason, moved as he walked through molasses and no matter what she said or Vernon threatened with, he seemed to be unable to move any faster. She could even admit that it seemed like he tried. That it seemed like he didn’t do it for attention or to get away from his chores. It seemed like, and if she later found out that he fibbed … Vernon would not be at all happy that he used their family so, after everything they had done for the little freak.

Looking at him now, she could feel the loathing she always felt for the abnormal brat, but she still had eyes and she had to admit that anyone that malnourished had something seriously wrong with them. He had always been skinny, she would not fatten up some freak left on her doorstep in the middle of the night, thank you very much, but she had fed him. Enough to look better than this. It was less than a week since he had come back from that cursed freak school of his and he was wasting away like she didn’t feed him at all, which she did. Not from her table, of course, that table was for family meals, but he did get two meals a day. That had always been sufficient. That would be enough now too. She would not use her husbands hard-earned money to take him to the doctor.

She gave a heavy sigh and looked at him again where he stood slowly stirring the soup while she cut the vegetables. The little freak had bruises under his eyes as well as those covering his arms and shoulders from Duddikins’ roughhousing with him. She knew he wore two or three sweaters all the time, even in the summer heat, and he only pushed them up his arms not to soil them while cooking. The gruesome red scar went down his face from his forehead, splitting down his nose, over his eye and down his temple before splitting again, even smaller this time, into jagged lines over his cheek and chin, almost touching his lips. It was just as ghastly now as it had been when the boy had been pushed on them. His arms were nothing more than sticks and he was so pale, his usual disgustingly dark skin was almost grey and even more disgusting. No one healthy looked like that, not even freaks.

Suddenly she felt pain slice through her fingertip, and she sucked in a breath and looked down. She had nicked her finger, nothing too bad, she thought, but it bled profusely, as such wounds tended to do. Before she reached the sink to wash the blood off and get a better look at the nick, a small hand, made of pure steel, locked around her wrist and jerked her arm towards the freak. He gazed transfixed at the blood while he slowly dragged her hand and the blood towards him.

“Boy, what do you think you are doing! Let me go! Boy!”

He didn’t let go, it didn’t seem like he heard her at all. He just stared at the blood with hungry eyes.

“Boy, let me go!” She yanked at her arm, but nothing happened, nothing at all, she could be fighting a statue for all the difference her words or movements made.

“Harry!” No one that small, no one that scrawny, should be this strong, she knew.

His pale, almost blue lips, closed around her bleeding finger and the boy closed his eyes in something that only could be bliss. In the moment between her blood touching his tongue and her world starting to spin, she could see how the paleness almost was washed away from his face and the bags under his eyes disappeared. Then the world spun around her, far too much for the little cut or the minimal blood-loss she had experienced. She wanted to grab the counter, she wanted to wrench free of him, she wanted to sit down, she wanted to throw up, she wanted …

Everything spun and memories, feelings and thoughts whirled through her mind in a tornado while she watched her nephew drink her blood. Because of course that was what was happening. Harry was drinking her blood and he looked better every moment that went by, no longer greyish skin, no longer bruised, no longer sickly thin, and at the same time she knew she was hardly in any danger because such a cut couldn’t possibly pose any danger to any healthy human. It wasn’t hygienic, to be sure, but it was hardly dangerous. What truly worried her was her own placidness, because now she just stood there with her finger in his mouth, not talking and not fighting at all. Her world still spun, but she was not afraid, not of him and not of the situation. Nor of the freakiness of it all.

Warmth trickled up her arm from his mouth before it suddenly washed down her body and up to her head. Then she felt pain. Only pain. The cracking of mighty locks springing open. The sound of strained cords finally giving in and snapping, lashing against her mind. The burning of dry grass and dust. Wind blowing harshly to cleanse the air.

Then quiet and peace. A freshness. A rightness. Something was gone. Something that should never have been. Something that she knew she would curse the rest of her life, while praying that she never ever had to experience it again.

Being trapped.

Being forced.

Being changed.

Deep, deep down, she knew she had been changed. She had been changed against her will.

Cassia Petunia Evans-Dursley found herself laying on the kitchen tiles sobbing hysterically and gasping for breath. When she finally was able to calm down she looked up and saw a huddled shape in the corner, shoulders up under his ears and arms over his head, shivering as if he was in the middle of a snow storm.

“Harry?” she whispered hoarsely.

“I’m so sorry, Aunt Petunia, I’m so, so sorry! I will never do it again! I’m so sorry!” he wailed down into his own lap, cowering his head with his arms to ward of blows and certainly not looking up at her.

“Harry, it’s … it’s alright. Whatever that was. It’s alright. I promise, dear. I promise that it’s alright.”

He was still trembling and sobbing, whispering that he was sorry. So very sorry. It wouldn’t happen again.

It stabbed her down into her very soul.

“You did nothing wrong, Harry. Surprising, yes, but not wrong.” And she truly believed that. She didn’t know what had happened or how or why, but she knew that her nephew was not at fault.

“Please, Harry, please look at me. Are you hurt? Did I hit you while I had that … incident?”

Slowly, he looked up at her through the black fringe of his messy hair. Green eyes, wet with tears and big with fright, so alike Lily’s, looked at her while his whole body shook. A freight train of memories hit her.

Finding him on the doorstep on the second day of November when she was about to put the milk bottles outside. It had been so cold that night. Little Harry had been blue in the face, she had believed him to be dead at first. She had called an ambulance at once and spent the next two days by Harry’s side in the hospital. Mourning with him. Feeling the loss of the only family she had had left. Singing for little Harry until her voice grew hoarse.

Nothing but a letter, a bloody letter, informing her of her little beloved sisters’ demise and that she had to take in her nephew for his protection. Like she wouldn’t have answered the door day or night to stop a child from spending the night on the fucking doorstep! What kind of morons had put him there, what kind of animals did that to a child?!

She had never wanted another child, but that was because the pregnancy had been so very hard on her, and she never, ever wanted to go through that again. A second child was not unwelcome, not at all, even one she suspected would grow up to be magical and thus move out of her world and out of her reach long before he actually grew up. Just as Lily had.

No, not unwelcome at all.

Somehow that had changed. Somewhere along the way.

The cupboard under the stairs.

The nasty names she and Vernon called her little, innocent nephew.

The starvation, because what the actual fuck! What kind of monster thought two slices of bread and some fruit was enough food for a child for a whole day!

The fact that he never had had clothes that fit him, only Dudley’s cast’s off. Even his glasses were second-hand and damn near certain not a perfect fit for his eyes. He squinted far too much.

The cold shoulders and lacking support. The lack of emotional, physical, and mental support all children should have.

The cupboard under the stairs.

They had told the poor child that his parents, who had died protecting him, was driving drunk with him in the car and got themselves killed!

Vernon’s manhandling of the scrawny, little boy.

Dudley’s tormenting, both with words and with fists. She had just looked the other way!

That bloody cupboard!

Her own and Vernon’s destruction of his introduction to his own world, the magical world.

Vernon threatening him with a trashing only because her brilliant nephew did well at a test in school. She had looked the other way again, feeling that her nephew shouldn’t be better than her own son! Such a cold-hearted bitch!

The frying pan.

Cassia got to her feet, stumbled, and then crawled on hands and knees to the wastebin before she retched, retched again and threw up. That fucking frying pan! She had hit her nephew in the head with the frying pan! She threw up even more. Vomit, shame and hatred burning through her. She had abused her nephew! She had made his life a misery. She had made her home, what should have been his home, into his own personal hell.

Cassia whimpered and retched again at the thought of what Lily would do to her if she ever saw her sister again. She would deserve every word and every bit of pain. Lily would make sure to make Cassia pay for the abuse off her beloved son, the son she had laid down her life for. Lily would never forgive her, nor would Cassia deserve such forgiveness. If Dudley had ended up with Lily and her husband, he would be as looked after and as loved as Harry, their own son, would have been. Cassia had never doubted that.

After she had retched several more times and truly emptied her stomach, she put a knot on the waste bag, put the bag in two other bags and then put a fresh bag in the wastebin before she slowly stood up. Her legs were shaking beneath her and she leaned on the counter while she drank water directly from the tap, after cleaning out her mouth several times.

Right. She had abused her beautiful, innocent nephew for years. Lily would never forgive her, neither would she ever forgive herself. Move on. That was the only thing to do. Move on, try to be better, a lot better. Try to at the very least help Harry through some of the trauma she and her family had caused. Or help him find a loving home that would help him heal, if he was unable to trust her. Not that she could blame him, if that was the case. No, she could never blame him. 

Slowly she turned around and saw Harry standing in the doorway to the hallway, still as a statue while he stared at her. His skin was a lot healthier, but not truly healthy. He was less skinny, but again, he needed to put on more weight to be called healthy. The bags under his eyes and the bruises on his arms were gone, at least.

Not that she knew how any of that were possible. How anything at all was possible. Magic, she suspected. She missed Lily. Her sister could have told her how this had happened, both with Harry right at this moment and how Cassia herself could have turned into a bitch from the Ninth Circle of Hell, more or less overnight. Or at least, she presumed so.

She had no real memory of when or how it had happened, only that she obviously had not been antagonistic towards her nephew when she had held him for two days straight at the hospital or talked to the doctors or the cops or the lawyer from the local child welfare department. The lawyer that had made Cassia Harry’s guardian. She had been ready to fight tooth and nail to keep her nephew, the last part of her sister, she remembered that. But she had been the only living relative that they had been able to find. That, combined with her obvious willingness to keep the little boy and her family circumstances had made the decision easy.

That decision had been made final at least some months after Harry came to them. Months where she had held Harry almost day and night while he struggled with loss and trauma. Months where she remembered Vernon asking after both his charming boys when he got home from work. Months where she proudly had presented her nephew to the neighbours, as well as her son.

When had it all changed?

When had she changed?

Nasty little freak! A hand, her hand, slapping a small, thin face.

Vernon’s big hands pushing a tiny boy into the cupboard. Taking food from our table!

Big green eyes asking carefully if he could get a bit more food, her snappish reply. We kept you out of the goodness of our hearts!

The frying pan swinging …

Cassia sobbed and put a hand over her mouth.

No, no, keep yourself together! She thought fiercely and dried a tear that tried to escape. You are the adult. Something wrong happened. Something bad. But you are the adult, so you have to keep it together and help the one who have suffered the most. So much more than he ever should have.

“Harry,” she whispered hoarsely. “I believe that we will be ordering pizza for lunch, instead of the soup I had planned. Do you know what you would like on the pizza?”

He stared at her, his mouth half open and she realized in horror that he had never been allowed to taste the pizza they had ordered in before. Unless he had tasted pizza when he was with friends or at his school, he would never have tasted pizza at all.

“First, we will eat and then … then we will figure out what to do.”

He shrank away from her, his shoulders curling inwards and his chin almost at his chest.

“What to do about me, Aunt Petunia?” he whispered.

“No, no, Harry …” she had to bite back a sob again. “Harry, Harry, listen to me, you know more about magic than I do …” She frowned, or maybe he didn’t. After all, she had read every single one of Lily’s schoolbooks and several of her extracurricular books, up to and including those of Lily’s fifth year, before Lily came up with her awesome plan. Their awesome plan. Cassie almost sobbed again at the thought. She hadn’t thought about their plan in years. She had hardly thought about her sister at all, if not to curse her and her son.

Harry flinched. Whether it was because Cassia dared to use the word magic when Harry had been punished so many times when he just hinted at the word or the concept, or because of Cassia’s frown, she didn’t know.

“Harry, have you ever heard about a compulsion spell? Or something similar?” she asked carefully.

Now he looked at her, green eyes full of scepticism, looking for a trap, for a threat. That was alright. She could understand that. It would take a lot of work and time before he trusted her, if he ever did. Cassia had two years of child psychology under her belt before she took a year off from her studies when she had Dudley. She had absolutely planned to go back to her studies, and she had never, ever planned on being a homemaker. That had always sounded extremely boring to her. Also, it didn’t fit with her and her sister’s awesome plan. Vernon had known of her plans all along and had been nothing but supportive. As if she would have married him otherwise.

How she ended up with not going back to the studies she had loved, the subject she was so passionate about, she had no idea. Another question on a list already a mile long.

“I have never heard about it,” Harry whispered after several minutes.

“That’s alright. I read about it in one of Lily’s books. It’s a type of magic, and I’m not certain if what was done to me was a spell or a curse or a ward or something I know nothing about, but the magic is meant to make people act a certain way. Do you have a friend or a teacher you could … No, wait …” She froze and Harry froze with her, ready to turn tail and run. She forced herself to relax her stance, he remained alert. “I don’t know who did it. I don’t know who put the spell on us. Asking around could be dangerous.”

She stood there and studied her sickly thin nephew for a little while. He studied her right back, a bit as if he never had seen her before. And in a way, he never had.

“Harry, would you agree that something happened, and that I now act different than I have done before?”

He gave her a slow, tentative nod.

“Good, is there something I can say or do to make you believe that I’m really and truly different from what I have been so far in your life? I need us to agree that I am different, because if you don’t agree with me, it would be wrong of me to ask you not to contact any adults in the magical world that might help you in a difficult situation. One or more whom I very much suspect is behind this curse in the first place.”

He gave a snort, and then he stumbled back, as if to get away from a blow or sharp words. She didn’t move and he rightened himself again and stood still.

“I have no one to ask anyway,” he murmured while he watched her face for a reaction. Obviously in doubt whether he should admit to that or not.

“Your teachers or your Head of House?”

“The teachers never believe anything I say and none of them would ever help me with anything!” he spat the words out, as if they hurt on his tongue, as if he found it ridiculous that she believed there were magical adults that would help him. That any adult at all would ever help him.

Cassia swallowed hard. “I’m truly sorry to hear that, Harry, and I will address that later. Right now, we need to agree that something happened and that I’m different than I was and then we can go from there …”

“You could tell me about Mum.” The words were said fast and low, but she heard them. “You have never told me about her before, not without cursing her out.” He was already inching even farther away from her, but she pretended not to notice.

“Oh … yes, yes, I can do that. Is there anything in particular you would like to know?”

He shrugged, then shook his head.

“Lily Rose Evans was my little sister by three years. She got our father’s red hair and green eyes, while I got our mother’s blonde hair and blue eyes. We both got our father’s fiery temper and our mother’s stubbornness. I was the only one that could actually out stubborn Lily. She liked being outside, no matter the weather, and I know that she taught herself a lot of spells to keep her comfortable in all weather. We were supposed to share our chores, but Lily always managed to switch it around, so she got to work in the garden and didn’t have to sweep the floors or clean the windows. Not that I truly minded, I am more of an indoor person anyway. Her favourite classes in primary were Arts and Crafts, English and French, and later, at Hogwarts, Charms, Potions and Runes. When we were adults, she admitted to trying harder at Hogwarts than in primary school, not that she was a slouch in primary, but she truly excelled at Hogwarts.”

Cassia looked at her nephew that now had come closer to her, though, he was still in the hallway while she stood in the kitchen. His green eyes were big and his mouth slightly open and she knew he was devouring every word she said like it was a precious treasure.

“Would that do for now? I can tell you more later and I … have … pictures …” She stopped and frowned, she had pictures, old books and belongings, even some clothes … And hadn’t she taken care of Lily’s half destroyed home? Hadn’t she been the one to hire the people to empty it to give to Harry later? What had happened, where had all that gone? Had she kept anything close, in the attic maybe? But the furniture and paintings and the wall hanging that had been in James’ family for generations … She should have taken care of that too, should she not? Had she done so? Where was everything now? Why couldn’t she even remember if she had done it or not?

There were a lot that wasn’t right with this situation. Far too much. But Harry first; everything else later.

“Lily Rose?” a small voice asked, and she looked at her nephew. “I didn’t know that her name was Lily Rose.”

“She was most often just Lily, but to some she was Lily Rose. James usually called her Lily Flower or Tiger Lily, or Fire Lily when she was really miffed. I most often called her Lily, or sometimes Lil’s. When either of us was sad I tended to all her Lily Rose.”

The small smile that the far too scrawny child gave her then was like seeing the sunrise for the very first time, and her heart lurched in her chest. She had to swallow away tears and hurt. The smile disappeared all too soon, but she had seen it now, and knew that it existed.

“I have pictures somewhere. I will find them for you,” Cassia promised. She swore to herself that she would find the pictures and everything else, too. All that belonged to Harry and no one else. And maybe she would get to see that smile again.

Harry looked a bit dubiously at her, but nodded. “My friend Hermione is a Muggelborn, like my Mum,” he said, almost defiant, still checking if she would revert and punish him for talking about Lily or magic.

“She is really smart and no one in her family could have done anything … magical.” He whispered the last word.

“If she is Muggleborn, could you call her and ask if she can confirm what I said about compulsion magic?”

“I have her number in my trunk.” Again, he said it as a challenge.

Cassia didn’t hesitate, she found her keys and unlocked the padlock on the cupboard.

Do not think about the small boy who had slept here every night for years. Not now! Do not think about it!

Then she dragged the heavy trunk out of the cupboard. She remembered helping Lily with her own trunk, it had been unwieldy but not nearly as heavy. Hadn’t Lily said something about a charm that made the trunk light as a feather? Or at least lighter than this. Hurriedly, she dumped both the key and the padlock in the trash. That would never be used again.

“Now, you find that number and call your friend. I will go outside with the garbage and find the menu for the pizza place. Vernon and Dudley will be home in about an hour, so that will suit nicely with the delivery time.”

She went to do exactly that and could hear Harry whisper in the phone in the kitchen when she got in again.

“I don’t know what’s happening, Hermione!” he hissed. “She just … just had this kind of fit, and then she cried for ten minutes straight, threw up a lot and was … just … just very, very different! It’s weird! It’s freaking me out! What if … what if …”

What if it’s a trap.

What if she is trying to make him trust her and then slap him down again.

She had done that before, bitch that she had been.

What if she was trying to make him break the rules and then have Vernon trash him for it. Both Dudley and she had done that before.

Never again. Never, ever, ever again.

But Harry didn’t know that. He couldn’t believe that. Not yet. Maybe never. No matter. It still wouldn’t happen again.

“So, compulsion magic, or something like that. Have you heard about it?” he whispered and then he nodded slowly. “So, it’s real? It’s a real thing that can be done to people?” He nodded slowly again. “Thank you so much, Hermione. Yeah, you too.” He hung up and hurriedly looked up when Cassia came into the kitchen.

She held out the menu from the pizza place. “Dudley likes the Meat Lover pizza the most, Vernon likes Vesuvio, I prefer Four Cheeses. If either of those have looked good before, then that’s the name of the pizzas we usually eat. You are free to choose whatever you want, together with one soda and one cookie.”

Slowly, so slowly, Harry took the menu from her with shaking fingers, and she turned towards the counter to clean up after their failed soup. She kept what she could, but had to throw away quite a bit because it had come too close to her blood. That made her look down on her finger. There was not as much as a hint of a wound. Somehow, that didn’t surprise her at all.

“Aunt Petunia?” His voice was shaking, but it was obvious that he had decided to try and see what would happen.

She was careful when she turned towards him. Careful to have a neutral expression, as she was far, far too upset to have a friendly one right now, and careful to not move too fast. The most important thing was to make sure Harry felt safe. It would take weeks, months, and years to accomplish, but that was her job above all else now. Make sure Harry would both feel and actually be safe.

“I would like a small Meat Lover’s pizza please, and a can of Fanta and a chocolate chip cookie, please.” He was eyeing her anxiously and she forced herself to give a small smile.

“That’s perfectly alright, Harry. I will call and order for everyone. Would you like some help to move your trunk up the stairs afterwards? Oh, by the way, are you hungry now? It’s an hour to lunch, but I can make you a sandwich or you can have some fruit?” Harry had only had one piece of toast so far that day, and that was far too little for a growing boy.

Harry grew pale while she talked and even if her words and suggestions would be natural for Dudley, they were anything but for Harry.

“I’m … I’m actually not very hungry. But … but I would like some help with my trunk. Please?” He swallowed hard while fighting back a flinch, as if expecting that he had reached her limit now.

“Then I will help you in a moment,” she told him placidly.

It took less than five minutes to place the order and then she helped him with the trunk.

“I am absolutely certain that Lily’s trunk weighted far less!” she said and frowned down at the trunk when they had gotten it to the end of Harry’s bed. In his small, dark and dreary bedroom. With the locks on the door and the bloody cat flap! No, no, that would not do at all!

“Harry, this is not a good room, and your furniture is … The less said about it, the better. Would you like to sleep in the guest bedroom? Either until we can make this into a proper room for you, or until we will remake the guest room into a room for you. The guestroom is much bigger.”

“I, really, are you sure?” He looked at her with a deer in headlights look.

“Absolutely sure.”

“What about … what about … Aunt Marge … and … and Uncle Vernon?” he whispered.

“I will take care of both, do not worry about that. When I took you in, I meant to treat you and Dudley equally. Something … something went very, very wrong along the way, but I meant to treat you similarly, like my sons. To have my two boys grow up like brothers. I can never tell you how sorry I now am that it didn’t happen like that, Harry, words will never be enough. But I will nevertheless say it, say it and show it and do everything I can to help heal it, until the day I die.”

She looked him in the eyes. His grew big by the sincerity in hers. “You are a part of this family, Hadrian Nalin Iacomus Potter-Black. You will always be a part of this family and you will hereafter always be treated like it. You are worthy of kindness, respect and love, unconditionally and forever, and I will tell you so however many times you need to, or want to, hear it, from this day forwards.”

“Hadrian Nalin Iacomus Potter-Black?” he stared at her. “Is that … is that supposed to be my name?”

Cassia swallowed hard. Bitch-Petunia hadn’t even told him his own name! For fuck’s sake!

“Yes, Harry. Hadrian after your great-grandfather on your father’s side, even if most people called him Henry the way they call you Harry. That was his choice, though, the same way you can choose to be called Harry or something else. Nalin is in respect to Lily’s family naming traditions, as it means “Lotus” in Hindi which your father and all his family spoke fluently, as they originated from India. Iacomus after your father, who most called James. And Potter-Black is because … Let’s see … I know this, I remember Lily telling me about this …”

She reached for the memory of that day at the cottage in Godric’s Hollow. It was raining and the two boys shared a crib for their nap and Lily was telling her … They were drinking sweet chai. James was singing in the kitchen while he cooked Lily’s favourite dinner because she had managed to finish a big enchanting project that day for her Mastery in Enchanting. And Lily was telling her … She was telling her …

“I can’t remember, not right now. I will work on it and tell you as soon as I remember it. I’m sorry, Harry. Or would you like me to call you something else?”

He looked down and shrugged. She would ask again later.

“Now, I’m going to take a shower, and then you may do the same, if you wish. Take a long, hot shower if that is what you want to, and use whatever soap and shampoo you like. Feel free to unpack your trunk in this room, it is yours until you say otherwise, and you may change it however you wish. I will also help you with paint and different furniture as soon as I’m sure we are all safe and things have calmed down a bit.”

Harry didn’t answer and Cassia went to the bathroom, got out of her clothes and into the shower. Tears streaked her face while she scrubbed her skinny body with bones peeking out place’s bones should not be seen. Her hands were so thin they were skeleton like.

She had suffered from an eating disorder from her late teens to her early twenties, only able to shake it when Lily had graduated Hogwarts and came home for a longer period of time and helped her see the world and her own worth as it truly was again. Cassia was Lily’s kick arse bigger sister, and Lily had never let her forget that. She had not let her forget their awesome plan and all that Cassia had to live for, and be strong and healthy for.

The disorder had come back with a vengeance after her harsh pregnancy, but she remembered clearly that she was becoming better again before that autumn, that horrid autumn when Lily had been murdered. Now it seemed like she had suffered under that disorder for over ten years, her body hardly more than sinew and bones.

She wondered how her organs were doing.

She wondered how she would kick that disorders’ arse now, without Lily to help her see herself as she was. As she should have been. As she wanted to be. Lily wasn’t there and couldn’t help her. But still … she was, in a way. She was here in Harry and the fact that Cassia had to fight for him now. To at least try to help him after everything she had made him suffer … had let him suffer … had been forced to let him suffer.

And when she found the bastard that had used magic on her to turn her against her own flesh and blood, she would rip out their fucking throat with her teeth and watch with glee as they bled to death.