Lay Down

by Mystic25

An incident at the Dursley’s– not a gore story, a real story.

"Lay Down"

AUTHOR: Mystic25

Summary: An incident at the Dursley's– not a gore story, a real story.

Rating: PG14, for language, violence and situations.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all those associated with are the property of Jo Rowling and her millions of successes with this fantastic series. This is written purely out of love of writing, so please don't take away money I don't have.

A/N: The Dursley's "relationship" with Harry has come into question in my mind many times, and so, believing myself a writer, I have fleshed out the answer.

XXXXXX

It had been raining in London, a gray drizzly kind of rain that refreshed those under it for the first five seconds of their journey but then steadily seeped into every dry area. A rain that soaked through clothes and skin alike so slowly that one didn't notice they were now dripping wet and cold until they were halfway between home and their destination and had to continue through it no matter which direction they chose to proceed in.

The walk between the tube's station landing and Little Whiting was as equally gray as London, whose whether had followed the lone patron on his way down an immaculate suburban street, whose houses seemed to be as displeased to be out in the weather as he was.

A slow trickle of water was winding it's way down Harry's glasses, making it hard for him to walk more then a foot without having to stop and wipe the tiny river away from his lenses so he could see.

During one of these moments he bumped into the pole of the white post box who's gabled and stone design was supposed to make it resemble an English cottage, but it was so hastily put together by Vernon Dursley that it more resembled a child's handiwork after getting into his father's tool shed.

Harry's encounter with the post box caused him to drop the small parcel he was holding, he made a move to catch it, but he knew even before his hands shot out to try that he would fail. The brown wrapped parcel hit the stone concrete of the house's drive and the parcel's contents cracked in the way that only glass breaking could.

Harry cursed under his breath and scooped up the soggy broken thing from the pavement. The glass fragments - of what once was a hand blown glass candy dish in the shape of a swan - rattled around inside their wrapping. It was a candy dish that Petunia Dursely had sent him out to a remote specialty store almost in the center of London to pick up. A dish that she was going to use to display an array of imported toffees for her husband's dinner guests from work the very next day.

Harry looked angrily at the dish, like he wanted to slap some sense into it for breaking. He wasn't upset because of the significance of the dish to his Aunt; he was upset – bloody angry – that he had walked a quarter mile to the Tube station that took him into London, seemingly through every glass shop in the city before he found the right one, and back to the Tube and back to the house in this incessant drizzle – all this and his efforts had broken less then a yard away from his front door.

There was nothing to do, Harry knew this, but he did not want to go inside and explain to his aunt that her precious swan was now a pile of glass pieces. But it was raining outside, and he was wet, and cold and tired. If he could make it through the shortest explanation with Petunia, take whatever incessant rant she would surely deal him about his clumsiness, he could escape to his room and dry off, and sleep.

It seemed worth all the earsplitting screeches from his overdramatic aunt to be able to sleep. He had woken up at dawn for this trip – Petunia had told him that the best deals were to be made in the morning before the "riff raff" descended upon the stores. But she didn't count on the store not being open until several hours after dawn, leaving Harry to lean against the store's brick wall and be called upon by a small group of prostitutes who were still looking to turn tricks before they were chased away by owners of the shops.

Harry pushed his way through the front door of the house, the water from his cross trainers soaking into the thick carpet. Harry knew he would be made to clean it by an angry Petunia as soon as she discovered it, but he was going to deal with each crisis in the order that they presented themselves.

He found his aunt in the kitchen, making a heap of steak sandwiches for Dudley – considering the overload of carbohydrates the best way to get her already over energetic son through his day of roaming around with his friends before he was home and she could thoroughly pamper him.

The sound of his squelching footsteps made her turn. Her eyes traveled over Harry for the most fleeting moment, long enough to establish in which hand he was holding her parcel.

"It's about time boy!" she snatched the parcel from him, continuing to talk as she opened it. "Honestly how long does it take someone to make a quick trip into the city-" her words stopped dead as she stared into the now puddle of glass fragments at the bottom of the bag. Her eyes went from curiosity at what she was seeing, to rage in less then three seconds. "What have you done?"

Harry's neck was thrown back a second later at the slap she dealt his face. It wasn't hard because Petunia wasn't that strong, but it wasn't a pansy slap either. Harry's ears were ringing at the end of it. He was just taller than his aunt now so that she had to stare up into his eyes with her furious rage.

"You can't even do one simple thing you insolent child!" Petunia looked like she was going to slap him again, but she was stopped in her plans as her husband entered the kitchen after hearing her rant on Harry.

"What the bloody hell have you done now boy?" Vernon immediately jumped on Harry like a lion, never once looking to Petunia as the wrong doer. His portly stature made him waddle like an angry Buddha statue. His eyes were narrowed into slits at his nephew. He spied the soggy bag in Petunia's hand, and without even looking at what it was properly, his anger rose ten times on Harry.

"Thought you were being funny?" His sneer found Harry's ears just as his fist found Harry's shirt, gripping it and yanking Harry to him.

Harry's glasses clattered on the floor, and Vernon smashed them under his foot as he backed up with Harry's shirt under his hands like a puppy's scruff.

Harry struggled to free himself "Let go of me!" Harry knew his wand was in his back pocket, and knew that he wasn't going to let being five months shy of his 17th birthday stop him from protecting himself. But he felt himself being held back - by a tinge, a seeping emotion. Harry was now 16, the years of fighting Voldemort and all manner of other hells building up both his mind and body, he was stronger then Vernon in both respects. But there was a third element – Vernon had raised Harry from a baby and he had a power over him because of it.

Harry's angered plea only proceeded in pissing Vernon off. Still holding Harry Vernon dragged him up the stairs. Harry fought him all the way, but he was starting to feel sick from being cold for so long and so his fighting was weak at best. The door to Harry's bedroom was flung open so wildly that it reverberated on itself twice before it stayed open, waiting.

Vernon shoved Harry through the door, succeeding in knocking him against Hedwig's cage before he crash-landed on his bed.

Hedwig screeched at the dangerous swaying of her cage. Harry jumped off his bed and ran in a half dizzying slant and caught her cage before she fell.

Vernon looked repulsed at the sigh of Harry holding onto a creature he despised, a magical nuisance that – for the life of him – he couldn't remember why he let stay in his house.

"Not one toe out of this room boy, or you'll regret the day you came to this house!!" Vernon slammed the door so hard that three of Harry's photographs on his dresser fell off their perch and onto the floor.

"For your information I already regret the day I came to this house." Harry muttered. He set Hedgwig's cage back on her perch. "It's alright girl," He opened the cage door and soothed her with his hand. "He's gone now." Harry's words seemed as much for himself as for Hedwig. Her feathers went unruffled under his fingers and she hooted softly, beginning to calm down.

An overwhelming nausea lunged itself into his throat. He had to hold his hand over his mouth as he looked around frantically for a place to be sick. He dared not leave his room, because despite everything that had happened to him over the last six years, he was afraid of what Vernon would do to him in this state of rage. He finally grabbed his tiny waste bin and lost the small amount of water and bread he had eaten before he had gone out that morning. Even after his stomach was emptied his body refused to stop vomiting, bringing up fowl smelling bile and stomach acid, making him double over in pain.

Finally the vomiting was reduced to quaking dry heaves, then down to small shaking spasms. Harry collapsed onto his bed, curling up in an almost fetal position, but a moment later he quickly uncurled himself, repulsed by his display of childishness. He rolled over onto his back, shivering, trying to reach the blanket that was rolled down at the end of the bed. But exhaustion came upon him like a wave, making him too tired to move. And there, soaked in rain, sweat, and reeking of vomit, he dropped into exhaustion.

XXXXXXX

"That's five love," the cab driver winked innocently-but not so much so – at the young woman who exited his cab.

She dropped the money in his hand after extracting it deftly from a small knitted bag that hung across her shoulder. The cabbie still stared at her, as if waiting for something. He wasn't being obscene at it, but he was still moving his eyes way too much for a cab driver to his charge.

Hermione stepped out of the cab into the chilly drizzle, welcoming it over the overpowering smell of cigar smoke and Bruit cologne inside the cab. She caught the driver still looking at her "Thank you, I know the way from here." Had she not been in broad daylight in a muggle town she would've tied the man's testicles together with her wand for the way he was looking at her. She wasn't as "bushy haired" as she used to be, she was pretty, she got it. But did the whole world have to leer at her?

She shut the cab door and didn't look back as she walked up the small neat drive of the house. The sound of the cab driving away reached her ears at the same time she noticed the over done cottage mailbox in standing in it's own circle of roses. She considered it to be as tacky as Harry did, noting how stupid it was when people tried too hard to be fancy.

She closed her little black umbrella neatly as she stepped under the covered roof that hung over the front door. She rang the bell – which sung an obnoxiously sweet chord "I Love You Truly." – brushing away some rain droplets that were coating her hair as she waited.

Bill and Fleur would be married in a week, and Hermione had come to collect Harry from his aunt and uncle. It originally had been Hermione and Ron who were to pick up Harry at the Dursley's, but Ron had come down with a nasty case of Wizard's Flu and Mrs. Weasely had ordered him to stay in bed. So Hermione had gone it alone, though Ron had tried his best to assure her that if these Dursely's were as bad as Harry said they were he would simply sic his mother on the lot of them.

It took twenty seconds for the door to open. An enormous boy stood now stood in front of her, in a blue Beckham football jersey, who's sleeves had been torn off, and black warm up pants, solid white cross trainers, his blonde hair spiked. He wasn't fat so much as he was large. The cut of his sleeves showed the tone he acquired from wrestling. But he was displaying himself so obviously that it was way too flashy and overdone.

Hermione's observation of whom she knew to be Dudley Dursley lasted only three seconds. But while it was obvious that she knew who he was because of Harry's description, Dudley himself had no idea of who she was.

But Dudley seemed to not let that stop him. In the three seconds Hermione noted him and logged him away as exactly as Harry described – which was too hung up on his own false sense of importance – Dudley was thoroughly and completely checking her out. Had Hermione not known for a fact that she was fully clothed she would've been making sure of that fact by the way Dudley was basically undressing her at his front door.

"Hey there," Dudley was injecting so much suave into his voice that Hermione pulled back before she drowned in it. "What can I do for you?"

Hermione resisted the urge to either throw up or laugh in his face. No wonder Harry hated coming here. Dudley would probably hit on the 8-year-old girl selling cookies down the street if she smiled at him.

"Hello," Hermione hoped she sounded polite. "I'm-"

"Dudley? Who's at the door?"

Hermione's words were cut off as a skinny blonde middle-aged woman emerged from behind the bulk of her son.

She scrutinized Hermione as closely as Dudley had, but her eyes were as every bit as approving as her son. "Dudley, you didn't tell me you were calling on a girl!"

Now Hermione really had to resist the urge not to throw up. Petunia Dursley was just as annoying as her son. But Hermione didn't have a chance to set things right before she was welcomed – with tugs and pulls – into a sunnily painted yellow kitchen and had a cup of tea thrust upon her in a cup so flowery that even Delores Umbridge would have shied away from it.

"Now my dear," Petunia dropped a lump of sugar into Hermione's tea. "Where did you and my Dudley first meet?"

At the front door. Hermione thought to herself irritated, but she smiled, the way she saw her mother to do her father's most obnoxious relatives – the ones who didn't like her because she had been a dancer before she went to dental school. "Not long ago," she sipped her tea for something to do, though it was cold and insipid.

Petunia smiled, dropping another lump into her tea cup. "How lovely." She ruffled Dudley's hair, which Dudley didn't seem to like because he pulled away from her in an "I'm too old and cool for that mum" way.

Hermione smiled again, at both her and Dudley, but when she got to Dudley her smile turned from sweet to a warning that if he didn't stop staring at her breasts she was going to clock him.

Dudley looked away from Hermione's anger – perfected over the years of dealing with Draco Malfoy – pretending he was interesting in fishing out a cookie from the glass jar etched with fairies and roses that sat in the center of the table.

"What's all this?"

The lumbering voice reached the kitchen before it's lumbering bodily counterpart. Hermione turned to look up into the round, pinched face of Vernon Dursley. He stopped just three steps away from chair Petunia had put Hermione in, observing the girl like she was something that got caught in the mail slot. "Who are you?"

"She's a girl who our Dudley's calling on," Petunia sang with over coated sweetness, clasping her hands together.

The look in Veron's eyes changed after hearing Petunia's words, not by much though. He was now looking at Hermione in a way that wondered how the hell she thought she was good enough for his son.

But at the insistent look Petunia gave him Vernon cleared his throat and pulled his lips back into a crooked "sunny smile" "And what's your name my dear?"

"Hermione," Hermione still hoped she sounded polite around these obnoxious people. She would have to go right up and find Harry and beat him in the head for subjecting himself to this every summer for the past six years. "Hermione Granger."

"What a perfectly divine name!" Petunia gushed. "Perfect for our Dudders!"

"Mum don't call me Dudders!" Dudley hissed in insistence.

While Petunia and Dudley were having their own spat Vernon's brow had dropped in contemplation. "Granger you say?" He looked like he was reaching for something that was just out of his grasp, but if he shifted his position it would fall into his hands. "Hermione Granger?" the 'something' fell into his hand. His façade of politeness fell away like Petunia's broken candy dish. He pointed a fat finger at her "You-"

"Dad," Dudley muttered, mad that his father was embarrassing him in front of a girl.

"Vernon for heaven's sake calm down," Petunia joined in Dudley's words, not wanting her precious boy to be seen as anything other than how perfect he and his family were in front of company.

"Calm DOWN?" Vernon's face was now as contrasting a shade of red as an apple that had fallen in the snow. "She, knows him," His anger had risen so high that he was sputtering between words. " She's, she's one of THEM!"

Petunia looked from Vernon to Hermione, to Dudley. She then threw her arms around Dudley as if Hermione were going to cast a hex on him then and there. "You get away from my son!"

Hermione never cursed, she considered it vile, but had she, she would have now been muttering: 'Oh Shit'. "Please," Hermione stood up from her chair. "Mrs. Dursley, I'm only here to collect Harry. We're to go to a wedding. He's my friend you see-"

"Friend?" Vernon cut Hermione off viciously. "That boy doesn't have friends he has co defenders!"

"Sir," Hermione was still trying to be polite, but not by much, she didn't even waist time saying 'please' anymore. "I've come here to get Harry and I'm not leaving until that happens." If Vernon Dursley was this angry with a total stranger Hermione shuddered to think how he was around Harry. She suddenly felt an overwhelming need to see him. "Please tell him I'm here." Her words were clipped, not a request.

Vernon glared at Hermione like he was about to slap her, but Petunia quickly shook her head, she didn't want to lose face in front of the neighbors by doing something that was considered 'assault'. Vernon backed down, but only slightly. "Fine, I'll tell him, but if you move one inch from here missy-" the rest of his words were lost as he all but up the stairs in a furious rage.

Hermione did not like at all the emphasis Vernon had placed on the word 'tell', but she didn't have time to fully contemplate it before his massive bulk lumbered up the stairs.

XXXXXX

"You!"

Harry came awake to the sound of someone yelling right by his face. Hot rancid breath billowed down his neck. He was thrust forward by his shirt collar and shoved – dazed –in front of his uncle.

"Move it boy we haven't got all day!" Vernon kicked Harry's heals as he walked, causing him to stumble several times.

Harry's hand shot out to the landing for balance, but he still tripped on the last step, dropping his already broken glasses to the ground.

Harry bent down to pick them up off the floor, but Vernon's hand smashed down so quickly that Harry had to pull away before his hand was crushed. But he wasn't fast enough, and Vernon's boots caught Harry's hand under its thick leather soles, and he screamed as he felt the bones shatter.

Harry folded in on himself, gasping at the tremendous pain in his hand. "What the bloody hell is wrong with you?!?" Harry cradled his injured hand, bracing his back on the wall, half standing half kneeling. He had suffered countless times at the hands of Voldenmort, Death Eaters, but not by someone who was supposed to be on his side, who was supposed to be his guardian.

"Don't you dare back talk me boy!" Vernon raged.

"Harry?"

Harry heard the familiar voice, but his glasses lay broken at his uncle's feet so he couldn't see anything but a blur. But he could feel as Hermione – as in her fashion of greeting – threw herself on him in a hug.

"Hermione," despite the pain her hug had inflicted on his shattered bones and weakened body he relished in her warmth. He held her, hugging her back.

Hermione could feel Harry's body tense, and she when she pulled away a gasp caught in her throat. Harry was deathly pale, and smelled of sickness, cradling his right hand and through the fingers blood from his cradled hand steadily dripped onto the floor.

"Harry," Hermione moved to touch his hand, but she stopped because he flinched before she even got there. "Oh. My-" she touched his neck briefly, but then her eyes whirled onto Vernon. "What have you done to him?!"

"I did nothing that he didn't deserve you little wench!" Vernon spat back, towering over Hermione with his huge frame. "And I'll thank you to get out of my house!" He grabbed her roughly by the arm and flung her back so hard she hit the opposite wall and lost her footing, sliding onto her knees on the floor.

"Vernon!" Petunia ran into the room. She had seen what her husband had done, and she knew it was only a matter of time before his 'temper' got the better of him and the neighbors would find out and ruin their lives.

Harry was on Vernon in less than three seconds after he saw Hermione fall, letting his shattered hand hang at his side as he punched Vernon hard in the nose. "Don't you EVER touch her again!" His shattered hand then had to hold off Dudley who grabbed at him, yanking him furiously away from Vernon. Vernon anger flared then, and in a maddening rage he wrestled Harry to the ground.

"Please!" Hermione scrambled to her feet and was tugging furiously at Vernon's arms, which were dangerously close to strangling the air out of Harry's lungs. "Please stop it! Please!"

Her pleas were dead to Vernon's ears and she was shoved aside again, but this time she rebound on Vernon, wand in hand.

She shot a spell off right at Veron's feet, ripping a hole in the floorboard inches away from him The noise startled him and Harry was able to throw him off.

Hermione grabbed Harry's arms and pulled him to his feet; afraid of how heavily he was leaning on her.

Vernon's eyes were vicous on Hermione: "You are ruined now you little bitch!"

Hermione had to physically hold Harry back at the word 'bitch'.

"You'll never get back into your idiot school now that you've used your devils' sorcery outside its walls!"

A red jet shot out at his feet, unbalancing him, making him land hard on his ass, legs sprawled out in front of him. Dudley released his hold on his father's arm and backed away in terror.

"It's called magic you oafish prat! And I'm 17, which means I can cast as much magic outside school as I bloody well want!" Hermione's eyes alone could have killed Vernon. She felt Harry leaning on her, she smelled the blood of the injuries he had inflicted on her friend. She was in a dangerous territory of protective anger that Vernon was now standing in the middle of.

"I'm leaving with Harry Mr. Dursely, and I swear if you try anything else I will cause you the most unimaginable pain!" While she spoke Hermione summoned all of Harry's belongings into his trunk and sent it flying down the stairs along with Hedwig – free of her cage – beside them.

Hedwig rested herself on Harry's shoulders, flapping her wings angrily, spitting and snapping at Vernon's hand as he tried to reach for Harry.

With her arm around Harry, her free hand grasping his trunk, Hermione waved her wand and Disappartied from Privet Drive with a brilliant 'crack'.

XXXXXXXX

THE BURROW

Harry was sick again in the sink in Ron's tiny bathroom. He was shaking violently from the spasms that hit his stomach and reverberated through is body.

Behind him Hermione had a hand around his shoulders, holding his forehead with his hands.

Tears as well as vomit, streamed from Harry into the sink. The act of throwing up when you had nothing left to come up was blindingly painful. Harry was crying, without even realizing it.

Hermione was rubbing his back soothingly, not saying anything – not knowing what to say.

From out the bathroom door – in the earthen colored bedroom over a pile of Quidditch books – Ron stood beside his bed, observing. He was still pale from the Wizard flu and he shivered a little in the open air, but he was ignoring this completely and instead stepped closer to the bathroom. He watched Harry be sick again, now almost standing completely in the bathroom, wanting to do something to help him. Ron's eyes turned in desperation to Hermione as he finally came into his bathroom, smelling the sick, warm odor of vomit.

Hermione met Ron's desperate eyes and matched his look with one of her own as she continued to rub Harry's back as he was ill. She was scared, she didn't know what else to do.

After several more minutes Harry finally stopped vomiting but now his body was reduced dry heaves so painful that he almost convulsed on them. His legs soon gave out and he began sinking to his knees.

Ron's eyes widened in terrified shock. "Mum!"

Mrs. Weasley had been two steps behind Ron the entire time, watching over Hermione's ministrations with Harry with a strong maternal eye. And she now leapt forward to support Harry on the opposite side of Hermione before he fell completely. Harry was thin, but he but he was still almost a grown man, which made him heavy. But Molly didn't complain, she took charge.

"Ronald Weasley get back in bed!" her firm mothering voice rang around the room. "You're in no way near well enough to be up!" She scowled at Ron, but there was more of a worried look then anger in her eyes. She turned her gaze up to Harry. "Harry, come on now love, you'll catch your death on that cold floor."

Harry realized that he was leaning very heavily on Mrs. Weasely, so he tried to upright himself so he wouldn't crush her with his weight. "I'm okay Mrs. Weasley." He tried to inject some laughter in his voice, but his voice shook and he swayed falling more into Hermioine's arms, who reached out to catch him.

"No your not dear," Molly ordered in gentle concern. "You need to lie down." Mrs. Weasley was at a loss at what to do. Harry's lose weight was proving to be too much for her and Hermione. She could have tried levitating him to the bed but her wand was in the pocket of the pink apron tied around her waist, and she didn't want to jostle Harry around by trying to reach for it. Her distress was placed at an end when a gentle, but firm hand rested itself on her shoulder.

Author Weasely met his wife's gaze, staring at her through an air that was thick with an overwhelming emotion that was desperate, haunted. "I've got him Molly." He lifted Harry away from her and Hermione; carrying the boy very gently across the room to the corner of the room where Ron's spare bed stood waiting like a guardian.

"Be careful with his hand Author," Molly ordered, hovering herself over Harry's broken hand-which lay dangling from his side. It had already swollen to twice its size and was hot to the touch.

Harry's eyes were upon Mr. Weasely the entire time he was being carried to the bed, watching with a still silence how carefully the man was holding him, how gently he walked to keep his nausea – which was rolling in his stomach – at bay. When he felt himself being lowered into the mattress of the bed Harry's eyes focused more intently on Mr. Weasely.

"Mr. Weasley. I could've walked; you didn't have to-" The act was already done, and Harry already knew what Mr. Weasely's response would be, but the words had come out because he was never use to being cared for like this.

"Rubbish my boy, you wouldn't have made it on your own." Mr. Weasely spoke a bit harshly, and he regretted it a minute later when he saw something that looked of a mixture between embarrassment and fear come across Harry's features. "It will be alright Harry." His hand rested for the briefest of moments on Harry's forehead, but it was a strong touch, telling Harry things that Mr. Weasley dared not say aloud for he would have cried.

A second later Mr. Weasely stepped back to make room for his wife who bustled her way in-between him and Harry. Her wand was now in her hand and in the air above her levitated a roll of cloth bandage, a Healer's Spellbook and a wooden bowl filled with warm water and a pungent smelling herb mixture. She dropped these items carefully on the edge of Harry's bed.

With gentle, but exact movements Molly lifted Harry's shattered hand off the bed and into hers.

The movement sent a blaze of pain through Harry that traveled up his arm like a fired knife blade. Mrs. Weasley lowered his hand into the herb and water mixture, and the combined effect of the warmth and astringent herbs made Harry bite the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming.

"Go ahead and scream, I would." Ron insisted to Harry. He was still defying his mother by not lying in his bed and instead had taken up a position on the other side of Harry's bed.

Harry took Ron's permission to heart and as Mrs. Weasley levitated his hand out of the water and cast a spell to set the breaks in the bones Harry gasped in a muffled scream. The nausea he felt was amplified threefold and he locked his 'good hand' in a death grip on the bed frame from the sickening feeling of all his pains combined.

Hermione knelt next to the bed and dropped her hand over his. She interlaced her fingers in-between his and squeezed it to give his mind somewhere else to focus.

At one point the pain was so great that Harry nearly passed out from it. Only Hermione screaming at him to stay awake prevented him from doing so.

Harry was panting now, staring at the group hovered around him with pain filled eyes. "Why did he do this to me?" His voice was on the verge of tears, but none escaped his eyes. But this made his words sadder because all of his tears were being poured out in each syllable.

Molly's wand stumbled and part of her bandaged splint had unrolled before she caught herself. She furiously blinked back tears from her eyes and rewrapped the splint, trying very hard to keep her wand hand from shaking.

Hermione wasn't so successful; she lowered her eyes so that Harry wouldn't see, and her tears splashed onto his hand.

"I don't know mate," Both his mother and Hermione were too overcome with their emotions to answer Harry's haunting question. So it was Ron who finally responded. But he desperately wanted something better to respond with.

Harry met Ron's eyes with sad affirmation before they closed as he fell into an exhausted sleep.

Mrs. Weasely finished her ministrations on Harry's hand in silence, wiping her eyes, Hermione doing the same on the other side of the bed.

A noticeable sniffing sound filled the tiny bedroom making Hermione raise her eyes up from Harry. Ron stood beside her, staring at Harry's hurt, sleeping form, making no move to wipe away his tears as he cried.

XXXXXX

In the afternoon sun the tumbled over scraps of clothing that Hermione's spell had missed in packing looked sadly vacant in Harry's bedroom on Privet Drive. A dirty white sock and a dusty shoelace stood in the corner, missing the companions that had left them there to be forgotten and thrown away at day's end by Petunia's ravenous sweeping.

A childish scrawled drawing of an owl had fallen into the wastebasket now lined in vomit that has suffocated the room in a warm, foul odor.

Petunia walked carefully into this small enclosure, disgusted at the vomit on the floor that had missed the waste bin. The air was almost choking her and she raised her hand over her nose.

The bed coverlet lay in a rumpled bulk over the edge of the bed like the remains of a carcass skin after a predatorily feast. Petunia liked everything in her house to be neat. Even after watching her husband man-handle her own sister's son down the stairs, shattering his hand and forcing him to escape with what was essentially his life, Petunia Dursley still longed for some sort of order in her house.

It was this maddening compulsiveness that cased her to rush upon the bed and yank off the coverlet like it was diseased. A loud crack –similar to that of lightning cracking – sounded off right by her making her drop the blanket in shocked alarm.

Shock rose to terror when she found her self to be standing next to two red headed young men who hadn't been standing in the bedroom seconds before.

The two young men weren't even discernable from each other in any way; alarming Petunia all the more because it was like being stared at by a creepy being and his reflection.

They circled around her like prey, taking in everything about her manner and appearance with narrowed eyes.

The one closest to Petunia drew his head in towards her, as one would do to an insect under a microscope that they were observing. "Are you that bloke's old lady?"

"W-what!?" Petuina's eyes widened so largely that they could have very well have fallen to the floor. "Vernon- VERNON!" Her second 'Vernon!' was deadened into complete silence. She screamed again, but found that she had no voice at all. One of the boys lowered a stick in his hand. But when she looked at it she realized it wasn't a stick, it was too intricately woven and balanced to be a simple stick. It was a wand.

Fred pocketed his wand but George kept his out, pointing it at Petunia who looked ready to faint but seemed not to want to do so in front of strangers.

George kept his eye on Petunia as Fred walked around the tiny bedroom. His shoes crunched under broken glass – he picked the object up he had stepped on and found it to be a wizard photograph in a shattered frame. It was of Harry the day he was born being held by Lily as a proud looking James looked on from behind her birthing bed. Vomit and dried blood were stained around the metal edges of the frame.

"Look at this Fred," George held up the picture in the broken frame- clearing show it's marring of body fluids.

Fred looked at it with the quiet of an ominous storm before it hit. He stepped closer to Petunia who balked from him. "You were just going to clean all this up like it was nothing weren't you?"

Petunia had run out of room to back away and was now pinned against the wall. She screamed 'No, leave me alone!' but Fred's muffled charm had reduced her to a voiceless mime.

"I believe she was Fred," George answered where Petunia's voice had failed. His tone was as angrily quiet as his brother's. "Seems to me she reckons no one would care if she got away with it either."

Fred had his wand out again and was pressing the end of it – like the tip of a sword – against Petunia's neck. "You deliver a message to your shite of a husband-" Fred paused, blinking, and after having done so had amplified the rage in his eyes to a dangerous new level. "Tell him if he ever thinks about knocking around our mate Harry Potter again it'll be the last decision he'll ever make alive." Fred backed away from Petunia who had now been reduced to cowering on the floor.

"That goes for you as well love," George flashed his wand, tearing through a huge chunk of drywall above Petunia's head. She screamed, voiceless, as bits of the wall rained down on her head.

"We're off now okay mum?" Fred said, looking down on her as George stepped closer to him.

Both boys raised their wands again, George shooting a red jet of wand from the tip of his, that exploded even deeper into the hole already in the wall. Fred waved his wand right at Petunia, removing his muffling spell. Their actions were done simultaneously so when the explosion tore above Petunia her scream became audible, tearing through the house as both boys Disapartied the way they had come.

XXXXXX

THE BURROW

The sitting room was quiet, only the sound of dishes being washed by majicked scrubbers could be heard across the doorway in the kitchen. The ticking of an old grandfather clock joined the hush of noise as it chimed five times to signify the time.

The low noises were abruptly met with a noise much louder as Ron and Hermione's voices echoed from over the railings that lined the exposed hallway on the second floor.

"Ron be quiet, you'll wake up Harry!"

"He can't hear me," Ron retaliated back to Hermione's reprimand. "He's bloody exhausted."

"Yes and he needs sleep," Hermione insisted. "And he can't do that with you going on so!"

"'Going on?'" Ron's voice echoed louder. "He broke his hand Hermione! You were there, how can you be so quiet about it! They're supposed to be his family for cripes sake!" Ron's face had gone as red as his hair. After his tears had ended watching Harry sleep in such profound exhaustion a livid anger had taken its place. Ron had torn out of his bedroom, and Hermione had followed him, scared of the anger she saw him carrying, scared of what he might do with it.

"I'm going to kill that bastard-"

"Ron no-"

"He beat him, BEAT him! Harry's got his moods, but what did he do to deserve that? Did he breathe wrong or something?"

"You can't go after Harry's uncle Ron, it won't change what's happened!"

"He's my best friend!" Ron was shouting now, he saw Hermione's eyes flutter as his breath blew hotly in her face. What Ron had just said struck him, making him take a mental as well as a physical step back, realizing that 'friend' wasn't an accurate enough description "He's my brother, as much as the lot of the others." Ron's eyes turned deadly serious: "No one bloody messes with my family Hermione."

Hermione's eyes were fluttering as wildly as her heart. She didn't lack the ability to vocalize her emotions; but Ron possessed a passionate, full-bodied anger that she did not. Had she, she would have screamed right along with him calling for blood. Harry was her best friend too; she loved him.

"Or mine." Hermione's words were a hard protective tone in the beginning, but it slipped away like melting ice, as tears rapidly fell away from her eyes. "They're terrible Ron-" she choked on her tears. "They hurt him so badly." Her voice was lost in a muffle as Ron pulled her against his shoulder and hugged her tightly.

"We have to stop," Hermione said around Ron's shoulder. "We can't let Harry hear us."

"I'll stop if you will."

Hermione felt tears hitting her hair that weren't her own. Ron was crying again, his face was turned away from her so she wouldn't see, but his words had let her see already. Harry didn't deserve this, not ever.

A crack echoed in the rooms at the sound of someone Apartiting inside the Burrow. Ron could see Fred and George standing a foot away from him next to the closed door of their parents' bedroom.

"Fred, George," Ron pulled back from Hermione, not because he was embarrassed at being seen crying, but because there was a glint in both of his brothers' eyes that he didn't like. It wasn't the kind of look that said they had pulled a prank; they had done something because they were angry, very angry.

"What did you do?"

Fred turned in the direction of Ron's bedroom door, which was closed like his parents. "How's Harry?"

"He's sleeping Fred, you knew that when you left, you didn't answer my question." Ron's words tumbled out of him, he was afraid of what could have happened when his brothers pensive for mischief was directed towards rage.

"We didn't kill anyone Ron if that's what you're getting at." George responded.

Ron's eyes widened. He had only been hinting, he had hoped he was wrong. "If mum finds out-"

"Finds out what?" Ginny's voice joined in the mixture. She crossed the small amount of floor space from her bedroom over to where the small group was standing. Mrs. Weasely had told her to go bed hours ago, but Ginny was 15 and as stubborn as her brothers, she never listened to her mother. She looked from Fred to George, seeing the same look that Ron had: "What have you done?"

"Only what was deserved little sister," Fred responded cryptically.

Hermione's eyes widened as large as Ron's, but Fred's voice cut her off before she even uttered a single word.

"We don't love him like you do Hermione, but we still do a great deal, we're not letting this slide."

Hermione remembered for the briefest instant how last week Fred and George had caught her and Harry together in Mrs. Weasley's rose garden. It was the first time anyone had seen them together, since they had been "seeing each other." They were fully clothed, never going beyond kissing. Afterwards, they had been teased, they had been lectured for "snogging in public" by Mrs. Weasely. But Ron had cracked joke behind his mum stating: "better Harry then him." That all seemed so long ago now.

"Boys, where have you been?" Molly's Weasely's voice reprimanded sons before she even got to where they were standing. Her hands were laid upsettingly upon her hips, and she started intently at them both.

Whatever Fred or George would have told her next would never be known because Molly removed her hands from their stance and raised them both up in the air in a halting gesture. "No, don't tell me." She could see the same glint behind her sons' eyes that everyone else had noticed. "I don't want to know. I can't know, or I'll have to redirect my anger, and I can't afford to do that – not now."

She shook her head with a sigh, concerned and sad at the same time. "Come on," she shoed the group away from the hallway, drawing them away from the bedrooms clustered at the far end of it. "There's nothing we can do for him now but let him rest." Molly's voice shook and she turned her head down, wiping at her eyes with the hem of her apron.

"Mum-" Ginny took a step towards her in concern.

Molly gestured for her to stop. "I'm alright darling," she inhaled a slow breath – a composing one, or as best of a one that she could muster. "Come on then, everyone downstairs. I'll put a pot of tea on."

The group of people moved away in reluctance down the stairs to the sitting room.

XXXXXXXX

Hedwig preened her feathers daily, as part of her grooming routine. But this day – though the day was now almost over and it was now eight in the evening –she had not touched her snow white feathers. Nor had she moved from her perch on the cedar bedpost of the bed where Harry lay sleeping.

She stood over him like a sentry, watching him dream; seeing the pain behind his closed eyes from what he was dreaming of. When he tossed in his sleep from these dreams she hooted low in her throat, ready to launch herself into his mind and attack whatever it was in there that was hurting him.

Harry was dreaming of Vernon- back when he was six-years-old. The day when Vernon had caught him coloring with Dudley's crayons. His uncle had padlocked him into his tiny cupboard for the rest of the day without food or water. When he finally let him out at midnight to relieve himself he had angrily discovered that Harry had already gone- wetting himself all down the front of his pants. Vernon backhanded him for that. The dream changed, from Harry at five, to 16, to what had just happened.His pants were still soaked in urine, from being slammed into the wall. Vernon's taunts of "freak!" and "clout!" echoed around him.

Harry sprang awake –the dream still hovering around his senses, so real.

A hand was on his shoulder. Instantly he grabbed it, pushing it away with a force that made the person cry out.

"Harry! Harry stop!"

Harry blinked, removing more of the edges of the dream. His eyes searched frantically around the room, looking for who had woken him, his breathing deafening his ears.

"Harry-" the voice spoke again, seeping into the vice the dream had on him, breaking it apart so that he finally recognized whom it was.

"Hermione?" Harry could barely get her name out around his choked intake of air.

"It's alright Harry, you're alright." Hermione soothed her hands through his hair; her fingers warm against his sallow skin.

The bedroom was cloaked in a gray blackness; the only light coming from a piercing of moonlight that shone through a single circular window above Ron's rumpled bed. But this grayness wasn't absolute – the small amount of glowing moonlight found refuge in the corners of the room, rebounding a lesser gray light that shone over them both.

"Hermione," Harry was aware of every second that her hand was in his hair, watching her with almost childlike awe at being touched in such a kind, foreign way. "Why doesn't he love me?

It was one of the loneliest questions Hermione had ever heard, bringing with it an equally lonely recognition: Harry had been mistreated for years by his uncle, but he still wanted so badly to be loved by Vernon Dursley. It was a realization that nearly broke Hermione's heart.

"I don't know," Ron's words echoed on her lips. Her hands traveled down to Harry's forehead, caressing it. "I'm sorry Harry."

If Harry was crying his teardrops were hidden from Hermione, but she could 'feel' them like she could feel the softness of his hair as she touched him. She leaned forward and kissed his forehead, caressing the edges of his face with her thumbs.

Harry's green eyes were visible even through the graying darkness. They shone like emeralds refracting from an unknown light.

"Stay with me," his injured hand rested on her wrist, softly grasping it, his touch both warm and cold at the same time. "I need you."

The word 'need' had many variations on its meaning. It all depended on where and when it was said. But on this night, in this moment, Hermione knew the depths of its meaning.

She brought his hand away from her and kissed the back of his knuckles where an ugly blackish-blue bruise peaked out from around the splint.

Harry watched her with eyes that had gone liquid with pure emotion. He fell forward, pressing his face into the hollow of her neck, kissing a line along the skin there.

Hermione arched her neck to allow him better access, shuddering a sigh at the warmth of his breath. Her fingers slid into his hair again, her eyes closing at both sensations.

"I need you," his words were muffled in her neck.

Hermione kissed his forehead again, then the temple by his left ear. "I'm here Harry."

He kissed her, breath hot in her mouth, tasting of salty tears. She felt him push her down and she moved with him onto the bed. He kissed her neck again, the edges of her breasts on the neckline of her U neck sweater, touching her with such a haunting gentleness that she cried.

And she met each touch, each caress, each movement in the tiny bedroom shrouded in gray moonlight.

Harry never spoke a word, and when it was over he lay his head down on her chest, holding her – finally falling into a dreamless sleep.

XXXXXXX

A crack of light is what woke Hermione up an hour later – shining in such a way into her eyes that she couldn't ignore it. Her head raised only a fraction off the pillow, staring through a space that had been opened in the door.

A lantern was raised above a head of bright red hair and a tall lanky frame. The light from it broke into the grayness. It didn't travel very far from its point of origin, but it was enough to penetrate into grayness for Ron to see them. Harry still slept curled on top of Hermione, and Hermione herself was watching Ron, but there was no embarrassment in Hermione's gaze. Harry had needed this; she had no regrets about what had just happened.

Ron said nothing, asking no questions about what he saw – he understood as well as Hermione had. He watched him watch her back and through their gazes they found themselves on the same page.

Ron shut the door to the bedroom as quietly as he ad opened it, returning it to the glow of the moonlight once more.

XXXXXXX

Mr. Weasley sipped his tea, which had gone cold hours ago, drinking for something to do rather then for thirst or flavor. Around him his children watched in quiet silence, playing with cold cups of tea, not even pretending to be interested in drinking from them as their father had done.

Even Hermione – who had come down ten minutes ago and had been given a hot cup of Earl Gray – had not raised it to her lips other then to blow away waves of steam that curled at the top of the cup. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, feeling the moisture of sweat still lingering on its surface. Her cheeks were red, her lips still swollen. She knew Ron wasn't the only one who knew what had transpired. She saw it in the eyes of Fred, George, Ginny – but none of them looked at her in disapproval. It wasn't their place to judge a release only Hermione could have given to Harry.

Though they all pretended on some level to be concerned about either drinking their tea or ignoring it, their thoughts all circled around the boy asleep on the second floor. What had happened to Harry was in a realm that magic couldn't touch. No amount of spells would have changed Vernon's viciousness towards Harry – it could only be used to save him, days and years too late.

Molly guided her spoon to stir in her cup with her finger, the metal tinkling with each turn. She then broke her family's general fashion for tea drinking at that moment and took a whispered sip from her cup.

"How could we have not seen this?" the tea burned her throat like lava from the angered steam of her words. She looked from each member of her family, demanding an answer that no one could give her. "He's been with us for six years – how could have this gone unnoticed?" The saucer her cup balanced on cracked from the force at which she laid it down on the long wooden dining table. "Ron said there were bars, bars on his window when he was twelve, like an animal in some filthy muggle zoo-"

"Molly," Arthur laid a hand on his wife's shoulder but she pulled away from him like his touch had physically insulted her.

"Don't you dare try to calm me down Arthur Weasley!" Tea splashed out of her cup as she shoved it roughly aside. "Not after all that abomination of a man has done to Harry! Ten breaks in his hand, bruises all over his neck, nearly dead from cold and sickness! What kind of a vicious brute-" Molly visibly shook from her anger. "He's just a boy-"

"Having a talk about me?"

The voice made them jump like a ghost had just entered the room. At the landing of the stairs stood Harry, his jeans and gray shirt wrinkled from having been slept in and reeking of the smell of dried sweat. He was pale, he was trembling. He looked ready to fall over, yet he stood there.

Mrs. Weasley was the first to jump up from her place. "Harry, you shouldn't be up, you're still not well-" She was at his side in less then two seconds. "You need to sit down." She guided him to the sofa where Ron and Fred parted like the Red Sea in order to make room for him.

Harry sat down without any help, though Molly stood centimeters away, ready to spring into action should he quaver in the slightest. "Arthur, fetch a blanket."

"I'm 16 Mrs. Weasley, I'm not a child!" Harry's outburst stilled Arthur's movement to fulfill his wife's request, and threw the room into a sudden deep silence.

No one said anything for several long moments. Molly watched Harry, the weight of such an angry response bearing itself heavily upon her. "No one said you were dear," she moved a hand upwards to touch his hair, but stopped halfway, afraid that with what he had just said, it would have made him feel demeaned.

Harry could see how afraid Mrs. Weasley was of touching him, and a well of guilt came into him for having snapped at her. "I'm sorry-" Harry looked around the room at all the people watching him, seeing their concern all centered around him. It made him feel selfish, terrible. "I'm sorry for dragging you all into this."

"We're big boys, we knew what we were doing. Fred stated this as an absolute. He was now standing beside the sofa after vacating it for Harry.

"We make our own choices mate," George added. You didn't drag us into anything."

"Yes I did!" The intensity of Harry's words tore across the room like the heat of a lightning clap during a summer thunderstorm. "You all have enough to deal with already because of me without dragging something else into it! This is my bloody mess not yours!"

"No Harry," Mrs. Weasely was no stranger to raising her voice, which had the power to silence with one single word. But here it wasn't her voice that was raised – it was the intensity behind it. "This may very well be a bloody mess, but it is an undeserving one, and certainly not one you have to go alone." An unplanned pause silenced Molly's words before she could speak again, she stroked the back of his neck. "We love you."

Harry blinked, hard. A long time ago he had waited to hear those words from his aunt and uncle, the only parents he had known for 12 years. Even when they ignored him, even when he went without food, without any source of attention except reprimands, insults and threats to be kicked out of the house – he still waited for these words. He never considered for one second that he shouldn't be loved; he only wondered why it was taking them so long to realize it.

But tonight he realized that that moment would never come in his lifetime, that love was something he would have to find somewhere, if anywhere else. "No you don't," Harry's voice was barely a whisper, his blinking failing as a fast running tear escaped down the side of his face. "How-?"

"You deserve to be Harry," Hermione's tone added: 'understand?' where her voice didn't. She was standing behind him and she knelt down, resting her head in the curve of his shoulder.

"You deserve it more then anyone mate," Ron laid a hand on Harry's shoulder, squeezing it gently.

Ron's touch opened something inside Harry. The lonely little boy inside of him walked out, crying in the face of all that he would never know, and all that he had found because of what he was denied. His breathing grew ragged, heavy.

Hermione hugged him tight from behind as he cried, kissing the back of his neck in phrases her words would never be able to say.

Molly knelt down in front of him on the sofa. She didn't hug him, but she held him, while in each in their way – through expressions that came from the depth of their gazes – the others held him too.

Outside the stars broke through a silk black-blue sky, shining their small, piercing light as the night continued on.

XXXXXX

Abuse shouldn't exist.

But it does.

Remember that.

Heavy, yes…

Thought provoking…

You tell me.

R/R please.

Peace.

Mystic