Harry tugged open the cupboard door. There, in amongst some old blankets and brooms, was a small boy with sharp green eyes and wild black hair. In the cupboard, blinking owlishly up at him.
Harry felt immobilised. The boy was curled in the corner, half-buried by fallen blankets. The blankets were thick, clean and looked after despite their age, in Gryffindor red and baby blue and colourful plaid. The boy was calm. The door had been ajar, not locked, and there was no mattress on the floor because this was not his room. There was a soft glowing flame of light high inside the cupboard, unnecessary in the middle of the day but offering a magical warmth regardless.
It was not Harry’s cupboard. But there was an infant boy with curious green eyes (his mothers eyes, which he hadn’t known at that age) that hadn’t learned to be frightened or fierce yet, and an untameable mane of thick black hair (that would earn him a punishment for refusing to stop growing like magic) and he was so small. Had he really been so small? Harry closed his eyes, lost himself in the darkness.
The muffled voices of friendly conversation that he could have no part of, forced to hide and listen. To steal lullabies drifting down the stairs that weren’t for him, to sneakily collect snatches of light and wonder where the gentle voices went when his door was yanked open by a growling giant.
The boy started wailing. Harry’s racing thoughts were forcibly pulled back to the present. To his godson, now crying messily, in a supply closet. He swallowed down his anger, frustrated at himself for pushing him to tears, and collapsed to his knees. He fumbled badly with the blankets that he was tangled in, but finally managed to pull him free and clutch him tight against his chest. “Teddy.” He soothed. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
Harry shut his eyes against the offending cupboard. “Don’t you ever do that again. Ever!” He withdrew just enough to check him over, ignoring the rolling of his stomach at the childish imitation of himself. The hair turned blue and downy as Harry swept his hands frantically through it, knee unconsciously bouncing him.
“Harry,” said a voice from above. “Hand him over.”
The anger bubbled up again as he rose from his position on the floor. He hugged the baby protectively against himself, turning to glare at George.
“No.” His voice was firm. Teddy shifted in his tight grip.
“Who did this?” He demanded, eyes blazing. The rest of the family filtered into the hallway from the kitchen, looking bewildered. “It’s not funny!” He cried at their silence. “Who?”
It was quiet for a moment, until Hermione found her voice - “Who did what, Harry?”
Fury coiled in his gut, tight and burning. He could hear his racing pulse, loud as anything, in his ears. Like a rushing wave, it nearly drowned out everything else. “Teddy - put -“ He sucked in a quivering breath. “Cupboard!”
“Calm down, mate. You’re not making any sense.”
“I am not your mate!” A decorative plate fell off the wall.
Harry closed his eyes. He thinks he might have shaken the picture frames. He counts to ten, but keeps his eyes shut even as the rattling stops. “Teddy was shut in the cupboard. Who the fuck put my godson in a cupboard? What’s wrong with you?”
“Is he okay?” Ginny, concerned.
“He’s fine.” Harry snaps.
A hesitant Hermione, “I don’t think anyone put him in the cupboard, Harry.”
He snarled, opening his eyes. “Little boys don’t belong in dark cupboards!”
“Of course they don’t.” She agreed easily. She took a small step forward.
Harry retreated, his back against the open cupboard doorway, holding Teddy like a lifeline. “You can’t have him.” He insisted. The doorframe dug into his back and he closed his eyes.
Pressing himself into a corner in the darkness, hungry and hurting and lonely. That was the worst thing. Little boys only end up in cupboards in houses where nobody loves them.
But Harry loves Teddy. Fiercely. He tilts his head down to bury his nose in his hair. He squeezes, and he could just as easily be an infant himself, squeezing a ragged, discarded teddy in the dark.
“Harry, please! You’ll hurt him!”
His eyes snap open. He is not an infant. He is a godfather.
Harry looks down in alarm at the frightened child in his arms. His hair was blue and his eyes shining.
“Da!” He whined. Immediately, he loosened his tight grip. A tidal wave of guilt. It felt like someone was squeezing tight on his already-bursting heart. “Sorry, Teddy.” He said softly. He bounced him gently. “I’m sorry.”
“Harry.” Insisted a soft voice - Bill. He had never known him to sound so soft. “It’s alright, don’t worry. Just hand ‘im over.”
“I’m so sorry.” He insisted, distraught.
Bill pulled Teddy softly from his arms. “You’re just a kid yourself.” He reassured. “Teddy’s alright, look.”
Teddy pulled on Bill’s hair.
Arms empty, Harry coiled in on himself, feeling bereft. “Please.” He choked, alarmed at the note of desperation in his voice. He didn’t know what he was pleading for. He felt exposed.
It was quiet except for the reassuring murmurs of Bill, pressing his lips against Teddy’s ear.
“Harry,” Begun Ginny, as if approaching a wounded animal. “Don’t you think - isn’t it possible -“ Harry tried reign everything in as she hesitated. “You know none of us would do that.” She fell upon. Ron continued, “Could Teddy have crawled in himself? Did he seem scared?”
“No.” Harry acquiesced. He tried to imagine crawling into a cupboard, but he felt sick. The door had been ajar. Teddy had smiled.
“You’re right. Little boys never, ever, belong in dark cupboards.” Hermione. Firm. Confident. So sure of herself, chasing away any room for doubt.
Harry’s shoulders shook. A distant part of him was trying to remember to be embarrassed, so he managed to still his trembling limbs. He unfurled his arms from their protective embrace around his middle. He stood up a bit taller. He coughed. He still couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes, but he nodded. “He seemed fine. Happy. He wanted to be there.”
And he should be so thankful that his godson’s life was so full of love and freedom that he would happily explore a cupboard without fear, and that was all. He was.
It was quiet and everybody’s eyes were on him. “I’m sorry.” He said again. “I just panicked.”
Discerning eyes, knowing eyes, assessing every inch of him. He hated that he somehow felt cornered still, against the open cupboard, by his chosen family, the ones that really loved him. But the crowd made him feel small.
He wasn’t claustrophobic. How could he be, when the only space that was his for so long was scarcely bigger than him? But sometimes - when he was scared, when the ceiling groaned under the weight of thundering footsteps, or when he lost track of how long he’d been trapped in the darkness, perhaps forgotten altogether - sometimes small spaces seemed less like a safe space and more like the punishment they were intended to be. Like breathing a limited supply of air until there didn’t seem to be any left and he fought to inhale through stifling heat, desperate to fill his lungs.
Harry choked on his breath, squeezing his eyes shut and curling in on himself, down and away until his head knocked the doorway and back hit a wall and he tucked his head against his knees, gasping. He sensed the looming shadow in front of him and fought back a sob, gnawing on his lip. I don’t exist, I don’t exist, I don’t exist. Leave me alone. Please. Leave.
“Look at me.” Harry shakes his head. He’ll get into more trouble for his tantrum, though.
“Sorry.” He gasps.
“Harry.” Nobody calls him Harry. Not here, in the dark. “You don’t belong in the cupboard, either.”
Harry looks up. Ron, insistent and consoling, and a little sad.
Embarrassing, grown-up Harry reminds himself, from far away. He furiously swipes away the stray tears that had silently fallen. His head aches where he hit it on the doorframe stumbling backwards.
Ron chews on his lip, “Did someone put you in a cupboard, when you were little?” He asks.
There it is. One of Harry’s last secrets between them. Not even a secret, for all the times it had casually come by in conversation, but perhaps so unbelievable that it never faced any scrutiny. He has no interest in lying, but he doesn’t know how to tell the truth. A laugh escapes him, unbidden, too grim, humourless. “You could say that.” He manages.
Ron is prying apart Harry’s hands from around his knees, pulling on them, pulling Harry closer.
“Before Hogwarts.” He says. “After the letters, they moved me to Dud’s second bedroom.”
“Before the letters?” Asks a voice from above, and Harry had almost forgotten about the audience. It doesn’t matter. He tells himself. It’s family.
A small voice, that Harry hates for making him sound as small as he feels - “The cupboard under the stairs.” He confessed. Ron’s arms pulled again on his shoulder now, and Harry lets him accept his weight, leaning heavily on his brother. He tries to let the tension go.
“The cupboard was your bedroom?” He asked quietly.
“Until Hogwarts. Just until then. I didn’t mind it, most of the time.”
“Little boys don’t belong in dark cupboards.” Affirms Hermione. Harry thinks they don’t believe him, that it really wasn’t so bad, maybe because of how he reacted to Teddy.
Ron’s heartbeat is steady behind him. He feels drained, exhausted. “No.” He agrees. “Not usually.”
“Not ever.” Comes the instant response, somewhere above, angry.
“I’m sorry.” Says Ron. Harry doesn’t know what he’s sorry for.
“We love you.” Says Hermione.
Ginny crouches in front of him, sweeping his messy locks backwards, threading her fingers through it, just as he had done with Teddy. Footsteps retreat to the kitchen. Quiet, worried voices, a gurgling baby and the whoosh of the floo. More whispers.
But Harry leans against Ron, Hermione settles on his other side and Ginny sits across from him. He feels a long way from the lonely boy in the cupboard on Privet Drive.