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As the wuthering summer of 1995 came to an end Harry stands on the other side of it a different person. He’s had a significant growth spurt over the hot weeks of July. His little twin-sized bed now holds no space for him, his feet, and ankles dangle over the bed but he knows better than to complain about it. Curling up like a cat on his bare sheets, Harry thinks of Ron and Hermione. Whatever they must be up to he’s heard no word of it. All summer long he’s been forced to go on without news and it is bloody irritating – to put it nicely.
He feels out of the loop. As if there’s a huge plan that seemingly everyone knows about except him.
It’s all a big joke, Harry thinks. Not to mention also fucking dodgy to just leave him out of it like that. He can just see them all huddle together at dinner time, playing quidditch together all day long: Harry gets beaten with a belt if eats too much at lunch for fucks sake.
Ever since he’s returned to Little Whinging Harry hasn’t been able to sleep. Been trying since the beginning of summer, he tries, completely honest when he says that he tries his darn hardest to sleep like a normal person, but he just can’t. Most nights nowadays he stays up staring at his ceiling, looking at the old paint job chipping off the walls, doing some homework whenever the boredom truly bites into him – he managed to sneak it by the Dursley’s as Dumbledore pulled them for a word on the platform. He snuck the folders into his backpack and his wand into his jacket for when they needed to search his trunk. And so most nights he stays awake memorizing potion ingredients like mantras instead of graveyards and bellowing screams. He sees green and tries to think of gilly weed instead of a curse. And he tries his best at not thinking of… a certain Hufflepuff.
Instead, he stays awake thinking of all the many magical creatures that Newt Scamander has encountered, he thinks of Doxies and Fwoopers and Sweeping Evils and Grindylows. His favorite is the Demiguise – a creature that resembles a sloth and monkey that can turn invisible - as they’re strangely cute.
He’s stayed up the past few days consistently, so he is positively knackered.
On this sweltering and sultry summer night, it’s nearing twelve. Harry will be fifteen in five minutes. He does not feel different. He has officially entered the nitty-gritty of his teenage years, but he has no cake and no candles to blow out. No friends that are writing to him even though he’s sent them both about nine letters individually .
It was bullshit. Everything had gone to shit. What he didn’t know was that it was going to get worse .
*
The order of the Phoenix was among the earliest defense organization made to defy Lord Voldemort. It has been secret all this time except to a select few.
One equally sweltering and sultry summer evening Harry got into an argument with Vernon. Harry was washing the dishes after dinner as Vernon threw his plates into the sink water making it splash onto Harry, making him flinch back. The plates and cups make an ear-piercing clang! As they bang against each other in the water. He whipped around and glared at him. Throughout the years' Harry had grown fed up with them and wasn’t the same afraid kid that would beg them to hold his hand – he would bite them back harder than they did him, they were always the ones who wanted a go at him anyway. Now covered in splashes of soap Harry glared at him under his eyelashes.
“You got something to say there freak?” he called teasingly, this was an obvious attempt to rile him up, and had it been any other day, any other summer Harry would have rolled his eyes and moved along with his chores. But it was now the twentieth day in a row that Ron and Hermione had ignored him. And so Harry did something very stupid.
He answered yes and grabs a cup out of the sink, wet and dripping, only to throw it down on the floor, breaking it into shards. Which then ends with Vernon with his big sweaty hands around Harry’s throat, slamming him into the wall again and again – trying to break his skull or kill him Harry wasn’t sure. “Watch yourself you little bitch! I will fucking kill you!”
He yelled out strangled, “Fuck off!” and ended up kicking him in the gonads and all but sprinted up the stairs and into his room: Leaving shards of glass on the floor as he ran. Vernon followed him clumsily as the fat lard hasn’t run in God knows how long. He stays in his room for the rest of the night – he hides there scared as Vernon bangs on the continuously. Harry’s worried that the door will break down by how hard he hits it.
“Come out you disgusting little freak! I will fucking skin you alive do you hear me? I will destroy you!” Harry slid down onto the floor, he put his hands over his ears to ignore the blubbering mess outside of his door. He already knew what he was gonna say afterward – ‘ We never wanted you, we showed you kindness when you deserve nothing of the sort of blah blah’ The Dursleys always wanted to go on and on about how they saved him from the streets. Even though, Harry, now at fifteen would rather live on the street, than anywhere near them . The streets could maybe even be a little comfy if he put enough effort in. He’d rent a nice little corner on the street and sleep in the alleyway – put down some blankets and he was settled.
Harry’s fifteen and alone on his birthday – he has marks on his neck – not the fun kind though. They hurt. They fucking hurt and he fucking hates this family and he fucking hates whatever the fuck is going on in his life. Harry has been seeing red for the longest time. He’s always had a short fuse but lately, it seemed to be getting shorter and shorter by the minute. A single wrong look or scoff or annoying intake of breath made his temperature rise. Banging stops, the front door opens, and like a can of worms has been opened – all hell breaks loose. Petunia’s voice, all strident and deafening starts screaming as Vernon complains about him to her. When they’re like this they all look like a bunch of babbling babies to Harry, ceaselessly needy and dependent on each other. As if they wouldn’t their asses from their heads if the other wasn’t there to point it out.
Harry feels like he’s going insane, going off the deep end completely. He doesn’t know how to stop it but he can’t wait to tell Ron and Hermione about this night if they ever respond to him.
*
The Dursleys sat around the dinner table unrelenting in their silence. Picking at his food Harry thought that if someone was to walk in, virtually a complete stranger, they’d probably think they were a picture-perfect family. The British nuclear family with a father, mother, child, and the orphan that lives under the cupboards – “What a joke” he thought bitterly. Vernon, for once, gets up from the dinner table first, he shoots Harry a dirty look before retreating upstairs. Dudley followed suit but planted himself in front of the tv. Slamming his fork down, he gritted out “It wasn’t my fault,”
“Nothings ever your fault" petunia hissed back.
“He started it, he deserved it – “
“You behaved like a graceless bull dyke,” she shrieked, “I was embarrassed for you.”
Harry sighed “I’m sorry – “
Petunia slapped him hard. "Don’t talk back to me" she screamed, snapping. Harry felt his cheek warm from the thrash of the pain.
“Saying I’m sorry isn’t talking back”
“Is that supposed to be smart?” Petunia pounced then and Harry followed suit. They flew up from their seats and started circling in on each other. Harry had never seen Petunia like this, she was so frail and sickly looking he'd never thought could pack such a punch. He tried to calm her down by whispering 'stop, stop!' and 'calm down' but she was in one of her states. Sometimes it was like his aunt was another person, or she imagined him to be someone else - because the look in her changed. Now she looked at him with rage, like she wanted to kill him. She started throwing plates at him as he backed against the wall, dodging ceramic as it shattered.
“You don’t get to live off of us and act like a stupid fucking mongrel!” she screeched. “You freak! Freak!”
“I don’t wanna live with you anyway!” He wailed.
Petunia quickly, clumsily, grabbed a bread knife and pelleted it at him – ripping into his arm. The room is hushed as they both stared at the knife in him. His aunt stood there, face ashen and pale – not because she hurt him but because it had left a mark. Multiple marks at once couldn’t be a coincidence and she knew that, they all knew it. Rage brewed in his chest, he was almost impressed as he ripped it out, a clean cut. Chucking it down on the table he stepped out of the dining hall.
*
Harry fears being forgotten. That whatever effort he’s poured into his actions will spill over and fall at his feet. If everything is just going to end anyways living as he does now should be a solace, it should be so easy. But even as he thinks, his feet become heavier with each step he takes towards his days. Harry’s head is too heavy for his own neck, his hands are sore and hold no purpose – his palms empty and body pushed down by the universe. He has been pulled around his entire life with a wretched feeling of monachopsis: that his life isn’t his own. While he may be the one in control he’s not really in control. Because someone will ask for a favor and then expect your loyalty.
*
Harry’s fifteen and he’s angry . Harry Potter has officially entered the gritty part of his teenage years and he’s lost the plot. He feels angry about everything, about the way Ron and Hermione move around him as if he’s a dangerous animal that needs to be locked up like he could and would hurt them if they turned their back on him. But a gross, wrong, hateful part of him goes ‘ good, you should be scared, you should be ashamed.’ He hated when he was like this though like he was sharp edges and razor-sharp remarks that were just made to cut into someone’s soft inwards with no regard to their feelings – something cruel. Someone cruel. Harry felt like he was someone different. But he didn’t really care, couldn’t care because everything had just become loud – everything had changed, everyone changed after Voldemort came back so why shouldn’t Harry?