Book 2: Envy
Beware the green-eyed monster, that lurks and waits and snarlsThat seethes beneath a kinder face, it sings—and kind of
sparkles?Beware the creature vast yet small, it's talons sharp and vicious
It can't help but drool and growl, and lick its lips at things
delicious
Beware the vile poppy's scent, bewitching but awfully noxiousIts whining shrill like glass on teeth, its complaints just so
obnoxious!Beware and never turn your back, for you don't know why it
strikesAnd you'll never know what things of yours it hates or that it
likes
Beware the green-eyed monster, the one living beneath your bedbut for the love of god beware, beware— the one that lives
inside your head
000
Harry opened his eyes, automatic despite no alarm and the early hour, and instantly felt disappointed.
Eventually I'll get used to it, maybe. Or… maybe I won't.
He thought in numbers because that was all he could do. Two hours before the Dursleys woke up, four dreamless sleep potions left, eleven calming draughts, ten days before the stasis charms wore off on them all, ten weeks before the next school year started, seven more books until he'd read through his stockpile of textbooks to take his mind off things… he could go on.
Everything fell back into waiting.
Restlessly.
Dreading each hour but by the time the hour had passed at least it was one more closer to not being here anymore. Waking up to the muted light in the back of the shed he was living in instead of a comfy four-poster bed was a distinctly unpleasant jolt to the system each and every morning. To wake up every single god-damned morning disappointed and wishing with every fiber of your being to be anywhere else did not put him in a great mood for the rest of the day, especially when it was a lot harder than he remembered it being to be neutral and composed around his relatives.
Their comments ate away under his skin and made keeping his face blank and faking the emotions he needed to a lot more difficult than they'd been in years. He knew it was also likely because of his newfound emotional instability which made him irrationally angry at odd moments.
He'd lost count of how many times the frustration and humiliation of being shoved back into a servant role for this absolute dickwads of human beings had brought unwilling tears to his eyes, causing him to bend his head over whatever he was cleaning in hopes no one noticed. He could only imagine how utterly horrible it would be if Petunia actually caught him crying for once, and he was all but desperate to avoid it.
The thing he hated the most though was how he couldn't control it.
He couldn't control when he was sad or angry or happy (ha, as if) and now he couldn't even fake those things. He knew Pomfrey had told him to let his emotions run their course to help heal, but he couldn't exactly afford to do that at the moment when any weakness or unplanned emotion in front of his relatives spelled trouble that he really just could not handle at this moment.
It had only been two weeks and Harry had had enough.
He rolled over on his thin mattress and laced hands through his hair, having the oddly hysterical urge to just rip it out and dwell in the pain of it rather than focus on his spinning thoughts, but he just barely managed not to do that.
He had asked Axeclaw what felt like years ago now, about what would happen if he, say, weren't living with a legal guardian for one reason or another? He had to know, because legal guardian or not if he could just take off and live in some muggle hotel who wouldn't ask questions about what a soon-to-be-twelve year old was out on his own, he would in a bloody heartbeat. Thankfully the goblin didn't care and had looked it up, and told him in no uncertain terms that one of the charters of Hogwarts was having a legal guardian—to attend you needed to be (1) magical and of the right age for an appropriate magical core size, and (2) paying the tuition and agreeing to follow school rules, one of said rules being that underage students must have a legal guardian on file in case of emergency or an emancipation letter signed by the Minster of Magic himself. When asked about that letter, because of course he'd asked, the goblin told him it was very common during several past wars for children to be orphaned and their potential guardians perhaps being on a different side of the war—families had been ripped apart by the ideals of Grindelwald, after all, with brothers and sisters, parents and children divided on his stances. It hadn't been used since that war though, not even during the last war, mostly in part because the Headmaster of Hogwarts needed to be the one to write said letter and officially petition the Minster to sign it. And Albus Dumbledore had never once done that in his term as Headmaster, Axeclaw told him.
Harry wanted to be so bloody furious at the headmaster when he'd heard that, but he just didn't have the emotional capacity for it right now. He had bigger issues to focus on, and he'd get there later.
His next question had of course been what constitutes as a legal guardian, and let's just say Harry had outright laughed (though he felt no joy or humor as he did it) to read through the legal definitions Axeclaw had sent him.
'A guardian with responsibility for both the personal well-being and the financial interests of the ward'. What utter bullshit. He thought darkly.
Worse (because somehow it got worse) was that to be a legal guardian to an orphaned ward, said guardian needed to be approved by an official—a judge or someone of equal or greater authority. In Harry's case a judge could've looked at his parents' will and done what was requested in it, but the thing was that they didn't have to.Legally, the judge could do whatever the hell they thought was best for a ward and there was no repercussions for it. Even the 'trial' for it was a farce at best as there didn't need to be any set court date or anyone but the judge themselves present to make the decree, and no you could not petition to have the judge's decision appealed or reconsidered.
And oh yeah, do you know who has a greater authority than normal judges?
Supreme fucking Mugwump, that's who.
And oh yeah, the Minster had the power to counteract what the Supreme Mugwump did, but so far as Axeclaw was aware Fudge had never told Dumbledore no in his bloody life.
It makes no sense, the wizarding world is so absolutely screwed up it just makes no sense. Mugwump is like the magical equivalent of a UN representative, why does he outweigh a judge's authority on anything?
Harry knew there was a reason he didn't like the headmaster and now he had several, with evidence to back himself up too.
I hate this.
He groaned into his pillow, and it came out more as a scream honestly. A helpless shout of indignation and fury and frustration at the whole terrible situation. Not only was he well and truly stuck with the Dursleys as his legal guardians if he couldn't get Dumbledore to reconsider his decree (fat chance, he was sure), not only did he have to maintain them as his guardians if he wanted to continue to attend Hogwarts, but he ALSO needed to actually put in time here to prove they even were his guardians. If he just took off and didn't even come back for the summer, there was a legitimate chance someone could contact the Dursleys and ask if he was even living here. If he wasn't, and he wasn't accounted for at school or otherwise, he'd lost his legal guardians and therefore also his spot at Hogwarts.
He wrapped his hands into his hair again and fought the urge to pull until his scalp bleed.
It wouldn't be so bad if, when tracked down for being awol he could finally explain they were abusive fucks who shouldn't be in charge of children (not even Dudley who they were going to send to an early grave with his weight alone) but there was this one stupid rule that these 'checks' on your 'legal guardian' should happen once a year.
Which meant Hogwarts knew about the Dursleys. Someone had met these assholes and thought, yeah they seem like fine upstanding citizens to leave an orphaned child with.
The person who checked was probably a wizard, and unless they'd lied to Petunia and Vernon about it and passed themselves as muggle (which Harry doubted, since wizards had a superiority complex which meant to muggles who knew about magic they never hid themselves) then this Hogwarts representative had met them at their ugliest. Their most foul-mouthed, magic-hating, hypocritical-BS selves and thought, yeah this is fine.
And Harry guessed the only person either stupid, cruel, or ignorant enough to do something like that would be Dumbledore himself. (And maybe Snape, if he'd be bothered to check on any student who wasn't a Slytherin). Axeclaw told him it was very possible. It was also entirely possible that Dumbledore hadn't done the check and just said he did. Yeah, that was totally legal apparently just so long as the headmaster said he'd done it, with no proof whatsoever.
Harry liked magic and all, but he had never hated the wizarding world more than he did at this moment.
Is Hogwarts worth it? He wondered, as he sat up with utter dread and dragged himself over to where he kept his 'Dursley approved' clothes in a basket—meaning Dudley's filthy hand-me-downs. It was still too early for there to be much light to navigate by, but the clothes were ugly as a rule and he didn't care to dress up for his relatives so it hardly matter what he pulled on anyway.
I could risk it. I'll need to get Petunia to let me go to restock on potions in a couple weeks anyway, and that would be… a third way through the break? I could just leave a letter saying I'm staying with a friends—they'd be happy to be rid of me and I made an appearance here maybe enough for them to say I was here—or lived here at one time. It'd even technically be true and my mental imaging books say the best lies to tell are ones that are half true. I could take the Knight Bus to anywhere, a hotel for a couple days and maybe ask Axeclaw about those Monroe properties he mentioned. No one would question me being at my own property if Axeclaw could expedite the process of whatever he needed to do to reopen them…
And if they catch me and for someone reason know I've run away, would being expelled from Hogwarts really be that bad? Is it worth this?
It was only those thoughts of planning to escape that got him through getting ready for the day, brushing his hair and tucking it beneath his beanie like always and pinning it down as tight as he could. His hair had gotten a lot longer over the school year which made hiding it all harder—a bandana no longer cut it unfortunately but luckily none of his relatives cares about his hat either.
He tried not to think too hard on anything but his dreams of being anywhere but here as he slipped out of the shed in the early morning light and made his way into the main house, being as quiet as possible as he entered the kitchen and began assembling what he needed for the Dursley's breakfast and for once not feeling like he wanted to skim any of the food off the top for himself. He hadn't really been hungry since getting back to Private Drive, although he did eat when he knew he should. He only quickly downed his required two potions on Pomfrey's orders, saving his calming draught for later in the day—if today followed the patterns of the last couple weeks, he'd be on house chores all morning and knew he'd need it after Petunia wore him down with her sharp comments and then kicked him outside to do yard work in the blistering heat of the summer.
Afternoons and evenings when he could no longer avoid the thoughts he managed to shove down in the blur of the mornings was when he needed the calming draughts most, he found. He could handle the quiet mornings and suffer through the first chores of the day the best he could, using them to get through the rest of the day as he found there was really no way to survive a full day here otherwise.
Is Hogwarts really worth it? He found himself repeating, the questioning eating away at him. Logically he knew it was, he would miss it something awful if he got expelled after only one year and he'd finally made some really good friends (finally made progress with the Slytherins) and it would all be for nothing if he never went back. He knew he'd probably still be able to keep writing letters to Draco, Neville and most of the other Gryffindors would still be his friends no matter what because they were great people like that… but he'd likely not be able to keep being friends with the likes of Blaise or Theo, not to mention most of the casual friends he'd gathered would froget about him with another six years to grow up, he was sure.
And just think of all the people he'd never meet—all the people who'd start at Hogwarts later he'd never even get the chance to know. All the holidays and classes… McGonagall….
Logically, he'd be fine. Even if he did get caught, and there was still a chance he wouldn't get caught, but if he did he would probably be forced to either come back here or decreed another legal guardian depending on who caught him. If it was Dumbledore, and it probably would be given how nosy the old man seemed to be in Harry's life, he'd probably send him back here to the Dursleys. Who would be pissed Harry had brought wizards to their doorstep, so that would suck.
But he probably wouldn't actually be expelled from Hogwarts. If he were, there wasn't exactly anyone who could force him to continue to live with his 'legal guardians' if he went through the goblins to buy some property if he didn't already have one somewhere and ward the living hell out of it from all intruders, even ministry officials. He knew enough from Draco and the other Slytherins that money fixed a lot of issues with the Ministry of Magic so he could probably afford to work around any legal issues that might cause. So, if he were expelled he'd definitely be free of the Dursleys permanently which would be a wonderful thing all around, actually. And he knew there were other magical schools out there, he could probably attend there if he didn't want to just pay private tutors to teach him enough to pass his OWLs and NEWTs, which was technically the only requirement one needed.
And need was a questionable word as he was still a rich child who could open ten shops this moment without risking going bankrupt so he didn't really need the good OWL scores to get a job—he didn't need a job with his inheritance, to be blunt.
But that was probably an unrealistic line of thinking even if it was true—the chances of them actually expelling The Boy Who Lived from Hogwarts because of a truancy issue seemed low, since wizards seemed very concerned about what the general community thought of them as a whole and that would earn Dumbledore a huge amount of flack (Harry was willing to go to every paper he knew of and give as dramatic an interview as he needed to rake the Headmaster through the mud if he dared). And anyway, Mr. Malfoy was on the school board so if he got Draco to invite him over, Harry was sure he could figure out a way to prevent actually being expelled if the Malfoys protecting him—again, Draco was spoiled so while he himself had nothing to offer to his parents in exchange for their help, if Draco asked for something he would definitely get it even if that meant going against the Ministry. They'd been a dark family until recently after all, it probably wouldn't even be that hard for them.
He didn't want to get expelled, he would miss Hogwarts too much. He knew that, but it was really hard to remember that the longer being stuck in this hellhole stretched on. Every demeaning chore and derisive comment that made his throat close up in welling emotion of both rage and hurt made the yoke around his neck heavier and blurred the clear image in his head of Hogwarts' beautiful walls and the lush green quidditch pitch and Hagrid's little hut and McGonagall's office and the expansive library and the feasts in the Great Hall…
Teasing Blaise over breakfast. Flying in an exhilarating quidditch game to the cheers of a stadium. Playing soccer with the club. Waking up in a luxurious four poster bed to the beautiful grounds outside his window. Watching Susan and Lu bicker over lunch on a lazy Saturday. Sneaking around with the twins or witnessing one of their epic pranks. Staying up too late in Gryffindor dorm playing exploding snap. Getting something right with Transfiguration and getting one of McGonagall's rare smiles. Sitting in Hagrid's hut with a gallon of tea and a listening ear. The luscious feasts of magical food. Going over politics with Daphne in the dark corners of the library. Chatting with Neville in the greenhouses. Walking around the lake with Draco just because they could to get away from prying ears. Finally getting a chance to figure out just who the heck Theo was behind his books.
Yeah, he would regret getting himself expelled to no end just because he couldn't suffer through a couple weeks with these assholes a year.
It was just really hard to remember that sometimes.
Especially when he knew it would not be the end of the world if he did get expelled, just unpleasant. He wouldn't choose it out of all his options but he would be fine without Hogwarts, he knew.
There had to be a compromise though, something he could actually do to get out of here but still secure his spot at Hogwarts. By the time he needed new potions that had to be long enough, he could get out of here under the pretense of just visiting friends like everyone did during the summer, there shouldn't be a problem with that, right? The wizarding world loved to call him a celebrity so he had to be able to use that for something good and get away with it, right?
He winced as a thud from upstairs signaled the residents of the house awake, and he checked the sizzling breakfast for it's doneness. It seemed fine…
He took a steadying breathe and tried not to think of anything important to make it through the next couple of hours.
000
Why are you so sore?
I've been practicing quidditch pretty much all day since there's nothing else to do besides study and I'm pretty sick of that already. If I'm going to play quidditch with you I'll need to make the team, won't I?
I thought you said you were good enough to make it last year, McGonagall was just biased :)
Oh ha
Harry smiled broadly at that short response in his enchanted journal that was still somehow sarcastic despite it just being flat text on a page in Draco's elegant handwriting. He didn't tease too hard as he could tell the blond was legitimately worried about actually getting onto the Slytherin team; he'd talked the big talk after all which he was so great at, but the actual living up to it usually stressed him out to no end. No one had higher expectations of him than Draco himself, after all, although Slytherins in general also were kind of merciless about judging others up to their own standards too so maybe his worries weren't entirely unfounded…
You saw they came out with a new Nimbus series? The Nimbus 2001 and I want one.
Of course you do. I love my Nimbus 2000 though.
The 2001 is so much better though and you can afford it
It's not about that though—it was a gift! Imagine Snape actually gave you a broom
Okay fair
I'm still getting one though
Naturally .
I was considering buying the whole team new brooms—that'd be a way to ensure my spot and Slytherin would think it clever.
They wouldn't look a gift horse like that in the mouth when your intentions are so bloody clear, but clever?
If Slytherin wins because they have the best brooms I don't care how unsubtle it is.
Of course you don't, but Slytherin isn't going to win because they have the nicest brooms.
Says you
Yes I do, I'm still going to kick your asses on my last season broom.
And before you start talking about the advantages of brooms, yes they exist if you're talking about a Nimbus versus a Comet, but literally last season's broom verses this one? There's hardly any noticeable benefit and if you need a better broom to beat me you're not actually that good—there I said it
You're so mean.
But I'm right.
Fine
I'm still getting one, obviously.
I never thought you wouldn't.
Anyway, did you hear the rumor about who the next Defense professor is? It's a bloody lark.
Harry hadn't heard a thing from the wizarding world since getting back to his relatives' like rumors or the latest new broom release, and he'd never subscribed to the Daily Prophet as from what he'd read over Neville's shoulder at breakfast most days it seemed to be more a gossip rag than an actual newspaper. Also, it was happy to talk trash or unfounded praise about him so in general he was just happier not reading it or giving it any time in his day.
Stuck in the muggle world and bored as hell, already almost through his homework and stashed books with only writing Draco late into the night to look forward to, he kind of regretted it. So did Hedwig who was not happy to be so bored since her main source of entertainment was just hunting now, instead of flying back and forth to Draco as she had last summer—and for most of the school year too. Draco also said she loved to torture Bastian, his eagle-owl, so he'd taken to sending short notes to Neville and his other Gryffindor friends, as well as blank pages to Draco just so she could annoy Bastian every so often.
Bastian didn't appreciate the sentiment but Hedwig certainly came back happier. Harry felt slightly bad and now included owl treats for the poor eagle-owl in Hedwig's missives (and they were definitely Hedwig's missives as there was no need for Harry to send anything to Draco thanks to these journals).
Harry was happy to just read Draco's rant about the new Defense professor, who certainly did sound like a hack, escaping his reality for a little bit in the dark summer night of his dusty shed.
000
He was standing in a hallway at Hogwarts, hundreds of paintings on the wall but their faces seemed oddly blank or twisted into soundless screams. Or just frozen, as if the life and magic inside of it had died.
It was so quiet, deep into the night and well past curfew. He knew he should be hurrying back somewhere, knew he shouldn't be there. It was too late, it was too quiet. Someone was waiting around every corner to catch him, and it made his stomach twist.
It was too dark—there were no windows and usually there were windows in this old castle to let some of the light of the stars or the moon in, but tonight this hallway was just frozen or silent paintings that stretched into an impenetrable darkness ahead of him.
He had to be quiet… he took a step but it didn't feel like he was going anywhere. He was concentrating too hard on being silent, on his feet finding purchase on the hard stone floor without making so much as a whisper that he wasn't going anywhere. And there was this urgency so intense, this need to get out as fast as humanly possible because he was running out of time but he just couldn't move.
Suddenly, a hand reached out from the darkness in front of him, as if offering him help from his frustration and the heart pounding hotly in his throat. Without thinking he reached out and took it, because it seemed only so natural to do.
It pulled him forward slightly before suddenly going slack, a grip still around his hand but like the person attached to it had just given out and stopped pulling him—and then it felt too lose. Something wasn't right.
He looked down and a severed hand rested in his, before his eyes crumbling to dust and the feeling of clammy skin turning to dry ash and coursing over his skin like liquid sand filled him with a horror and disgust so think he choked on it. It was an emotion to intense he felt his whole arm jerk as if rejecting it, and a gut-wrenching repulsion strangled him, surging up his throat like he was about to be sick.
He screamed.
And woke in a dark shed, breathing harshly and wondering numbly if anyone had heard him.
000
The nightmares were getting worse; he'd run out of dreamless sleep potions and he'd gone through his calming draughts faster than he'd been planning to. But Madam Pomfrey's words about being kind to himself were still relatively fresh in his mind and he knew they were going to expire soon anyway so he might as well use them.
And if they ran out faster and gave him an excuse to plan a way to get to Diagon Alley to buy more earlier than anticipated, then wonderful. Maybe he wouldn't need them as much outside of the Dursley's even.
Maybe.
His excuse was already in place—he'd cornered Petunia and told her people were expecting him in one week to meet up to buy school supplies and she'd acted like she hadn't heard him but he knew she had. He recognized it was very early in the summer for that but he had no plan on coming back here once he got free and he doubted they would miss him anyway.
The fact he now only had one week left brought a sense of relief even if that week seemed like ten years at times too for how the hours seemed to drag on. He'd timed it so that he'd be gone two days before Dudley's birthday so hopefully they'd be so wrapped up in that they wouldn't even care he wasn't there to cook the veritable feasts they always demanded of him on their special days.
000
It was two days before he was due to leave that everything went wrong.
He was worn thin, his nerves nothing but fraying ends of wire and he distantly recognized this but he was so focused on making it through the day he didn't immediately realize it was a problem.
He had a couple calming draughts left anyway, so things were fine, right?
Things would only get bad when he ran out, right?
He didn't realize he hadn't lifted his head in days, hadn't seen the irritation in the Dursleys faces as he seemed to ignore them. And yeah, he was ignoring them, because he was going to die if he didn't focus on breathing and blinking and doing whatever task was in front of him instead of the world around him.
He forgot that ignoring his relatives was a bad, bad tactic for handling them.
He should've been focusing on them, on outmaneuvering them, but just avoiding them to survive wasn't a good plan.
If they were going to avoid each other, they'd prefer him locked in a cupboard rather than free to roam their house. He should've engaged with them and used their arrogance against them like he used to, even if it hurt and humiliated him to be forced to play their game and be the scapegoat for everything they could think of.
But he didn't, because he thought he could get lost in the rhythmic routine of doing the same chores every day and if he got into the habit of just doing it all without complaint or reaction, it would be easier.
But they liked his reactions—his crumpled expressions and his pain.
Because they were monsters, he realized.
He realized, far too late. I mean he'd always known, but he hadn't truly understood until now.
He had gotten lost in the rhythm, and it was easier. But when he was suddenly snapped out of it he felt something inside of him snap too.
It started with a plate crashing into the sink where he was washing dishes, and it shattered loudly. He jerked back, sloshing water all over himself and the kitchen in shock and then the water turned a garish pink as he felt a sting on his hand. A piece had cut him, and the sting of dirty hot water and dish soap in an open wound had his head rising in surprise and alarm—and annoyance. Finally recognizing this world he'd been drowning out.
"BOY!"
He flinched, recognizing his expression had probably been annoyed. Dudley was silently gloating at him, sticking his tongue out from near the breakfast table, having been the one to throw the plate. And Harry wasn't allowed to be annoyed at Dudley, he'd forgotten for a second.
"Break another plate and no dinner for a week! What do you think you are, breaking our property like a hoodlum, after we let you into this house!"
Right, because Dudley had thrown it and Harry was at fault. Of course.
"Yes sir," he managed to get out.
"What was that?" Uncle Vernon was behind him suddenly, and Harry flinched again. Had his tone been off? Shit, he hadn't been thinking of if he'd actually sounded as annoyed as he felt.
"Sorry sir," he shrunk in on himself pointedly in a show of submission and hoped that tone was a lot more believable.
Vernon's eyes narrowed, but he seemed to buy that his warning had been received.
That is, until another plate came crashing into the sink behind him and that too shattered with a loud crack in the tiny kitchen, more water splashing everywhere.
And Vernon had been looking right at him, with his son fully in his periphery to be able to see him throw it. Petunia was still sitting at the kitchen table sipping her breakfast tea, and only lifted her head to glare venomously at him. Not Dudley, not Vernon, but him.
"That's it! No dinner—you do your chores and get out! Dare break another thing in my house and you'll regret the day we let you in!" His uncle bellowed in his ugly way and Harry felt his hackles rise.
It wasn't fair.
None of it was.
He was tired.
He was worn thin to absolutely nothing.
Vernon's shouting, Dudley's chubby laughter at his expense, Petunia's glare like he somehow deserved this—
—it all grated on his overstimulated nerves like steel wool and he was already nothing but raw skin over tired muscles and fraying nerves and it felt like fire.
He couldn't take it anymore, and against his better judgement, he opened his mouth.
"You saw him throw it!" He defended himself, and all three Dursleys startled at him actually talking back. He hadn't done that in… well, had he ever? He went from being frightened and submissive as a child to faking being submissive to get what he wanted later on before Hogwarts. He'd never talked back to them or even acted like he was anything but meek and cowardly and it gave them free reign to be as terrible as they wanted to him. That had been fine when he'd been in control without them knowing it… but he felt kind of scared that he very much was not in control now.
"What did you say, boy?" Vernon hissed, looking apoplectic in rage.
"He threw it! You saw him!" He continued to dig his grave but he couldn't handle it anymore. He knew he sounded slightly hysterical but he wasn't in control now, he just wasn't.
"How dare you accuse my Dudikins!" Petunia was on her feet now, hands over her overweight child's shoulders defensively as if he were the one out of line here.
Harry realized far too belatedly that there was no winning this fight, that you couldn't reason with blatant hypocrisy and flat out cruel stupidity, and he would've shut his mouth and hoped his momentary loss of sanity hadn't messed everything up, when Vernon finally found his voice again after standing there in stunned raged for a couple seconds too long.
"LAIR! Filthy little liar like your parents—why we ever bothered with you I don't know! You're just like them, useless and freakish! Get out! Get out now!" he bellowed and Harry was stunned.
What … did he just say?
And it didn't make any sense because Vernon Dursley had said way worse before and Harry had been fully able to ignore it every single time. Because hurtful words from someone too stupid to be kind meant nothing—it never had.
This time though, he most certainly couldn't ignore it and for the life of him he couldn't bring himself to understand why.
"Look in a mirror before you call anyone useless or a liar you cow!" He automatically shouted and Vernon actually took a step back in shock. "My parents weren't liars, they died protecting me!"
"They did not!" Petunia got her voice back first, first pale and now flushed red. "They got themselves blown up by a madman for being freaks!"
"For being brave enough to stand up to the bloody dark lord, you mean! You wouldn't know bravery if it bit you in the ass!"
"DON'T YOU DARE TALK TO MY WIFE THAT WAY, YOU BRAT!" Vernon bellowed, taking a menacing step forward and Harry was suddenly very aware that he was pinned in the corner between the counter and the sink with any means of escape blocked by all three Dursleys. Vernon and Petunia had never actually hit him besides grabbing him to toss him out of their sight here and there, but Dudley sure had and despite him standing there with a gaping look of dumb shock on his face, if Harry tried to bolt past him he'd likely automatically take a swing just on principle.
He was very, very covered and it got every hair on his body standing straight up. Nightmares that had stolen weeks of sleep from him seeming to echoing uneasily in the corners of his clouded mind and got his heart pumping far too hard. His breathing wasn't coming out right, though he only vaguely recognized that.
"THE ONLY REASON YOU'RE ALLOWED HERE IS THE GOODNESS OF OUR HEARTS AND IF YOU DARE GO TALKING TO US LIKE THAT YOU'LL REGRET IT!"
Harry seethed.
"What goodness!? You have no heart!" he snapped, and inhaled sharply as a huge, meaty hand clamped down over his left arm.
"WHAT DID YOU SAY, BOY!?"
Suddenly, it wasn't a tiny white kitchen he was standing in, it was a large dark hallway. The swampy flesh of something nasty and dangerous wrapped around him, the bones in his shoulder creaking and giving way in stress and the eerily familiar pressure on his arm now made him forget absolute everything but that he needed to get away, now.
All instinct, rejecting everything all at once with the brief heart-stoppingly intense terror only being inches from death could actually conjure.
He wasn't sure what happened, all he knew was that the air was unnaturally hot and the moist, filthy hand on him was wrenched away as if burned. There was a shattering sound so loud his ears ached, and when his vision cleared a second later, every single thing that had been on the counters, the tables, the shelves around the kitchen… was broken on the floor, bits of broken glass and ceramic rolling to a stop across the now covered white tiles amongst twisted metal scraps of ex-kitchen appliances and splintered wooden cooking utensils.
What…
All three Dursleys had backed up, horror and unadulterated fear etched into every line of their hideous faces. Not a single one spared the chaos around them a glance, they were looking at him.
Oh…no. That wasn't…?
Oh shit. That was, wasn't it?
I'm dead.
He recognized he'd had bouts of accidental magic in the past, although nothing to ever call much attention to. McGonagall had told him some children were just restrained, and in his desire to be in control as much as possible in his life in Private Drive, Harry figured he'd put a lid on most accidental magic pretty early in life without realizing it. Anything to not cause trouble, anything to keep his life quiet and expected, after all.
His control was clearly pretty good, given his skill in Transfiguration. His magical core was living up to the Potter reputation though, and he'd been told this by many this given he'd had incidents of accidental magic at Hogwarts, usually connected to his bubbling temper problems that most students got to see in full detail in one way or another over the past school year. Almost no one ever had accidental magic problems once they got their wand and started using it, as that outlet was supposed to calm the bursting magic growing inside of you with no proper way to be released into the world. Control or not, the fact he still had issues like that at Hogwarts, no matter how minor they were, spoke to the size of his magical core and everyone liked to bring it up when they could even if he didn't care about it at all.
He cared now though.
Because he wasn't in control now.
Emotionally or otherwise, clearly.
And he's just lost control of his magic in front of three people who hated magic.
Well, two people who hated magic and one who hadn't known until this moment that magic was even real because his parents had tried desperately to keep it hidden from him.
And well, Harry had just blown that out of the water.
Oops.
If he were thinking straight he might've realized it was because he'd been pushing his core all year to get ahead in Transfiguration, and then just stopped cold turkey for the summer. His core, which was large to begin with, had grown probably quite a bit thanks to his efforts, and now it was much larger than the typical eleven, soon to be twelve-year-old had to deal with.
Not to mention he wasn't exactly in the right state of mind to be in control of himself. He hadn't even been able to visit his graveyard in weeks, and he wasn't sure why, but it was probably related to this newfound emotional instability that he was quickly learning to hate with a hate that was far too out of his control for him to feel safe.
If he'd been thinking clearly, he might've realized that immediately. As it was, he would eventually put that together…
Now though, he was focused on how the paled faces in front of him were slowly regaining color, and by the splotchiness in Vernon's wrinkly folds of face cover his neck, it wasn't good.
I'm dead. He repeated numbly. I've actually entirely blown it now. Everything I ever did to protect myself from them, gone.
He flinched and crouched down to curl in on himself when Dudley screamed.
"WHAT WAS THAT!? WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS THAT!?" Vernon was storming closer now, too-heavy feet remining Harry too much of a bloody troll for his panicking heart as they stampeded over the broken glass and debris everywhere.
"Duddy, Duddy please--!" Petunia was half shrieking, trying to calm Dudley who was freaking out with wordless spluttering as he tried to understand what was happening and failing. His tiny, self-absorbed, incredibly stupid, normal mind his parents had brainwashed him to be probably couldn't take the concept that magic was real without breaking entirely. If even he'd come to the conclusion of magic given his parents insisting since they were both babes that magic wasn't real. Harry didn't know what they'd seen exactly, so he probably could be thinking his cousin possessed by a poltergeist instead or something equally supernatural.
Vernon was still bellowing and Harry just curled up tighter and put his hands over his head.
He kept his mouth welded shut now, fear ripping through him in a way he wasn't proud to admit. He was so tired of being scared, of being out of control—he's stood up to lord fucking Voldemort so this should be nothing! This shouldn't be so—
"ANSWER ME BOY! WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DID YOU DO!?"
He gasped at the screech and something hit the counter over him. He panicked, no words coming and his normal wit failing him entirely.
What could he say, anyway? It wasn't me? It was an accident!? Neither would pacify him.
Nothing would fix this.
"ANSWER ME!"
"It will never happen again," He managed to choke out, for lack of any better idea.
"YOU ARE BLOODY RIGHT IT NEVER WILL! NEVER AGAIN!"
SLAM
He heard the loud banging of the cabinet beside him before he felt the sharp smack of pain where his shoulder and the side of his head at hit it. The meaty whack of the uncoordinated fist throwing him into it didn't actually hurt that badly to be honest, as there was enough fat on it to be cushioned pretty well.
He was very used to pain, and generally just unafraid of it. Rough housing with the Gryffindor boys, playing against Susan in football, anything quidditch related (particularly bludgers), not to mention the several near-death experiences he'd had in his short life, a couple of which had hurt in traumatically more terrible ways than this. This was nothing compared an actual troll or Lord Voldemort himself—the cruciatus curse—
No, it wasn't the pain.
It was the helplessness.
It was equal to, if not worse, then staring up at a troll and knowing he was going to get crushed. Than looking into Quirrell's eyes after he'd screamed at him and knowing he was not going to be able to beat a full grown wizard no matter of clever he'd thought he was.
This was maybe not more terrifying, but it was worse. This was years of being trapped all coming to a head and realizing everything he'd ever did to become who he was had been totally pointless. Because no matter how clever and manipulative he'd become, no matter how brave and ambitious, no matter how long he'd spent running circles around the Dursleys thinking they were nothing but the muggle sheep Draco liked to call people, they still had the power here.
No matter what he'd ever done, he was still a child who cowered and got kicked around when it came down to it.
He hated it.
He'd wanted to be more.
"That freakish nonsense--NOT IN MY HOUSE!" Vernon continued to bellow, and Harry felt his whole body tremble once.
Why was he afraid of this muggle? This stupid whale of a man!?
Whatever he was thinking must've shown on his face because another fist came down and his flinch out of the way made it a glance blow at best, the tree trunk of an arm aiming for him far too uncoordinated to match his reflexes.
"Wipe that face off you little bitch--we should've beat it out of you years ago--NO, NEVER AGAIN!"
He wasn't really making sense in his rage but Harry felt his heart beating out of his chest anyway. He should've run, he should've scrambled away and made a dash for it (but where would he even go!?) but then it was too late and he felt himself scream in panic as sweaty hands wrapped around his arm again and yanked him up—his shoulder screaming it's protest at the treatment and panic from blurry memories causing him to lash out blindly with his free limbs but despite making contact with fleshy targets, didn't seem to do a damn thing.
"YOU AND YOUR FREAKISHINESS WILL NEVER SET FOOT NEAR MY FAMILY AGAIN, AM I CLEAR!? STAY OUT OF HERE AND ROT LIKE THE FILTH YOU ARE--IF I HEAR A SINGLE WORD YOU WILL REGRET THE DAY THOSE FREAKS LEFT YOU ON OUR DOORSTEP! YOU WILL REGRET THE DAY YOU WERE BORN A FREAK!"
His voice broke on that last word and he might've actually popped a blood vessel going by the colors in his neck.
In short order they were outside, the air hot and humid despite the early hour.
Then they were by the shed and before he could blink he was beneath its shade.
But it was still shocking to find himself on the ground, face smarting like a bludger had skimmed by his cheek at full force, his head rocking for a moment and the disorientation actually more concerning that the sharp trill of pain that ran up his arms body as he realized he was on the dusty, splintery wooden floor of the shed he'd already spent way too much time in.
"Stay here," the venomous voice hissed about him, before the light from the door disappeared with a thud as it slammed shut and troll-like footsteps thundered away across the lawn.
What exactly could he do but lay there for a second in absolute shock at what had just happened? He put a hand on his cheek to check if the ache in his skull had been real, like he couldn't quite realize that it hurt but somehow objectively knew that it did.
His uncle had never actually hit him before.
That was an odd thought that left something hollow and aching in his stomach. He was pretty sure he hadn't been breathing right for several minutes now and felt very light-headed because of it, but his heart was beating too hard to really get a handle on it right now either.
He lay on the ground, trying to take stock and just… failing.
He couldn't think right now.
The only thought that really came to him was this strange curiosity at why the reaction had been so… well, violent. Vernon knew about magic—he didn't like it, but he'd known about it because Petunia had told him. Harry knew he knew because he'd actively been trying to squash it, and you didn't actively go after something you legitimately didn't believe in. Vernon had always known about magic and hated it, but it should've have been so shocking to him.
If he'd been surprised, he would've reacted more like Dudley.
Or like Petunia, who'd just seemed terrified.
But no… he'd been angry to the point of violence, and Harry honestly hadn't thought he'd ever get to that point.
Stupid of him, really.
His whole life had always felt like he was five seconds away from being hit. Slaps upside the head or to his hands if he reached for something they suddenly decided they didn't want him to have were more than common. Actually hitting him just to beat on him was very new, and not a good sign at all, but it shouldn't have been surprising as it felt like Harry had been prepping to leave this horrid household and distance himself from these people since the beginning for this very reason.
Maybe it was because this was the first time Vernon had been forced to confront magic outright. The first time it was shoved in his face like that.
Whatever the reason, maybe Harry didn't care.
He didn't know how long he lay there, but it couldn't have been too long as it was very hot and stuffy inside this shed with the summer sun rising quickly overhead. He was hot before he knew it and realize laying here wasn't good—he still had a calming draught and he knew he really, really needed it right now so he forced himself up and retreated to the back, feeling a flood of relief when he entered the bubble of area the atmosphere stone affected.
He still felt kind of numb, but recognized it likely wasn't healthy, so he downed his last calming draught.
And he was glad he did because only a couple seconds later he heard steps approaching the shed once more and he scrambled back to the front immediately—his thoughts were clearer now and despite wanting nothing to do with his uncle right now he also knew that he didn't want him noticing this back area he'd created. If he saw evidence of more magic things would only get worse and he really couldn't afford that right now.
No sooner had he appeared in the visible corner of the shed did the doors fling open, and Harry hoped going from the light outside to the dark inside prevented him from seeing the back "wall" rippling in a way that proved it wasn't quite solid.
Luckily (or unluckily) Vernon seemed to be a man on a mission and ignored him entirely.
Harry watched, not sure what he was doing, as he thundered around the shed and grabbed a random assortment of tools and flung them out the open door behind him. Harry half wanted to bolt for it, but all his stuff was still behind the curtain, including his wand and Hedwig most importantly, so he remained still in hopes not to attract any more ire and that Vernon would get to whatever he was doing quickly.
His actions just made no sense as he tossed everything the shed was meant to hold, leaving only a bunch of pots and bags of mulch and dirt. He even rolled out the push lawn mower and unwound the gardening hoses and just put them in a huge pile uncaringly. When it was pretty much cleared of everything but the workbench and Harry himself standing motionless beside it, Vernon marched out to grab something. He returned only to drop it inside the door, before the doors slammed shut once more.
Harry's heart slammed into his throat when he heard chains clink ominously outside the doors.
He ran to one of the windows beside it and sure enough he caught sight of Vernon looping the chain Harry usually used to lock the place up while he was out of the shed around the handles—lock in place before he could even cry out in horror at what was being done.
And he realized exactly what was being done as Vernon marched away, pushing the lawn mower to the front of the house—probably to store the shed stuff in the garage now.
Cold horror clawed at his throat—or, it would've if he hadn't just drank a calming draught. Still, not even the magical remedy could stop the sick realization that he was locked in.
Just like the cupboard, just a bit bigger.
But hotter.
Dustier and dirtier.
And he had his stuff… that's right, he had all his stuff, including his wand and his books and his journals… he had Hedwig, he could…
Maybe this wouldn't be so bad?
Maybe it was the calming draught speaking, but he wasn't going to be asked to do chores clearly. He could stay in here and study for the coming year, until he got his chance to leave now. And he wouldn't come back, so that'd be good. He'd probably run out of things and get bored but he wouldn't need to put on a show for his relatives or work himself into the ground anymore so…
Okay, maybe it would be a vacation from his relatives.
Maybe this would be okay.
He looked down at what Vernon had dropped in here, and realized it was a bucket of soup cans. Like, every soup can he could remember being in the pantry.
He continued to tell himself that maybe this would be okay, but the soup cans felt more than a little foreboding.
000
It was well into the evening when he realized this was very much not going to be okay.
No one had come near the shed all day, and it was well after dinner and about the time Petunia usually called it a night that Vernon came out into the yard once more with wide flat objects Harry couldn't make out in the dark. He didn't realize anyone was there to be fair, but when he'd heard grunting and huffing he'd carefully tip-toed to the windows at the front of the shed to try and see out in the darkness of the new night.
He was startled at how black the view outside was, right before a nail came through the side wall, a little too close to where he'd braced his hand to see out. He was so shocked he took a couple steps back, and a new nail appeared in another corner.
It had been a really stressful day despite almost nothing happening, but he was still all out of sorts as he'd rested and tried to regain control of himself while doing nothing locked in here since that horrific breakfast this morning. He still wasn't all with it, which is the excuse he'd give if asked why it took him so long to realize what was happening.
Vernon was boarding him in.
By the time it hit him he realized he had two options: go grab his wand and try to claw his way out the remaining open window leaving everything else behind (his unlocked journals from Draco, his invisibility cloak, a bunch of magical items, all his textbooks, his parents' scrapbook from Hagrid, and Hedwig) and probably have to fight Vernon a second time where he had no idea if he could win without magic (though the odds looked poor if he wasn't fast enough and he really wasn't feeling that coordinated at the moment)OR…
He turned on his heel and ran to the back of the shed as fast and as silently as he could.
"Hedwig," he hissed, and she blinked her yellow eyes awake. It was about time she woke up for her nightly hunt anyway, so she didn't get why he seemed so panicked at first.
He met her big golden eyes and his heart… broke.
"You need to leave," He whispered quietly anyway, his throat closing up. "He's going to board up the windows—you won't be able to get out and I'm not sure I can live on this food for the summer. You need to flee!" He tried to explain and she clearly didn't get it but willingly let him lift her up and prop her up near the back window—the small round port only she'd been able to get through anyway.
She flapped her wings and he let her go thinking she was going to take off—but she instead landed on his shoulder for a moment and leaned into him, hooting softly with something like concern and alarm in her tone. She always was way too intelligent of a bird.
He felt tears unwillingly picked at his eyes, hot and frustrated and full of despair.
"I know. But one of us should be free if possible. It's important to me that you're okay, so just… stay out of sight and hunt your fill. Go visit Draco. I'll see you when the summer's over." He told her with more logic than he felt. He felt like his heart was being ground into pieces, and it hurt in a senseless way he couldn't pinpoint.
Hedwig nipped at his ear with a gentle, sad hoot.
He offered her a watery smile and pushed her up towards the back window once more. She gave him one last impenetrable owl-look before taking off into the night, and just in time as he heard Vernon stomp around back of the shed lugging his tools with the front windows apparently now taken care of.
Harry grabbed the atmosphere bulb and put it into his bottomless bag quickly and covered the window with the curtain he'd put up so Vernon wouldn't notice anything if he got too close, and held his breath as the monster of a man on the other side of the thin shed wall enough about boarding up the last bit of light left in the dark, earthy shed.
What was he supposed to do? Call out? Try to appeal to Vernon's empathy one last time to just let him go?
Harry was quickly growing desperate, but he his pride still meant something to him for now.
So he just held his breath and remained quiet as his heart crumbled inside his chest.
Hours later when Vernon had finished his work and returned to the house, it hit Harry how dark it really was in here. And how very, very alone he was going to be from here on out.
000
By the time the next day ended, Harry realized that this was going to be way worse than he'd been imagining. Even he, who was pretty damn cynical, had tried to think of the bright side by thinking of all the things he did have while trapped in here. He still had his books and the furniture he'd bought the previous summer, his journal to Draco and everything else… but it still didn't seem to matter in the face of how horrible this actually turned out to be.
When he finally realized just how bad the situation was, he really regretted using all his potions already.
No one had come near the shed since Vernon boarded the windows up. He'd used flat sheets of plywood to do the job and while wooden the shed was pretty well made so it was dark; any small amount of light even summer at midday could muster up barely did anything. He could fall asleep and wake up and still not immediately know if it was day or night, and it messed with his sense of time terribly.
It was hot, and quickly becoming unbearably humid too as rain approached, he thought. He was fine within the confines of his atmosphere bulb, but their reach was only his small area in the back so any attempt to stretch his legs and walk around the rest of the shed were only short-lived excursions as the excessive heat quickly made him light headed and sick enough to prefer even his cramped back space to the awful feeling.
He had his magically soft bedroll, the desk with a tiny light he could write by, his endless water bottle, the snacks he'd saved up from Hogwarts, and the atmosphere bulbs, so those were all good, but the thing was… they didn't know that.
So far as Vernon and Petunia were concerned, he was locked in a hot shed with a bucket of soup cans, that's it, and they hadn't once come near the shed to let him out to let him get a drink or take a break from the heat or anything. He was seriously starting to wonder if they were trying to outright kill him by locking him in a 40C outdoor building with an in-no-way-sufficient water supply for even a couple days. By the time the second night was halfway through, Harry realized they had no intention of letting him out again period.
Where they trying to kill him?
When he realized what the bucket was probably for, he felt sick.
These…assholes.
He hated them.
He'd live, and he'd live with dignity no thanks to them, so they could take their bucket and shove it. They didn't even know the meaning of dignity clearly, and yet they had the audacity to try to deprive him of his.
He curled up in the corner of his now prison and put his head on his knees… fighting tears but not quite being able to prevent them as everything crashed down around him.
It was dark. All the time. And this prison sentence had just started but it already felt like it was too much and he just wanted some amount of light to break this monotonous dark.
It wasn't cramped like the cabinet had been but the stifling heat kept him caged anyway and it chaffed at his soul like fire. He also came to realization that the soup cans would barely last him a can a day to the end of July much less the full summer if he was counting the days correctly. And he had some snacks in his magical fridge plus his stashed snacks but when faced with a whole summer ahead of him, they suddenly seemed sickeningly sparse.
From what little he knew of calories and nutrition, he figured he wouldn't die but… even if he kept still and didn't burn a single excess calorie if he could help it, he wouldn't be running his full speed with the football club next year like he did the last. He wondered how long it would take to recover from something like this…
Dark.
Hunger.
Heat.
Claustrophobia.
Every single thing seemed like an insurmountable challenge, and that wasn't even considering he was fully out of potions and there was clearly no chance in hell they were going to let go to London to restock.
He had a sickening thought of if they'd even let him for school in September, and a darker, but frighteningly realistic part of himself thought maybe they were hoping he wouldn't make it that long.
There would never be an escape from this then.
He wanted to refuse to let their tiny, selfish selves get to him, he didn't want to cry like he was beaten by muggle pigs like they were but…
There was no one to see his shameful tears, anyway.
000
The nightmares got worse.
He didn't really have any expectation that they'd get better, to be fair, but that didn't make recognizing that things were slowly getting worse any easier.
He hated that he'd kind of lost track of time already, and kept to writing down the days and nights—and he had to write them out because he'd tried to keep a calendar and found himself crossing off days multiple times because they seemed to stretch on so long he forgot he'd already counted today more than once. It was just so dark and as he lost more and more sleep to his nightmares, he found himself sleeping pretty much whenever—there was just to reason to be up during the day anyway so… if he was tired, he slept.
And he slept a lot so that made keeping track of time even harder.
But his sleep was almost always broken by some kind of horrific nightmare and jolted him awake—or not even a nightmare but a ghost pain somewhere in his body jerking him conscious like someone was there hitting him—but whatever the reason he wasn't getting real rest and he knew it.
But the time a week had passed (by his sketchy time keeping at least) he knew they were leaving him here to rot, and he was not feeling that good. It was far past Dudley's birthday meaning his excuse of people waiting on him in London had failed—they didn't fear him standing someone up and by now they'd realized they'd gotten away with it. No one had come looking for him when he didn't show—they didn't know it was a lie and that no one had been waiting on him at all, so now the assholes were probably confident in their letting him rot here without repercussions.
He tried to balance his snacks with the soup cans but the soup wasn't really that substantial and most of his snacks were… well, snacks. Most of it was just sugar with really poor nutritional value, and was in no way filling. He was eating them because by a week in he was irrevocably hungry, but by two weeks in the hunger had turned to pain and he was down to just soups and a few too-sugary snacks left that really just made him sick instead of fixing the twisting pain in his abdomen. He drank as much water as he could to stay hydrated, but without real sustenance he was starting to feel really, really sick—all the time. Not to mention his hands had started shaking something awful, and probably only worsened his bad sleeping habits from how tired he always felt.
From the mental side of things… the lack of connection to anyone, the lack of light, of freedom… well, he felt himself spiral not-so-slowly and it was an oddly terrifying sensation. It didn't feel so much like a descent into madness, and more a free fall at the speed of gravity.
The one obvious thing that should've been his saving grace, was his journal with Draco.
Draco had, obviously, asked why Hedwig had showed up at his house seeming really distressed.
Harry hadn't told him.
Draco had also asked why he was suddenly able to write during the day when prior he said he was only available at nights.
Harry hadn't told him.
Draco pointed out almost daily at this point how his handwriting seemed much worse all of a sudden and how his sentences weren't not nearly as coherent, asking if he was alright or if he was sick or the like.
Harry hadn't told him a god damned thing.
Excuses, excuses, he mocked himself mercilessly as he scratched the paper a little too hard with his quill as he told Draco about how he was tired from chores which is why his handwriting was so shaky—not the lack of food making his hands tremble like a tuning fork. He'd lied and said he simply got his chores done quicker so he could write during the day. He'd lied through his teeth when he said Hedwig was just mad at him for not needing her this summer thanks the journals which is why she was over at Malfoy Manor permanently for now.
He lied and he lied and he lied like it was so bloody easy and he hated himself to no end for it.
Oh god did he hate himself right now.
Draco would help, a venomous voice hissed at him from somewhere inside his own brain. Not his graveyard, that was for certain, as he hadn't set eyes on it since that damned night down in the chamber where Quirrell had almost murdered him gruesomely. Where he'd murdered Quirrell gruesomely instead.
A fuck, if that wasn't a thought he was in no way capable of facing right now.
Draco would help, that stupid voice hissed again, not leaving him the bloody well alone. Draco would help, you just have to ask.
I know that, shut the hell up. He snapped back, and calmly recognized that talking to oneself was a sign he'd officially lost it. More than he already had, to be fair.
Because he wasn't so far gone to realize he was pretty far gone already.
His stomach twisted as Draco wrote back something else and he answered dutifully, lacking some of the spark he knew he used to have but just being unable to do anything about it. He didn't know how to get it back, and he didn't know how to fake it either. Not with Draco.
He wrote back something normal as per the course of conversation, and he didn't mention what was currently dominating his mind right now. He didn't mention the shed or the darkness or the hunger.
He should've, but he didn't. He said something about quidditch he didn't even care enough to really worry if what he was saying made a lick of sense or not.
Why aren't you telling him?
I can't tell him.
What other option do you have? Starve? Die?
Is your pride worth dying for?
Harry stared at the pages of the journal filling out with whatever Draco was saying lying in front of him. The blond, sitting somewhere else in the world writing these words in elegant cursive with an expensive golden-tipped quill. Probably at his desk by a large gothic window, or beneath the willow tree in his yard where he'd taken a break from quidditch practice for write to him for a while. Pure white peacocks would be milling his yard around him, each one described in depth through Draco's plethora of poetic words when he got into the swing of writing. When he got into it, the boy had a way with written words, Harry had to admit. Sometimes they were absolutely beautiful.
Harry stared at the words slowing filling in with ink, not quite being able to read them but happy to picture Draco somewhere in the world writing them, and found some amount of peace.
He did not write back any more that day.
000
Happy birthday, Harry! I tried to get Hedwig to bring you a present but she refused for some reason? She's your bird, you'll have to have a talk with her. Maybe we can meet up and I can give it you in person; that'd be better anyway.
He stared at the words in his journal and felt… cold.
It's been… that long? I thought I had another three days. My time keeping truly sucks apparently.
The shed doors had not opened once since Vernon had closed them over a month ago, and Harry felt nothing as he lay down again rather than respond to Draco's message. The blond knew something was wrong now, because Harry would go days without writing him back. Luckily he hadn't stopped writing him first, even if most of the time it now sounded like journal entries talking about his day without someone responding to him.
I'm sorry I can't write as much.
That's fine! Write when you can, I know you're busier than I am during the summers. I'm not doing anything so I don't mind—Blaise went back to Italy so I can't even bother him and Theo actually told me to get lost which isn't a shock…
Draco had accepted Harry's very cryptic apology and kept writing like nothing was wrong, and he appreciated it. Because he had lied, and he did nothing with his day at all, often staring at Draco's journal entries for hours and hours and hours and could not for the life of him bring himself to respond back. He had a couple times and the blond had been thrilled, responding with several pages of his own without needing Harry to continue on.
He was thankful, because he didn't have a good reason why he couldn't respond. He couldn't even give himself one, though the stupid answer he knew was his pride.
He'd been in here for a month now, so even he thought pride was a stupid answer, but he still didn't tell Draco a damn thing.
Because he was an idiot? A lunatic? A masochist?
I'm not okay, he managed to admit to himself, and oddly it was an entirely calm thing. That was probably a terrible sign, but it didn't alarm him.
Also probably a bad sign.
I'm not okay—otherwise I would've told Draco immediately. But I didn't and now it's been a month. What the hell is wrong with me?
At least he wasn't answering himself anymore, but on the down side that meant he had no answer for that directionless question. He'd been terribly mean to himself though, so it was kind of nice not to be having those conversations anymore.
He'd reached some kind of equilibrium. He wasn't panicky or senselessly angry. He was so tired he'd somehow come around to accept it and barely even flinched when he woke from a nightmare now. He was so hungry the pain in his stomach was now muted, and only really came back after he'd eaten a bit of soup since he'd cleanly finished all other food sources about a week ago. He only had about a week left of soup, maybe two if he went with half a can a day. He could probably handle that.
His new sense of calm had given him a chance to get around to his textbooks more properly—in an attempt to do anything but wallow he'd ready everything he had back to front, some of them more than once for lack of better option and because they had slightly harder content to absorb. One in particular was the dark arts transfiguration text Draco had given him for Christmas and he'd learned quite a bit he probably wouldn't be sharing with McGonagall but it made him feel better somehow.
It gave him some power back, to refocus on what he could do. In this entirely hopeless situation where despair came in cycles of intensity, focusing on the power he did have helped settle him. He was a transfiguration prodigy, he came to accept this at some point of this prison sentence, and if he embraced that thought then he would use it to become stronger than he was now. He took so many notes and buffed out so many equations for potential new spells he'd lost count and used up several of the journals he'd been saving for next year, and even developed a plan.
He would get out of here—not sure how, but he would somehow. Despair often gave way to the blanket thought that eventually this hell would end, and he would get out. One way or another.
When he did, he was going to need to actually do something to no longer be helpless. Because he was, and that is what ended him up in every terrible situation he'd ever been in. Helpless against a troll, helpless against a professor, helpless against a dark lord, helpless against bloody muggles…
No more.
Draco and McGonagall had spoken briefly in the past about dueling, and Harry now knew that fighting with magic was an art form and he could learn it, and get better at it—could learn to defend himself. Transfiguration was his strength, so he was going to focus on that and with what he had at his disposal now and not being able to perform magic, he simply plotted, and waiting.
And he had a lot of waiting around to do, locked in a shed, so he plotted a lot.
And always, the looming thought that he could just tell someone through the enchanted journal via Draco but…
But he dind't tell Draco. And there were tons of other people he could maybe ask Draco to pass along a note to, but he convinced himself out of it every time. Slytherins weren't cozy like the Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs, and he likes Blaise but he'd definitely hold it over his head and he didn't even know Theo that well yet to be able to make that call. Daphne maybe as they could work out a deal and she was genuinely nice so she'd be okay with getting involved but…
He still didn't do it.
Any of the Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs he didn't—they would help of course and he loved them dearly, but he refused to get them involved. He imagined telling each and every one of them in depth to see if he could stomach it, and he just couldn't. Not even Lu who would love to be the one to fix it—he loved fixing things.
But this wasn't something that could be fixed and Harry knew deep down he would resent Lu for trying—and failing.
It was the Gryffindors he seriously considered, and he was warming up to the idea. Neville was probably his best friend aside from Draco but he wouldn't involve the boy here, no matter how much Neville would secretly hate him for withholding this. He knew Neville would jump right in, shyness or not, to help him to matter the cost, but it was for that reason he wouldn't. Their relationship didn't work like that, and Harry was going to protect him from the knowledge that people like the Dursleys exist for a little while longer.
Someday, he resolved to tell Neville everything. He wanted Neville to share things with him and he knew he'd need to live up to that concept and be a friend a friend would want to have by sharing things with him first, but today was not that day.
It… felt pitiful to admit he just wasn't ready to tell Neville about this, even if it was entirely true.
In all honesty, he was actually legitimately considering Seamus or Dean. Seamus really, as there wasn't a nicer and more understanding guy in Hogwarts he didn't think, at least no one that Harry knew as a friend like he knew the Irishman. Seamus wouldn't even question it and he'd be down to pick him up and shout in some muggles' faces if Vernon decided to put up a fight. If Harry asked him to pretend it never happened once they got away from Private Drive, Seamus would in a heartbeat and never speak another word of it again.
The same could not be said for Draco or Neville, who would be happy to help but would never let it rest given how concerned they would be. Not even the twins would be able to let it go and there were high contenders on his list of people he could probably go to or help, but he had no faith the twins wouldn't inadvertently kill the Dursleys via prank-gone-wrong or make it infinitely worse by doing some kind of magic that got them all expelled. Or arrested even, as non-family member wizards shouldn't be doing magic in front of muggles.
Yeah, asking the twins would invite in chaos Harry wasn't ready to handle.
He could probably tell the twins though, once he was free. When they were back at Hogwarts, they might be good confidants to have… but he wouldn't asking them for help getting free. That seemed like a poor idea when he could easily think of about five dozen things that could go wrong with that plan just off the top of his head.
No… if it got to that point, he was seriously considering asking Draco to pass along a note to Seamus.
But in the mean time… he needed to at least try to get out himself.
Fuck Hogwarts charter, he was so far past his hesitation for leaving he was on the other side of the galaxy by now—he was going to get out of here and he was never coming back to these inhuman pigs who'd tried to kill him slowly and painfully in their own back yard. Dumbledore could do anything he wanted, he wouldn't set foot in Hogwarts again rather than be stuck here any longer.
No more.
Vernon had, for once, actually been smart about something and removed all the tools inside the shed he could've used to break out, and everything Harry had at his disposal was magical and would probably alert something at the ministry that he was using underage magic. The only thing he had that wouldn't trigger an alarm as still of some use, was his potions knife.
After way too long being unreasonably helpless, he finally started working on his escape.