Chapter Text
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging Surrey,were proud to announce that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
Vernon Dursley works at a firm called Grunnings, which makes drills. He is a large man , with a big mustache and an even bigger appetite. He enjoys good food and will always praise his wife's marvelous cooking. Petunia Dursley is thin and blond, a very nice catch, the neighbors call her. She is a very meticulous housekeeper, as any guest of hers can tell you. The Miss from number 6 likes to fawn over the Dursleys garden and constantly asks Petunia for tips. The Couple from number 10 say that they have never visited a house as clean as that of the Dursleys.
“It's as if the surfaces inside the home gleamed with pride at being owned by such an upstanding family” Mr number 10 simpered.
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley have a son. A seven year old, named Dudley and in their opinion there is no finer child anywhere. The boy is lively and makes friends easily, his best friend is Piers Polkiss and their little group is often seen running around the neighborhood while playing one of their games.
Some would describe the Dursleys as a perfect little family.
But there is one resident of number 4 who does not fit this smoothly ironed-out picture of perfection.
Harry Potter darts through a gap between two identical buildings. His heart thudded against his ribs. His pursuers' cruel laughter echoes behind him like the barking of dogs, the sounds of hunters chasing their prey.
He is a scrawny thing, with clothes hanging off his too small frame like elephant hide. His hair is an unruly mop of black. He’s a starving rabbit on the run from bloodthirsty hounds. Still running he cranes his neck back to look at the group of boys behind him, nearly knocking into a sigh post as he does. The steps behind him get louder.
If he still had air in his lungs to curse he would have but all of that is currently reserved for putting as much distance back in between him and the group as possible. Although that isn’t working out very well either.
Tears threaten to push themselves past his eyelids. No , he can't start crying, not now. What he needs to do is run faster , damn it!
But he can't. He's too weak to be able to keep this up for much longer. Making a sharp left turn into another alleyway he tries to catch his breath. Green Eyes, framed by round glasses, dart around frantically, bouncing off graffiti covered walls until they land on a large trash bin. He doesn't let himself hesitate as he uses his remaining strength to rip open the lid and jump into the bin, letting the black plastic bags dull his fall.
Just in time too, because his group of pursuers stumbles into the alley not a second after the lid closes behind him, shrouding him in total darkness. Harry's heart feels like it's going to jump out of his chest at any moment, and he prays, no he begs that the boys won't find him. He recalls all the moments, oh so similar to this one. Recalls hiding in tight, dark places, holding his breath in hopes of becoming invisible.
“Where the hell did he go?”, asks one of them in a nasal voice. Harry recognizes Jonathan Craig. Brown hair, brown eyes and remarkably tall for a seven year old. Though useful for spotting Harry in a crowd of other children, his height was really the only remarkable thing about him.
“You sure it was this alleyway man?”, another voice questioned. This one, higher and scratching to the ear belonged to Piers Polkiss. He was straw blond and had dull green eyes. His face was pointy and sort of reminded Harry of a rat. Piers was the only child out of the group that was close to Harry's stature. He was the only one capable of fitting through some of the slightly narrower places in which Harry sometimes hid.
“Yes.”, the voice of one Dudley Dursley answered, out of breath. Dudley was a rather unathletic child, it was a wonder he could keep up with Harry at all but he was the one that could hit the hardest. In between pants he continued. “I saw him run right inside. The little freak must be hiding somewhere.”
“There is nothing here Dud.” Piers retorted. Dudley huffed, irritated.
“Well then he just went past the alley, didn't he?” Someone else, who's voice Harry couldn't recognise snickered. Probably new to the game , he thought bitterly.
“After him!” The other children cried out in cruel delight.
Harry sat, frozen inside the garbage can, blood roaring in his ears, nestled between trash bags and the smell of expired fruit and rotting eggs until he couldn't hear their laughter anymore. Only when silence fell, did he finally let the dam break.
Tears poured freely down his cheeks as he sobbed uncontrollably, the buzzing flies his only witness. Today was a very bad day. His whole body ached and not only from exhaustion. There were bruises and scars on his body that had nothing to do with the desperate flight between street corners.
There was a dark bruise on his shoulder in the shape of a hand he got when uncle Vernon dragged him back into his cupboard under the stairs.
There were dozens of small scars littering his hands from the many times he weeded the garden.
There was a fresh, blistering burn on the inside of his left forearm from when Dudley pushed him this morning while he was cooking, making him spill the oil on himself.
His stomach was squeezing and twisting itself into knots and ribbons. He didn't clean the bathrooms well enough yesterday, which meant that he didn’t get any lunch or dinner.
His lips were cracked and his head felt woozy. He didn't get anything to drink since yesterday morning because aunt Petunia thought he didn’t do the dishes well enough. Or she just forgot to give him any.
Why? Why?! Why?! He thought desperately, he didn't even know what question he was asking anymore. There were so many 'Why?'s' that it was very hard to settle for just one.
Why did his parents have to leave him all alone?
Why did they have to die?
Why was he left with the Dursleys of all people? There had to be someone else, right?
Why did the Dursleys have to hate him?
Why was he such a freak?
Why did they find such joy in tormenting him?
A desperate whine, or maybe growl came out of him.
“I want to leave, please, please , I want to leave. I want to leave.” He kept whispering through the tears over and over, rocking back and forth as much as he could, inside the tight waste container.
“ Please …” He didn't know who or what he was pleading with. Maybe some forgotten deity. Forgotten, just like him. “Please, I want to leave…”
When has crying ever done you any good? It’ll just land you in more trouble, freak . A voice that sounded like Dudley mocked.This time, what came out of Harry’s mouth really was a choked up growl. Gritting his teeth he focused on taking measured breaths.
After a long, long time the tears stopped flowing and Harry’s breathing evened out. Body shaking he opened up the lid to the garbage bin. Clumsily he tried to swing himself over the edge of the bin. He ended up falling on his butt and hissed in pain. He took another deep breath before slowly, shakily standing back up -
That's when he felt it.
A low, static buzz, like the steady hum of a computer or a swarm of lazy insects.
Harry slowly turned around. There, a bit further into the alley, was a door. It was an old oak door with a handle made of brass … He didn't know how he knew that.
The air felt like it was charged with electricity. His hair stood on end.
Everything was unnaturally veiled by a heavy silence. No birds were calling, no tires were screeching on the street, no steps resounded on the pavement, no wind rustled through the trees, no insects were buzzing, no … anything. There was just absolute silence. It was quiet enough that you could hear a pin drop.
The door just stood there, unsupported by any other structure, in the middle of the alleyway. Looming tall and straight and silent, just like the rest of the world. From under the door a strange light shone, constantly changing in color. From red to pink, to blue, to lavender, to yellow, to red. Some of the colors made him go cross-eyed and his head hurt, as if his brain didn't want to process them. The light flickered happily, as if beckoning him forward , as if saying: “Come. Come, open the door. I know you want to. ~ ”
A thought crossed Harry's mind then. Could this be some sort of answer to his wishes? Did someone - something - finally hear him?
Wearily he stepped closer, reaching his small hand for the handle before hesitating.
How would he know that whatever is on the other side is friendly? Why is he just accepting that there is just a door in the middle of the alley? It's much more likely that this is some sort of dehydration induced hallucination.
He had one of those once, when he was four. His head was feeling woozy and his lips were cracked. He thought that there was a woman with a deer skull for a head outside the house, her antlers curved over her head like a crown or a halo of light and bone. She was watching him and he watched her. He didn't know how he knew that it was a she, just that she was. She had long wavy hair decorated by shiny beads. Her flowing robes reminded Harry of the night sky, an endless void speckled with stars and adored by silver moons and golden suns. Galaxies of strange, incomprehensible symbols twisted along the fabric and somewhere between the folds of the universe he thought he recognised a planet of awesome size lit by no sun. An invisible titan, all thick black forests and jagged mountains and deep turbulent oceans. It was so far away and yet it was terrifying. He flinched away from the window, shutting his eyes tightly and running to tell his aunt.
When he told aunt Petunia what he saw she became white as a sheet, grabbed a pan from the stove and went outside. Later she came back and started screaming at him furiously, screeching that he ‘ shouldn't ever blabber such nonsense again!’ before calling him an 'attention seeking freak’ and hitting him over the head with the frying pan. He was then allowed to drink a glass of water and promptly locked back inside his cupboard for the rest of the day.
If this door wasn’t something caused by his dehydration, then it was also possible that he was currently dying inside the garbage dump and this was his subconscious way of trying to process that. What if the door is his way to imagine a way to the afterlife? If he steps through, will he die?
But … his brain whispered. Would dying really be that bad? Could it really do any harm to check? He laughed bitterly.
Maybe, he thought, with a grim laugh , an angel will greet him on the other side. There was a stinging in his eyes again and he swallowed back the tears.
The door just stood there, indifferent to his conflict, unmoving and silent, patiently awaiting his decision. He bit his lip. His ears were ringing from the absolute silence hanging in the air. As if the world stopped, just to await this one decision.
Slowly, oh so slowly he reached out and turned the handle. There was no resistance as he pushed open the old, oak door …