Surprise

                                    

                                          
Harry let the cat out of the bag shortly before his sixth birthday.  Voldemort crackled delightfully, as the fist of Vernon Dursley stopped  millimetres in front of the child's face. Time to turn the tables.
                          
Ever  since that one faithful night of Christmas 1982, things had slowly  begun to change. Slowly but steadily. In the beginning, Harry and  Voldemort had only talked. Voldemort had immediately noticed that the  boy was surprisingly bright for his age, which had made a lot of things  easier. Especially since Voldemort still hated children. With an  unrivalled passion. Conversation had slowly moved from soothing Harry  and improving his speech and vocabulary to the revelation that he was  indeed a wizard. 
                          
"But I... I can't be a wi... wizard!", the boy protested.
                          
Voldemort rolled his eyes: "And what made that plate float at Christmas?"
                          
Harry  had then asked the Dark Lord if he could use magic to defend himself  against the Dursleys. Voldemort had told him that it was first necessary  to remove the binding on Harry's magic. Harry had then wondered why his  magic had been bound in the first place. With this question, the child  had unintentionally entered a terrain of questions that the Dark Lord  wasn't yet ready to answer. Especially concerning the delicate age of  Harry. He hadn't been ready for the whole prophecy debacle yet. Well,  and the fact that the killer of his parents resided inside his head.  Voldemort had told the child that his question would be answered when he  was older but promised to answer regardless the sensitive nature of the  truth. Nevertheless, Harry had seemed content with the promise. 
                          
After  the awkward conversation, the two had started working on the removal of  the binding. Not that it had been an easy task. It had required a lot  of concentration on Harry's part which proved to be difficult in itself  for a boy his age. But Voldemort had found a solution. His presence had  really seemed to help calming Harry down and concentrating better. Over  time, the connection between the two of them had increased in intensity.  Voldemort had on top of that started teaching Harry Occlumency. Surely,  no normal child Harry's age should be taught the obscure art, but  neither was Harry normal nor was he lacking the mental capacity. So why  not do it? Voldemort had guessed that the young Potter was on one hand  exceptionally gifted and on the other hand had been forced to develop  much earlier because of his dire situation and the long-term exposure to  the Dark Lord. Both Harry and Voldemort had been deeply glad that they  were slowly making progress. Well, hadn't it been for the Dursleys.
                          
A  week after the whole Christmas debacle, Harry had finally been allowed  out of the cupboard. But truth be told both Harry and Voldemort wished  he hadn't. From that point on, Harry had been forced to regularly clean  the house from top to bottom. Only to have his hard work undone by dear  'Dudders' and receive a few whips with the belt by his uncle or hits  with the frying pan swung by his aunt. The Dursleys had never seemed to  be satisfied with Harry's work. Soon, gardening and cooking had also  joined the long list of chores. But the chores hadn't been the only  things keeping the duo from their work. The injuries caused by the  Dursleys had intensified over time. Bruises, cracked ribs, dislocated  joints, broken bones... Culminating in a very long list. The malnutrition  and the lack of light hadn't helped either, leaving them no choice but  to concentrate a vast amount of the already limited magic on healing. 
                          
"I  wish I could skin them alive!", Harry had one day cried out while  wincing in pain. Another rib had been cracked, again by dear 'Dudders'.  Voldemort would have laughed in delight at the words hadn't it been for  the pain his protégé had been in. Instead he had tried his best to focus  the boy's limited amount of magic on the very rib. Only later had the  Dark Lord realized that these weren't normal thoughts of a  three-and-a-half-year-old. Maybe, just maybe, he had been a bad  influence on the boy. Not that Voldemort had cared overly much.