Chapter Text
The afternoon was anything but radiant. It felt as if the very universe were mirroring the misery of a small, seven-year-old boy. The sky was a sullen grey, smothering the sun's usually cheerful warmth. Heavy clouds wept rain with the same fury as the tears streaming down the boy’s face. Thunder cracked as violently as his own sobs, and lightning tore across the sky as his emerald-green eyes stared in terror at the man before him.
Vernon Dursley had a furious clutch on Harry James Potter’s black hair. His bristly blond moustache all but vanished against a face turned a furious, mottled red—contorted with rage. On the sofa, Petunia and Dudley watched the scene, a look of simmering satisfaction in their eyes. As Harry wept and struggled to pull away, the man brought Dudley’s belt down hard against his nephew's frail body. All of this, because Dudley had tripped Harry while he was carrying the tray for their afternoon tea, sending scalding liquid all over the man’s work papers.
Harry's throat was raw from pleading for forgiveness. His skin was broken and bleeding from the bite of the belt buckle, the blows falling hardest on his exposed legs where his trousers had been yanked down around his ankles. His vision swam, blurred by the tears that cascaded from his terrified eyes. He couldn't endure it any longer. He couldn't bear to live with his aunt and uncle. For as long as he could remember, he had been despised, treated like vermin. He was forced to toil like a slave—cleaning the house, tending the garden, pruning the hedges, mowing the lawn, cooking their meals, and serving his uncle and cousin. They found amusement in his suffering, a perverse delight in his mistakes and the severe punishments that Vernon meted out. Harry desperately wished for someone to rescue him, but no one ever came. In all his seven years in that house, not a single soul had ever come to save him from this nightmare. His uncle had made it clear: he was never to speak of this to anyone, never to let anyone see the bruises and cuts. Harry knew he had to remain silent and obey every command, or the beatings would only get worse.
“Give me the poker, Dudley!” Vernon snarled, throwing the belt to the floor as he yanked Harry’s head back by a fistful of black hair. Harry’s eyes widened in sheer terror. Dudley, an eight-year-old boy with a cruel smirk that mirrored his father’s, obeyed at once, fetching the fire poker from its stand. Harry watched, frozen, as the glowing red tip drew slowly nearer.
“N-no! Please! No! I'm sorry! Please, Uncle!” The little boy was frantic, hot tears carving paths through the grime on his cheeks. Another clap of thunder rattled the house, hard on the heels of a flash of lightning.
“This will teach you to stop being a nuisance!” Vernon’s eyes gleamed with a seething hatred. Harry tried to squirm away, to kick, to punch—anything—but the man’s strength was overwhelming. His struggles were useless. “You stupid freak! You should have learned your lesson by now! You’re going to pay for ruining my reports!” Vernon lowered the arm holding the poker and brought it down with savage force on the boy’s left leg.
A sickening crack echoed in the room as the heavy iron bar met his shin.
For a moment, Harry was lost, bewildered by the sheer intensity of the pain. His vision went dark, and the only sound was a high-pitched ringing in his ears; he couldn’t even hear the scream he knew was tearing from his own throat. More tears flowed as the agonising pain and the burning heat intensified with every heartbeat. He barely registered Vernon leaning down and slamming his head against the floorboards, once, twice, three times. The little boy was overwhelmed, his senses shutting down as his brain struggled to process the assault. He didn’t feel the warm trickle of blood from his forehead where his head had split open, nor the crushing weight of his uncle’s massive body pinning him down. He was utterly oblivious as the glowing tip of the poker descended towards his right eye.
That state of shock shattered when the searing metal pierced his eyeball.
Another scream tore through Harry’s already ravaged throat as his “family” laughed at his agony. He screamed with every ounce of strength he had, but no one outside these walls would ever hear his pleas for help. It was as if a soundproof barrier surrounded the house, preventing anyone from seeing or hearing the horrors that unfolded within. Harry could feel his skin burning, his flesh sizzling like fat in a pan; he felt his eyeball melt and liquefy, and the fractured ends of his tibia grated painfully against torn muscle, threatening to rip through his skin. The pain was so absolute, so all-consuming, that he teetered on the very edge of consciousness.
Then, a force deep within the mutilated little boy surged through his body, erupting from the pores of his battered skin. His one good eye, swimming in tears that mingled with the blood from his brow, saw a shimmering, translucent aura envelop him before it exploded outwards. Vernon was hurled against the far wall with a tremendous crash. The sofa flipped over, sending Petunia and Dudley sprawling to the floor. Everything near Harry was thrown violently aside. Glass shattered, furniture was overturned by the invisible force, and the light bulbs overhead burst, plunging the room into a sudden, gloomy darkness.
Harry looked around in a daze. His entire body throbbed, his head spun, his ears were still ringing, and a blinding, pulsing pain emanated from his leg. Blood dripped from the socket of his right eye. The room was a wreck, and his aunt, uncle, and cousin were staring at him with expressions of pure horror and fear. It was the fury that began to replace the shock in Vernon’s eyes that jolted Harry from his stunned paralysis. Scrambling, the boy hitched up his trousers and fled, bursting through the front door, which now hung crookedly on its hinges from the force of the magical wave. The adrenaline coursing through him numbed the pain in his broken leg, allowing him to run with a surprising, desperate speed.
He didn’t know what had just happened, where he was going, or what he would do. He only knew one thing: he could never go back. If he did, it would be so much worse. He didn't care that his whole body ached as if it had been crushed. He didn't care that his eye felt as if it were on fire. He paid no mind to the awkward, lurching limp in his run, the bloodstains on his oversized clothes, the icy raindrops soaking him to the bone, or the cold that was creeping deep into his marrow. Nothing else mattered. He just had to get as far away as he possibly could.
Harry slipped into the woods lining the road, keeping to the trees to avoid being seen by passing cars. No one would help him; they never did. His teachers had seen his bruises and turned a blind eye. The neighbours, a gaggle of gossips, tutted about his "deplorable, unkempt state" but never cared enough to intervene. No one would ever help him, let alone love him. He had dreamed countless times of his parents appearing at the door to save him, even though he knew they were never coming back. They were dead. His aunt and uncle spat venom about them almost daily, reminding him they were gone forever. They took pleasure in telling him that no one would ever love him, that he was a despicable freak, and that he should have died with his parents so he would no longer be a burden to them.
He only stopped running when his foot slid on the rain-slicked grass, sending him tumbling to the ground. He found himself at the roundabout of London Road and Church Lane. The adrenaline was fading, and exhaustion was setting in. His leg throbbed with a vengeance, and he felt as if he might collapse. Sitting on the wet ground, he looked at his torn trousers, the rough fabric scraping against the raw skin beneath. He gave a weak, miserable smile, noticing they were now even filthier with mud and grass stains.
As he gazed at the sign for All Saints Church, Ascot Heath, a tiny flicker of hope sparked within him. He'd heard his aunt and uncle speak of the church and the "good people" there. Maybe, just maybe, they would help him. With a shuddering sigh, the little boy pushed himself to his feet, shivering from a mixture of cold and pain, and began to limp towards the church. He waited for a gap in the traffic before darting across the road, passing through the cemetery to reach the main entrance.
He focused on not falling; he knew if he went down again, he wouldn't have the strength to get back up. He knocked weakly on the heavy, dark wooden door, his heart hammering against his ribs. It was late, and the silence of the place felt unnerving, amplifying the fear that was taking root in his bones. The door creaked open, revealing a stern-faced nun whose eyes swept over him with blatant disdain, her nose wrinkling as if at a foul smell.
Harry fought back a fresh wave of tears, a cold certainty dawning that she wouldn't help him either. “Could you help me?” he whispered, his voice a hoarse rasp, shredded from his earlier screams.
“I know who you are,” the woman replied, her voice dripping with contempt. “You’re that lying, troublesome nephew poor Petunia Dursley and her family have to put up with!" Her voice rose with righteous anger. “I won’t fall for your tricks, you filthy little demon! Get away from here before I drag you out and throw you in front of a lorry! The House of God is not a place to be tarnished by your wicked presence! Go back to whatever hell you crawled out of and never return! If I see you around here again, I’ll beat the Devil out of you myself!”
Harry stood frozen, her words striking him like physical blows. He felt utterly, completely alone. The darkness around him seemed to press in, and the tiny flicker of hope he’d clung to was extinguished.
"I'm sorry!" was all he could choke out before he turned and forced himself to run, to get as far away as he could.
Tears and blood blurred his remaining vision. The gathering dark of twilight and the relentless rain made it nearly impossible to see. For a terrifying moment, he found himself caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, frozen like a rabbit in the beams. He heard the blare of a horn and the screech of tyres as the driver swerved violently to avoid him. A fresh jolt of adrenaline sent him scrambling off the road. He didn’t dare look back to see if the car had crashed; he couldn’t stop. He had to escape. He couldn’t let anyone else be tainted by him, couldn't risk being dragged back to the Dursleys. He couldn't ask for help.
The little boy didn’t even consider heading towards the car park for Heatherwood Hospital. Disgusting freaks like him didn't deserve help. He had no papers, no money, nothing. If he went there, they would only send him back to his aunt and uncle. No, he couldn't risk it. He could never go back to that house. He’d be all right; his injuries always seemed to heal faster than they should. He just had to survive. He steered well clear of the police station further down the road, knowing he couldn't let them see him. His leg and his eye were screaming in pain, but he pushed it down, forcing himself onward.
He passed the library he often visited with his eccentric, cat-loving neighbour, Mrs Figg, when his relatives wanted him out of the house. A pang of longing shot through him. She had been the one to take him there, where he’d taught himself to read and write. At school, Dudley and his gang always chased him, locking him in cupboards or toilets. Mrs Figg had answered his questions, and the ladies who worked at the library had always been kind, seemingly immune to the poisonous reputation his family had spread about him throughout Surrey. He adored them; they were the only people who had ever been nice to him. But he couldn't ask for their help now. They didn't deserve to be burdened with an aberration like him. They shouldn't suffer the consequences of the evil that lived inside him. With a heavy heart, he limped straight past, keeping to the shadows.
Harry passed several cafés and pubs, but he didn’t stop to rummage through their bins. The high street was still busy, the warm interiors full of people. He couldn’t risk being seen, and after his near-miss with the car, crossing the road again felt like an impossible gamble. He kept limping along the pavement until he reached the village of Sunninghill. Night had well and truly fallen now, and the streets were finally starting to empty.
Sticking to the shadows, Harry managed to scavenge through some bins behind the restaurants and pubs that were closing up for the night. The walk, which should have taken less than an hour, had stretched on for much longer, his fractured leg protesting every agonising step.
After finding a few scraps of food, the little boy crawled into a dark alleyway. To his relief, he found a large, empty kennel, a makeshift shelter from the relentless rain and the biting cold. Soaked through and shivering uncontrollably, Harry curled into a tight ball inside. He was small and thin for his age, and the chill had seeped deep into his bones. At least, he thought grimly, the rain had washed most of the blood from his clothes and hair.
As he lay still, the throbbing in his leg and eye returned with a vengeance, a brutal reminder of the day's torment. Fresh tears streamed down his cheeks as he grieved for a life that felt like nothing more than a burden. How he wished he had died in the car crash that had taken his parents. This suffering was unbearable; why did he have to endure it? Why was he forced to live when everyone he met only caused him pain?
He longed for peace. He thought of his parents. He didn’t care if Petunia called them "nasty drunks." He just wanted it all to be over, to rest forever, free from pain. The thought of not waking up brought a strange, sorrowful sense of peace.
Bathed in rainwater, blood, and tears, shivering in the cold, damp dark, Harry James Potter finally surrendered to the black embrace of unconsciousness. These fleeting moments of oblivion—where pain and suffering ceased to exist—were all he craved. And in those last moments, he silently prayed that this time, he wouldn't have to wake up again.