Chapter Text
Growing up in the Dursley’s household meant locking eyes with death too often, it meant weeks without meals and days without any sunlight and years knowing they would never be a part of their family. Beatings and threats and chores were what the Dursleys called education, what they said would help them get rid of what was inside them (what they were) to make use of someone who was utterly useless. To not waste anything, all necessities were given to them in the form of hand-me-downs, left-overs and impossible two-minute showers.
And their so-called “bedroom” was a small cupboard under the stairs.
A few of Lia's earliest (happier) memories included staring battles with her twin brother while being locked inside their cupboard or quietly humming melodies while preparing a meal for the Dursleys. However, those memories were quickly overshadowed by the amount of times one of them had to drag the injured body of their sibling into the small space of the cupboard and wrap their wounds in bandages or how often they would make a game out of guessing whose stomach could rumble louder, to distract themselves from the dizziness caused by them being withdrawn food for a long period of time.
Back then, they didn’t quite comprehend how bad it was, which was either a blessing or a curse. In their minds, they were somehow different from Dudley. They understood that he was born with something that made him the prince of the household, while they were born to be the opposite. They went through life believing everything the Dursleys said about them to be true, which did have its perks of never having to hope for things to get better than they were and ultimately being disappointed. On the other hand, a child believing that this way of treating them was somehow justified and that they deserved it… would have a hard time unlearning those ideas.
Then the letter from Hogwarts arrived.
A letter for them!
It was a letter for what they believed were the two people on earth no one would ever want to write to. A white envelope with gold letters on the back was delivered with the mail of the Dursley household and with it, for the first times in their life, a sense of hope. When Vernon saw the letter, he naturally ripped it out of Harrys hands, who was responsible for getting the mail that day, and made sure to get rid of it. That didn’t really matter for them, because more than on the disappointment of losing the letter, their minds were hung up on the fact that someone made the effort to even write them one.
Then there was another one.
Vernon confiscated this one too, but it wasn’t long before another one arrived. And another one. Then there were loads of letters being delivered at the same time and when Vernon blocked the slit in the door they came in through any other way they could, brought to their house by thousands of owls. And every new letter that arrived, brought a new flicker of hope for Harry and Lia.
When one day a tornado of said letters erupted in the living room, Vernon had had enough and had brought them to a shabby cottage by the sea on what just happened to be their birthday. A birthday that completely changed their perception of everything around them, when a half-giant named Hagrid entered the cottage and educated them about the magical world, wizards and witches and most importantly: their heritage.
Harry Potter, her twin brother, was the boy who lived! Their parents were not drunks who died in a car crash, but played an important role in a war against a dark wizard and died protecting them.
They were accepted to a magical school called Hogwarts, where they found friends, had a fantastic first school year and managed to defeat the dark Wizard.
And the best of all of it? The Dursleys were scared of wizards. They gave them Dudley's second bedroom and even though it was not much, they did their best to conceal their real treatment of them from the outside world. Already soon after arriving at Hogwarts it dawned on them how wrong the Dursley’s treatment of them was, but seeing them try to hide it, like it was an actual sin, made them realise how wrong it really was for them to be treated this way.
However, the knowledge of there being something better than this horrible family somewhere outside of the bloodwards, made every beating and every period of hunger just a little more difficult to stand. It was a constant fight of their childhood thoughts telling them how this was normal and they should be grateful for the roof over their heads and their rational thoughts telling them that running off would be a considerable solution.
Last year they had run off.
It had been Harry’s idea, after he had blown up aunt Marge - He had gotten their trunk and his wand, ready to get away from the house. His automatic assumption had been that she would accompany him, which she had in the end, but not before trying to talk him out of his plan.
It was only accidental magic, she had told him.
I doubt the Dursley’s will care, he responded, before stepping out of the house.
This year, though, Lia initiated the runaway.
It was the summer after the triwizard tournament and Harry had been struggling… a lot. Nightmares had been keeping him awake and without the proper rest his energy levels had been too low for him to fulfill any chore properly - a fact that did not help with his reputation with the Dursleys.
Lia had tried to lift the weight of his shoulder by doing some more chores, but it didn’t really help when the Dursley’s always found a new way to torment her brother - especially today. The Dursley’s had spent the whole day throwing insults at their heads, especially at Harry. The jokes were cruel and with Harry’s mental state, he just got more and more irrated as the Dursley’s went on about him. She managed to calm him down, but what really got to him in the end, was when they targeted her.
“And what? We give you a roof over your heads, food and a family and you just laze around all day and glare at me, as if it’s my fault that you are an ungrateful brat who decided to get mingled in all of this wizard mess. We knew you’d be miserable, that’s why we tried to keep you away from this, but guess who wouldn’t listen?” She could feel her brother getting close to snapping at their uncle. Laying one hand on his forearm, which was still wet with soap and water from scrubbing the floors, she tried to calm him down, which worked, but only for so long.
“And you” Vernons gaze hardened as he looked at her, “don’t have to act all goody two shoes. At least this brat had a reason for choosing life as a wizard. He is famous, he has made a name for himself there and he is capable in his freakish ways, otherwise he wouldn’t have so many people coming here for him each summer. But what do you do? You stay low and do the same as your brother, the way you always did. Do the freaks even know you? Know about you? Probably not, because all you always do is stay silent on what is happening.”
Lia kept her head down, determined to not show her uncle how his words did hid a spot inside of her that she liked to keep hidden. Yes, she did stay silent on a lot of things, so what? Often it was the smartest way out of trouble, she had learned that from Vernon himself, who targeted her probably only half as much as he did Harry, only because Harry got noticed, which she had learned to avoid. The issue with this was, however, that sometimes you draw attention for being too silent and she knew, Vernon did not like to be outsmarted.
“Get up”, she heard Vernons threatening voice. It was rare for the twins to be asked to get up off a floor in this household, but when it happened, it always meant trouble. She slowly rose from her feet, still avoiding looking directly at the eyes she hated so much. Harry stood with her, like always, supporting her. But before she could even register him, Vernons hand had already landed on her cheek, leaving a stinging sensation on her face. She drowned out his rage-fulfilled voice, like she should’ve done from the start. What was she thinking, letting his words get to her again? It had been her downfall in the past and she would not let it happen again.
He buried his hand in her hair and yanked at it. At this rate, she would probably need to wear a hat to Hogwarts, otherwise there was no way her hair loss would go unnoticed, not only from Vernons tendency to yank at it, but also from the lack of nutrients, making it fall out naturally. She could feel his grip growing less steady in her hair, as more and more hair was being ripped out of her scalp. Her eyes began to water, her scalp was burning and probably turning a nasty red color on her now bald spots and she was thinking about how, in moments like this, she truly wished she would stand up for herself.
Ulitmately she didn’t need to, because Harry was quick to react. He tried to loosen Vernons grip on her and pushed him away from her, throwing the insults at his head, he’d been trying to hold back all day. A big mistake. Sometimes Lia wondered if he even thought about the consequences his actions could have. She knew he would do anything for her, which made her even more scared for him, because she also knew that the Dursley’s would never tolerate any of it. Not today, not ever. And still Harry tried to shove their uncle, who was triple his size, only to protect her. She could already sense that Vernon was about to treat Harry much worse than he just treated her.
Unfortunately, she was right and she could only watch in horror, as Harry got shoved into the wall next to her and Vernon formed a fist with his hand, that was soon to make contact with Harry’s body. Again and again, the fist collided with his stomach, his chest and eventually his face. She winced. The unmistakable sound of bones crushing filled her ears as she tried to find a way to stop her uncle from trying to knock out her twin brother.
When Vernon put his hands around Harry’s neck to blocked his airflow, she pulled at his arms, trying to loosen his grip around Harry’s neck. She wanted to scream at him to stop already, to just let her brother go, who had already started flailing with his arms and gasping for air. Her eyes focused on her uncles face, as she searched for his eyes and hopefully, some mercy in them, but there was only determination, she quickly realised.
He was determined to get rid of them this time.
It was not really surprising in the end, which didn’t mean, that it made the situation any less terrifying for them. Harry and Lia had just been assuming for a while, that one day, their uncle was going to get sick of them. Last summer, when Harry had blown up aunt Marge, he had assumed it would happen, but Lia knew, when looking into the mad eyes of Vernon, that it would be today. She looked at Harry and could see him starting to lose consciousness. He was slowly giving up.
And that was when Lia decided to stop leaving her destiny up to someone else. They had asked their elementary school teacher for help, who promised it would get better, once she talked to the Dursley’s, they had asked their weird neighbour Miss Figg for help, who promised she would get help soon and they had asked Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard alive, who’s solution was sending back to the place they asked to get away from. In all three instances of telling an authority person, their situation did not once improve, so why should she start hoping for someone to save them now? She was a wizard, for Merlin’s sake! She could defend herself.
With that thought lingering, she kept pulling at Vernons arm, desperately trying to loosen his grip around Harry’s neck, but he wouldn’t budge. Then the other way, she thought to herself and sank her teeth into her uncles arm, who yelped at the sudden pain and let go of her brother, who ended up on the floor. He shoved her into the kitchen counter, making a glass fall down in the process. And with the sound of the glass shattering into pieces, Vernon seemed to realise what he was doing.
No, he did not regret beating Harry up until the brink of death nor did he regret yelling at them and insulting them. But he did seem to realise he was using up a lot of energy on children that weren’t his, that were only supposed to do the dirty work for him and were worth much less than him. Apparently that thought gave him a sense of superiority, because he started grinning.
He picked Harry up by his collar and dropped him on the shards of glass, making sure to stomp on his body one last time before leaving the room. As he walked up the stairs back to his wife, Lia could hear him yelling one last thing.
“Make sure to collect all the shards his back didn’t!”
She could feel the blood rushing in her ears at the comment. Yes, she was furious and fought the urge to shout something back, but she could also feel her heart beating with the fear for her brother and the rush of adrenaline that didn’t subdue. Lia scrambled over to him, not really caring if her knees got scraped by the shards of glass on the floor. He looked awful and it was so bad that she would’ve thrown up, had she had anything proper to eat before, but her stomach was empty. Gently, she tried shaking his shoulders, seeing if and how he would react. Thank Merlin, he opened his eyes and he seemed to be at least somewhat responsive. That was all she needed for now.
She would tend to his injuries once they were out of danger. Danger, she realised, described the Dursley household pretty well. Wasn’t it ironic how the whole wizarding world tried to keep them safe, when the place they got sent back to was just as dangerous for them as an encounter with Voldemort was? And they had let them, thinking it made sense, when ultimately, no one should live the way they did. Today, she was determined to change that.
“Can you move, Harry?” she asked him quietly, mustering up all her strength to use her voice after what had just occured. He winced in response, obviously still in pain, but she didn’t stop. “Harry, please, if you can move, help me, I can’t carry you.” Groaning in pain, he managed to sit up with her help.
“Good. We’ll take the Knight Bus to Diagon Alley and there we’ll check in at the Leaky Cauldron, just like we did last year.” She whispered, while she got up off the floor.
“You want to run again? Have you forgotten about how it ended last time? We got caught immediately.” Harry countered, his voice hoarse with pain.
“And? We didn’t have to go back to the Dursley’s for the summer, did we? And that was the whole point. Now come on, I’ll help you get up.” She slid one arm around him to support him, while he slowly stood, wincing in pain. She could feel his body trembling with each movement, but she didn’t comment on it.
“I’ll get our wands and send Hedwig away and then we’ll get out of here.” Any other of their belongings were locked in their trunk, which she didn’t plan on bringing this time, now that she had to mostly carry her brother as well. While normally, their wands would also be locked inside the trunk, this summer, they had avoided them being taken away, which was mostly thanks to their hiding skills. Petunia and Vernon gave up after a week of searching the house, determined to not waste another second on anything related to magic. (The wands were in the garden, stuck in the ground under Petunia’s Rhododendron and mimicking small stems. Hidden in plain sight, but then again, Petunia never really cared for the plants, they did that.)
She sent Hedwig to the Weasley’s, with a short note, asking if they could care for Hedwig for a while. Then she made her way downstairs, to find her brother leaning heavily against a wall. Carefully, she slid an arm around his torso, to support him on their way outside, where she left Harry standing to retrieve their wands, returning with their wands drenched in water and mud. Again, she supported her brother, as they made their way into the cold night, to catch the Knight Bus and to hopefully improve their current situation.