The Past Can Hurt - Book 1: Philosopher's Stone

“Quite right, Mr Lupin, we’ll all meet here in ten minutes.”

As soon as Professor McGonagall finished speaking, the Trio, Remus and Snuffles started to leave the hall, but not without taking Aurelia to her friends. “You can sit with us again once we’re back if you want.” As she nodded in response, they left.

They walked in a comfortable silence towards the courtyard, where they sat for a couple of minutes before Harry spoke up.

He was looking down at his hands with furrowed eyebrows, his hands fidgeting with a piece of string he had found.

“So, you know that I’ll be in pain when book me is in pain, and I’ve got a bad feeling that this chapter will be… very painful…And I know that you’ve seen bruises from when I came to the safe house after the dementors….”

Harry looks towards Ron, who shakes his head, knowing he shouldn’t be the one to tell them.

“Well, the Dursleys, except Dudley, are… they’re urm… they’re emotionally and physically abusive….” Harry let go a huge breath of relief; just telling two adults who actually care for him had lifted an enormous weight off of his chest. “They don’t just punish me when they think or know I’ve done magik; they punish me whenever they feel like it. I knew about my magik before I got my letter…”

The four of them looked at Harry, shocked; none of them knew that.

“I was seven or eight, and Aunt Petunia had woken me up to make breakfast, so I did. Then as I was taking the plates over to the table, Dudley accidentally knocked into me; the look in his eyes as the plate smashed upon hitting the ground, he was so upset and guilty, he looked after me the next week after that. But anyway, as soon as the plate smashed, I wished that it would fix itself. And it did… Aunt Petunia saw what happened and freaked. She grabbed the pan off the stove, hit me round the head with it and yelled, ‘I WISH YOU NEVER HAD MAGIK! I HATED YOUR MOTHER FOR IT, AND NOW I’LL HATE YOU FOR IT! YOUR JUST A FREAK! WITH THE MAGIK! YOUR SKIN COLOUR! YOU’LL NEVER BE NORMAL! I WISH THAT DUMBLEDORE WOULD TAKE YOU AWAY!’ Realising that what I was doing was magik, I started to repress it every time I felt it.”

Remus, Ron and Hermione paled; Snuffle's growling had stopped; instead, he was letting out high-pitched whines of distress.

“Then, whenever I started to repress my magik, small black clouds started to form. As the years went on, they got bigger and bigger until… Until Dudley’s eleventh birthday, that’s this chapter, then the Hogwarts letter… Then suddenly, I was at Hogwarts. I wasn’t repressing my magik as much, but using it felt wrong… Then suddenly I had two friends, Ron and Hermione. They made me feel better about using my magik; the dark clouds still occasionally appear, but I have Ron, Hermione, and you two. I have people who care about just Harry.”

After Harry finished talking, he was attacked by a giant group hug.

They stayed like that for a few minutes until it was time to return to the hall.

–

As they enter the hall, they can see something’s happened. Umbridge has a bright red face, and most students have wide eyes.

In Dumbledore’s hand is another letter.

“Ah! Harry, My Boy! You’re back; we can read this letter now.

As the names are read, the very same people walk into the hall.

Well, let's begin then. If you would, Harry, My Boy." 

Harry gives his permission while the newcomers get comfortable, the Tonks couple sitting on a lovely, pastel blue sofa near Nymphadora. 

The Flamels sat on a deep dull red beanbag close to Harry, where Aureila had joined the Trio again. 

Slughorn and Hagrid went and sat with the other teachers. 

And Aberforth? Well, he glared at Albus with such loathing while he sat next to the Flamels on a deep green armchair. 

The book began to read. 

[ Chapter Two: The Vanishing Glass

It had been nearly ten years since the Dursleys had found their nephew on their doorstep. But Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. Well, other than the neighbours leaving after two years due to all the racist comments and threats they were getting.

As the sun rose and lit up the tidy front gardens and the brass number four on the Dursleys’ front door. The light crept into their living room, which looked almost exactly the same as when Mr Dursley had watched the news report. Only the tiny specks of blood and the photographs that were placed on the mantelpiece showed how much time had passed.

Ten years ago, there were many pictures of a young baby looking like a large pink beach ball wearing different-coloured bobble hats. But Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the pictures showed a slightly large, dirty blonde boy riding his first bicycle. On a roundabout at the fair, playing a computer game with his father and being hugged and kissed by his mother.

There was another picture of Dudley; well, a series of photos that neither of his parents knew about. He’d hidden them under his bed so they couldn’t rip them up; one of them was a picture of him and his cousin in the school music room. His cousin was showing him how to play the piano. To Dudley, that day was almost magical. It was the first day he had ever seen his cousin have a genuine smile on his face. But other than Dudley's pictures under his bed, there was no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too. ]

Remus turned to Harry, “Are there no pictures of you when you were younger? Other than the ones Dudley has.”

Harry shook his head negatively. “I don’t think you’d want to see pictures of me when I was younger, anyway. I wasn’t… I didn’t look… I looked half-dead most of the time. I don’t want you to see that.” Smiling bitterly, Harry shook his head again with dull green eyes, remembering exactly what he looked like. 

[ Yet, Harry Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was the first to wake, it was half six in the morning, and it was her shrill voice which made the first noise of the day.

“Up! Get up! Now!” ]

“How can you wake to such a vile noise, Harry?”

Harry snorted at Ron’s whisper in his ear. His face warmed up at how close his face was to his.

[ Harry shot up with a start, his head hitting the wall above him. ] 

“Shit.” Harry murmured, running his hand through his hair to mask the sharp pain he had suddenly felt.

[ Rubbing his head from the pain, his aunt sharply hit the door again, “Up!” She screeched. He heard her slippers hitting the tiled kitchen floor and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the cooker. ]

Nicolas Flamel looked towards Harry, “You have some good hearing, young man.”

[ He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the Dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorbike and a shaggy black dog in it. He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before.

Harry sighed lowly, trying to remember the dream he’d been having. It felt like a good one. There had been a motorbike and a shaggy black dog, he had a feeling he’d had this dream before. 

His aunt was back outside the door, leaving the bacon sizzling on the frying pan.

“Are you up yet?” She demanded.

Emerald eyes wide, “nearly,” Harry uttered.

A loud sigh comes from Aunt Petunia, “Well, get a move on! I want you to look after the bacon. And don’t you dare let it burn again; you know what’ll happen if you do. After all, everything has to be perfect on my Duddy’s birthday.”

Harry groaned

“What did you say?” His aunt snapped through the door.

“Nothing, nothing…”

It was Dudley’s birthday. How could he have forgotten? They were worse on Dudley’s birthday. Harry slowly turned around and started to look for his less holey socks. Finding a pair under his bed, he pulled off the spider on one of them and put them one.

Harry was used to spiders because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them.

And that was where he slept. ]

“Potter. What the fuck?”

“Draco,” Lucius hissed.

“What?! Oh, of course,” Draco turned to Petunia and Vernon, “Right, what the fuck?! You put my rival in a cupboard! That’s not normal.” Draco turns to Hermione, “Granger! Were you put in a cupboard too? I’m only asking because you have Muggle parents.”

“No, I wasn’t put in a cupboard, even after I levitated my dad because he wouldn’t give me a book.”

Draco turns back to the Dursleys, “See! You both must be not normal.” Nodding his head with satisfaction, he turns back to the book, only to see the rest of Hogwarts gobsmacked. Narrowing his eyes in confusion, “What?”

Hermione and Harry snort and let out loud laughs.

“What?!” Draco turns to them. “Tell me!”

“They’re just shocked, Malfoy!”

“About what, Potter?”

“That you spoke to ‘Mione without insulting her, I suppose.”

“Huh? Well, it was that, or she’d go Buckbeak on me again.”

Only the Trio, Crabb and Goyle understood what that meant. Hermione looked smug that the thought of her punch had a long-lasting effect.

[ Once he was dressed, he left his cupboard and headed down the hall to the kitchen. The table was groaning with the weight of all of Dudley’s presents, presents he didn’t even want.

It looked as though Dudley had gotten the latest computer that Dudley’s friends had been bragging about, not to mention a second television, where that was going to go was a mystery to Harry, and a racing bike, now that Dudley had wanted.

Why Dudley wanted a racing bike was the mystery, as Dusley’s friends hadn’t learnt to ride a bike. What they had learnt was how to punch, and they loved punching people. Dudley’s friends’ favourite punching bag? Harry, but they could rarely catch him. Harry didn’t look it but was quite fast. 

Unless he was scared frozen. That was nearly always the case in terms of Uncle Vernon. ]

Remus starts to growl lowly.

[ Harry remembers one time he had said something back to Uncle Vernon, he was seven, and he knew better. He can’t remember what was said because all he remembers was that Uncle Vernon was behind him with The Belt. Harry had taken his shirt off, his hands against the living room wall. After an hour, Harry remembers The Belt flying out of his Uncle’s hand due to the sweat on his hands, it had hit him with the buckle. Harry had screamed so loud. And a malicious grin had formed on Vernon’s face.

Harry was nearly always hit with the buckle end after that. ]

McGonagall looked at Dumbledore, her face pale, “I TOLD YOU! I SAID THEY WERE OF THE WORSE SORT OF MUGGLES! DID YOU LISTEN? NO! NO, YOU DIDN’T! AND THEN I FIND OUT YOU’VE PLACED BLOCKS ON HIM!”

McGonagall continues to scream at Dumbledore, not seeing that Snape had rage in his pitch-black eyes and was eyeing Vernon Dursley; he pointed his wand at the man, thinking of a spell he could use when a magikal force stopped him.

~ I know you wish to harm him, but that isn’t possible right now. You have to wait until the end of all seven books before anyone can face their consequence. It, unfortunately, has to be that way. ~

Everybody stopped at the voice echoing around the hall, then as one, they turned to see Professor Snape pointing one wand at Vernon Dursley and the other at Albus Dumbledore.

As Snape sat down, his words echoed through the silent hall, “Dumbledore, you made me swear an unbreakable vow to protect Lily’s son, only to send him to an abusive home. You will get what’s coming to you.”

[ Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. ]

Seeing Madame Pomfrey start to stand up looking directly at him, Harry calls out at her.

“Don’t worry, Madame Pomfrey. I’ve had a Healer look me over. He’s put me on certain potions and a meal plan to help.”

“I would like his name, so I can make certain.”

“His name is Healer Nadnok.”

[ Harry looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because the only clothes he had were Dudley’s, and Dudley was about three times his size, plus the Dursleys wouldn’t want to spend their money on a child like him. 

Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, raven black hair, and bright emerald green eyes. He wore round, silver-framed glasses held together with a lot of Sellotape because of all the times Dudley’s friends and Uncle Vernon had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his appearance was the lightning-shaped scar going across his face. ]

Ron looked at Harry, “You liked your scar?”

“Yeah, before I knew what it meant.”

“What do you mean?!” A random voice shouted at Harry.

“Well, if I knew before, I got this scar from when Old Voldie tried to kill me after killing my parents…”

“...Oh…”

“Yeah.”

[ He’d had the scar for as long as he could remember, and one of the first questions he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he got it.

“In the car crash when your parents died,” she had said.

“And don’t ask questions.” ]

The teachers look at each other. Professor Sprout is the first to speak to her other colleagues, “does he ask questions in your classes? I’ve never seen him put his hand up in mine, even to answer a question.”

They all shake their heads. Professor Flitwick is the next to say something, “the only time he ever answers something is when I call on him.”

[ Don’t ask questions. That was the first rule of living with the Dursleys.

While Harry is turning over the bacon, Uncle Vernon has woken up and gotten dressed; as he enters the kitchen, Harry tenses.

“Comb your hair!” He barked as a morning greeting.

About once a week, Uncle Vernon shouted over his newspaper that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference; his hair simply grew that way, all over the place. ]

Remus smiled at Harry, “Your dad’s hair was the same way, and your grandfather's, their hair would never sit still. No matter what they put on their hair, it would just bounce right back up. Your mother's hair, though, was wavy; it never looked like there was a hair out of place. That’s what your dad would say, ‘a beautiful red-headed angel’, then she would hex him.”

Snuffles laid his head on Remus’ lap with big sad eyes. Smiling down at him, Remus ruffles his fur.

[ By the time Dudley arrived downstairs with his mother, Harry was almost done frying the eggs. Dudley looked a lot like his parents. He had a large, pale face; you could see his neck, unlike Uncle Vernon, with narrow, watery blue eyes and thick, dirty blonde hair that lay smoothly on his head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel. Harry often said that Dudley was a guardian angel and an arse. ]

“Thanks, Harry!” Dudley shouted slightly with a smile on his face.

“Your welcome, Big D!”

[ Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn’t much room. 

Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. He wanted to know how much he could give Harry without his parents noticing. 

“Thirty-six? Why do I have thirty-six presents?”

Looking at his parents with a look of awe and disgust. Just how did they have enough money to buy this many presents and not spend a single penny on Harry?

“Daring, you haven’t counted Auntie Marge’s present; see, it’s here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy.”

“All right, thirty-seven then,” Said Dudley before he got a determined look on his face.

“Why don’t you ever buy Harry presents for his birthday?”

Uncle Vernon starts to go a cherry red; Harry, sensing terrible danger approaching, begins to wolf down his cold, crispy, burnt bacon as fast as possible in case Uncle Vernon looks at him and decides to take it out on him.

Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too; she was scared he would hit Dudley because she said quickly, “Duddy dear, let’s not get into this on your birthday! In fact for keeping quiet about it, we’ll buy you two more presents. Is that alright?”

“NO, it isn’t alright! I don’t want thirty-nine presents when Harry has never gotten one! I can’t believe that I thought what you did to Harry was alright once. I wish you were never my pare-”

SMACK.

Aunt Petunia gasped while Harry’s jaw dropped with disbelief; he thought Dudley would be safe. He was their own son. Uncle Vernon had hit Dudley. ]

“Did he just…?” Amelia Bones looked down at the notebook she had in front of her; she turned a page and wrote it in.

[ Before the shock of her husband hitting their son hit her, the telephone rang, and Aunt Petunia went to answer it. Harry and Dudley watched Uncle Vernon warily, not taking their eyes off of him for a second as Uncle Vernon’s face steadily got redder and redder.

Aunt Petunia rounded the corner after answering the telephone, angry and worried.

“Bad news, Vernon,” she said. “Mrs Figg broke her leg. She can’t take It.” She jerked her head in Harry’s direction. ]

Perenelle Flamel looked like a mama bear ready to kill for her kid, “do they always refer to you like that?!”

Looking at her, slightly confused, Harry replies, “What, It?”

“Yes, child.”

“Oh, that’s nothing. I didn’t know my name was Harry until I was four, and that’s only because I started Primary School.”

A fire was lit in her oval, hazel eyes, “and what did you think your name was?”

Brushing Aureila’s hair to take his mind off of what they were talking about, “Freak, Boy, It. I think at one point, I asked what my name was, and Aunt Petunia said my name was–” Aunt Petunia’s face pales into a translucent white, “– Son of a Whore.”

Magik explodes from Professor Snape, unable to contain his rage. He turns his pitch-black eyes towards a pale Petunia; he begins to stroke the wand in his hand, remembering he’s unable to cast anything.

Amelia writes it down.

[ Uncle Vernon’s face went purple as his head snapped towards Aunt Petunia; staring at her for a few seconds, his beady little blue eyes started to wander to Harry. He took a step in Harry’s direction only to stop suddenly as Dudley placed himself in front of Harry.

Harry’s heart pounded in his chest. Dudley was still trying to protect him. Even after his dad hit him.

No matter what had happened in the past on Dudley’s birthday, Uncle Vernon had never gotten to the point of rage where he actually hit his son or wife. See, every year on Dudley’s birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, leaving Harry with Mrs Figg. She was a mad old lady that lived two streets away.

Harry hated it there. It was almost worse than living with the Durlseys. Mrs Figg just stared at him for hours, but her stares were filled with hatred, distaste and disgust. Harry figured she hated people of colour. Plus, the whole house smelled of cabbage, and she let her cats scratch his legs like they were a scratching post.

“Now what?” Said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry – who had stepped out from behind Dudley – as though he’d planned this. Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn’t easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before she would just sit and stare at him. ]

“Arabella Figg?” Remus questions.

“Yeah, turns out she’s a Squib and was sent by Dumbledore to watch me.”

[ A still-purple Uncle Vernon muttered through gritted teeth, “We could phone Marge. At least she’ll give him a punishment he deserves.” Harry pales at the threat of ringing Aunt Marge. Harry remembers clearly the last time Aunt Petunia let Aunt Marge punish him. It wasn’t pretty. ] 

“I bet she gave you exactly what you deserve.”

It looked like Umbridge had finally decided to open her mouth.

Harry starts to chuckle bitterly at the comment while finishing the plait in Aureila’s hair. Harry stared straight at Umbridge as he spoke, “She punished me because her dog bit me. I was doing the last of my outside chores, and her dog decided to bite me. She then proceeded to tell Ripper, that’s her dog's name, to attack me. I was in the hospital for weeks. They never take me to the hospital.”

[ “Don’t be silly, Vernon. She hates the boy.”

The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn’t there, or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn’t understand them, like a slug. Uncle Vernon’s face was becoming less purple as the conversation went on, “what about what’s-her-name, your friend, Yvonne?”

“On holiday in Majorca,” snapped Aunt Petunia. 

“You could just leave me here,” Harry spoke up carefully (he’d be able to watch what he wanted on the television, and he wouldn’t be punished for turning the television on). 

Aunt Petunia looked as though she’d just swallowed a lemon.

“AN come back to find the house in ruins?” She snarled.

“I won’t blow up the house,” said Harry, but they weren’t listening.

“I suppose we could take him to the zoo,” said Aunt Petunia slowly and reluctantly, “...and leave him in the car…”

“That car’s new! He’s not sitting in it alone!” ]

Snuffles starts growling, “but that’s dangerous!” Remus swivelled his head towards Harry, almost like he was checking he was still alive.

[ As they came up with more and more outrageous and definitely illegal plans, Dudley gave Harry a chocolate bar. Then the doorbell rang.

Petunia starts to fret, almost hitting the wall as she walks towards the door, “Oh, Good Lord, they’re here!”

A moment later, Dudley’s best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people’s arms behind their backs while Marcus, another of Dudley’s unfortunate friends, hit them.

Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn’t believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursley’s car with Piers and Dudley on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life. His aunt and uncle hadn’t been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they’d left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside.

“I’m warning you,” he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry’s, “I’m warning you now, Boy, any funny business, anything at all, and you’ll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas.”

As he was saying this, he was gripping Harry’s arm hard enough to bruise while shaking him. ]

Gasps echoed across the hall. People suddenly shout over one another. “He would have left you in the cupboard for six, seven months?” That was said by Percy Weasley, a tall, lanky young man, his white freckled face a pasty white in horror. His short, red hair was styled in an undercut, and it was in distress from his hands constantly running through it. “How could someone even think of leaving a child in a cupboard for a couple of hours, let alone months!”

Oliver Wood, who had appeared at the start and not said anything, wrapped his tanned arms around his boyfriend, who was shaking.

Harry never replied to Percy, as the book carried on, and he didn’t want to answer that he’d been locked in the cupboard for far longer before.

[ “I’m not going to do anything,” said Harry, “honestly…”

But Uncle Vernon didn’t believe him, why would he? No one else ever did.

Except for the Librarian and his Art and Music Teacher.

The problem was that strange things, freaky things, often happened around Harry, and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn’t make them happen.

Once, after Aunt Petunia had gotten tired of Harry coming back from the barber’s looking as if he hadn’t been at all, he hadn’t, he just pocketed the money to save for when he turned eighteen, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald.

Uncle Vernon had laughed at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining the horrified looks and the laughter he’d get the next day at school. While he did have a couple of friends, Olive and Cameron, he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and Sellotaped glasses.

The next morning, however, his hair was exactly the same as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. He never got to school that day. He’d been given a week in his cupboard for it.

He had triedto explain that he didn’t know how it had grown back so quickly, he never mentioned the black smoke that had appeared as he’d fallen asleep or the burning sensation he’d felt in his arms. ]

Harry had only told Ron and Hermione about the black smoke, now everyone knew.

The hall was silent.

The people who knew what the black smoke meant? Their faces had gone pale.

[ Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old jumper of Dudley’s (brown with orange bobbles). ]

Lavender and Pavarti both cringed and gagged at the image of the jumper in their heads.

[ The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally, it might have fitted a glove puppet, but certainly wouldn’t fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn’t punished.

On the other hand, he’d gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley had been asked to stay behind by the teacher, and his gang had been chasing him when, as much to Harry’s surprise as anyone else’s, there he was, sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry’s headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he tried to do was jump behind the big bins outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him mid-jump. He was punished severely by Uncle Vernon for this. ]

Harry quietly hissed through gritted teeth as his back flared with burning pain. His eyes widened; it hadn’t even said how he was being punished, and he still felt it?!

[ But today, nothing was going to go wrong. ]

“Harry…” Both Ron and Hermione sighed. 

[ It was even worth being with Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn’t school, his cupboard or Mrs Figg’s cabbage-smelling living room.

While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank and Harry were just a few of his favourite subjects. ] 

“Harry…”

“…for…” 

“... not…” 

“...liking…” 

“...you…” 

“...he…” 

“...sure…” 

“...does…” 

“...talk…” 

“…about…” 

“…you…” 

“…a…” 

“…lot…”

Snorting at the Twins, Harry noticed that Mrs Weasley was about to start yelling at them, so he said, “Yeah, I know. It’s really weird.”

[ This morning, it was motorbikes.

“...Roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums,” he said as a motorbike overtook them. 

Now Harry had had a dream about a motorbike last night, and it was flying, but he knew better to say anything. Piers on the otherhand.

“Wouldn’t it be amazing if motorbikes could fly?”

Dudley and Harry looked at each other with wide eyes.

Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Piers, his face like a gigantic beetroot with a moustache, “MOTORBIKES DON’T FLY!”

Everybody was silent for the rest of the journey. 

It was a very sunny Saturday, and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance. and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, he asked for the cheap lemon ice lolly; he knew he knew he wouldn’t be able to stomach anything else.

It wasn’t bad, Harry thought, licking it as they watched the gorilla scratching its head and looking remarkably like Uncle Vernon, except that it wasn’t blonde. ] 

“That was mean of you to compare the gorilla to someone invested with nargles.”

Luna Lovegood. She is a gentle, kind, wholesome young lady, her skin is a cool white, and she has long blonde hair. Idiots call her loony due to the way she sees the world. 

Harry smiles at Luna, “I’m sorry that I insulted the gorilla, Luna.”

“That’s alright, Harry.”

Hearing a giggle in his ear, Harry sees Aureila covering her face with her hands. His lips twitch in a smile, “why don’t you go sit with your friends for a while. They look like they miss you. Then when we have a break in between chapters, you can bring them over and introduce us, yeah?”

“Okay!”

Aurelia gets up and skips to her friends, who are all sitting on a large, plush, fluffy blue rug.

“You did that on purpose.” Hermione states into Harry’s ear. “Yeah, I have a feeling that a bad scene is going to show soon.” Harry’s eyes dull and look tired suddenly.

[ Harry had the best morning he’d had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Piers, who was starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn’t fall back on his favourite hobby of hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and Dudley faked a small tantrum to get Harry something to eat. ] 

“Thanks, Dudley.”

Dudley just smiles at Harry, which pisses off Petunia and Vernon.

“YOU’VE BEWITCHED MY DUDDYKINS! WE FED YOU! WE CLOTHED YOU! AND THIS! THIS IS THE THANKS WE GET! YOU EVIL LITTLE–”

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” Dudley screamed at his parents, “YOU BARELY FED HIM! WHAT A SINGLE SLICE OF BREAD IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR A WEEK! THOSE WERE MY CLOTHES YOU GAVE HIM! MINE! YOU COULDN’T BE BOTHERED TO GO AND BUY CLOTHES FOR HIM! AND YOU NEVER TOOK HIM TO AN OPTICIAN. YOU TOOK THEM OUT OF A CHARITY BIN! HIS GLASSES WOULD HAVE BEEN FREE!”

Dudley lets out a breath. “Okay, I’m good now.” Not caring that everyone was staring at him.

[ Harry felt, afterwards, that he should have known it was all too good to last.

After lunch, they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in here, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. 

Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place, Harry following behind him. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon’s car and crushed it into a dustbin, but at the moment, it didn’t look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.

Dudley and Piers stood with their noses pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.

“Do you think it's asleep?” Dudley asked Piers, not knowing his father was right behind him. As Piers went to respond, Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn’t budge.

“Don’t do that!” Dudley stepped away from the glass to stare at his father. Uncle Vernon looked at Dudley and rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.

Dudley walked away to a different snake. Piers followed him, with Uncle Vernon glaring at the snake; he too then walked away.

 Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it had died from boredom itself, no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up,  at least he got to visit the rest of the house. ]

Ron, Bill, Charlie and Arthur turned towards Harry and said at the same time, “Are you comparing yourself to a snake?”

“Yes?”

Shaking their heads, they sighed.

[ The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry’s.

It winked. ]

“Is this because of you being able to speak Parseltongue?”

“Maybe, ‘Mione.”

A look of curiosity appeared in her brown eyes, “we have to test it.”

“Not now, ‘Mione. When the books are done, yeah?” Harry told her quickly.

“Write it down so we don’t forget,” Ron told her.

[ Harry stared. Then he looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching. They weren’t. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.

The snake jerked its head towards Uncle Vernon, then raised its eyes towards the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that quite plainly said: ‘I get that all the time.’

“I know,” Harry muttered through the glass, though he wasn’t sure the snake could hear him. “It must be really annoying.”

The snake nodded vigorously.

“Where do you come from, anyway?” Harry asked.

The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it.

Boa Constrictor, Brazil.

This specimen was bred in the zoo.

“You’ve never seen the outside of the zoo?”

The snake shook its head.

“I wonder if I could–”

Harry was cut off as a deafening shout behind Harry made them both jump. “DUDLEY! MR DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT IT’S DOING!” ]

“That Bastard!”

“RONALD WEASLEY! HOW DARE–”

“DETENTION, MR WEASLEY!”

“You can’t do that!”

“Mr Weasley is correct, Dolores. None of us can do that.”

Umbridge huffs at what McGonagall is saying.

[ Piers ran over to the snake, Dudley walking slowly behind him.

“Out of the way, you,” Piers said, punching Harry in the ribs. ]

“Omph. Fuckin’ forgot how strong he was.”

Hermione looked worriedly at Harry, glad that Aurelia was sitting with her friends at the moment.

[ Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What happened next happened so fast, no one saw how it happened; one second, Piers and Dudley, after checking on Harry with a glance, were leaning right up close to the glass. The next, they had leapt back with howls of horror. ]

“What’s happening?” A bunch of voices called out. The most prominent was Mrs Weasley’s voice.

[ Harry sat up and gasped. The glass front of the boa constrictor’s tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.

As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, “Brazil, here I come… Thankss, amigo.” ]

Umbridge jumps up and points at Harry, “HE SPEAKS PARSELTONGUE! HE’S EVIL!”

Harry rolls his eyes at the Toad, he’d been through this already.

[ The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.

“But the glass,” he kept saying, “where did the glass go?”

The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong sweet tea while he apologised over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. One from shock and the other, well, Harry didn’t know why Piers was making stuff up. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn’t done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon’s car, Dudley was telling them how he thought it was going to bite his leg off, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death. 

But worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say. “Harry was talking to it, weren’t you, Harry?” ]

Harry shifts slightly, making sure he’s in a more comfortable position.

[ Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry.

Harry paled. Uncle Vernon was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, “Dudley, room, now,” not even waiting to hear him go up the stairs, he rounded on Harry, grabbing him by his neck, he dragged Harry into the living room, where Aunt Petunia had already set out the white plastic sheets to cover the furniture and carpet.

Harry’s green eyes went wide; they hadn’t gotten the sheets out for a couple of months. His eyes went dull as he started to try and distance his mind away from what was going to happen. ]

Hermione and Ron curl around a badly shaking Harry, who covers his ears and closes his eyes tightly shut. 

There is Graphic Violence and Abuse in this whole next scene, and it continues until the next double lines. If you wish to skip it that is absolutely fine and I’ll summarise it in the note at the end.

[ “Pet. Leave.”

Now things had gone from bad to worse. Without Aunt Petunia here, who knows how far Uncle Vernon will go.

Aunt Petunia leaves the room and goes to check if Dudley has gone to his room as he was asked to.

“Now, Freak, how about we have some fun?”

Harry shakes his head, staring at his feet.

“Turn around, take your shirt off, then your hands against the wall.”

Harry took off his top while turning around; his hands trembled as he yanked the top above his head, placing it on the floor. As he put his hands against the wall, his Uncle Vernon spoke again.

“I’ve decided I want you to take your jeans off and leave the underwear on, Freak. I don’t want to see your disgusting, coloured dick.”

“Yes, Uncle Vernon.”

Harry took off his jeans and placed them with his top and stood back with his hands on the wall.

Click. Uncle Vernon grabbed the belt from a cupboard. It was a brown leather belt, and it had a black metal buckle on the end, but the most disturbing thing about this belt? It had splatters of blood on it. Uncle Vernon pulled his arm back, and WHAM, the belt hit Harry’s back.

“Count, Freak.”

Harry’s voice shuddered, “one.”

WHAM, the leather end hit Harry’s back again, causing it to go red.

“Two.”

WHAM.

-

“Twen-” Harry swallowed, “Twenty-one.”

As Uncle Vernon went to strike his nephew’s back again, he realised, looking at the belt, that he could do so much more damage. He grabbed the leather end of the belt and swung.

WHAM.

Harry cries out, almost screaming as the buckle tears into his skin, like it was cutting ham. His back begins to bleed, and his Uncle’s eyes get a maniacal gleam.

“I said, COUNT!”

“Twen-twen-twenty, twenty-two.”

Harry felt like he couldn’t breathe; his eyes stung with unshed tears as his Uncle hit him repeatedly. It was almost past midnight when Harry dropped to his knees. His Uncle hadn’t stopped at his back; he now had new lines covering his back and his legs. Harry had long stopped counting.

Uncle Vernon panted with exhaustion but placed the now blood-soaked belt back into the cupboard and started to kick Harry.

A couple minutes later, he grabbed Harry by his hair and dragged him to his cupboard under the stairs, chucking him in there, and locking it behind him, before heading upstairs to shower the blood off of him, and then head to bed. ]

Scene over!

Everyone looked at Harry, who was still curled into a ball.

They then looked at Vernon with absolute rage and murder in their eyes. Snape was twirling his wand around in the air, trying to scare the Dursley parents.

It was working.

[ Harry lay in his dark cupboard in pain, he tried to sit up, but his arms were too weak and shaky to hold him up. He could finally hear his Uncle’s snores before hearing someone creeping down the stairs.

They opened his cupboard door.

It was Dudley.

“Hey, I brought some bandages and stuff,” Dudley whispered, “I’ll get you a drink and a small snack.”

Harry smiled, letting Dudley take care of his wounds. ]

Harry let out a shaky sigh as the pain disappeared; nodding slightly to Hermione and Ron, he grabbed their hands to show he was alright.

[ He’d lived with the Dursleys for almost ten years, ten miserable and painful years, as long as he could remember, ever since he’d been a baby and his parents had died in a car crash. ] 

“A CAR CRASH! YOU LET HIM BELIEVE THAT THEY DIED IN A CAR CRASH!” Harry didn’t realise that Remus could yell so loud. Remus began to growl angrily looking at the book, so he didn’t murder anyone.

[ He couldn’t remember being in the car when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a binding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead. This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn’t imagine where all the green light came from. He couldn’t remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them; of course, he was forbidden to ask questions. ]

“We forgot to state this before Mr Potter, but you may ask anyone of us any questions you’d like.”

Harry looks a McGonagall, his mind flashing to the times when he asked for help and it never came. “Sure.”

[ There were no photographs of them in the house.

When he was younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it never happened; the Dursleys were his only family.

Yet sometimes, he thought that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking woman dressed in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. 

And an old man who has the longest beard and is always wearing blue or purple robes, but he was always watching; Harry remembers seeing him throughout his entire life at the Dursleys. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look. ]

“Dumbledore!”

“He had to of known!”

“-can’t believe it, he really-”

“-shocked, I’m sho-”

“-e have to do somethi-”

“-left him with an abusive coupl-”

Minutes later the speaking died down, and everybody was glaring at Dumbledore, who was eating a lemon sherbet. Aberforth didn’t look shocked, he just looked resigned that this was what his brother had become.

[ At school, Harry had a couple of friends; they all hung out in the music and art room. But the rest of them all knew that Dudley’s ‘friends’ hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy clothes and broken glasses, and they didn’t want to disagree with them.

Chapter Three: The Letters from No One. ]

The book closed.

“I believe we should have lunch!” Mrs Weasley said into the quiet hall.

Students' stomachs grumble with agreement.