The Boy That Hid

[stillicides.livejournal.com]

Author: weetziecat
Beta: It's bad that I'm still scared of beta readers, isn't it?
Character: Harry
Rating: G
Word Count: 971
Author's note: I so clearly don't own any of the characters. Con-crit is always very welcome indeed! I'm posting this because hedwigs_bane reckons it'd fit here. I'm thinking about maybe expanding this to have one fic for each of the Trio for a snapshot of their lives before Hogwarts, but don't hold your breaths, I'm not a writer!


“Harry! Hey, Haaaarry!”

Harry groaned, ducked his head, and sped up a little. Why wouldn’t they leave him alone? In all the nine years since he’d been taken in by his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, his cousin Dudley had never once let up on the abuse. Egged on by his father’s bullying, Dudley had known how to hit Harry before he could walk; had learned filthy insults to describe his cousin before he’d started nursery school.

“Oi, speccy, you ignorin’ us?”

And then Dudley had started school. He met Piers on his very first day of Reception, and between the pair of them they had effectively squashed any desire that the other children may have had to make friends with Harry. Not that there had been all that many offers. Mal-nourished as a toddler, he had been unusually small and skinny for his age; his untidy hair had been limp and greasy-looking from lack of care; he had lived in his cousin’s ugly and far too big cast-offs. Not much had changed, all in all. The few gently-raised kids who’d attempted to reach out to him at first had been effectively shown by four-year-old Dudley exactly what happened to children who chose to associate with The Potter Boy.

A clod of mud sailed passed his shoulder, narrowly missing his left ear, and Harry’s head snapped up, his eyes automatically scanning the surrounding area for somewhere he could hide.

The same thing had happened, year after year. New children would start at the school, and some of them would try to befriend Harry, more out of pity and a sense of what their mums would do to them if they didn’t than any desire to be near the boy. Kids who wouldn’t listen to their classmates found out the hard way why Harry was the leper of the school: they’d wind up with their backpacks torn, their belongings stolen or defaced, their arms twisted till they promised they’d leave him alone. And although Harry was bright enough, he consistently got poor marks, due mostly to his uncle’s habit of throwing him in a cupboard at the least provocation. Harry must have missed months of school over the years because of that damn cupboard, never mind the amount of homework that he simply couldn’t do in the small, dark space.

Harry broke into a run, remembering suddenly that there were some large bins against the boys’ toilets in the other playground. If he could get there before Dudley and his gang rounded the corner, he’d be safe, for a while at least.

So here he was, ten years old and only still in school because some of the teachers felt sorry for him and had convinced the headmaster to keep him in spite of the atrocious marks and poor personal hygiene that were his life. He had no friends, no future beyond the local comp, no hope. All he was looking forward to, at this stage, was turning sixteen so he could finally move out. Not that anything in his life thus far had prepared him for looking after himself, not that he had any friends (and what would he give for just one friend?), not that he had any money, but he’d promised himself once he was old enough to understand the concept of living on his own that he’d do so as soon as possible.

He rounded the corner and broke into a sprint at the sight of the bins lined up a foot from the wall. He couldn’t hear Dudley and the others behind him, but he didn’t waste any time looking back to confirm this. Either he was safe or not, glancing over his shoulder wouldn’t change that. His heart hammering, he didn’t even slow down as he approached the bins; he bent his legs and pushed off to jump over them. He turned around upon landing, and blinked in surprise. He was twelve feet above the ground, sat on the roof of the structure he’d been intending to hide next to. Dudley suddenly appeared at the corner. He obviously wasn’t the fittest kid in the world, but once he got going his momentum would make it hard for him to stop, so it took several moments after he’d noticed Harry before his run halted. The gang walked forward, slightly, staring at Harry in surprise.

“How’d you get up there?” It was Piers who incredulously voiced the question.

Harry peered over the edge, taking in twelve feet of sheer brick, with no hand-holds. He was way too short to’ve jumped off the top of the bins, how had he got up here?

“I…I dunno,” was all he could stammer out as a response. He and the crowd of boys on the ground exchanged stares for a couple more moments, before one of them started to back up slightly. Dudley gave the boy a nod of approval, and he turned and broke into a jog.

“Siiiiiir! Sir, Potter’s on the roof!”

Harry didn’t even bother shouting in protest. He curled up on himself with a sigh, wondering what, exactly, he had done this time, and why everyone seemed to hate him. Well, he knew the answer to that one; it began with “D” and ended with “udley”, what he to this day could not comprehend was why his family loathed him. He accepted it, of course, he’d long ago learned the dangers of standing up for himself, but he couldn’t help wondering what his mum had done to inspire such animosity in her sister. He’d obsessed over this his whole life, and still couldn’t figure it out, so these days he tried to push the thoughts out of his mind.

It’ll be better next year, he told himself. New school, new people, no Dudley…maybe I’ll even make a friend.

Comments

[star54kar.livejournal.com]

Awe, poor Harry!

Don't worry love, you'll be meeting your red-headed best mate real soon!

*cuddles him*

Thanks so much for posting this Cat, and stop saying you're not a writer because the proof that you are is directly above this comment:D

Well done!