A Friendly Stone
***
June 23rd 1991
The sounds that woke Harry Potter on the morning of June 23rd 1991 could only be compared to the bombs falling during the London blitz a rough 50 years before. Sawdust fell and coated his face as his whale of a cousin jumped repeatedly on the stairs above the cupboard that was his bedroom.
"Wakey wakey, freak." The boy taunted, still jumping up and down.
The stairs looked as though they would give way and the heavy-set boy would fall through them and onto his more petite and fragile cousin. He rolled away from that particular area as he fumbled blindly for his glasses.
"It's my birthday!" His cousin yelled before finally running down the stairs in a perfect imitation of a horde of wild rhinoceros.
Groaning, Harry found his glasses, unfolded them and put them onto his face, his room focusing instantly though still a bit blurry as they also received a fine coating of sawdust.
He stood as much as he could in the small space and started to push open the door to the cupboard only to have it slammed in his face by his cousin, launching back towards his miniature mattress. Harry's head connected with a beam as he fell, making a sickening crack.
He rubbed the back of his head, cursing the day Dudley Dursley was conceived. If only his aunt and uncle had kept it in their pants, he would never have had to put up with this.
Carefully waiting and listening for Dudley's thundering footsteps, he finally opened his door again when he was sure the boy was gone. He ducked under the doorway and found himself in the hall connecting the foyer to the kitchen. He walked quickly towards that very same kitchen, foregoing any kind of morning routine to make the breakfast his "Family" expected him to make for them every morning.
He easily slipped around the rest of the small family as his Aunt and Uncle were currently occupied by their son, who was throwing a tantrum so big that it was a five-year-old's dream.
"ONLY 36 PRESENTS? LAST YEAR THERE WERE 38!" He screamed, his plump face creating a completely new shade of red.
"Yes, Dudders but some of the presents are bigger this yea-"
"I DON'T CARE IF THEY'RE BIGGER,"
"Tell you what Dudders, we'll go out and buy three more presents after the zoo today"
Dudley glared sullenly at his mother but could not argue against getting more presents than he did last year.
Harry watched the scene, mildly amused as he cooked up bacon and pancakes for his relatives. when it was ready, he served all the food up onto the table.
His aunt Petunia gestured to the recently made food.
"Here, have some breakfast Diddykins," She told her son.
At the mention of food, Dudley's attitude did a complete one-eighty. He nearly ran to the table and started scarfing down Harry's cooking as the other boy slipped away to go wash up. He, unfortunately, did not get the chance as the doorbell rung moments later and Dudley came barreling down the hallway, pushing harry out of the way and back into his cupboard, so that he may meet his friend at the door.
Harry pulled himself out of the closet to see Dudley talking animatedly to his best friend, Piers Polkiss and his mother. Syrup and bacon grease covered his cousin's lips and dripped down his face slowly. Harry winced, feeling mildly sympathetic for Piers.
He wasn't quite sure what to think about Dudley's friend. The boy was kind enough to him at times then he would turn around and hold Harry down while Dudley kicked the life out of him. He was not particularly aggressive or fit or frightening like the other members of Dudley's small gang. No, he was scrawny and short. He avoided conflict as often as he could and would run with his tail between his legs if he was caught without his group of friends.
Harry shook his head and moved on, trying to get to the washroom so he could wash up. he nearly made it to the stairs this time before his wrist was grabbed and tugged painfully out the door.
He bit back his complaints when he saw Vernon Dursley's steel grey eyes staring down at him menacingly. He had no particular wish to risk his wrath for something as small as a bruised wrist.
The man gestured at a pile of bags that by the front door.
"Load up the car, boy."
"Yes, Uncle Vernon" He dipped his head obediently as Vernon walked away.
While he may be able to get away some small transgressions with his aunt and his cousin, his uncle was an entirely different matter. Vernon was to be obeyed lest you wish to suffer beatings that straddled the line of needing hospital care.
He shuddered and set to work loading up the car. He wondered what the Dursley's could possibly need that weighed as much as a small piano as he dragged the bags through the driveway. They might've just filled the bags with cement and asked him to move them just to watch him suffer. It certainly sounded like Vernons's Modus Operandi*.
He was dragging the second bag across the pavement when a pair of hands shifted his to the side and grabbed ahold of the handle. He looked over in shock to find Piers Polkiss helping him with the bags. The boy that looked suspiciously like a rat grunted as they pulled the bag together, their combined efforts making it much easier to transport whatever Harry's uncle had bagged.
With Piers' help, they finished moving the bags in a matter of fifteen minutes, both wiping sweat off their brows.
"Thank you" Harry thanked, looking to his cousin's best friend.
The eleven-year-old looked down shyly.
"Y'r Welcome" He mumbled
"Boy" a cold voice growled from the entrance to the house. "Did you force Piers to help you?"
Harry's eyes widened. He looked up to see Vernon, Dudley and Petunia watching them.
"No sir."
Large feet shuffled towards them at an alarming pace.
"Tell me the truth freak." He spat.
Harry looked to Piers for help but found saw him steadily avoiding his gaze.
'Traitor' he sighed in his thoughts. That boy confused him to no ends. He sucked in a deep breath, preparing for what was to come.
"Yes sir, I forced Piers to help me,"
A fire lit behind his uncle's eyes. He was given a quick once over before the large man turned to the rest of his family.
"Harry is not at all decent to be outside. Climb into the car everyone, I'll take him inside,"
The act was solely for Piers and any neighbours that might be watching through the small space in between their curtains. He let himself be dragged into the house, missing the apologetic look he was sent by Piers.
He was thrown against the wall in the hallway the moment he and Vernon were away from any windows. He fell to the ground, landing hard on his bruised wrist.
"You're lucky I can't hurt you right now little freak," Vernon spoke angrily, "But you can expect a bloody good punishment when we get back home. And no more funny business or I'll lock you up when I'm done,"
Harry nodded quickly.
"What was that boy?"
"Yes sir, sorry sir,"
"Good. Now get changed so Dudders can enjoy his birthday."
Harry raced back to his broom cupboard and put some of the slightly better fitting hand me downs on before looking at his wrist. It definitely shouldn't look like that. he wrapped his wrist up and put his hand into a glove hoping no one would question his winter gear in the middle of the summer. It was all he could do for his wrist without a medical professional looking over it or the proper supplies.
He ran out of his closet and out of the door with his wrist tucked to his chest and climbed into the backseat as Piers moved over to give him a bit of space.
He gave the marginally older book a subtle dirty look before setting to work putting his seatbelt on with only one hand and was equal parts surprised and infuriated when he felt Piers reach over to help him with his seatbelt.
He was about to glare at the boy some more when he caught his uncle watching him through the rearview mirror. He settled for nodding politely at Piers and scooting as far as possible from the boy.
He watched the highway roll by as they drove, studiously ignoring the rest of the car's occupants. Lively music blasted out of their stereo as they rolled merrily towards the Marwell zoo.
The drive passed in a flash and soon they were unloading themselves in the parking lot of the zoo. To his disdain, Piers helped him with his seatbelt once more and gently pushed him out of the car.
Harry pulled out only one of the bags from the trunk (It turns out that the Dursley Family only really needed one bag) and lugged as they made their way to the entrance of the zoo. The clerk looked the five of them over.
"How old is your little one there?" She asked them with a smile. Harry opened his mouth to tell her but was cut off by his uncle's response.
"He's 8 years old, this young lad," He announced with fake pride, shooting a warning glance at Harry.
The clerk cooed at him and ruffled his hair before ringing up their tickets.
"Lucky you, young man," She told him as she handed him his ticket. "Everyone under 9 gets to go in for free!"
Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes, remembering the throbbing pain in his wrist.
"Thanks, Miss" He replied meekly, playing the part of a child. He was vaguely annoyed that the lady thought he was 8 years old but he couldn't fault her for not seeing through Vernon's lie.
Partly because of his genes and partly because of the regular malnutrition he suffered at the hands of the Dursleys, He was much too short to be 10 years old. The cupboard might have had a hand in his subpar height too. His features were youthful but that was not uncommon among children. His green eyes were wide and expressive, and his large glasses magnified them further, causing him to resemble one of those Japanese cartoon characters in the shows Dudley would sometimes watch when Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were out.
"And such good manners too. You've done a mighty fine job with this one, you have,"
Uncle Vernon grinned ferally.
"We have, haven't we Petunia?"
His wife only offered a polite smile and a nod before dragging everyone into the zoo. Piers and Dudley wandered off in the direction of the exotic cats while Harry went in the exact opposite direction, not caring what exhibit he would find there.
It was to his pleasant surprise that he found the reptile exhibit after a couple of minutes of walking. He strolled down the reptile house, staring with wonder at all the tanks and the exotic animals contained within. A particular darkly coloured serpent caught his eye. It lay immobile in its tank, flicking its tongue out lazily and sporadically.
"Hello there," he whispered to the snake. "I pity you for the life you are forced to live,"
He glanced at the sign on the outside of the tank before his eyes flicked back to the serpent which had shifted and was now a little closer to Harry.
"You're not the only one who lives in captivity," he sighed, setting himself down on the bench outside. "At least you have a window in your cage,"
The snake moved at that, rising and swaying as it looked down at its newfound companion.
Harry heard a small gasp behind him and a kid that could be no older than 5 was staring at him in wonder.
"Have you lost your mother? " He asked, his voice coming out a bit more raspy than usual.
The kid's wide eyes widened further, fear overtaking his features.
"Mommy," It wailed running over to a short, blonde lady with a stroller standing nearby, 'That boy is a snake. He's a snake in disguise,"
The child continued to cry as his mother soothed him in her arms and made her way over to Harry.
"Excuse me young man but terrorizing children is despicable," She scolded him, her crying son in her arms, "Where are your parents?"
Harry looked around in search of an escape only to see the Dursleys and Piers heading towards them. His eyes bulged and he looked down, trying to regulate his breathing and school his face into a blank mask.
"Well?" the woman asked.
"Is he bothering you, miss?" Petunia asked from behind the blonde.
"He's picking on my son! Are you this child's mother?"
"I am his current guardian, yes"
"Mommy," the kid whined, "He was speaking snake."
Vernon looked at Harry with glee.
"Was he now? Well, ma'am, we're very sorry about Harry here, he'll be watched much more closely now,"
The lady huffed, looking a bit disappointed.
"You'd better," she stalked off towards a dark-haired man at the other end of the reptile house, presumably her husband.
"Look, Dad, the snake is moving!"
A familiar small whale ran up to the glass, frightening the serpent and causing it to rear backwards. It lost its balance very inelegantly and flopped over, falling onto the ground in his cage. Harry snorted and if snakes could glare, that one was doing it. It slithered into the back of the tank and under some rocks.
This displeased Dudley immensely and he pressed his face against the glass, pounding rhythmically on it.
"Make it move dad!" He whined, voice mildly obstructed from the glass pressed against his mouth.
"Move it! Come on now!" Vernon yelled at the tank, fists pounding even harder than Dudley's
"This is boring" The birthday boy complained before dragging his friend off to go see the 'Cooler Snakes'. His parents trailed after him once they had warned Harry against going anywhere else.
Harry sat on the bench, looking over at the rock that he knew the snake was hiding under.
"God, I might even envy you," he told the snake.
A small diamond head inched slowly out from under the rock to give him another snake glare.
"Why am I even talking to a snake" he sighed, turning away and fiddling with the hem of his glove.
He turned back to the snake after a moment.
"You are a really good listener though. It might be because you can't talk but I guess that doesn't matter so much," he rambled, ignoring the snake's slow approach.
"You'd be surprised," A muffled voice hissed.
Harry jumped, looking around in a panic
"What"
"Did you forget you were talking to me hatchling? "
He turned towards the snake tank.
"Are you talking to me? "
"No," It hissed "I was talking to the small elephant that barreled by a few minutes ago,"
Harry snickered.
"You mean Dudley? "
"If that is what you call it, then yes,"
"Wait, how can do you speak English? I thought snakes didn't have vocal cords," he paused "Or ears,"
"You are very knowledgeable about my species,"
Harry rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged.
"Dudley doesn't use his textbooks all that often so I end up making use of them,"
"Textbooks? "
"I- Nevermind,"
"The elephant is returning,"
Harry glanced off to the side and saw that the snake was right, the Dursley family was returning.
"How do you know what an elephant is but not a textbook? You're a South American snake,"
"Look at the freak now, pretending to talk to a snake. Are you so lonely that you turn to freaky animals for company?" Dudley taunted as he neared
"Freaky? " the snake hissed indignantly. "I am a majestic creature,"
Harry snorted.
"You find that funny freak?"
Harry stayed silent, determined not to worsen the issue.
"Not answering? Maybe your pet snake will tell us," Dudley pounded on the glass with renewed ferocity and with every sound of fist meeting glass, Harry's finger rose a bit more inside him.
His fists clenched, carving crescents into his palm.
Then Dudley pounded one more time and his anger was released.
The glass cracked. A moment passed before the cracks formed and intricate spiderweb and imploded, landing inside the tank. The momentum of Dudley's next swing against the tank threw him in as the snake slithered out.
"Thanks for that," It hissed before slithering away. in the direction of a dense clump of trees.
Harry offered the snake a salute and turned back to the tank, ready to help right his wrong by helping Dudley out of the tank. But when he reached out in front of him, his hand hit a wall of thick glass.
He recoiled, surprised. Hadn't the glass shattered just a few minutes ago? But there it was, solid as ever. On the other side of the glass, Dudley stumbled to his feet and pressed his hands to the glass.
"Maam? Daed? H'llo?" He cried "g't me out!"
Petunia ran up to him, running her hands on the glass.
"Oh, my poor Diddy. Don't worry, we'll get you out of there,"
Amidst the chaos, Vernon Dursely was yelling at a nearby zoo worker.
"What kind of establishment is this? Deadly animals are getting lose, customers are getting trapped in cages-" He continued to scold to the employee, who simply nodded for a while then scurried away to try to find a way to extract Dudley from the tank.
Off to the side, Piers looked torn between gaping at the newly restored glass and laughing at his friend's predicament. He settled an expression that made him look constipated.
It took the zoo twenty minutes to get Dudley out of the snake tank. The door that the employees used to feed the snake was much too small for him to fit through so they had to find a saw and saw a hole through the back of the tank. Unfortunately, there were no electric saws anywhere to be found and they had to settle for a manual one.
So some poor chap from the front desk had to take on the gruelling task of sawing a hole big enough for Dudley Dursley to fit through. Once their son was freed, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon dragged him back to their shiny Porsche. His clothes were dripping with snake pond water and he was covered in dirt but Harry and Piers wisely chose not to comment on it.
The drive home was uncomfortable at best. Harry was caught between a foul-smelling, dirt-covered Dudley and a silent Piers. They dropped Piers off at his house before driving up the street to number 4 Privet Drive.
Harry was nearly launched from the car as Dudley climbed out, landing hard on the asphalt below. He said nothing of it though, figuring he'd caused a bit too much trouble for the day. It seemed his uncle thought so too since the moment he stepped into the house, he dragged him up the stairs by the collar, belt in hand.
He didn't make a sound, not even when his injured wrist hit a stair and pain lanced through his arm. Vernon threw him into the bedroom at the end of the hall, walking in behind him.
"You caused a lot of trouble today freak." He snarled, looking glaring down at him.
Harry only bowed his head, mentally preparing for what was to come. His emotions shut down, his face becoming a mask of indifference. It was a pretty handy trick he had picked up over the years to salvage what was left of his pride. His uncle could beat him all he wants but he will never get the satisfaction of seeing his reaction to it.
Vernon ran the belt through his hands, a large smile on his face.
"How many lashes do you think all that trouble was worth?"
"Ten?" Harry asked hopefully.
"Try again,"
"Fifteen,"
"I was thinking something along the lines of Fifty,"
Harry resisted reacting as he normally would. Fifty lashes was surely enough to break his skin. Vernon usually avoided doing that as much as possible so that Harry's treatment would only leave mental marks. He must be particularly angry about the zoo incidence. Harry whistled internally. Vernon was clearly a much better actor than he thought, to be able to restrain his anger until they got home.
"Your shirt, boy"
Harry slipped off his oversized shirt and folded it neatly before placing it on the floor beside him.
The moment he put his shirt down, a piece of metal dug into him. He fell forward, landing on his good arm.
"Good, stay on the ground, it's easier to hit you that way"
Harry stayed where he was, not daring to move an inch. He looked around and caught sight of Vernon's bedding. 'That sheet is a horrendous colour. Honestly, It looks like someone bled all over it and they just left the crusty brown blood on it- GAH ' Vernon brought the belt down again, his tan skin making contact with the metal buckle. They continued like this, Harry keeping a barrage of thoughts flowing to distract him from the pain and Vernon bringing down his belt again and again. Harry's back turned red after thirty lashes. It began splitting at forty. By the time he finished the fifty lashes, Harry was laying on the ground, lost in a sea of random thoughts. His back was split open in several places, blood visible but stagnant.
Vernon said nothing as he grabbed Harry's ear to drag him back down the stairs. He was thrown into his cupboard and the door slammed in his face, leaving him damp with sweat, in pain and cold.
The sound of drawers being fumbled through and the tap running could be heard and he wondered what his Uncle was doing in the kitchen.
He found out soon enough when the cupboard door opened again and a damp spongelike rectangle fell in his lap.
"Bon Appetit" His uncle chuckled, locking the door and walking away to go watch his son open his birthday presents.
Harry felt the rectangle and discovered that it was not, in fact, a sponge. It was much and didn't return to its original shape if he pushed parts of it down. he brought it to his nose and sniffed it.
'Is this... bread? he gave me soggy bread for dinner?'
Harry grimaced at the bread and took a tentative bite. The texture waged war on his mouth, causing him to fight his natural reaction to it (which would be spitting it out). He chewed it and swallowed hard. He put the bread on a side table, hoping it would dry out in a few hours and touched a finger to the gashes on his back.
He winced and fumbled around for some kind of bandage or even a spare shirt. He had nothing long enough to wrap around his entire torso so he just put a clean shirt on the small mattress to protect his open wounds and lay on top of it. He curled up into fetal position, trying to stave off the stinging cold, despite the fact that it was mid-June and the highest temperatures of the year were fast approaching.
As Harry lay, curled up in his cupboard, he cried. He wept silently, overwhelmed by his hunger, his pain and his isolation. He shook as he cried, leaving small tearstains on his chunky pillow. He cried until he ran out of tears at which point he fell asleep as there was nothing else to do.
He slept through the rest of the day and well into the night. He heard hooting outside and the drop of something light against the front porch. He only turned over and went back to sleep, and he would never again think of the owl he heard outside on Dudley's eleventh birthday.
***
Harry was able to wake up much more peacefully the next morning. It was early, so everyone else was still asleep in their rooms. Birds chirped outside and a small stream of light penetrated the room, lighting up the circular scar on his left hand. his wrist was still throbbing dully and limp against his mattress.
He fumbled around in the corner of the cupboard and pulled out a flashlight and one of his Aunt Petunia's old high school textbooks. He had found the jackpot when he was cleaning out the basement a year ago. Petunia and Vernon's outdated textbooks were not the best way to learn but Harry did not go to school during the week like Dudley and was not the type to disregard any source of information. He had nothing of his own, no toys or clothes. Everything he owned had once been Dudley's and were very used. His meagre second-hand belongings were also what he was often threatened with when he didn't want to do the housework. They would take away all of his shirts or pants and only return them when the work he had done was to their satisfaction.
Gardening in one's knickers was a particularly humiliating experience and Harry had become much more obedient to prevent himself from having to go through that again.
Essentially, the only thing he had that could not be confiscated by the Dursleys was knowledge. Short of wiping his mind clean, there was nothing anyone could do once he learned something. So after the Dursley's made him learn to read when he was five so he read the labels of their storage boxes, he had been snatching books to read in his cupboard.
His well of knowledge grew slowly but surely. During his routine cleaning of the basement, he would sneak books back into their boxes and take a few others into the cupboard.
It was not long before he obtained his crown jewel, the only book that stayed in his cupboard at all times; a glossy dictionary. It had been stashed in a dark corner of the bottom floor and covered in a significant amount of dust.
He had leafed through the thick book several times, taking his time with every word, writing it out in the dust on the floor and sounding it out. Whenever he came across a word he didn't know in a book, he would look it up in a dictionary. If he didn't find it there, he would ask the elderly Mrs Figg who lived across the street when the Dursley's dumped him on her front step. Usually before a vacation or an excursion into the city.
Mrs Figg had a huge library in her house so he looked forwards to the Dursleys' frequent vacations. He spent his days holed up among the books, devouring book after book. The result was a ten year old with a vocabulary that far exceeded that of many and a strange taste for old romance novels. Many of which were rather steamy and definitely not suitable for a child to read.
But other than the massive amounts of books with unrealistic sex scenes, Mrs Figg's library contained books upon books on every subject imaginable. From fairytales to rocket science, Mrs Figg had it all. Of course, Harry was still working himself up to rocket science but he was sure he had surpassed Dudley when it came to theoretical knowledge.
He figured that Mrs Figg either knew about his situation with the Dursleys or suspected it because on the days he finished his impossible list of chores earlier, she would let him into her house without a word, letting him seek solace in the library and gently pushing him back towards the Dursleys' when dinner time was approaching. He quite enjoyed curling up on one of the old sofas in the huge room with a cat in his lap and a book in his hands.
Shaking himself from his musings, he turned back to Petunia's 10th-grade mathematics textbook, turning to the chapter on Logarithms. He set his flashlight up in a way that he wouldn't have to hold it so he could flip the pages and trace the equations on the ground with his good hand.
He had been reading for an hour when he heard someone coming down the stairs. Judging by the heavy footsteps, he guessed it was Vernon. He quickly stashed the book and flashlight in the corner adjacent to the cupboard door. Since he cleaned everything, the Durselys never bothered to search his cupboard, making that corner the best one for hiding things.
He heard the bolt come unstuck and the door creaked open, letting more light into the small space.
"Get up freak," He told him, before turning around and walking towards the kitchen.
Harry pushed himself up with his good hand and waddled into the kitchen where Vernon was sitting, reading the paper. He hobbled over to the stove, turning on the gas and went to grab the eggs from the fridge. He cracked the eggs rather impressively with one hand before whisking them in preparation.
As Harry cooked, Petunia and Dudley also sat at the table, busying themselves with their own interests. It wasn't long before their eggs were served. Harry saved a little for himself seeing as he had only really eaten a bit of wet bread yesterday.
"Go fetch the mail boy," Aunt Petunia demanded before tucking into her meal.
'It would be pathetically easy to poison those three, honestly,' Harry observed as they all ate without even looking at the food. 'If you're going to have your food made by slave labour, you should be at least a little wary of it'
He turned and walked towards the front door where the mail sat in a pile at the front door. He picked it up, walked back to the kitchen and handed them to Petunia as Vernon had already gone back upstairs to get ready for work.
She took them wordlessly and shuffled through them, setting aside all of the bills. When she came upon the last envelope, her face blanched. She stopped breathing as she stared at the yellowed envelope, adorned with emerald green ink. Then she stuffed it into her pocket and turned to the boys.
"Diddy, how would you like to have a playdate with your friend Gordon Garraway?"
Dudley's face lit up and Petunia took that as a yes. She walked over to the phone and called up Mrs Garraway, telling her about how her son missed Gordon dearly and how he wanted them to hang out this morning. It seems that Mrs Garraway agreed so Dudley would be going to a water park with Gordon in an hour.
Petunia grabbed her keys and grabbed Harry's arm. "You're going to Mrs Figg's boy,"
Harry was ecstatic. He did not know what had brought on this impromptu trip but he was very grateful for it. He was grateful for anything that meant he could sit in Mrs Figg's library rather than doing chores all day.
Petunia nearly ran upstairs to grab her coat and keys before loading Dudley into her car and walking across the street with Harry to make sure he actually went to Mrs Figg's.
They stood at the old woman's door as they waited for her to open it. It creaked open and half an aged face peeked out.
"Ah, Petunia dear. How are you these days?"
"Hello Arabella, I'm doing wonderful, thank you. I was hoping you could take Harry off our hands for the day. We have to run errands all day and we have no one to look after him,"
"Of course Petunia!"
She turned to Harry
"Come now dear, Mister Muffins has been rather sad that you haven't been around in a while"
She led him farther into the house, not even bothering to close the front door.
Petunia sighed and shut the door, walking back to her car so that she could drop off Dudley. And in her pocket, possibly smudging green ink in her sweater pocket, a cursed letter sat crumpled up.
'Dear Dudley Dursley of number 4 Privet Drive, ' It wrote 'We formally invite you to attend your first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry,'
***