Chapter 2
The next few dream-yesterday-todays were much the same. Harry got up when Aunt Petunia knocked on his cupboard, he spread the jam evenly - that took only two more days! - on some white toast, and waited by the counter in the kitchen until he was allowed to move out of it. Every time, without fail, he looked at the calendar and felt his hopes sink when the last day on the paper was left unmarked. On the last night of the fifth repeated day, he looked up at the spiders and decided he would try to get out of this... Thing.
He tried deviating from the normal routine the next morning. Instead of spreading jam on toast, he spread butter on toast. Aunt Petunia frowned at it when he showed her and told him to make some toast with jam on it. He did not. At breakfast, Dudley ate a piece of the toast and whined about how salty it was - and started to throw a tantrum when there weren’t any of his favorite toasts available. Aunt Petunia comforted her son, telling him that she would make it right away, but asked him to eat some of the pancakes, “it’ll make your tummy feel much better!”
Dudley sniffled and nodded, stabbing his fork into the chocolate chip pancakes with renewed vigor, happily chewing with his mouth open. Aunt Petunia got up from beside him and walked to the kitchen, stopping in front of Harry. He looked up at her, eyes wide with worry - was she going to yell at him? She sneered down at him, and promptly turned away, grabbing four slices of bread and putting them in the toaster, starting the process for a jammed toast. He watched silently, breathing slowly to keep her from looking his way again. When she finished making the toast, and Dudley was on his third set of pancakes, she returned to the dining table. Harry exhaled in relief at the minute reaction but didn’t count on it staying so light throughout the day.
After breakfast was finished and the dishes were cleaned, Dudley sat down to watch the telly and play with his toys while Vernon left to visit his job for some “last-minute responsibilities.” Aunt Petunia pulled out a book and sat in the living room to keep an eye on her son. Knowing he was expected to start the rest of his chores, Harry decided to do only one thing - clean his cupboard. He switched out his bedsheets and snagged a few extra pieces of fabric to cushion his resting place.
Then, he sat down on the floor near Dudly. Harry watched him play with his toys, watching the trains battle each other. Aunt Petunia paid them no mind, absorbed in her book. The trains were grumbling and brawling, and the civilian cars were set to the side. This was the real test.
Harry scooted closer to the toy cars, nervously looking at his cousin as he moved. When Dudley kept his play going, he moved closer. And closer. With one final scoot, he reached for the toys. His hand grasped onto one of the vehicles - a bright yellow truck - and his other hand grabbed a green car. He sat back on his butt and looked down at the toys. He hadn’t ever had the chance to play like Dudley, instead working around the downstairs or hiding in his cupboard, watching the shadows flicker from the light moving.
Now, he was holding two very real, very plastic, toy cars. Dudley’s toy cars! A smile slowly stretched onto his face, and he made no noise as he began to make the cars fly with his hands. They zoomed - more like trekked, he would recall later on - through the air, one hand chasing after the other. He set down the cars after he had enough of them play-flying, and started to race them around each other, trying to get them dizzy. He knew how easy it was to get dizzy himself, like when he got up too fast or spun in a circle a few too many times. The toys circled and circled, his arms readjusting themselves when he couldn’t turn it in a full circle. Finally, the two cars bumped into each other, and he giggled, making them flop on their backs, the underside of the vehicles facing up to the ceiling.
He made to grab another toy, he liked the blue motorcycle, but a wail coming from the front right of him made him pause. Harry looked up at the source of the noise and saw Dudley crying. He was glaring and pointing with a short, chubby finger directed at him.
“Mum! ‘Arry’s playing with my toys!” It was a loud whine, and all Harry could do was sit there, arm stretched out and a fearful expression on his face.
Petunia had already set down her book to look at what was happening, and with a sharp glint in her eyes, she got up and grabbed Harry by his ear. He yelped, not used to this form of punishment, and scrambled to follow her as she lead him by the ear. The toys were disregarded, left in a small cluster on the carpet, while Dudley watched in glee at getting payback for the weird cousin playing with his toys.
She brought him into the hallway, out of view from Dudley, and knocked him up the side of his head. Petunia turned up her nose at him, and opened the cupboard, forcefully pulling him into the small area, her nails digging into his arm from where she grabbed him to move him. Harry looked up at her with wide eyes, having stayed quiet after the first noise he made at being grabbed, and waited. She didn’t bother giving him another glance, simply shutting the door and locking him inside.
“You will not come out for today, freak. Don’t mess with Duddikims’ stuff ever again, got it?”
She didn’t bother waiting for a reply. He did not reply anyways.
He stayed in that cupboard, and instead of watching his cupboard roommates do their dance, he turned on his side and stared at the door crack. Light filtered in through the small space, but it did not go far. He turned onto his other side and curled into a ball. A ratty blanket was grabbed from in front of him and placed over him before he closed his eyes. He did not sleep for a long time, but he did not think of much either.
Harry woke to the dark above him and did not move from his spot on the mattress. Tiny and Tinier were not moving, weirdly, and were next to each other on the beginnings of their web. It was not anywhere close to finished. They stared down at him, their many eyes hidden in the shadows of the cupboard. Harry didn’t feel as though they were judging him, but that they were merely observing him. He observed them back.
He did not move from his spot for the next couple of hours, even when his body grew numb and his eyes were hurting from the constant gazing. The only time he moved was when Petunia opened his cupboard and had him begin the day’s work. He got up sluggishly, ignoring the needles stabbing into his limbs from being numb. His glasses were fixed as he moved, crooked from falling asleep with them on. He reached the kitchen and popped bread in the toaster. He spread the jam and sorted the food on the plates, only noticing the checkered pattern after it was all set down to be served. He stood and waited in the kitchen. Realistically, he knew his body was not swaying back and forth, but his view was muddled and everything was distant.
Harry was in a daze, and he did not feel there.
He did not feel as though he was in control of his actions for that day. He simply moved and did what he was told. The words heard but not truly listened to. He cleaned the floors and counters, swapped out his mattress sheets, and made dinner. He watched Dudley leave with Petunia, and Uncle Vernon took the candy bowl and watched the telly. He returned to his cupboard without a word and lay on the stiff bed.
Harry did not feel real.
The next morning he woke up and stared at the spiders once more. They stared back, and they did not look away, even when they started to work on their web. They were the only thing of that day that he remembered.
The next, next morning, he woke up and stared. They did not stare back. They were beginning with the web. He remembered little of that day, too, except for how hurt he was that night. His body was sore, but he didn’t really know what for. He just felt scared.
The following morning he did not move even when Aunt Petunia came for him. He did not move when Uncle Vernon yelled at him. He was kicked for his ignorance but left alone soon after. They did not notice how his body shivered with fear when either of them got too close. Or if they did, they didn’t comment on it.
The morning that came next he gave up on his isolation and resumed his duties. He felt tired throughout the entire day. Aunt Petunia gave him extra food with a considering look after breakfast, too. He did not eat the toast entirely and stayed far from her. He watched as Uncle Vernon grumbled to himself while reading the newspaper, waiting for him to leave to visit his office for a couple of hours.
When Aunt Petunia left with Dudley that night, she whispered to Vernon something Harry couldn’t hear. He only noticed because it was different than before, and Vernon huffed in agreement. He didn’t steal the candy, and instead, grabbed Harry by the arm and lead him to the living room.
“Sit, boy.”
Harry looked at him warily, focusing a bit more on what was going on. Vernon sat on the couch and leaned back against it, glaring at him. Slowly, Harry sat on the floor in front of his uncle, wary of what was to happen. Tonight was different than the other nights, or he thinks so, at least.
He faced the man, and the man glared down at him. It felt almost as though there were two other pairs (many, many, many two other pairs) watching him too. The focus he gained for the brief moment was blurred away.
Harry went to sleep that night and wished, for a long, long moment, for the following day to be tomorrow. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle another of the same day. He watched the spiders slowly stop working for the day and settle in on their web. Tiny looked down at him and Tinier joined in. He listened to the noises outside his cupboard and counted his breaths. When his eyelids grew too heavy to keep open, he thought his “goodnight” to his small companions, and let sleep take him.
The next morning, Tiny and Tinier were proudly sitting in their home, a dazzling web finished while Harry slept. They looked down at the sleeping boy, at his dark skin that was much too light for this five-year-old boy - and purred murmurings to each other. He will learn soon. They would make sure of it.