Chapter Text
Harry had been having a good day so far- which, in itself, should’ve been a warning that things were too good to last.
Never one to trust- one thing they had in common, as loathe Harry was to admit it -, Vernon had pulled Harry aside right before they left.
“I‘m warning you now, boy- any funny business, anything at all- and you will feel pain. As much as possible.“
Harry nodded his head once in silent acknowledgment, though his thoughts were something quite different. Inside of his head, he was keeping up a running commentary of what he wished he could do to the fat, purple faced oaf in front of him, like what you‘d hear at a football game.
Potter slams his knee into the dick‘s dick! Ooh, that couldn‘t have felt good- too bad, because Potter comes back with an uppercut to the jaw! Look closely, folks, and you can see the fat rippling around the fist! That‘s going to leave a-
Harry felt a burst of bad breath rippling around his face. He blinked once to see the man‘s face inches away from his own.
“You know what, you freak ?“ A shower of spit accompanied those words and Harry had to forcibly steel himself to keep from flinching. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe a freak like you for one second.“
Harry stopped himself from rolling his eyes. That wasn’t exactly news to him, not many people would choose to believe the skinny, messy-haired ‘hooligan‘ that wandered the streets with homeless people. The first person to ever believe him had been one of his fellow street children, not friends, never friends, he doesn’t have friends they would only hurt him and he had never seen them after an accident in the streets.
He cleared his throat and looked the brute in the eyes. “Well, you’re going to have to… unless you let me stay-“
Maybe he could watch one of DudBrain‘s television shows, or play a game on the computer. Harry had to suppress a wave of giddiness at the thought, which was easy after years of practice. Honestly, either option was a win for Harry. All he had to do was play his cards right, and make sure that the Dunce-ley family didn‘t realise that all they had to do was send him to stay with one of their neighbours or something equally terrible.
“And come back and find the house in ruins?“ snarled Vernon, looking like he swallowed a lemon.
“I‘m not going to blow up the house,“ muttered Harry, but his attempts were futile.
So, here he was.
While driving, Vernon complained to Petunia about something or another- Harry didn’t care for his daily rants. Vernon loved complaining- Harry, his coworkers, Harry, the government, Harry, the bank, Harry, street rats, and Harry were just a few of his favourite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.
“…roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums.“ he said as a motorcycle overtook him.
“I had a dream about a motorcycle. It was flying.“ Harry said through DudBrain.
One of Harry‘s favourite tricks was saying something through another‘s voice or mouth. It was funny, especially in class, to get Dudley in trouble.
One time in grade one, on one of the few days that Harry attended the class, their professor had asked the students to go home and interview their parents.
“I will be handing out a paper sheet to everyone, I want you to put your name on it and bring it home. The paper has a list of questions I would like you to ask your parents.“
In the back, Dudley had whispered loudly, “Oh, but who will poor little Potty ask? I heard that his own parents killed themselves because they didn’t want to have him as a son,“
Of course, their professor, who was a senile old man that didn‘t even know the weather outside, didn‘t notice the oaf‘s carrying comment. The class was suddenly filled with stifled sniggers.
Harry narrowed his eyes at the pig in a wig and wished he could retaliate. With his luck, though, the teacher would see whatever he tried to do and send him home to get another beating from the Dursley‘s. He satisfied himself with imagining various scenarios of DudBrain making a fool of himself in front of the class.
To his surprise- and delight - Dudley jumped up onto his desk (which creaked from the strain) and hooted like a monkey, slapping his bum. Not even the senile bastard could remain oblivious to that.
DudBrain got kept after school that day for horseplay, and Harry learned something at school, for the first and last time ever.
“MOTORCYCLES DON‘T FLY!“ Vernon slammed his foot down on the brakes, nearly hitting the car in front of them.
Piers sniggered, but quieted under a glare from Dudley.
If there was one thing the Dunce-leys hated more than, well, him- was talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn‘t, no matter if it was in a dream or a cartoon- they seemed to think he would get dangerous ideas. They weren‘t wrong, Harry thought with a wry grin.
He had learned of this at a young age… in the typical way he was ‘educated‘ of the rules in the Dunce-ley house.
Those bastards, Harry scowled as he traced the particular scar from that ‘lesson‘.
Harry watched on in amusement as an upset DudBrain was consoled by a slightly guilty Vernon and a suspiciously flustered Petunia, who apologised to Piers.
“See, Vernon doesn‘t much like when others talk about things doing things that they aren‘t supposed to. You see, no harm done-“
One glance at Piers‘s mischievous grin made it obvious that he would tell everyone he could about the incident, much to Petunia‘s displeasure.
Petunia hated when anything was even remotely out of the ordinary. This only applied to her own family, of course. She loved it when other people had drama. Her main source of entertainment was listening to the neighbours‘ private conversations under the guise of watering her plants.
When they got to the zoo, Harry, for the first time in a long time, couldn’t push down his smile.
It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dunce-leys bought DudBrain and Penis-Face large chocolate ice-creams and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry wanted before they could usher him away, they bought him a Spider-Man themed popsicle, which he ordered with a shit-eating grin at Vernon and a sweet, innocent one at the lady.
Perhaps not the best choice, he decided, licking it as he watched a gorilla that resembled DudBrain greatly scratching its head- before he thought that was an insult to the gorilla.
He was careful, of course, to walk directly behind the two boys, who looked remarkably like the number ten when they were right next to each other. He thought it would be fun to flaunt the fact that they couldn‘t do anything to him in public- and it certainly was hilarious when they kept sending him little glares that they must‘ve thought to be intimidating.
After lunch, they went to the reptile house. Harry wanted to see the snakes and talk to them, maybe, like he had once. He still didn’t know if it was a fever dream or not, and he conceded that now would be as good a time as any.
The inside of the exhibit was cool and dark, with lit windows that showed the various animals in each of them. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. The two other boys wanted to see the huge, venomous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. DudBrain quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped itself around the Dunce-ley family twice and crushed them to bloody bits- and boy, wasn‘t that a nice image? Sadly, it didn‘t seem to be in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.
DudBrain stood with his nose pressed to the glass, making him seem even more like a pig than he usually did.
“Make it move,“ he whined to his father. Vernon tapped on the glass, ignoring the numerous signs that said to do the exact opposite of that, but the snake didn‘t move or open its eyes.
Harry wished he could get away with ignoring the Dunce-leys like it did, but alas.
“Do it again,“ he ordered. Vernon knocked harder, but the snake snoozed on.
“This is boring,“ DudBrain groaned. He shuffled away with his family.
Harry moved in front of the glass and stared intently at the snake. He supposed he could sympathise with it- after all, he too was locked in a small room (if you could call it that) for most of his life. Of course, he at least had the liberty to move around the rest of the house, while it was stuck there with only the company of stupid people drumming their fingers just to disturb it all day long.
Suddenly, the snake blinked its beady little eyes open. Slowly, almost painfully slowly, it raised its head to be at the same level as Harry‘s.
It cocked its head like a puppy and looked deeply into Harry‘s eyes, green meeting black for the first time. Something like a lightning strike thundered through Harry‘s chest, and it was only with the years of practice for hiding pain that he didn‘t step back. Instead, he felt a slight tug from where his heart was extending to the creature.
The snake seemed to feel it, too, for it flinched back, then slowly moved forward.
Harry, unsure what just happened, grinned at it. The snake grinned back in its own way, baring its teeth in a friendly manner. At least, to Harry it seemed friendly. He would’ve interacted more with it, but then a distraction in the form of a twig in a human disguise yelled out from beside him.
“DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! LOOK! LOOK AT THE SNAKE! YOU WON‘T BELIEVE WHAT IT‘S DOING!“
Dudley came waddling as fast as he could.
“Out of the way, you.“ he said, punching Harry hard in the ribs. Harry, who had felt much worse, simply stepped back out of surprise. What happened next was so fast that only Harry knew exactly how and what actually occurred. One second, Penis-Face and DudBrain were practically climbing on the glass, the next, they leapt back with twin screams.
Harry smirked to himself; after all, who wouldn‘t when hearing their tormentors shout out like six year old girls who just saw the new Barbie. To everyone in the reptile house‘s horror, the giant snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, approaching the spot where the large sheet of glass used to be.
As it slithered past him, Harry heard a low, hissing voice say, “Thanksss, amigo… ssee you ssssoon, bond-mate.“
Even though Harry was slightly confused by the snake‘s words, (bond-mate? What does that mean? Also, see you soon? Huh?) he couldn‘t help but feel a sense of triumph. He knew he talked to a snake all those years ago!
The keeper of the reptile house was beside himself with shock.
“But the glass,“ he kept saying, his face pale. “where did the glass go?“
The zoo director himself made Petunia a strong cup of tea while apologising over and over again. Penis-Face and DudBrain could only gibber.
Pathetic, Harry thought, looking at them critically. As far as he‘d seen, the snake had only snapped playfully at their heels, but by the time they got back to the car, all the duo could talk about was how it had almost taken a bite out of Dudley‘s leg, and how it had nearly squeezed Piers to death.
Unfortunately, Piers had calmed down just enough to say, “Well, Harry was talking to it, weren‘t you, Harry?“
Which wasn’t true, exactly. He wasn’t talking to it, just… communicating with facial expressions.
Whatever the case, Harry suffered one of the worst beatings of his life later that day.
As he lay in the dark cupboard that night, painstakingly bandaging each one of his injuries and applying salve to the ones that weren‘t dripping blood, he wondered what he had done to deserve this.
Had some higher power in the universe looked down on him and decided, “Well, this seems like a good outlet for all the bad things in life!“ and just left him here, in a box, ten years ago?
The Dunce-leys had told him that his parents died in a car crash, but Harry never believed them. One, because he wasn’t stupid, and he knew that the people who called themselves his relatives would never tell him the truth. And two, they had also told him that he was in the car when it happened, and that the scar he had was from the impact.
Harry didn‘t particularly hate the lighting scar on his right temple. It looked pretty cool, with jagged tendrils stretching out and down towards his eye. Its pale colour greatly contrasted the dark skin that had somehow not lost its brown tint after years in a dark room. But he knew that that sort of scar couldn‘t come from an impact like that- as someone who had been treating their own wounds since they were six, he knew that the only way for it to look like that was magic.
…Or an actual lightning strike, but he was opting for magic.
Besides, it lined up with the burst of green light he remembered. It was his earliest memory, and he didn’t think car accidents had blinding flashes of green light.
He wished sometimes, during long hours in the cupboard, that a stranger would come and take him away. He knew he didn’t belong here, but he could feel it; he did somewhere, somewhere so far yet so close.
Random people on the street often acted like they knew who he was. Just last week, a short, bald man in a purple cloak shook his hand very enthusiastically, looking like he had just met the Prime Minister. When he asked, quite confusedly, why he was doing that, he was met with a stare of pity and a quick goodbye, leaving him even more confused.
And angry.
Harry hated pity.
(He wasn’t very good at social interactions, having spent most life in a cupboard.)
This was why he preferred the streets. There was no pity, no people looking down on you and saying, oh you poor darling . Just an acknowledgment of the fact that sometimes, people came from bad places.
Compared to some of the people he had met, he had it pretty good.
Count your blessings, he learned. Wait for the right moment.
He would certainly do that, he thought before drifting off into an uneasy sleep.