Catechism

By: Dreamfall

Summary: What if the Dursleys were smarter? Smart enough to turn Harry against magic- against himself. How long would it take anyone to realize how much damage was done, and once it was discovered how could they ever hope to fix it? A disturbing look at a Harry who has been taught from infancy to hate and fear everything he is.

Warnings: Quite disturbing. Various kinds of abuse. Harry with something of a house elf mentality. If you don't want to read it, don't.

Author's Notes: Feedback is welcome, constructive criticism particularly so. If it's spelling/grammar/etc e-mail is better than actual comments, but whatever. Specific spelling/grammar issues that are pointed out are corrected as immediately as I can arrange. Usually within 24 hours.

Additional Note: I'm slow. What can I say. Enjoy the chapter, folks! I hope it's worth the wait.

Review Response: I have a livejournal containing responses to reviews, update notices, and maybe other story stuff if I get around to it. The address is refusing to show up on here, but it is under homepage on my front page, or you can go to livejournal and it is username dreamfall(underscore)ff If I can figure out a way to make fanfiction just show the webpage I'll replace this with it in later. And if I can figure out how to make an underscore character show up, I'll replace the (underscore) with it:p. I am presently ridiculously behind on review response. I don't know if I'll try to catch up, just get the new ones, or what--but I have read and appreciated every one of your reviews! thank you.

Thanks: To Azelma, who has been granting me her time, patience, and understanding of children, and, most of all, her friendship.

Also Thanks: To several of the members of catechismplans (in alphabetical order): amanitajade, Caroline, Laura Peregrine, jaymalea, lauren, margot, Molly Morrison, nicole, Rose, Thursday, and Toastie for their invaluable assistance in helping me get my head around how to make this chapter do everything I wanted it to without it being completely unrealistic. Of them, an especially big thanks to Thursday, for coming up with paint and margot, who fleshed out Clarence. The coach was an amalgam from several suggestions, but it was Laura Peregrine who first put me onto the coach as opposed to teacher idea--thanks! More thanks will be going out when I get to chapters where they helped me with other bits;) And if I missed anyone, my apologies. I know you guys probably thought you and the story both had been abandoned. You weren't. Here's proof. This one's for you guys!

Harry glanced at the clock and then carefully closed his books, ordered his papers, and rose to his feet.

“Oy!” Fred exclaimed.

“Where are you headed off to?” George chimed in.

The twins had followed him into his room after escorting him back from dinner, and had breezily told him to do whatever it was he did, that they were going to study. The book they were huddled over didn’t look like anything Harry had seen any of the other students studying, but maybe they were in a special potions class that seemed to focus on things like giving people polka dots and making things sticky and various other things that Professor Snape had never discussed in any of Harry’s classes. He had started on his reading for history, trying to work out what had really happened in the First Goblin Rebellion, which was difficult since everyone said something different about what had started it. But his internal clock had just made him check the external clock, which verified that it was time for him to meet with Charlie.

“To the statue of the woman with a cat on the fourth floor,” he answered the question carefully.

Fred rolled his eyes. “How come?”

“I exercise there on weekdays.” Harry carefully took his practice Snitch off its shelf and slid open the door. He heard the two fall in behind him as he moved quietly through the halls towards where Charlie always met him.

The pair of them continued talking, but they didn’t direct it at him, so he kept most of his attention on navigating the hallways and not focusing too much on anything magical.

When he got there, he glanced around and, when he didn’t see Charlie right away, lifted the Practice Snitch and released it. It hovered in place for a moment, then vanished too quickly to be seen, and he waited, head cocked slightly to one side.

“Exercise?” Fred asked softly.

Since he didn’t seem to really expect an answer, Harry ignored the comment, ears stretching to catch a flutter—and then he was running full speed down the hall towards it, eyes searching for the glint to match the flutter. He spun around the corner just in time to see a big hand close around the gold ball, and Charlie grinned at him. “Hey, Harry.”

“Hello,” he said softly, waiting.

The twins skidded around the corner, and Charlie looked startled. “Fred? George? What are you doing here?”

They looked up at him, faces running through a range of emotions, then George said, “Watching Harry. What are you doing here?”

“Exercising,” Charlie said with a grin. “Cardiovascular.”

“Did you tell Harry to do this?” Fred demanded.

Charlie blinked. “No, Madam Pomfrey did. Why?”

The twins exchanged a look, then shrugged in tandem. “Nothing. Harry doesn’t mind if we stay, do you, Harry?”

“No, Fred,” he said automatically, then wished he’d left off the name as four eyes rolled as one.

“Okaaaay,” Charlie said slowly. “Makes no difference to me. Ready, Harry?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, and opened his hand, the Snitch flying from it immediately.

Harry focused on the task, finding the Snitch and chasing it, getting to it first, grabbing it, releasing it again, repeating. Not letting the screaming of his muscles or the rasping of his breath slow him.

“Break time,” Fred suddenly announced.

“What?” Charlie demanded. “You can’t be tired—you guys aren’t even running!”

“We’re not,” George answered him. “Harry is.”

All three turned to look at him, and Harry looked nervously back, eyes lowered slightly, controlling his breathing and forcing his posture to be good.

“Are you tired, Harry?” Charlie asked.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Tired enough to need a break?”

“No,” he answered, relieved to be able to give the right answer.

“Tired enough to want a break?” Fred interjected.

He dropped his eyes slightly further, and admitted, “Yes.”

Charlie groaned and dropped to sit, leaning back against the wall. “Well you could have said so,” he pointed out.

Harry sat down cross-legged, eyes locked on his hands, which he folded in his lap. “Sorry, Charlie.”

“He’s not mad at you. Just annoyed with himself for not knowing,” George stated.

“Well of course I’m not—what is with you two?” Charlie demanded. “When did you suddenly become Harry’s keepers?”

“We’re not!” Fred said quickly. “We’re just friends, right Harry?”

Harry considered the question, trying to figure out how the word could have any relation to him.

“Aww, c’mon, tell him we’re friends,” Fred cajoled.

“We’re friends,” Harry obediently informed Charlie.

“Fred!” George snapped at the same time, and Fred looked – something. Startled and something else. Upset?

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said.

“Didn’t mean what...?” Charlie asked, confused.

“Nothing!” George said quickly. “So how long have you guys been having secret Quidditch practice?”

“Since school started,” Charlie said. “I found Harry up here and it ... looked like fun. So I asked if I could join in.”

“Asked?” Fred demanded. “Didn’t tell?”

“What are you on about?” the older boy asked, staring at the younger pair.

“Nothing,” George repeated, elbowing his twin. “You seem really good at it, Harry,” he added.

He tried to figure out an appropriate reply, but Charlie answered before he could.

“He really is. Fast kid and notices the Snitch faster’n me, nine times of ten. Gonna make Gryffindor a pretty amazing Seeker in a year or two.”

“What if he’s not Gryffindor?” George demanded.

Charlie grinned. “Well, if that happens, I guess you’d have to beat him. Which would be tough.”

Harry’s eyes flicked up for a split second in surprise at the sudden mention of beating after all the weeks without, but he didn’t allow himself any more reaction than that, trying to understand what the possible transgression was and how it should be avoided.

“Feeling better, Harry?”

“Yes,” he agreed.

Charlie was up and bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet before the word was out of his mouth. “Let’s go then!” he said, opening his hand again.

The twins didn’t say much as they escorted Harry back to his room after exercising, just asking if he was planning to go back out that night, and grabbing their books from his room. Harry watched them go, and then settled down to finish his mathematics homework for Professor Snape.

Harry edged into the potions classroom and quietly took his seat at the back of the room, just to the side of the ingredients table, and prepared to take notes, carefully keeping all of his things well away from the ingredients and the potions bench of the pair working in front of him. Professor Snape ignored him like he always did as the lesson began with a stern warning as to the dangers of the potion they were working with today. An Audioscope potion, that let the drinker focus their hearing like a telescope focused vision, picking out and drawing near sounds that were far away and mixed in with many others.

Quill scratching against the parchment, Harry took careful notes of the lecture, and then, when Professor Snape waved for the students to begin their potions, he opened his text and began reading further, taking more notes so that he could properly write the ten inches on the dangers of the potion that was his assignment since Professor Snape still didn’t make him actually brew potions. The work was familiar, and he moved through the text compiling the necessary information on the various ingredients and how they could interact negatively at various stages in the brewing process. Some of them he already knew from previous essays, but he made sure to look them up anyway, since his memory was far from reliable.

The fumes were starting to roll through the room when he finished gathering information and started actually writing his essay. Two of the cauldrons were bubbling much harder than the rest—one because it was further along, the other because, judging from its vibrant blue shade and frothing boil, the bats’ tongues had been added before the potion was cool enough after adding the Deathspoore. He didn’t need to check his notes to know that if anyone touched the fluid now it would cause boils to form and burst everywhere it had touched, which would be very painful and difficult to cure. He checked anyway before carefully listing it as one of the dangers in brewing the potion.

Professor Snape was watching the same potion with a disgusted sneer, he noticed, glancing up from his work and around the room when his eyes started to water as more of the potions started pouring off fumes. The professor was watching everyone, of course, but his eyes kept going back to that one cauldron, which was boiling even more frantically as the two students working over it carefully poured in crushed arrowroot, one continuing to stir while the other started to measure out the next ingredient.

Harry quickly returned his eyes to his own work, berating himself for his distraction as he immersed himself in explaining the dangers of the brewing. His eyes flashed up, startled, at the explosion—though it was almost immediately cut off by Professor Snape’s vanishing charm, and drowned out by the howls of pain of the two students and the shouts of the professor.

“Imbeciles!” he snarled. “Did you not even notice that all was not well when your potion turned blue instead of green? You thought, perhaps, that if you just pushed through, it would all be okay? And when it foamed rather than simply boiling, you decided that the instructions were at fault, rather than your brewing?” They offered no response beyond groans of pain, and he shot a glance around the room then pointed at Ian Mahoney, the Hufflepuff student directly in front of Harry and said, “Mr. Mahoney. See them to Madam Pomfrey. The rest of you—continue your work.”

“Yessir,” Ian said quickly, setting aside the spoon he was stirring with as his partner gathered more ingredients and moving over to the pair and helping them to their feet and towards the door.

The door had barely closed behind them when the spoon Mr. Mahoney had been using slipped off the edge of the cauldron, into a pile of neatly arranged and chopped potions ingredients. Harry dropped his eyes back to his essay as, with a sound like the popping corn he made for Dudley sometimes, some of the ingredients began to explode off the pile and into the air. Students dove under their benches, Professor Snape started to wave his wand—and Harry felt a sharp, hot pain on the right side of his face—and then his right ear was ringing—and then it was more than ringing, it was screaming, his skull vibrating with the noise of it and, despite himself, he clapped his hand to his ear and turned away from the horrible noise, feeling several more hits to his face and chest as he turned the ringing ear away from the cacophony, and was hit on the other side with another one, and both sides were incredibly, impossibly loud, and every bone in his body was vibrating, his muscles tensing despite himself, and his mouth fell open in a scream he couldn’t hear—and it just got louder. And louder. And louder.

He didn’t know how much time passed with him aware only of the unbearable noise and the pain it brought with it, worse than the worst of Uncle Vernon’s beatings, worse than anything he’d even imagined. He couldn’t even get used to it, because it grew and shrank and changed, sometimes high and piercing, other times so low it felt like his eyes were going to explode, sometimes both at once. Sometimes he almost heard voices in it, but he couldn’t make them out, couldn’t understand what was being said or by whom. For once, he couldn’t even bring himself to care who was speaking or why. He thought he felt hands on him, but he couldn’t uncurl from the protective ball he was curled in, arms wrapped around his head, trying helplessly to block out the noise, though it didn’t help at all. He couldn’t uncurl enough to look up at them—and then the noise got even louder—and then there was nothing.

Harry woke to a silence except for a strange, crackling hum, and a bone-deep ache. He stirred uncomfortably, and then froze. He was curled up on the floor. In the dark. Cautiously, he opened his eyes. It was completely and totally dark. Quickly, not letting himself linger over it, he pulled his arms away from his head, ignoring the way his arms ached at the movement, and listened.

There was nothing but that hum, all around and unfamiliar, but not loud. There were no loose panes of glass rattling in their fittings, no whispers of paintings in the hall and no rustle of house elves. And he wasn’t in his bed. He was on the floor, curled in a tight ball, and the space felt small and familiar and—he reached out, hardly daring to believe it, and gasped in relief as he touched the familiar plaster wall of the cupboard under the stairs. He was home.

He carefully, silently, opened the door. It was dark outside, but not so dark that he couldn’t easily make out the familiar living room. There was, he realized with a satisfaction as deep as the ache still curling in his bones, a great deal to do. Without hesitation, he started picking up dirty dishes and mismatched socks and carefully neatening and straightening. According to the glowing green clock on the microwave when he ferried the first load of glasses into the kitchen (adding to a tower of filthy dishes on the counter), it was just before three in the morning.

Squinting slightly in the dark, he finished cleaning the living room and then got to work on the kitchen. He hadn’t made much of a dent before the squawk of Uncle Vernon’s alarm clock drew his attention to the upstairs, and he spared a half-nervous, half-hopeful look towards the stairs before quickly pulling a newly-cleaned frying pan out of the dish rack and starting half a rasher of bacon frying, then reaching to clean another skillet so he could add eggs as well. He kept washing as he fried, not letting his attention get caught up in the thumps and creaks above as the family started moving around and finally came downstairs.

Uncle Vernon came first, lumbering down the stairs and into the kitchen, and glared at the set table, then sent a disappointed look at Harry. “You forgot my newspaper,” he stated, voice gentle.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Harry apologized, not letting himself flinch at the stupid mistake. “I’ll get it—“

“That’s okay, I got it,” Dudley called from the other room, then came in and tossed the paper to his father and offered Harry an uncertain smile. “Hi.”

Harry had to stop himself from cringing back from the unexpected greeting. “Hello, Dudley,” he answered nervously. His cousin looked … odd. He’d lost weight. He wasn’t thin, but he looked sort of big andhard rather than big and soft. And his face was … different.

“You made breakfast—cool! Is there any grapefruit in there? Coach has me eating more fruit.”

“Sorry, Dudley,” he said quickly, and opened the icebox—and froze, realizing that he had no idea what grapefruit looked like.

The blow took him totally by surprise, directly between his shoulder blades, and he fell forward, slamming his forehead against the icebox door which he still held open, and a yelp escaping him despite himself. He turned quickly, eyes dropping to the floor. “Thank you, Uncle Vernon. I’m sorry.”

“Dudley wants grapefruit,” Vernon growled.

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t—I don’t know what it is.”

His breath caught as the heavy first caught him a second time, though this time he managed to keep quiet and passively accept the punishment.

“Dad! Dad, calm down! It’s okay!” Dudley’s voice sounded a little higher than it had a minute ago, and almost scared, and Harry didn’t know what it meant, knew he ought to, but just had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do, so he just waited, felt himself start to tremble in reaction to the uncertainty, and forced himself to relax and just wait.

“Harry has clearly lost all sense of discipline while he was away—“ Vernon started, and Harry let his eyes slip shut in shame.

“What, because he doesn’t know what grapefruit is? That’s crazy! And Coach says that hitting people for not knowing things doesn’t help them learn, it just makes them angry and scared.”

“Are you angry with me, Harry?” Uncle Vernon asked, tone gentle.

“No, sir!” he gasped, horrified at the idea.

“Harry’s not angry, Dudley. Your coach doesn’t know everything.”

“But Coach says—“

“That is enough,” Uncle Vernon said sharply, and Harry had to stop himself from cringing at the tone—all the more because it was directed atDudley, and everything was supposed to be normal here.

Dudley scowled at his father and grabbed what looked like a giant yellowish orange from the bottom shelf of the icebox, then went back to his seat and started peeling it.

“Oh, Harry, have you caused trouble already?” Aunt Petunia asked from the doorway, looking from her scowling son to her angry husband to Harry.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Petunia,” he said.

“He didn’t do anything,” Dudley pointed out, pulling off a section of fruit and tearing half of it off, chewing.

“Don’t you want some sugar, Duddykins?” Aunt Petunia asked, eyeing the fruit with unveiled disapproval.

“No, thanks,” he muttered. “I’m good.”

“Well, have some bacon, too, darling.”

“No, thanks.”

“You’re wastingaway, Dudley, and—“

“Mum, I’m fine,” he snapped. “If you wanna feed someone up, how about Harry? He’s the one who needs some food.”

Cold green eyes turned to Harry. “Are you hungry, Harry?” she asked, voice soft.

“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” he admitted, ashamed.

“What have we said about hunger, Harry?”

“That if you’re bad, you don’t deserve to eat,” he said softly. “And to get hungry anyway is defiance. I apologize for my defiance, Aunt Petunia. And—And it’s worse,” he said, not letting his voice vanish into a whisper, forcing himself to speak clearly.

“Coach says a balanced diet—“

“Thank you, Dudley, I believe we know by now everything that your coach says,” Uncle Vernon said. “Worse than defiance, Harry?”

“Yes, Uncle Vernon,” he said.

“Confess, then,” he said sadly.

“I—I have discovered that I was using magic, Uncle Vernon. So that I wouldn’t eat. I can’t—I can’t stop it, except by making sure that I eat.”

“You discovered this,” Uncle Vernon repeated flatly.

“Yes, Uncle Vernon.”

“And for how long were you feeding your defiance in this way?”

“I don’t know, Uncle Vernon. I’m sorry.”

“Your best estimate?”

“I—I might have always done it,” he admitted. “I’ve stopped,” he added. “Only—if I don’t eat, it comes back. And I can’t stop it.”

His aunt and uncle exchanged a disappointed look, and he waited, not letting himself turn away or pull back.

“Woah, you can do that?” Dudley demanded. “How does that work?”

“Dudley!” Aunt Petunia snapped in a tone Harry had never heard her use before. “You’re going to be late for school.”

Dudley’s eyes snapped down to the large black watch on his wrist and then he jerked to his feet and rumbled up the stairs. Upstairs, a door opened and then slammed, and then he stampeded back down. “Bye, Mum—Dad. Bye, Harry—thanks for breakfast,” he shouted—and then the front door slammed, and Harry felt an undeserved sense of relief that he was gone. He wasn’t acting right.

“If you must eat, then eat,” Uncle Vernon stated, voice heavy with disappointment. “All those years, Harry. All those lies when you pretended to be growing less defiant.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Vernon. I can—I can wait,” he whispered, stumbling over the words.

“Can you? Without bringing that freakishness into our home?”

“I—no,” he said, voice small.

Vernon’s mouth tightened, lips growing white. “Are you frightened, Harry? Speak up.”

“Yes, Uncle Vernon,” he admitted, forcing himself to speak up clearly.

“Why?”

“Because I am defiant,” he stated. “I know that I deserve punishment for my behavior, but I fear it anyway.”

“More defiance,” Aunt Petunia hissed.

“Your … headmaster spoke quite highly of you when he brought you back,” Uncle Vernon said, voice noncommittal. “He seemed to find you very … bright,” he said, taking a moment to choose his word. “Very bright and eager to please.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Vernon,” he said.

“I thought you understood that you were to convince them you were dull?”

“I—Yes, Uncle Vernon.”

“So you failed at that, too, did you?”

“Yes, Uncle Vernon. I’m sorry,” he said, eyes on the floor. His stomach rumbled, and he dropped his eyes even further at the reminder of his defiance.

“Eat,” Uncle Vernon snapped.

“Yes, Uncle Vernon,” he said softly, ashamed. He stepped forward, loaded a plate, feeling his family’s eyes on him as he scooped up eggs and bacon, and then perched on the edge of a chair, and took a bite. Then froze, and slowly dropped off the edge of the chair and onto the floor, eyes down. “I’m sorry!” he whispered. “I—I didn’t mean to.”

“Clearly,” Aunt Petunia stated, voice so disappointed he felt tears welling in his eyes, “you put up absolutely no defenses against their brainwashing. Eat your breakfast, Harry. We will consider punishment later.”

“After hearing what else there is that you need punishment for,” Uncle Vernon added. “Am I correct in assuming that the list is not yet complete?”

“Yes, Uncle Vernon,” he admitted. “I’m sorry.”

“If you were good,” he said softly, “you wouldn’t have to be sorry, Harry. You should have tried harder.”

“I know, sir. But it was very … confusing.”

“If you were good,” Aunt Petunia stated, “it would not be confusing.”

“I know, Aunt Petunia,” he admitted. “I’m sorry.”

“Eat, if eat you must,” Uncle Vernon ordered him, voice heavy with disappointment. “We will talk of your sins and your defiance as well as your punishments when I return from work.”

“Yes, sir,” he agreed, hand snaking up to grab his plate and bring it down to the floor, where he ate it quickly, feeling their eyes on him with every bite.

Harry stood still, facing the door to his cupboard, not letting himself twist away from the leather belt striking his shoulders and back again and again. He swayed slightly towards the door and steadied himself, standing up straight as the belt whistled through the air again. The telling of all his transgressions at school had taken hours, and his aunt and uncle were just as disappointed as he’d known they would be. Disappointed and frustrated.

The blows stopped for a moment, his uncle’s harsh, uneven breathing pausing, and then the man said, “The worst of it was bringing them into our home, Harry.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Vernon,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You were clumsy.”

“Yes, Uncle Vernon.” They’d told him what had happened. Professor Dumbledore had toldthem when he’d been dropped off. Apparently the ingredients that had hit him had somehow made him hear magic, and, at the school, surrounded by so much of it, it was deafening and he’d passed out with the pain of it. Professor Snape was to make a potion to fix it, but it needed herbs harvested at a particular moon phase, and it would be two weeks before he could do it. One-and-a-half, now, since he’d spent three days at home, cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry during the day, reciting lists of everything he could think of that he’d done wrong or thought might have been wrong, and accepting his punishments, in the evenings. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“You should have gotten out of the way.”

He closed his eyes and took a breath, wondering how he could have been so stupid as to not realize that getting out of the way of the potions ingredients would be different from getting out of the way of a punishment. That rather than a punishment, it was a threat to his family. “Yes, sir.”

“They came into ourhome, Harry,” Uncle Vernon said, and the belt whipped out again, this time buckle first, and he heard a soft rip as it scored the thin fabric of his old T-shirt and felt a small trickle of blood roll down his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he repeated. “I should have avoided it.”

“You’re weak,” Uncle Vernon stated, the buckle slamming down again, then again as he built back into a rhythm. “You chose poorly time and again, and let them manipulate and coddle you into forgetting your lessons and your beliefs.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”

“And the hat,” Uncle Vernon sneered. “How could you imagine that listening to a hat was acceptable behavior, Harry?”

“I don’t know, Uncle Vernon,” he said miserably. “It said—“

“It should not say! Hats do not talk,” Uncle Vernon snarled, punctuating each word with another blow. “Which should make it clear that anything it did say should be ignored!”

“Yes, Uncle Vernon, but—“

The belt suddenly fell still, as Uncle Vernon repeated, voice suddenly soft and sad, “’But’? I can see that nothing we’ve done for you has ever made any impression at all. Go to your cupboard, Harry. There’s no use talking to you.”

Fighting back tears, Harry opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind him, dropping down to sit and leaning forward, cradling his head in his arms as he accepted the absolute misery of having failed so completely. And he had known that he shouldn’t listen to the hat, shouldn’t obey it. But—he shuddered at even thinking the word a second time, at arguing with his uncle even in his own mind, since he knew he was wrong and his uncle was right—but the hat had said it would tell the wizards. And then they would come here, which he had thought would be far worse than his obedience. But he should know better than to trust his thoughts, he knew he didn’t understand quickly, not compared togood people.

He pulled himself to his knees and sat up straight, head bowed, and quietly began his catechism, willing himself to be good. He reached the end and started it again. What are you? Again. Again. Over and over, letting the words fill him and overflow, needing to purge the evil in him, knowing it wasn’t enough, but it was all he could do.

The front door opened and then shut loudly, and he heard the muffled thuds of Dudley trudging up the steps and going to his room without calling out a greeting or speaking to anyone. He curled a little tighter in his ball and tried not to think about how disturbing his cousin’s behavior was. He wasn’t the same. Sometimes Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon even talked to him as though he weren’t entirelygood, and if Dudley couldn’t be good, what hope couldHarry ever have?

“Fix dinner,” Aunt Petunia ordered abruptly, and something deep within him unclenched slightly at the words, grateful that they weren’t entirely giving up on him yet, that they weren’t going to leave him in the cupboard forever.

He slipped out with a soft acknowledgement of the order, and made his way to the kitchen, quickly getting to work preparing a shepherd’s pie.

“Clarence’s mum asked me to dinner,” Dudley called from upstairs. “Can I?”

“No,” Vernon said.

“Daaa-aaaad,” Dudley whined, trailing down the stairs in a series of loud thumps. “How come? I haven’t seen Clarence all week, except at school, and—“

“And you wouldn’t see him then, if I had my druthers,” Uncle Vernon interjected. “The boy’s mad.”

“What happened to that nice boy, Piers, you used to be such good friends with?” Aunt Petunia demanded.

“He’s a bit of a git,” Dudley called over his shoulder as he lounged into the kitchen and dropped into a chair, watching as Harry quickly peeled potatoes.

Harry kept his eyes on his task, trying not to give Dudley any reason to get angry with him—and knowing that this new Dudley got upset over even more incomprehensible things than he used to—and wouldn’t punish him properly even when he was.

“Clarence is my best friend,” Dudley announced suddenly.

Since there wasn’t a question, Harry didn’t respond, though he did send a startled glance to his cousin, seeing the bigger boy’s eyes locked on him, a funny expression on his face that Harry didn’t know the meaning of.

“He moved in across the way a few months back, and at first we kinda hated each other, but then—“ He stopped abruptly, falling silent, and Harry didn’t speak, just listened attentively for some continuation, some idea what was wanted of him as he cut potatoes into quarters and put them into a pot. “And there’s coach,” Dudley said abruptly, and Harry didn’t flinch at his failure to follow the conversation, just waited. “I started judo lessons not long after you left. The school said I had to—they wanted me to learn, like, discipline, which didn’t sound like fun, but learning to beat people up did. Only—I like the discipline better,” he said.

Harry dared another glance at his cousin, who was staring down at his hands, now, which were fidgeting uncertainly on the table. Harry added water and salt to the potatoes and put them on the heat.

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a prat,” Dudley said abruptly.

Harry almost dropped the heavy pot, but he managed to steady it and set it down on the burner before anything horrible happened. He shot another anxious, sideways glance at Dudley, but got no hint of what he was supposed to say or do, so he turned on the heat under the potatoes and waited.

“Coach says real men apologize when they’re prats. And I was. So I’m sorry. Okay?”

And that, he recognized, was a question. Although one he had no idea how to answer correctly. “You don’t—“ He paused nervously, tried again. “You don’t have to apologize to me, Dudley. I’m sorry for whatever I did that made you think you did.”

Dudley frowned, lower lip jutting out in a way that Harry was all too familiar with, and Harry waited, half fearful and half hopeful, for the first blow to land.

It didn’t. Instead, Dudley hit the table, something strange and horrible in his face. “I don’t know what to do,” he whispered.

Harry blinked, startled at both the words and the tone. Dudley sounded like him. Lost and confused and scared. And it scared him more than anything ever had. More than the hat, and more than Uncle Vernon’s announcement the first day after he returned that he would have special punishments every night until he learned better, and even more than how much he loved flying. Because Dudley was good. He wasn’t supposed to be confused. “You’re good,” he said, shocked into speech even though no question had been asked. “You’ll do the right thing.” It seemed like the most obvious thing in the world. Of course Dudley would do what was right—that was who he was.

Dudley’s face screwed up like he was going to cry, and he didn’t look at Harry, just down at his hands, which were clenched together, knuckles a pale, sickly yellow against the pink of the rest of his hands. “I can’t—I’m not—I’m sorry,” he said, and then he left, almost running out of the room and up the stairs.

Aunt Petunia called after him, tone worried, but subsided at his shout that he was fine. Uncle Vernon rose from the telly program he was watching and made his way into the kitchen, staring ominously at Harry.

Not letting himself cringe away from the angry stare, Harry straightened his shoulders, lowered his eyes, and waited to be told what he’d done wrong.

“So the magic school taught you that you were better than ordinary folks, did it?” Uncle Vernon asked.

“No, Uncle Vernon,” he said, feeling panic build in his stomach. “It didn’t! I’m not!”

“You upset my son. Are you better than Dudley, Harry?”

“No, sir!”

“Then why did you choose to upset him?”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Vernon. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know—“

“You should have known!” Uncle Vernon roared.

“I—Yes, sir, I’msorry, sir,” he whispered.

“I don’t want you to be sorry—I want you to be good,” Uncle Vernon said, tone suddenly dropping, soft and sad. “But I begin to see that you never will be.”

Harry’s eyes prickled with tears, and he bit the inside of his lip.

“Finish dinner. No punishment that we mete out even makes a dent in your defiance, your willfulness. I don’t know why we continue to try.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Vernon. I don’t mean to,” he whispered helplessly.

“Then why do you do it, Harry?” he asked tiredly. “Of course you mean to. But if there is no saving you, perhaps we should stop trying. You don’t even want to be good.”

“I do,” he whispered. “Please, Uncle Vernon, please don’t give up on me. I’ll do anything. Please.”

He heaved a sigh and shook his head. “We’ll see. I’m too tired to think on it now. Finish dinner, Harry.”

Barely able to see through the tears in his eyes, he obeyed. Nobody spoke to him during dinner, though Dudley shot him several glances and seemed on the verge of speaking more than once. He waited hopefully for someone to make some request so he could show that he was willing to obey, that there was still hope. But nobody did. Dudley even got up himself and got more milk rather than asking for it. After dinner, Harry quickly, silently washed the dishes, and then went into his cupboard and again, feverishly, repeated his catechism over and over through the night, unable to sleep with the misery of his uncle’s words repeating in his ears. He hated himself for being almost relieved that his uncle didn’t come that night with the promised special punishment. Hated himself for what that showed about him. Maybe his uncle was right and he was hopeless.

The next day, the cupboard was locked and he stayed inside silently, wondering if it would ever unlock again. If they would ever decide he was worth one more chance. He heard Dudley and Uncle Vernon fighting at one point, but couldn’t make out the words. He didn’t want to make out the words. It terrified him that they would be in discord, that even Dudley could fall from grace. Squeezing his eyes shut, he repeated his catechism, drowning out the sound of their argument.

The following morning, the cupboard was unlocked and he cautiously made his way out, slinking through the living room and into the kitchen. He was hungry. He’d been working for the last twelve hours to convince his magic that he wasn’t, that it didn’t need to activate, but hewas. He again reminded his magic that he was fine, that he didn’t need it, and washed the dishes from the day before, and fixed breakfast. He wouldn’t be defiant or use magic. He wouldn’t.

Dudley didn’t come into the kitchen, just went straight out the door. To school. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon ate without acknowledging him in any way, and then headed for the door. Just before they reached it, Uncle Vernon turned back and finally, finally looked at him. “The cellar floor needs to be painted. Take care of it.”

“Yes, sir,” he said eagerly, relieved to have been given something he could do to try to fix things.

Aunt Petunia offered him just a hint of a sad smile, and then the two were gone, and he hurried to the basement. The room was dimly lit and, besides the washer and dryer it housed, was filled with old furniture, broken appliances, and just about everything else he could imagine. Petrol for the lawnmower, summer clothes, neatly boxed and labeled, odd tools and parts. When he’d gone to school, it was all neatly organized and spotlessly clean, but he was slow and useless and hadn’t yet taken the time to put everything to rights since his return.

His ears buzzed with magic and he forced his attention to his stomach, forcefully convincing it that he was fine, that he wasn’t hungry, and the sound faded again. There were cans of paint and a couple of brushes on top of the metal cabinet beside the stairs, but he couldn’t start with those. He had to clean before he started on painting.

It was easy to lose himself in his work, the familiar dusting and scrubbing as natural as breathing, and he worked fast and hard, needing to make his family proud, to give them hope for him again. He dragged around the furniture to scrub under and behind it, moved shelves and boxes, got everywhere he could. He tried to move the shelves next to the stairs, the huge metal ones, but even when they were completely unloaded he couldn’t budge them an inch. Finally, he gave up and moved on, scrubbing the main portion of the stairs, and then going upstairs to quickly do the dishes and straighten the living room and make the beds while the floor dried.

When he went back down, the last dark stain of drying water had vanished, and he looked around, biting his lip lightly as he tried to determine the best way to do this. Horrified to realize that he couldn’t come up with a way to do it in one day. He’d have to move all the furniture to one side, paint the other side, and then move everything to that side to paint the first side. Only he couldn’t move it back till the paint was dry. And he couldn’t take it upstairs. His family wouldn’t like that, and even if it was the right thing to do, hecouldn’t lift the things up the stairs, no matter how hard he tried.

Reluctantly, he made up his mind to a plan, and moved everything from the far side of the basement to the other side, closer to the stairs. Since the shelves he couldn’t move were on that side anyway, it made more sense to leave it. Plus, the small, high-set windows were on the other side, so maybe it would dry faster. Finally, anxiously aware of how much time had already passed, how soon they would be coming home, he started to paint.

He didn’t let himself pause when he heard the door open upstairs, barely let his eyes slip around to measure his progress, knowing that it wasn’t enough, wasn’t anywhere near enough. He heard them enter the kitchen. Heard the top step creak, then the next. Then they stopped.

“What is the meaning of this?” Uncle Vernon demanded. “I said to paint the floor, not to block the stairs!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, stopping immediately and turning, eyes flickering to the piles he’d created, and the path from the base of the stairs through it. “I had to move everything to—“

Uncle Vernon moved down the rest of the stairs more quickly, advancing on him with his eyes narrowed and his lips tight, hands clenching and releasing at his sides, head turning in jerky motions to take in the state of the basement. “And this is all you’ve achieved?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir,” Harry admitted. “I’m sorry.”

“You left the door open,” Aunt Petunia added, voice tired and impatient. “The kitchen smells of paint fumes.”

“I’m sorry, Aunt Petunia.”

“Stand up.”

Harry rose quickly to his feet, facing his uncle, and one meaty fist lashed out, catching him in the solar plexus. He stumbled back, gasping for breath, fell, and looked down in horror as he slowly lifted his hands out of the wet paint and stared at the mess he’d made. He scrabbled back to his feet and forward, resuming his position, a helpless apology on his lips.

Uncle Vernon was perfectly silent for a long moment, then he heaved a long, ominous sigh. “You are dripping paint, Harry.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” he whispered, looking helplessly down at the spatters on the floor around him, the footprints, the smears—

“Take hold of the pole, Harry, if you are too useless even to stand on your own.”

Tears of shame pricking his eyes, he moved over to the metal support pole in the middle of the cellar and gripped it with both hands. The blows came fast and hard, first from the heavy fists, then from other things, harder and heavier and longer. He didn’t try to see what was used, just focused on not screaming. He wasn’t supposed to scream. It was bad to scream…

There was a burst of iron in his mouth as he bit through his lip, but it wasn’t important, nothing was important except his family’s disappointment and his own evil and the desperate need to not make it worse byscreaming as something heavy and jagged fell on his shoulders and he heard his shirt rip and felt it fall mostly off, the air cold against his back. The next blow caught in skin instead of shirt, and he couldn’t help the moan that escaped him, laying his head forward against the pole and focusing on accepting the punishment, knowing it was deserved, not fighting it or objecting to it by screaming or struggling or moving.

“What are you?” his aunt demanded, each word spaced so that it was punctuated by another blow from his uncle.

“I am a freak,” he said, forcing the words out through the pain.

“What was your father?”

The familiar words were easy to speak, the only thing he could possibly have said without the scream escaping, without the words vanishing into wordless cries of pain. He was grateful to her for giving him the escape, the way to not scream. “James Potter. Bully. Alcoholic. Wizard. Freak.”

“What did he think of you?”

“I—“ he broke off as a fist caught him in the kidney and his knees threatened to collapse beneath him, but he straightened them and forced himself on. “I was a disappointment and an inconvenience.”

“Who was your mother?”

He answered by rote, but not without thought, feeling the words, knowing them. “Lily Potter. Spoiled brat. Whore. Witch. Freak.”

“What did she—“

“Stop it! Stop it, you’re hurting him, you’re gonna kill him!”

He opened his eyes, startled, and twisted his head to see Dudley hurtling down the stairs, expression terrified and horrified, pushing past his mother and grabbing his father’s hand, a thick, broken dowel clutched in it, the last six inches of it red.

Uncle Vernon jerked away and brought the dowel down again, not on Harry’s back but across Dudley’s chest, knocking him back. “Stay out of this, Dudley! He must learn!”

Dudley stared up through wide, shocked eyes, which moved from Uncle Vernon to his mother to Harry and back to Uncle Vernon.

Aunt Petunia moved a step towards him, a flickering sideways glance going to Uncle Vernon, whose eyes never moved from Dudley’s.

“You’re insane,” Dudley whispered.

Uncle Vernon took a step towards him, and the boy rose stumbled back, away, hitting crates behind him, and then sliding along them until he found the gap to the stairs. And then he was running.

“Dudley—“ Aunt Petunia started, voice high and sharp.

“I didn’t mean—but he’ll be fine.” Uncle Vernon turned back to Harry, eyes tiny and furious. “What have you done to my son?” he demanded, grabbing the half empty gallon of paint Harry had been using and throwing it at the stairs for emphasis. “Did you do your magic on him, poison him?”

“No, sir!”

The dowel slammed down, and snapped with a dull crack. He hit him a couple more times with the short end then cast it aside, looking for some other tool.

Harry clenched his eyes, lay his forehead on the pole, and tried desperately not to scream as the blows rained faster and harder and they howled at him as his knees gave way and he collapsed onto the floor, tears streaming down his cheeks. He could hear a buzz of magic, knew he was doing something, but didn’t know what and couldn’t stop it. He tried to obey the shouts for him to stand up, to accept his punishment, but his legs wouldn’t hold him, and his uncle started to kick him, in the stomach, in the sides, in the back, and he found himself curling into a ball, trying to protect himself from the heavy boots, and he had no right—

And then the screams were wilder and less angry and more fearful and the air was hot instead of cold and he forced his eyes open to see the stream of paint on the stairs blazing with fire, his aunt and uncle staring at it in horror. Aunt Petunia threw a bucket of something at it, but instead of fizzling out, it roared larger, and she shrieked and backed away, and it seemed almost to follow, touching the first box beside the stairs and igniting it.

Thick black smoke swirled up from the fire, and Harry took a weak breath and coughed—and his ears hummed with magic and when he coughed blue light came out of his mouth, and the air didn’t smell like smoke any more. He struggled to his feet, trying to get to Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, who had backed away and were coughing themselves, and they looked at him, terrified and horrified, and Uncle Vernon shouted, “Freak!” and put a hand in the middle of his chest and shoved with all his strength.

Harry slammed back into the heavy cabinet beside the stairs and then fell, hearing it creak and groan above him—and then it was on top of him, pinning him, and he couldn’t move, couldn’t—

The gallons of paint on top of the cabinet smashed open as they fell, and he coughed and gasped as he caught a faceful of it, unable even to raise his hand to clear it from his mouth. But worse—the fire caught it and burned madly. He knew he was going to burn as it followed the trail, caught in his hair—and it didn’t hurt, and he could see the blue glow around him growing brighter and stronger, and the buzz got louder, and he whimpered with the knowledge that he was doing magic.

His eyes widened as he saw the fire follow the spilled paint the other way as well—and catch the floor, and burn in a fiery sheet across, towards where Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon huddled against the wall.

Uncle Vernon’s eyes caught his, mad with terror, and he shrieked, “Help us, damn you, Harry, help us!”

And Harry tried to move, but the shelves were too heavy the magic glow was cool around him despite the raging fire and he tried to do something,anything, but he could only watch as the hem of Aunt Petunia’s dress caught, and he screamed with her as she shrieked in pain and fear, swatting ineffectually at the flaming fabric.

“Use your damnedmagic, boy, and save us!” Uncle Vernon screamed.

And he gasped, andtried, tried to make the blue light leave him and go to them,they were the ones who needed it, not him, it didn’t matter what happened to him, but it ignored him, and he shouted out the quenching spell the hat had made him learn, but he didn’t have even a practice wand, and the flames leapt higher and his aunt and uncle screamed and screamed as the smoke blocked his view and then—then the screaming stopped and there was only the shriek of magic and the roar of the fire and his own ragged sobs .

He turned his attention inwards, just like the hat had taught him, searched out the magic just like if it was keeping him from being hungry. He determinedly started trying to unravel it, telling it he didn’t need it, just like he had before with the food magic. It was evil, dark, unnatural. It had let his aunt and uncle die, and he didn’t want it.

He started coughing again through his sobs, and felt the cool start to give way to heat.