October 31st 1981
He's one year old and bundled up on the doorstep of Number 4 Privet Drive. He's almost asleep, but he hears the voices. The voice of a man - too deep to be his daddy. The high voice of a woman - too strange to be his mummy. Another voice belonging to a man - too old, too scratchy to be the nice young man who laughed with his mummy and daddy and turned into a doggy to make him laugh. He snuggles deeper into the blankets, but there's a bright green light just behind his eyelids that won't go away and it's making it hard for him to dream.
November 7th 1981
He was a toddler when they moved in. Just two ladies, pretty as his mummy, laughing and talking and glancing over at him as he pressed his nose to the glass of the living room window watching them unpack the boxes and the bags from their car. He watches them until his hands grow cold from touching the glass and his aunt scoops him up and cradles him to her chest for a split second before she places him down in his highchair and the front door bangs open to reveal the pudgy, frowning face of the man who never has a smile or a kind word for the little boy. Harry smiles up at him, hoping today will be the day the fat man smiles back - but it isn't. He looks to his aunt who's holding out a spoonful of his favourite tea, one skinny hand on her awfully large belly, using the harsh voice to tell him to "open up" that she only uses when the man is there.
November 14th 1981
He's playing in the hallway with the tiny toy car his aunt left out for him when he see's the silhouettes in the frosted glass of the front door. He hears the voices - soft and pretty just like his mummy's voice when she talked to him. The doorbell rings once, twice, three times in quick succession and his aunt bustles from the kitchen flapping her tea towel over her shoulder and wrenching the front door open. And suddenly there they are up close the laughing ladies who unpacked their boxes from the car all those days ago and moved in next door. The lady with the dark green jumper and the fair skin steps forward, introducing herself and gesturing to the other lady next to her with the deep brown skin and the wide inviting smile and the flared pants, but Harry can't understand what they're saying. He drives his toy car back and forth across the carpet, making tiny tyre tracks one way and then another as he watches the ladies talk. The pale one smiles as his aunt says something, holding out her arms to offer his aunt something on a plate. More words are exchanged as Harry creeps forward, driving his car further down the hallway to the front door. He looks up as he gets closer to his aunt's feet and both ladies outside the door peer around his aunt to look at him, smiles lighting up their faces. He grins back, pushing himself up into a standing position to offer the car to the nice smiling lady with the brown skin and the clinking bangles on her wrist. But he never gets to give it to her and suddenly he's being lifted off the floor, juggled like an orange as his aunt hoists him up onto her hip and places the nice smelling plate of food onto the hallway table before saying "I'm sorry, we've got to go" as she closes the door in the friendly ladies faces. Harry can still see them standing on the doorstep, their silhouettes unmoving through the frosted glass as his aunt carries him back into the kitchen and he hopes he'll see them again.