even from a distance i can hear her
He feels her always as a child. Invisible and yet so there, especially in those moments when his Aunt Petunia leaves him alone for far too long to tend to her actual child. The one time his uncle puts him too close to the open baby-gate leading to the stairs, something lovely and warm and protective wraps around him like a blanket, and he's found instead a safe distance away.
Harry's first true memory of her is his second night in the cupboard under the stairs. He's five years and one day old and crying into a darkness that is so very terrifying. All the monsters live in the dark, and Harry's curled up as tight as he can possibly be so they won't nip at his toes. His tears are silent, his eyes are drooping he's so tired, but with all the stubbornness of a petrified child, he refuses to sleep.
And then he hears it.
It's less hearing, really. But it's the way silence isn't really silence, and whatever noise it is absently thrumming through the air is suddenly thrumming through Harry.
It's like sunlight in spring, but inside. Like when Miss Poppins puts a golden star on his work, and he feels all warm inside.
It's nice. It's so nice. Harry hasn't had many nice things. He's a freak and he doesn't deserve them.
But this...Harry can't let go of this.
He'll stay awake forever and cherish it for as long as he can, he decides. Even with the way his eyebrows are dropping, and the ratty mattress is sinking and sinking, and the quiet thrum is being softly woven into the threads of a good dream.
Even then, he'll stay awake.
Even then...
Even...
Harry falls asleep. The warmth never fades.