Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.
Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Feel free to back out if that's you. Content wise, there are several references to the canon abuse from the Dursleys.
Author's Note: Okay, so I'm experimented a bit here, so I'm trusting y'all just a bit. Harry is nonbinary in this fic and using the same pronouns that I do. Harry's a baby, though, and doesn't realize what they're doing, which happens more than people seem to realize. Also, Harry has both autism and synesthesia. Interesting tidbit that non-synesthetes don't tend to realize: a lot of us with synesthesia don't realize that our sensory experiences differ so greatly from everyone else's. Think about it: How often do you question something that isn't different from the way it's always been?
Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 10); MC4A (Shipping War; FPC; Star; Fence; T3; SN)
Individual Challenges: Click Bait It; Yellow Ribbon (Y); Yellow Ribbon Redux; Gryffindor MC; Ravenclaw MC; Neurodivergent; Quiet Time; Sett to Destroy; Short Jog (Y)
House: Hufflepuff
Assignment No.: Term 10 – Assignment 8
Subject (Task No.): Sociology (Task #4: Write about someone who identifies as a gender identity outside of what they were assigned at birth.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Auction [11.4] (Singing); Insane Prompts Challenge [563] (God Help the Outcasts from Hunchback of Notre Dame); Scavenger Hunt [94] (Write a fic inspired by a song.); Gym (Periwinkle); Pinata [Hard] (Trio Era); Cassiopeia [Ruchbah] (pastel yellow)
Representation(s): Autistic Harry Potter; Luna Lovegood; Child Abuse Survivor
Bonus Challenges: Peddling Pots; Second Verse (Not a Lamp; Persistence Still); Chorus (Wabi Sabi)
Tertiary Bonus Challenges: T3 (Toad); SN (Rail; Ameliorate)
Word Count: 1153
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Ask for Nothing
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Little Whinging was gray. That was their opinion, at least. No one else seemed to think that there was anything washed out and dreary about the town. The Dursleys in particular clearly believed that fitting in with the people in the town was of the upmost importance. Some of their first memories were Aunt Petunia's lessons about covering their freakish behavior and horrible demeanor. They tried hard to forget about the blandness of everything and how terrible they were for existing, but it was no use.
They would always be a freak.
There was some benefit to accepting their freakishness. Accepting that meant they didn't need to force themselves to look at people's faces when they were speaking or even acknowledge them if they were being too loud. It meant that the names they were called by the other children could just roll off their back like balls going downhill. It meant that they could simply be Freak or the Boy, instead of a real child with a real name, and that was fine.
Harry was a stupid name anyway.
Then Hagrid came and made Aunt Petunia do her bitter-angry voice and Uncle Vernon turn the purple that normally meant a painful beating. Instead of leaving them to deal with the fallout, Hagrid took them away for the day. Diagon Alley was full of colors, not like Little Whinging. It was also loud and full of things that made their skin tingle unpleasantly. They hated it, just a little, but they hated how everyone wanted them to be Harry, a real child who acknowledged people and looked them in the eye and didn't get overwhelmed by how everything was moving so fast.
They had never been so thankful for Little Whinging's blandness as they were when they dragged their new trunk behind them that evening. Their entire body felt like a bruise (dragging a steamer trunk between trains was nothing like hauling garden tools around the gardens of Number Four) but things were finally quiet again. They were not looking forward to being made to go to Hogwarts at the end of the month, but they very much doubted that they had a choice in the matter, given the determination already demonstrated.
(Even magic didn't fully explain the letters in the eggs. That piqued their attention more than a little bit. Agreeing with Uncle Vernon still left a bitter taste in their mouth.)
Uncle Vernon dropped them off early, leaving before they could find the platform marked on their ticket. Not that it took them very long to find it on their own; they just followed the prickly sensation instead of relying on their eyes. The Hogwarts Express was a brilliant red that made their stomach threaten to turn itself inside out, but the inside wasn't so bad. Other than the way everyone treated him like a real boy instead of the freak he was, they thought it wouldn't be too horrible.
They liked Ron, despite how he had asked to see that terrible scar first thing. Ron was a nice sienna among the chaotic colors of the other first years. A bossy girl whose creamy skin went well with the periwinkle she gave off was annoying but still nice, because she knew all the rules for the school and willing to share that knowledge. Hermione also knew all about the Harry-boy they were supposed to be, having read all the books. She was willing to share that knowledge, too. Their favorite was Neville, who was a soothing pine color and loved plants. He had a toad that liked escaping and like them, Neville had trouble remembering things sometimes.
By the end of the year, they were convinced that they were all friends. Then a summer of silence happened. It was because of a house elf named Dobby, but it still made them feel hollow. They missed their friends, though maybe they hadn't really been friends.
Then Ron showed up in a flying car and took them away from the Dursleys to a place even louder and more chaotic than Diagon Alley. They already knew from Hogwarts that Ron was the best color of his siblings, but his little sister Ginny was a rich cherry that seemed to darken as time went by. They didn't like that, but they hated how she squeaked every time they looked at her, not they tried to look often anyway. It made it easier to pretend to be the Harry they wanted him to be.
Among the first years, they spotted a tiny blonde among the Ravenclaws. She was a pale pastel yellow that fascinated them. She didn't follow the rules of the school, but no one overlooked it in order to preserve an illusion of a person. They envied her that, because being the Harry-boy everyone insisted they were was exhausting. Even with the obvious bullying that the girl faced (it made Aunt Petunia and Aunt Marge seem friendly by comparison), they wished that they could be just as free to be themself as the girl was.
They found the girl by herself one night when they had slipped out of Gryffindor tower. She was down by the dock for the boats, swimming around in the dark waters. Her lemon color shone brightly in the shadowy water, like the shimmering reflection of the moon on the Black Lake. It was peaceful, especially when she abandoned the water to sit on the edge of the dock and work on drying her long hair.
They froze when the girl began to sing as she divided her hair into sections for braiding. Their fingers itched to help. Aunt Petunia didn't let them grow their hair longer than the tufts they had. They were supposed to be a boy, and boys weren't allowed to have long hair. Harry could see Aunt Petunia's point, even if they didn't fully agree that they were a boy (even if they were certain that they weren't a girl either), but that didn't stop them from wanting to feel the girl's hair between their fingers.
It took the blonde two songs to finish braiding her hair. But afterwards, she kicked her feet over the edge and kept singing. They slid down the wall, letting the notes wash away the tension of the day. Hermione and Ron had spent the day bickering, their colors clashing just as much as their words. Yet here, in the darkness without only scattered candles and the girl's yellow color as light, they could relax finally.
They didn't need to pretend to be the Harry-boy that everyone wanted or justify any deviation from being anything except the freak they were. The girl was sharing her freedom with him without demanding anything in return. It was the nicest thing that anyone had ever done for him.
She sang, and they listened.
It was the closest they had ever gotten to true peace.