Chapter Text
Harry Potter lives a fairly normal life. Every day he jolts upright in bed, gasping for air and biting back a scream so painful that he tastes metal. Quickly banishing the memories of his nightmares, he glances at the clock. It is 4:00 am. He lies on his back, staring at the water damage in the ceiling. At least he slept in a bit today. Breathing is exhausting, so is blinking, and it feels like he needs to remind his heart to beat to circulate his blood. Whatever blood is still inside his body, at least. Harry stares into nothingness, mind painfully full yet unable to grasp onto one thing in particular. Speckles of sunlight filtering through the trees, Hermione's playful scoff as Ron says something funny under his breath, the smell of the cold, damp dungeons, the golden crust of treacle tart on his tongue, Padfoot’s soft fur beneath his fingertips, flashes of whispy, brown hair and greyish blue eyes like glittering morning dew, gentle lips on his cheek, hands intertwined, lilting laughter- no. He is not going to think of that. Not now, not ever. He doesn’t deserve those precious moments anymore. Maybe he never did.
At 5:44 am Harry rolls his aching body out of bed, slips on his cousin’s oversized and worn-out hand-me-downs, and begins prepping meals for the day. He grimaces at the pangs of pain that seemingly settle down in his bones. By 6:30 am, breakfast is underway, and he is exceptionally careful not to burn anything. God knows what happens when he makes mistakes, even understandable ones. But Harry isn’t allowed to make mistakes, even though he was taught to believe his existence was a terrible mistake to begin with. By 7:01 am, his relatives stroll into the room and impatiently settle at the table. “Where’s my coffee, boy? Are you truly so useless that you can’t even handle something as basic as keeping track of the time?” Uncle Vernon demands. Harry nods quickly and hustles over with the aforementioned drink. Three sugars and milk on the side, as expected. As he serves the sizzling eggs and crispy bacon, Aunt Petunia drones on about the latest gossip in the neighbourhood.
“Eww, the eggs are watery!” Dudley whines, glancing at Harry with a flicker of a smirk. He knows what happens next for Harry if he causes a stir. Aunt Petunia fusses over him, mollycoddling her little dudykins. Uncle Vernon growls and storms over to Harry, who instinctively presses his back up against the kitchen counter. “I’m sorry, Uncle Vernon, I didn’t know —” His stammering is cut off as he is backhanded to the floor. He falls in a heap with a thud and nervously glances up at his uncle, who towers over him with a flush of fury on his face. “I didn’t give you permission to speak, you freak!” he yells. He looks at the bacon pan with a malicious grin and pours the remaining oil onto Harry’s head. Harry screams, but quickly bites his tongue, as he knows that will make it worse. Uncle Vernon swiftly kicks him in the stomach, then storms back to the table where the family resumes breakfast, steadfastly disregarding their nephew curled up on the kitchen floor, fighting to breathe through the burning sensation of searing oil trickling down his neck. With a brief peck, Uncle Vernon gathers his briefcase to head out to work, not before tutting at Harry and muttering “pathetic” clearly enough for Harry to hear. Harry catches his breath and stands to continue cleaning the dishes with violently shaking hands. Dudley laughs at Harry as he saunters out the door, and Aunt Petunia throws the list of chores that Harry needs to complete tonight, “or else.” She glares at him in disgust, then slams the door on her way to drop Dudley at school, and then attend a luncheon with the other women of the neighbourhood.
Harry pauses his dishwashing to breathe, but his lungs feel like they are on fire and his skin stings as it stretches over his bones. He is pretty sure he has a cracked rib or something. Setting aside his pain, he completes the dishes and sets them to dry before slowly and sluggishly traipsing towards the bathroom for a quick shower. He is usually forbidden from using water without explicit permission, but everyone is out of the house today and he feels the grime and oil sticky on his back, not to mention the blood dried on his face. He peels off his clothes, reopening the wounds of the whole summer that never got the chance to heal properly. The wounds seem to have been moulded into his skin permanently since he could remember being punished. Maybe he was 5? “It doesn’t matter anyhow, nothing really matters,” he thinks, stepping into the water. Suddenly there is a piercing scream and he sees white. It takes a moment to realize that the screaming is coming from himself. The water feels like electricity on his broken skin, but he grits his teeth unbearably hard and braves another few minutes of a wash, desperately focusing on the dirt and blood swirling down the drain as a distraction. When he clumsily turns the water off, he spends what feels like an eternity gently drying himself off, wincing at every small movement.
Harry catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and freezes. He is gaunt, skeletal, and near-transparent. He has always looked this way, but since he started attending Hogwarts there have been brief breaks where he can eat, drink water, shower, sleep, and feel warmth instead of the bone-deep ice that usually courses through his veins. His eyes drift over his reflection, questioningly gazing at the laboured rise and fall of his chest, the bones that stick out from his ribs, the deep purple, blue, and black bruises that paint his torso and arms, and the raised red handprints left behind on his neck from the last time he was choked out. His movements feel delayed and his body feels separate. Is that really him in the mirror? Who is that? He stares and stares while the image grows more distorted with every second. The boy in the mirror has dead eyes, tunnels of empty voids that seem to draw him in. The figure morphs and the sharp edges smudge together. Harry realizes the blurriness is from tears, but he doesn’t feel anything until he traces the wetness on his face with a hand that isn’t his. Oblivion might be nice, he thinks. At least it would be something intentional, other than the involuntary nothingness he feels all the time. Finally, he tears his eyes away.
The clock shows 14:12 pm as he resumes the daily drivel of ticking boxes off lists and pretending to be latched to reality. Pretending to recognize the body he inhabits. Pretending to feel the scalding hot sun on his skin, the choking scent of soaps and antiseptic cleaners, the sensation of scrubbing till his fingers blister. He goes through the motions in a blur, carefully filtering out the visceral memories that surface in his mind unbidden. Occasionally he feels the squelch of the wet mud from the graveyard under his knees and the sour smell of death in the breeze. He hears a distant grating laughter and sees a violent flash of green. Stop, stop, stop. Harry pounds his fists against his head until he hears a low buzzing and sees grainy sparkles in his vision. Get back to work and don’t think about it. He carries on in denial.
It is 18:35 pm when Aunt Petunia arrives home with Dudley, rattling away at Harry to start dinner (even though he already started 20 minutes ago in preparation for their arrival). Dudley shoves past Harry, making him wince at the force on his sensitive bruises, before grabbing a fizzy drink from the fridge and flopping down in front of the television. Petunia gets on the telephone, yapping away several decibels more loudly than necessary while twirling the cord between her fingers. Right as Harry begins setting the dishes onto the table, Uncle Vernon comes back with a loud thump of his briefcase on the floor, tossing his coat and hat on the hooks by the door. The tension radiates off of him; he has clearly had an unsuccessful day of business and Harry knows that he will personally be at the receiving end of that anger. They all settle impatiently at the table as Harry serves each plate heartily. He is then instructed to leave, so he makes his way into his cupboard until he is allowed to go back out for the cleanup.
“Boy! Get your ass out here immediately and clean this up!” Harry jolts at the break in the silence he has been sitting in for the last 30 minutes. Has it really been 30 minutes of staring off into space? He distantly remembers a gentle hand on his thigh and a whispered, “Where did you go? Come back to me,” in the great hall when he would drift away from reality. Those hands, calloused from Quidditch but still soft to the touch, brought him back into his body again. Those hands are cold now, withered and bones. How he wishes he could feel them in his arms again. He startles so badly he smacks his head against the wall when the door slams open with enough force to shake off the peeling wallpaper. Uncle Vernon stands there, heaving angry breaths, with a tinge of red in his eyes. “Did you not hear me when I called you or did you deliberately ignore me because you think you are better than us?” he growls. “I..I’m sorry Uncle Vernon, I got distracted. I am so sorry,” Harry stutters, wide eyes darting around for an escape (as if he’d ever been able to before). A meaty fist grabs his arm with surprising agility and yanks him from the cupboard where he is thrown to the floor unceremoniously in the hallway. Vernon rains down punch after punch, hit after hit, kick after kick, until Harry feels like he is nothing more than pulp and tears. Words of hurt and malice are grunted with every breath: useless, weak, pathetic, stupid, a waste of space. Harry whimpers quietly but aside from that he makes no noise because sounds only make Vernon more violent. “Stand there and take it like the little bitch you are.” he’d say, “but don’t make it my problem to deal with your whining.” Finally, he is lifted off his feet with an iron grip on his neck, staring into a face of demonic glee. “It would be so easy to snap you like a toothpick but those freaks would come after us and we don’t need the trouble. You should have died with your parents that night, or I should’ve taken you out before you got that blasted letter. Now we are stuck dealing with your existence, but that doesn’t mean I can’t remind you of your worth. And you have no worth. You are worthless.” While Vernon monologues, Harry can barely listen as his vision tunnels and he grasps at the hands clenched around his windpipe. He might die, this might be it. He almost smiles with relief at the thought, if it weren’t for the fact that he can’t think straight without any oxygen left. When he finally closes his eyes to accept his fate, his twisted sense of hope in death is ripped away like the hands that drop him to the floor. “Clean up this mess, I don’t want your freaky blood all over my house.” Vernon spits at him before trudging away and returning to his family as if nothing happened. Because nothing did happen. Harry is nothing, and certainly not a part of that aforementioned family. He lies there in a puddle of his own blood, vision fading in and out of black until it consumes him and he collapses into darkness.
When Harry comes to, it is dark in the house. The only noise is faint snoring from upstairs and the haunting tick of the clock in the kitchen. The clock says 23:41 pm. The day passed in a blur, it seems like the hours truly slipped through his hands like sand. He attempts to sit up but cries out when moving lights his nerves on fire. He holds his breath, praying that no one heard him. He didn’t think he could handle another beating right now. Maybe Vernon will be kind enough to be more brief with his punishments tomorrow. When no one stirs, Harry exhales painfully and drags himself upright, assessing the damage. Definitely at least one broken rib, if not more, and bruise upon bruise. He clears his throat but the scratchiness won’t leave and he supposes it won’t for a while. He is sure his inherent magic is the only reason he has survived all these years, but it can only heal so much and seems to focus mainly on potentially life-threatening injuries. Harry supposes this is good, but he can’t help but wonder what the abyss of death would feel like. He would be still, not frozen. He would be fluid, not empty. With immense effort, he limps to the closet to retrieve cleaning supplies and scrubs down his mess in the hallway and the kitchen with excruciating and slow movements.
Making his way quietly to Dudley’s second bedroom (generously given to him in fear of backlash from Dumbledore), Harry all but collapses on the rickety bed, deciding not to go through the motions of cleaning himself up lest he be caught using the bathroom unpermitted. The Dursleys don’t mind if his room is dirty and disgusting, so long as his freakishness halts beyond the doorway. In fact, they prefer he live in filth to not get any ideas of comfort, safety, or, God forbid belonging. The moonlight weaves through the moth-eaten curtains and spills on the floorboards. Hedwig’s cage glistens, and Harry longs for her presence but he sent her to the Weasleys so she can fly, hunt, and live a proper life. Harry can’t give her what she deserves, he has nothing to offer. Nothing to offer anyone, really. The piles of letters from his friends are stacked on his desk, but he can't find the energy to read them. He knows his friends are worried, but if he gradually untangles himself from their lives then perhaps he will fade into memory and they can all move on in life. They will be safer that way. Besides, Harry doesn't really know what to say.
After lying as still as a corpse for who knows how long, that feeling of panic at the thought of falling asleep to unwanted memories and nightmares begins to tighten in his chest. His breathing quickens as fear coils in his stomach. Phantom hands, gentle then violent then dead then desperate crawl over his skin, and Harry wants nothing more than to separate from his body. It is a constant conflict within him: wanting to feel in his body again, or wanting to be as far away from the suffocating sensation as possible. He gasps for air as he chokes on his panic, heartbeat loud in his ears, and vision swimming. He knows the one thing that will calm him down. With furiously shaking hands, he reaches under his pillow until he feels the thin, cool metal between his fingers. He feels warm tears trailing down his face as he continues scrambling for breath in desperation. He slashes his wrist with the razor, finally able to take a breath as the stinging brings him back down. He watches in fascination as the crimson rivulets run down his arm and onto his lap. Then he feels emotions: anger, blinding hot rage that simmers beneath the surface at all times, out of reach. So he slices again and again until the inside of his arm is a mess of blood and he can’t even see the cuts anymore. Suddenly, as fast as the anger comes, it melts away and he feels numb again. A comfortable sort of numb, though. This is how he grounds himself, punishes himself, feels alive, feels nothing, feels something. This works, the only thing that keeps him here. He would die otherwise. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Harry gazes at his arm a little longer, feeling the warmth of the broken skin as the blood begins to congeal. The grief comes back, so he lies on his back and stares up at the ceiling again with a crushing weight in his body. It feels like the pull of gravity returning as the last of the bath water whirls down the drain. He is cold but doesn’t care.
As the clock strikes 2:00 am, he finally fades into a fitful sleep for another two hours or so before he wakes up and does it all again. Clearly, Harry Potter lives a fairly normal life.