Chapter 1
Harry is a freak.
His Aunt Petunia says that he's a "disgusting boy", watching him clinically with her beady eyes to constantly ensure he doesn't lay a foot, nay a toe, out of line.
His Uncle on the other hand was more violent and would often admit that he wondered "when the freak was going to shut up and die".
Lastly, his cousin Dudley, a young boy of the same age but a far greater circumference, can be found every week on Tuesday's and Friday's engaging with his friends in a light game of 'Harry Hunting' in the name of collective fitness and to abate the boredom of their mundane lives. I'm sure that Mr and Mrs Dursley wish they could join in, but it would be inappropriate and scandalous to be witnessed beating a child in public. So that's that.
Harry, the poor dear, is a timid and quite fragile soul, with legs like chopsticks and whippet-like gauntness in the stretch of skin across his back, creating tight lines along the vertebrae and adjoining ribs. Of course his face is much the same, little to none baby fat in his cheeks, however the most prominent feature is the large inflamed scar that juts down his face eyebrow-to-chin, closely missing his eye, that presents itself in a sharp, lightning-esque figuration.
It is highly eye-catching and draws far to much attention for Petunia's liking. Apparently she finds it abhorrent to look at, despite nether the less forbidding Harry to grow his hair long enough to cover it. She is rather a contradiction, and a cruel one at that.
Not that Harry would ever give voice to that opinion while his Uncle's old shotgun remains firmly -and threateningly- on display within the china cabinet. I suppose it may say something about the family values of a household that keeps weaponry beside the teacups. As if they are both so very mediocre and so very legal.
At some point around the age of 4, perhaps even soul-crushingly younger, Harry learned to remain quiet within the confines of the house. The house (not home, never home, never home) at this point was all he knew, sadly causing a severe detriment to his speech, cognitive growth and other wibbly wobbly serious issues.
Days trapped in shaken silence within his cupboard and hours apon hours of tireless chores using harmful cleaning supplies and working in the hot sun caused his green eyes to become sunken and his small hands to grow rough and calloused.
When he began infant school, fortunately not only did his speech and elocution began to improve, but his health as well from the free school lunches he received daily. He may have made no friends amongst his peers because Dudley scared them away, but the teachers kept him close, sitting beside him at break times within the classroom and holding him carefully as if he was brittle when they took him to the school nurse to treat swollen eyes and broken fingers. The next day they would always be concerned and ask what happened as if he hadn't wept the day before when he told them everything, sobbing into their side. How could they forget?
Eventually he stopped trying.
"It's nothing Mrs.Howlett, I fell on my arm again like I did last week. I don't know why I'm so clumsy, miss"
And eventually they stopped asking.
"Good morning Harry! Did you slip in the tub again? Why don't you go see the nurse at break to get that plaster changed, I'll even write you a pass"
And eventually they stop noticing.
"Mornin' Mr.Stuart, do you think I can move-"
"Charlie put that chair down! Come here, we are going to see the principal, remember we don't threaten other-" Their voices dimmed as they left down the hallway, Harry turning away from the teachers desk to go sit in his seat, the gum Piers stuck to the chair still caught on the plastic. It didn't really matter anyways, he was alright.
"I'm alright"
He became more sullen and withdrawn, at least more so than before, acting like people might expect him to act: quiet and sad, often found sitting reading or drawing, silently watching from doorways and corners as parents come to pick their children up from school; miscellaneous orphan activities and other lonely pastimes. Within the neighborhood that used to hate him, stares became pitying, which while frustrating is far better than glares and caused some parents to chide their children to be nicer to him.
"Jakob, leave that kid alone please! Get over here, you know that poor boy is-"
"-quite right Susan, look at the little thing sat all off by himself-"
And as always, the niceties fell into the past, Harry along with them. He began to fade into the background, a trick of the light that you rarely notice, a shadow. He doesn't lurk or hide or run away, he just fades, as if people struggle to focus their attention on him. As if he is translucent, almost invisible.
He started to walk with no sound, no matter if he is walking in squelching mud, or on scruffy classroom carpets or crackling car park gravel. His feet are light and he moves swiftly, his shoes seeming to never even touch the floor.
Harry leaves no mess, he cleans up behind himself easily, with his hard earned skills from chores. The neighborhood almost forgets he exists, his Aunt and Uncle barely noticing him as he always stands two steps to the left, out of sight out of mind, and his cousin realises its no fun to hunt for Harry anymore when he can disappear around a corner without a trace, and never makes a sound if they catch him and beat him to the floor.
He never becomes the criminal nephew the Dursley's are pitied for being forced to harbour, he is Harry, the quiet boy with no friends who's parents got high and died in car accident. It's all rather tragic.
Harry spends a long while living like this, a ghost, and surviving day to day. Until his 7th birthday, when his efforts at hiding his freakishness are no longer needed. Until his 7th birthday, and Harry seemingly wakes up with a different face.
Harry wakes within his cupboard, his frayed blanket kicked to the end of his tiny cot, as he has tried to escape the heat of August in his sleep. His eyes open in the darkness, blinking rapidly and watering in the damp stench of hot sweat in the air.
Harry curls up smaller, pulling his feet away from itchy cobwebs, not that the spiders bother him, but that Aunt Petunia doesn't like Harry tracking dirt and mess around the house that he cleans for her.
Rays of light peak through holes in the door and Harry presses his ear to the wood to listen to see if anybody is near. Hearing nothing, he scrambles in the dark for a moment to snatch up his glasses and flatten his hair into a slightly more respectable state, before opening the latch and pushing the door open with a quiet creak.
Uncle Vernon had forgotten about the lock on his cupboard over the years. Harry has gotten very good at quietly putting himself away in his cupboard, he managed to pry the locks off without them noticing quite easily and his cupboard was a far better option than being with his family. His uncle probably preferred it too, like he was a very fancy cup that put itself in the dishwasher after it had been used. So you never had to see its dirty face.
He froze at the sound of the squeaky door as he opened it, begging his presence to stay unnoticed and straining his ears to listen for his Aunt Petunia's square feet pattering down the hallway. Instead he heard the clinking of glasses, which shook him from his terrified stupor, leading him out of the cupboard and stumbling down the hallway as he righted the crooked frames on his nose.
Stopping at the doorway to the kitchen for a moment, he took a breath to collect himself and then quietly make his way to the stove, past his aunt who was day drinking on the couch before Dudley woke up, unsurprisingly.
Harry began to make breakfast, his mind falling into a trace of muscle memory and movement. He was fetching bacon from the fridge, cracking eggs and slicing bread with neat cuts. Harry pulled out the frying pan with his tiny arm, spatula in hand and turning to the stove to the light the blue gas flame. He was all movement and work, wrists flicking to flip eggs and turn bacon, fingers clasping to grip knifes and spread butter, little nose sniffing to make sure he seasoned the food correctly.
He served up a plate on his tiptoes, trying not to smudge bacon grease on the counter top with his boney fingers. He cleaned his hands in the sink, a cupboard door open so he could stand on the inner ledge and lean to wash his hands in the cold water from the tap. He stared into the swirling water at the bottom of the metal sink, and his reflection stared back, his eyes seeming more vividly green than he could remember seeing them before in the front windows he cleaned yesterday.
Harry dried his hands and turned away to walk over to his Aunt on the couch, picking up her breakfast with two thin arms as he went. He gingerly moved a wine bottle and a few cups out of the way, before setting the plate on the coffee table, his eyes trained on the floor so as too not anger Aunt Petunia. She was his favourite out of all of them, he thought, he didn't have to be scared when it was his auntie.
She hadn't hit him in years.
He placed some utensils next to the plate of breakfast with a clink, the small sound causing his aunt to make a strange gasping sound, as if she was in pain. Harry's head shot up to see if she was ok, Uncle Vernon would beat him if he did something Freakish to his aunt, he'd done so before.
But instead of finding his aunt glaring at him like usual, she sat gaping at Harry, a tear dripping down her face, mouth opening and closing like an ugly fish out of water. She set down her wineglass with a clumsy slam and moved forward to place a shaking hand onto Harry's face.
Her long fingers shook with tremors on his skin, and Harry shivered in shock and terror as her other hand stretched forward with wine stained fingertips to settle in his crimson hair. Red on red.
His heart thumped painfully hard against his chest and he bit his lip so hard he drew blood, as he tried to stay quiet. She sat there dazed, an almost hysterical laugh spluttering from her lips like the sound of a car starting, the hand in his hair now stroking through the red locks, the touch more gentle than she had ever allowed him.
"Did i do something wrong?" Harry whispered, hands curling in the hem of his ragged, old shirt.
Suddenly the fingers were leaving his scalp, only for slender arms to gasp around his middle and haul Harry into his Aunt's lap on the sofa for the first and wettest hug he could remember in his short life.
She pressed her lips against his head and whispered "My sister... my little Lily... oh how i have missed you... Forgive me... Forgive me..." The tight arms drew him ever closer, crushing his head against her shoulder and forcing his face to angle towards the sliding glass doors that opened out onto the garden.
Harry wheezed and blinked, adrenaline racing through his blood, his muscles twitching, almost begging to move and run and hit. A growling, prickling ember began to swell and burn in his chest, and he wiggled in her hold as he tried to squeeze it down safely in his chest. His struggling knocked his Aunt off balance as she sat, sending her backwards and Harry's face even closer to the window pane. His eyes welled with tears that he tried to blink away, and he wrenched up his head to look straight into the window in a sudden jerk of realisation.
Harry stared and his reflection stared back, but one that he could not immediately recognise. He gasped and held still, watching as when he moved, his image in the window moved too.
He watched himself, noticed the differences. The Harry in the reflection was pretty, overwhelmingly pretty. Big, wide emerald eyes stared into his the same way they'd always done, but the rest of him was... Freakish. His tanned skin had turned a freckled milky white, pink even, around the eyes and the nose that had rounded and shrunk. His chin curved in a softer yet still boney line and his lips were full and pink on his delicate face.
He was utterly shocked. His eyes ran over every breathtaking detail before coming to stop at the top of his head. Waterfalls of red and crimson and scarlet lay in straight waves and curled in little flicks at the ends to frame his face in soft edges. He looked... He looked...
Harry looked away and swallowed, not noticing the final blurring of his features as he settled into his new shape, his eyebrows thinning and laying more softly on his brow, imitating the shape of his Aunt's as she held him tightly within her drunken stupor, imitating the shape of his mother's brow when she had held her little boy to her chest, pressing her forehead to his, unknowing of what she would be willing to do to protect him.
He lifted his head again, staring at the unfamiliar visage in the reflection, agape mouth finally closing and his body beginning sag, somehow exhausted.
What was going on?