Summary: Something happened to 6-year-old Harry one evening as he was slaving away in the garden. He thought nothing of it, being too young and exhausted to recall it as something other than another strange dream. But years later at Hogwarts, a shocked Snape has his eye on the boy... because Harry is no longer human. He's half-vampire.
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Chapter 1: Nightmare and Letter
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[Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Good ol' JK does. I just read it to bits is all.]
A/N:
Welcome to my first Harry Potter story. Enjoy.
Bits may seem a little like the books at first as the story is loosely based around the cannon plots, but it will definitely become more different. Also, this chapter lays a bit of the foundation for the Harry in this story; there's a bit less conversational-type dialogue. And Snape doesn't show up yet in this chapter.
Carry on!
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[Chapter 1 start]
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Exhaustion. Struggling feebly, a pair of hands grabbing him, pulling him roughly to their owner's chest. Black and red blurred together across his vision. Cruel whispers, sharp pain on his neck; the hands' release, the ground rushing up to meet him, the numb empty feeling spreading to his outer limbs. Ice-cold, metallic liquid at his lips, running down his throat, choking him. Fire running through his veins, burning like acid. Darkness, a falling sensation, down and down, a sudden overwhelming flash of red, seeing the dark sky overhead through a haze...
Loud banging on the cupboard door awoke Harry from his nightmare with a start.
"Get up, boy! Up! NOW!" yelled Aunt Petunia before her footsteps receded back down the hall to the kitchen.
Harry sighed. He was feeling lethargic, not at all like getting up and struggling through another day. Lying in the cramped but cozy darkness of his cupboard, he sighed again, and recalled his nightmare. It was one of many he'd been having over and over recently. One of the others was about a big man on a flying motorcycle, and another depicted a green light, screaming voices, and a cold, insane laughter.
He wasn't allowed to talk about the dreams. The mere mention of anything "abnormal" sent the Dursleys into fits of anger, usually directed at him. His uncle Vernon would turn red and start blustering, shouting things like, "MOTORCYCLES CAN'T FLY!" as if that wasn't completely obvious.
Sometimes Harry would feel amused at his uncle looking like a tomato with a mustache (at least until he was shut in his cupboard without dinner).
Hearing his aunt's footsteps clacking in the kitchen, and not wanting them to return for another session of banging, Harry forced himself to get dressed. He stumbled out into the hallway in a raggedy, baggy, gray T-shirt (3 sizes too big at least) and dirty, torn trousers (also too big).
Harry was below average in height, very pale, and very thin – whether this was malnourishment, as it could very well be, or just his natural structure, he was not sure; he'd never had enough food to really test this out.
Heading to the kitchen, his bare feet treading silently on the polished floors (which he himself had had to polish last week- twice), Harry pushed all thoughts of his odd dream out of his mind. Now he had to start the day's long list of grueling chores, the first of which included making breakfast (not that he was allowed to eat any).
Aunt Petunia supervised him like a vulture to make sure he didn't sneak any food as he cooked copious amounts of bacon, sausage, and scrambled eggs (yum), baked beans, toast, and hash browns (gross), and cut up a large bowl of fruit salad (double gross). Harry worked swiftly and silently, used to cooking such meals quickly and efficiently every day.
After breakfast, which Harry spent waiting in the kitchen and hoping there was some left over, he was to clean. Not just breakfast dishes, but a hardy deep clean of the whole house. He did this every other day. Other chores included yard work, small carpentry tasks, and anything else the Dursleys think of to pile on him.
On these particular days Harry was oddly glad for the chore, as it meant he didn't have to go outside. He didn't like the sun. I didn't hurt, really, but it made him tired and gave him a headache. He liked cloudy, windy days, but dreaded clear skies because it meant working beneath direct, bright light.
Harry never gave this much thought, as perhaps it was usual of kids who were frequently locked in cupboards. He simply didn't like sunlight; no big deal, as long as he could still react quickly enough to avoid his cousin Dudley and his cronies.
Other than the aversion to sunlight, Harry was quite strong and skillful, all things considering. He was skilled with work tools, cooking, gardening, and cleaning. He found he could lift many heavy materials when he had to cart around the Dursley's luggage on the rare occasions that they went anywhere and brought him along.
The only other odd thing was that Harry didn't really like foods other than meats. They didn't appeal to him, and also didn't seem to keep him full as well. He would take what he could get, though; even eating bread and peels was better than starving, no contest. He could deal with a bit of perpetual hunger.
This morning he was lucky; Aunt Petunia let him eat the leftover scrambled eggs as well as the scant remaining baked beans. As he was scrubbing the kitchen tile floor, feeling a bit less hungry than usual, he remembered something – three days was his eleventh birthday.
He chucked to himself, because really, this was no big deal. It's not like the Dursleys really celebrated his birthday; the most he'd ever gotten was a coat hanger, and, in the first year of primary school, a pair of glasses their neighbor, Ms. Figg, must have been throwing out.
"What are you laughing at, boy?" snarled Uncle Vernon. He'd seen the small smile on Harry's face at the "fond memories."
"Nothing, sir," Harry replied, and went back to scrubbing a small oil spot on the floor.
Later in the day, Uncle Vernon ordered Harry to get the mail, as per usual. Dudley laughed as Harry tripped over his outstretched foot when he went by. Scowling, Harry went out to the mail box. He retrieved the handful of letters, squinting as he checked to see that the addresses were correct.
The moment he was inside the door, he stopped. He couldn't believe it. No way... he thought. A letter... addressed to me!
"Number 4 Privet Drive, The cupboard under the stairs..." Harry muttered as he turned the letter over to see the odd wax seal. "But how'd they know my cupboard?"
"BOY! WHERE ARE YOU WITH THE MAIL? BRING IT HERE!" roared Uncle Vernon.
Harry swiftly entered the sitting room to deliver the other mail, unwittingly still holding his letter in plain sight. Dudley came into the room and, before Harry could hide it, spotted the letter.
"Dad! Dad, Harry's got something!" exclaimed Dudley, his pig-like eyes wide. Harry quickly tried to retreat from the room, only to be faced with his aunt in the doorway.
Although he was usually able to avoid the lunges that accompanied blows, Harry was unprepared for Aunt Petunia's quick snatch. "Hey!" he started, before quieting under her sharp glare.
Aunt Petunia looked at the seal and paled. She turned the letter over and read the front, and promptly had to sit down on the couch. Harry watched with fascination as Aunt Petunia showed the letter to Uncle Vernon, who turned tomato-red.
Dudley and Harry were loudly and abruptly sent from the room, and Harry dodged Dudley's flailing limbs as the later protested bodily. When the sitting room door was firmly closed, Harry didn't bother to fight Dudley to listen at the key hole – he could hear some of the conversation on his own if he was still.
"-came at last. Those blasted- unnatural-"
"-won't let him go. Freaks like that sister of mine-"
"-addressed to the cupboard? Are they watching us? Perhaps we should move the boy-"
That last statement was something Harry wondered for himself. It was very unusual in and of itself for anyone to write in the first place, seeing as he didn't have any friends; for the mysterious writer to know his cupboard was... curious.
When Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia came out, they ordered Harry to move into Dudley's second bedroom, much to his cousin's shock and anger. Despite Dudley's protests, Harry still moved his few possessions into the second bedroom.
He felt rather pleased, although a bit shocked, as he lowered the solitary window shade, as he'd never had a bed before that he could fully stretch out on; the cupboard was cramped. It was also amusing to hear Dudley still carrying on in his room, breaking who knows what.
Later, he even got a rather decent lunch; there were more leftovers than usual, and Aunt Petunia even put them on a single plate for him instead of making him rummage through the mound of dishes for bits and pieces. Harry ate speedily, still unsure if it was all a trick or not.
Harry was surprised and suspicious of the sudden... generosity... of the Dursleys; they had never been anything but unpleasant towards him, and even violent, before this blatant attempt at a semblance of kindness. He suspected that the letter was to blame – not that he was doing any blaming. He was deeply curious as to what it said, and was outraged at how they took what was clearly supposed to be his, but he liked getting more at meals (and in fact getting them at all). He was tired of feeling hungry all the time.
Harry did his chores quietly and was careful not to anger the Dursleys for the rest of the day, in case they changed their minds. Dudley was sulking, so it was easy to avoid him, and Uncle Vernon went in to work for a few hours. Aunt Petunia seemed to be avoiding HIM, so that made it very easy to spend the rest of the day just working and thinking.
He daydreamed about his parents coming to take him away when he was younger. He knew it was unlikely now, so instead he thought more about his recurring dreams and nightmares. Who was that large man on the bike? He seemed familiar. Who was the woman, the one who screamed in the dreams with the green light? Why did the blurry nightmare he had the past night seem so horrible when he could not even remember it clearly, and why did he keep dreaming slightly different scenes each time?
He could only speculate wildly, as there was no way of getting these answers. He definitely wouldn't be able to get any answer from the Dursleys, as that might also ruin his prospects at getting more regular meals.
Later in the evening, at dinner, the Dursleys actually saved him a whole slice of the roast (yum), albeit a small one, as well as a potato and even a teeny bit of gravy. Harry ate rapidly again.
He cleaned up and started getting ready for bed. He looked forward to trying out the larger mattress and the actual pillows and blankets – he had used bundled clothes as a pillow in the cupboard.
As he lay on the bed to go to sleep, Harry wondered how long this bout of kindness would last. He hoped he wasn't dreaming. He took a while to settle down to sleep; for some reason darker rooms made him more awake. On top of that, there were many thoughts running around in his mind, the most prominent being about the letter and sender. He hoped the sender would send something else at some point, however unlikely that would be.
Harry's last thought before succumbing to his dreams – and nightmares – was: I wonder what that wax seal meant... what's "Hogwarts?"
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A/N:
What do you think?
~AP-C