Opening his eyes slowly against the harsh daylight, Harry assessed his room. Nothing had changed-yet, anyway. Still locked in, he sat at the desk and waited by the window, staving off a feeling of desperation that grew daily as no owls appeared. He wasn't asking for much, just a single piece of parchment, really, something to assure him that he was still sane, that he wasn't slowly losing it.
Pushing a hand through his hair, Harry tried to keep a grasp on the knowledge that magic was real- it wasn't pretend, it wasn't an escape from this private hell, it wasn't a cruel joke his mind was playing on him. The problem was, even as he ran through the events of the past year, it kept changing-
School robes with Hogwarts crests turned into baggy grey Stonewall Academy uniforms, cat animagus professors turned into strict professors whose fondness for cats was widely known, hateful potions professors were hateful chemistry teachers. Everything he tried to remember had a double- like looking at a two-headed coin, being switched from color to black-and-white t.v., it all swirled around in his head endlessly.
There was one difference though- he had no one at Stonewall. No friends, no adoptive red-heads, but no dead godfathers either. He didn't know if it was better or worse having no one, or having had the one person who loved him be ripped away with blunt finality.
Were all his magical belongings locked in his school trunk in the cupboard under the stairs, or did he simply need to look in the closet to find an monstrously ill-fitting uniform? He was terrified, of knowing and not knowing.
Because he had checked- he had! And the answer seemed to change every time. He forced himself to stop checking now, avoiding the closet at all costs, because it was only torment. He kept track of the passing days with a pencil stub, grateful every time he could add another mark to the wall- because it meant that he was one step closer to figuring it out, one day nearer going back to school. Whichever one it turned out to be.
Why hadn't he kept Hedwig? Or was she just a school mascot? Was it her water dish sitting there on the desk, or did it belong to some ill-fated pet for Dudley and thrown in the room with all the other junk? Including himself, he thought bitterly.
Was he dreaming? Would he wake up in the hospital wing with Madame Pomphrey clucking at him like a worried goose? He just wasn't sure anymore, ever. All the lines in his head, the boundaries between real, imagined, possible and impossible, had faded and smudged all into each other until he was just left with his own muddled jumble of only knowing what was now, and never knowing what was past and what was future. Thinking about it was confusing and his head hurt and he felt hot all over. He couldn't even tell if it was from illness or room temperature.
If the Dursley's would just talk to him beyond barking out orders when they let him out of the room, just one slight bit of confirmation would ease his mind. But it would probably fade away like everything else. Merlin, would this summer of torment never end?
The professor shook her head sadly. Poor Harry. He had always been such a sweet boy, much too nice for those stupid Dursleys who only cared for their spoiled son. She read over the notification again and wished that she had followed her instincts and visited the child just once this summer.
Spending the entire summer in almost complete isolation- and his nasty relatives had not taken care of him, even while he was dying. Putting the note in the top drawer where she would be forced to encounter it every time she opened it, she promised to herself to keep a better watch on her students. Too bad it was too late for Harry Potter, the boy she had seen fading away into himself yet never actually got around to helping.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, however much I would like to get paid for it.