At the Start
Harry sat, once again, in Dudley’s second bedroom, upstairs in the extraordinarily ordinary house located at number four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. The road outside Harry’s barred window shimmered in the heat and the oppressive warmth blanketed the area in a feeling of sluggishness.
Harry, however, felt none of the warmth that threated to melt shoes to sidewalk. Instead, his thoughts turned to the past years and how miserably he had failed everyone around him.
Cedric dead. Sirius dead. My parents’ dead. Cedric dead. Sirius dead. My parents’ dead. Cedric. Sirius. Mum. Dad. It’s all my fault. The thoughts chased their way around Harry’s head in a never-ending stream of his own incompetence.
Suddenly, he was wrenched from his thoughts by the steady thump of Uncle Vernon’s heavy footsteps up the stairs. This summer had been bad, much worse then normal. The Dursley’s seemed to take offence to Mad-Eye Moody’s comments about treating Harry better and instead were more determined then ever to stop his freakishness though any means possible. The sound of the various locks and dead bolts being opened woke Hedwig, who looked balefully over at Harry, cranky at having been woken so soon after getting back from the short hunting trip she had been allowed the night before.
“As long as I do my chores and don’t talk back and take my punishments silently, Hedwig will be okay" Harry whispered to himself, a mantra that he had started repeating to himself.
“Boy!” Uncle Vernon blustered as he came though the door, filling it completely with his massive girth. The short trip up the stairs, in conjunction with the heat had made his face redder then normal, darkening it to a rosy tomato shade. His moustache and forehead already dripped with sweat. “Why are you still lazing around when there are chores to be done!”
Harry held his tongue, longing to snap back that there was no possible way for him to get out of the room, even if he’d wanted too. The Dursley’s had learnt their lesson and had made sure to lock his wand up with his trunk in the cupboard under the stairs, rather then just assuming that he’d put it in the trunk with all of the rest of the things that connected him to the wizarding world.
“Go and get breakfast made, then clean and tidy the kitchen. After that the lawn needs mowing and the gardens need weeding, and I think it’s about time the garden shed was cleaned out and white washed again.” Uncle Vernon grumbled as Harry hastily stood and made his way over to the door. “And you’ll get it all done before dinner, or there’ll be no food for you today! I’m done supporting you with nothing in return, stealing the food out of Dudley’s mouth”
“Yes Uncle Vernon” Harry quickly replied, knowing what his Uncle expected from him.
Uncle Vernon stepped back to allow Harry to pass, but as Harry sidled past, aware as always that the heat shortened his uncles already short temper, Uncle Vernon gave him a solid cuff across the back of Harry’s head, hitting the lump left by Aunt Petunia’s flying skillet from the day before and making Harry see stars.
The headache that had been Harry’s near constant companion that summer blazed and he staggered, bumping into Dudley, who had just left the bathroom.
“Dad! The freak ran into me! I think he’s bruised my arm.” Dudley spat gleefully, despite the fact that Harry wasn’t heavy enough to do any real damage.
“How dare you lay a hand on our Dudders you little monster!” Uncle Vernon raged, moving his considerable bulk over to where Harry had slid down the wall into a protective huddle. Vernon kicked out at Harry’s form, catching the boy swiftly in the ribs, before dragging him up by the back of the neck and shaking him until Harry though his teeth would rattle out. His glasses, already oft repaired, had flown off in the scuffle, and were quickly stepped on by Dudley, who smiled at the snap they made under his foot.
Harry, who’d let out a gasp when Vernon’s foot connected with his lingering bruises from Dudley and Co.’s most recent game of ‘Harry Hunting’ tried not to cry when his uncle finally released him, but it was hard when he heard his uncles next words as he bent to pick up his glasses from the floor.
“I think another night without food will do you some good you ungrateful mutt. Maybe a little but of hunger will temper your attitude and God help you if all of your chores aren’t done by the time I get home. Now go and help your poor Aunt with breakfast.”
At that Uncle Vernon gave Harry shove between the shoulder blades, pushing him down the stairs.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
After cooking the bacon and eggs, and getting the toast ready, and setting out the fruit salad and serving the tea and coffee and juice, Harry stood in his normal corner and watched his relatives eat. His stomach, already audibly growling, as it had been two days without food already for failing to complete his chores, which he had in fact completed, and having had little more then some soup and a few scraps of bread in the days before let off a particularly loud rumble. Loud enough, apparently, for Dudley to hear, which prompted him to grin evilly at Harry and drop a slice of his bacon to the floor.
“Clean that mess up.” said his Aunt Petunia; not even looking at Harry, who never the less knew it was him who was being spoken to. “Straight into the bin boy.”
Harry walked over to the table, knelt, picked up the bacon and wiped at the spot with a piece of paper towel, the aroma of fresh cooked bacon making him salivate before walking over and resentfully dropping it into the bin with the other scraps.
Harry went back to his corner, once again thinking that at least his relative’s heavy chore schedule kept him too busy to wallow in the depression that threatened to overwhelm him if he spent too long thinking about it.
Once the Dursley family had finished eating, with Dudley eating everything that was left on the table that Harry normally might have been able to scavenge for at least some edible food, Harry began the long and laborious job of cleaning the kitchen to his Aunts exacting standards. Having done the dishes, he wiped over the benches and cupboards and then started to scrub the floor on his hands and knees. His bruised ribs and shoulders protested, but Harry didn’t really have a choice, not if he wanted Hedwig alive and fed.
Harry thought about the intense fear he’d felt when Uncle Vernon had told him on the way home from King’s Cross to ‘keep that ruddy bird silent’ or Hedwig would be locked in the cupboard with the rest of his school things for the summer. As long as he did everything right and stayed silent and didn’t make anything ‘freaky’ happen, Hedwig was let out to hunt and could deliver post to and from Harry, as long as it was at night, lest the neighbours see anything. He couldn’t bear the though of losing the only friend that had stayed with him though everything.
Finally finished with his scrubbing, Harry quickly darted upstairs to use the bathroom and grab some tape to fix his glasses before going out into the stifling heat. Only 10 am, Harry knew that his day would be long and hot, but at least if he was outside he could drink as much water as he wanted, which went a long way to filling his aching belly.
Falling into the repetitive work of weeding Aunt Petunia’s vast garden beds, Harry had time to contemplate his up-coming birthday the next day. He’d written to Ron and Hermione just the week before, but hadn’t heard back from either the whole break, apart from a few quick sentences here or there, something that hit too close to home after the year before, when his so-called best friends hadn’t written to him all summer at the headmasters behest.
Harry didn’t know how to talk to his friends about the pain of loosing the last person alive that had loved him for him, and putting aside the fact that the blame for Sirius’s death lay totally on his shoulders, the death of his godfather also represented the loss of the last chance Harry had of leaving Privet Drive forever, so for the most part he stayed silent, ignoring Hermione’s one demand that he talk about it, but within days of the Minestry ordeal the other two thirds of the Golden Trio didn’t even bring it up. Neither of them had lost anyone close to them, and they definitely didn’t understand the guilt that threatened to crush him so Harry really wouldn’t have know what to say, even if they had cared to ask.
Harry told them that the muggle’s were as bad as always, but even then he knew that if he got a response it would be the same as always, that he just had to get though it and maybe he could eventually be allowed to go to the Burrow for the last few weeks of the holidays.
Harry hadn’t mentioned his birthday in his last letter, knowing that it would once again go unmarked by the Dursley’s, and preferring to celebrate when he eventually saw his friends again. He hoped to hear from them soon, even if it was just to confirm that someone, anyone, still cared about him.
Just as the sun was reaching its peak, Harry stopped to have another drink, and to rest quietly in the shade of house underneath the window, where Aunt Petunia was unlikely to spot him and yell at him for being lazy and ungrateful. He was already beginning to feel a little sunburnt and the heat itself was making him light headed. As such, he didn’t even start when a small green snake slithered out onto the grass near where he was laying.
“Hello there” Harry hissed quietly as the small serpent.
“A Sssspeaker! I’ve never met one before!” the snake, no longer then Harry’s arm, hissed back.
“My name’s Harry, what may I call you?” Harry rolled onto his stomach, ignoring his twinging body, so that he could make eye contact with the snake.
“Greetingss Sspeaker Harry. I am known as Tiamat to my nest-matess. It’s nice to find a human who knows how to bask in the sun, rather then hide in the stone-cave-nest.” The small snake slipped closer, tasting the air with her tongue.
“A house.” Harry smiled “The stone-cave-nest is called a house.”
As Harry talked to the snake and answered her questions about living with humans, Harry felt the first smallest fission of happiness go though him since returning to the Hell that is number four Privet Drive.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Harry only came back to the present when he heard the tell tale sound of his uncle’s car pulling into the driveway. Harry, having become so engrossed in his conversation with Tiamat that he had lost track of time, looked around the garden and saw that while the lawn had been tended to and the weeds all pulled, he hadn’t even started on the shed.
Harry cringed, knowing that there was no way for this situation to end well, and between his empty stomach and bruised and battered body he wasn’t sure how much more he could take. He though about running, of taking the gardening tools and breaking open the lock on the cupboard, grabbing his trunk and catching the Knight Bus to somewhere, anywhere that was better then the Dursley’s. He knew, however, that even if he did manage to get past his relatives and somehow get to his wand back and hightail it to London, chances where that Dumbledore would send him straight back. That was a bitter pill to swallow, to know that he had no other family to take him in, and that even visiting the Burrow for too long would put the Weasley’s in danger.
Saying a quick good bye to the small serpent, Harry crept over to the shed and opened it, hoping against home that if it looked like he was at least trying to finish his chores his uncle wouldn’t punish him too badly. Looking at the inside of the shed, which held a jumble of old gardening supplies and outdoor toys that Dudley had broken or outgrown but refused to throw out, Harry felt a small ember of anger flame up when he realised that even tidying the shed would take at least a day, let alone white washing it with paint he didn’t even have. He was tired of being constantly set up to fail, here and at Hogwarts and even the whole wizarding world wanted him, an untrained, soon to be 16 year old boy to save them all from the strongest Dark wizard in a century.
“BOY!” His uncle thundered, making his way over to the shed as Harry scrambled back out to the open air of the yard. He could only hope that his uncles’ fear of people overhearing would keep him safe from his immediate rage, although the neighbours had been markedly unobservant about anything concerning the small child with the big green eyes that lived at number 4.
He was grabbed by big hands just as he made it though the door and out of the cramped space that reminded him far too much of his quarters for the first ten years of his life. Grasped tight enough to make Harry whimper, he was thrown to the ground, jostling his undernourished body.
“Silence, you ungrateful mutt!” Uncle Vernon hissed menacingly, “Now, I can see that you’ve clearly been slacking off today. Just like you’re lazy layabout father, this is the thanks we get for housing you and feeding you and putting up with you’re nonsenses.”
“But Uncle Vern-” Harry began, looking up at his uncle, hoping to explain just how big a job he’d be assigned, only to receive a vicious backhand across the face. The hit dug his glasses into his face and left cuts around his eyes, as well as knocking his head back into the outside of the shed as he fell, causing Harry’s vision to go momentarily dark as pain shot across his nerves. The handprint reddened, and Harry knew he would be adding to his already vast collection of bruises.
“Did I say you could speak?” Uncle Vernon demanded, clearly expecting no answer, almost oblivious to the pain his nephew was in. “Now get inside, it’ll be the belt for you!”
Harry staggered to his feet; know that the long it took for him to get upstairs the worse his punishment would be. Inside, he slipped quickly past Dudley in the living room and Aunt Petunia, who was just finishing up another dinner in the spotless kitchen that Harry wouldn’t be permitted to eat.
Entering his bedroom, Harry bent quickly over his desk, unable to stop the tremors the wracked his body despite the lingering heat of the day. His backside still felt bruised from the last belting he’d received two weeks before for spilling the juice he had been bring to the table all over his uncle as he had been rushing to finish his food before a big presentation. Harry was glad, for possibly the first time, of having nothing to wear but Dudley’s cast-off, as the too large jeans and t-shirt that he was wearing would allow him some padding from his uncles blows, even if there wasn’t enough fat on his body to do so.
“Now, I think ten for not completing your chores, another ten for wilful disobedience and five each for back chat and wasting my time seems fair”
The last thought that crossed Harrys mind before the belt descended was that he should be used to arbitrary punishment after dealing with Snape for five years.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Harry lay, face down, aching from head to foot from the day abuses, on his bed, eyes fixed on the old alarm clock of Dudley’s he had managed to repair from where his temperamental cousin had thrown it across the room. Having retreated into himself, Harry watched disinterestedly as the clock counted down.
11:56
It was quiet in the house, with only the distant snore from Dudley and Uncle Vernon, and the occasional creak of the house settling.
11:57
Hedwig cooed softly from her cage, trying to comfort her master, even if she couldn’t get to him.
11:58
Outside his window, opened as wide as possible to try and catch the breeze despite the bars, the soft sound of trees and bushes rustling played in symphony with the cicadas and the distant traffic, still busy despite the late hour.
11:59
Harry though back to his eleventh birthday, about how simple it had all been, the sheer joy he felt when he found out about his heritage. There was no friendly half-giant coming to rescue him this time, no mater how hard he wished.
12:00
Happy Birthday to me the boy though to himself, wondering if he would make it through to see the next.
An owl flew through his open window and made its way sedately over to where Harry lay prone. Dropping its burden next to the boy’s head, the motley owl hooted softly at Hedwig, and then was back out the window and into the freedom of the night sky.
Expecting a letter from one of his erstwhile Harry flipped the letter open, only to pause at the gold wax sealed with the Gringotts emblem. Unsealing the letter Harry quickly scanned the letter, eyes adjusted to the low light of the lamppost outside. Reading, Harry was a little puzzled, but with his annual ritual complete and the events of the day catching up with him, as there was nothing that required his immediate attention he put the piece of parchment on his bedside table, removed his glasses and promptly fell into the deep sleep of one trying to escape reality.
Little did he know what that innocuous piece of parchment would put in motion, and how it would change the path he walked forever.