Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or the characters.
Harry Potter snapped when he was six years old. He knew from a very young age that he wasn't love and that he was all alone. Harry already knew that his aunt and uncle didn't like him- hell, they hated him. He was treated horribly, forced to do all the house work and cooking. They made him sleep in the cupboard under the stairs with only a blanket for protection from the cold and a stained ripped mattress that did nothing to same him from the bugs and spiders. He was pretty sure that his heath was effected from breathing in all the cleaning solution.
Yes, he was treated horribly and they didn't make up for it by being nice. Harry didn't even know what his first name was until he went to school only being referred to as boy or freak.
He was cold, calculating, and his relatives believed he was a mute. He never cried out or complained when they looked him the dark cupboard without food or water for day letting him out only in the afternoon to make dinner for them.
He never spoke out for himself when he was given his cousins hand-me-down clothes or when he grew out of his child size glasses and was given a dollar store pain.
No, no, Harry never even spoke, preferring to simply observe with his large green eyes conveying what he refused to say. Whenever his aunt smacked him on the head with a frying pan, instead of screaming in pain, he would look at her as if to say: what would your dear sister think of this. His aunt was the kinder of the two.
He uncle didn't start the hardcore abuse until Harry was almost four. When he was younger, two or three, whenever Harry would cry like a toddler he would just smack the back of his hands or withhold food for a few days. And one would wonder why his relatives wondered about the boy being mute.
Harry was four the first time his uncle gave him a hardcore beating. At that time, his Aunt was teaching him how to cook spaghetti. Even with the stool, Harry had a hard time seeing over the stove because of his small malnourished size. He slipped and hand hit the side of the hot pot full of sauce knocking it to the ground. Harry hissed in pain, and immediately cradled his burnt hand.
His uncle, who had a horrible and busy day at work, saw the whole seen.
Harry's aunt was already on her screeching tyrant, "You insolent child! You freak of a being! Now you have to redo the whole dinner and you make Vernon and Dudders," his oaf of a cousin, "wait to eat! No food for a week! That is money you just knocked on the ground. You are a burden to the family! You are just like your parents! A freak..." Harry zoned out his aunt staring at his hand.
The burn was slowly evaporating, and a smile lit up his face despite the situation. Even at four he knew that normal people couldn't do some of the things he could. And based off his aunt's rants, his parents weren't normal either.
She told him that they died in a car crash. Harry seriously doubted that for two reasons, one because this non-normalness would probably save them (like it did to him on many occasions), and he believed his aunt and uncle were avid liars.
Anyways, his uncle saw the boy, the freak, heal himself and saw red. It didn't matter that the child was already getting a solid scolding from his wife and that he shouldn't have even been cooking in the first place, he wanted to cause the boy pain, to beat that freakiness out of him. And he did or tried. He rushed over and grabbed the boy by his over-sized t-shirt and pushed his up against the wall.
"Listen to me boy! You will never use those unnatural abilities in my house ever again! You are a freak of nature and need to know your place! I will not have Dudley exposed to your kind. You are a freak, boy, a freak!" The last work he shrieked and it would have been funny except his uncle was seven times bigger than him and the vein on his forehead was popping out. Throughout his whole entire rant, Harry was merely blinking realizing that smiling probably wasn't the smartest thing to do in that situation. He vowed to himself that he would school his emotions next time.
All his uncle was Harry emotionless pushed against the wall not even listening to him talk. Then, he struck Harry, hard across the face throwing all of his twenty-five pound, four year old frame to the floor.
Harry blinked once, twice, three times. His uncle had spanked him and slapped his hands, and of course, withheld food, but he had never stuck him before preferring to go for the hands off abuse.
This time however, he took the child, picked him off of the floor, and almost growled at him.
Harry acknowledged that his uncle was pissed, but he was still trying to wrap his brain around what had just happened. All his uncle saw was an unresponsive freak who wasn't crying or begging for forgiveness like he envisioned the child doing.
"Take off your shirt and turn around," he commanded Harry. The boy's big green-eyes finally showed emotion: one of confusion.
"Do it!" His uncle growled when the boy continued to stand there.
Harry shrugged off his shirt and turned around knowing that whatever his uncle had planned wasn't going to be good, but unsure of how to get out of it. Even at four, Harry was logical. He was forced to be. He knew he was small, even for his age and he knew his uncle was large. He couldn't run away from his uncle like he could his cousin and for all intensive purposes, he was trapped. Almost like an animal, Harry thought envisioning the dogs in the kennels that that he saw glimpses of on the television.
"Put your hands on the wall," his uncle's voice was full of anger, and his little nephew complied.
Harry heard clicking and undoing and his uncle's belt slip out of his pants. Then all he felt was pain as the first strike hit him. So much pain that he didn't even have the strength to cry out. And again, and again so that Harry couldn't even tell how long his uncle was striking him. Then, all the boy saw was black.
When Harry came to, he was in the darkness of his cupboard. Hesitantly, reached for his back expecting to feel the stickiness of blood and pain, but instead felt the smooth ridges of his spine. At first, Harry though he had imagined the whole event, but then tossed that idea out knowing that he couldn't imagine something that vivid and real. He knew that his powers had saved him, and he vowed, in that dark suppressed cupboard that he would master those powers and one day stand up to his uncle.
That day didn't come for another two years for Harry. He bid his time. He was careful not to do anything that would induce a beating, but the physical abuse was still there. School was a blessing for the young child. It allowed him to get away from the house and learn things. You see, besides being cold and distant, Harry was very intelligent. He had what he would later learn is called an eidetic memory.
Despite what his relatives thought, Harry was not mute. In fact, when he did speak, he was well spoken. The quietness was a barrier for the child. Never speaking kept him from saying the wrong thing and angering his relatives. He learned to speak to himself in the dark little cupboard and exhibited his ability when he went grocery shopping for his aunt or to the cat lady that sometimes baby sat him when his relatives when out.
Harry remembered his first time at school. The first time he ever heard his first name.
The whole entire class was sitting on the mats in front of the teacher and she was calling out the names of the students.
"Haley Parker," the teacher, Miss Rose called out.
A shy little girl in lopsided pigtails and a green dress, stuttered out, "H-here." The teacher smiled to the girl and she returned it easing the girl's nerves. She was the same girl who was crying for her mother in front of the classroom. Harry never understood that, never having a mother of any sort of parental figure.
"Harry Potter," the teacher called out glancing around to the students. He was one of the only students who didn't have parents that spoke to her at before school night. A first there was silence. Maybe he's shy? The teacher thought. She had a few of those every year. Kindergarteners who missed there parents, kids cowed by being in the presence of so many others there age, or even ones who didn't speak.
"Harry?" She tried again smiling, hoping to ease the child out of the crowd of children.
Finally one of the children spoke up, "Here," the boy said easily as if he didn't wait to speak. He looked over the child. He wasn't shy and he didn't stutter, but, she noticed, he was dressed in oversized rags. A pang of pity went out to the boy. His family is probably poor and he doesn't want to draw attention to himself. Maybe his parents are into drugs, or maybe he doesn't have parents. That could be why they didn't show up. She shook her head, exiting her thoughts and moving on the next student on the list.
Harry, in the meanwhile, was contemplating this new development. His first name was Harry. He liked that. He had an actual name. At first when the teacher spoke up, he wasn't sure if it was him. The only clue he got was that his aunt sometimes referred to his sister's husband, his dad, as that horrid Potter.
He was a Potter, and not for the first time in his life, he longed for some sort of family. He shook his head, accidentally mirroring the teacher. Don't think like that, he scolded himself, hoping gets you nowhere. I will never have a family no matter how much I want it.
Over the next few weeks, Harry realized that the other students were idiots. Complete morons, he thought. He had hoped that in going to school he would find people who was different than his cousin, Dudley Dursley, but they all seemed to be the same. They were stupid, loud, and avoided him like the plague because his cousin demanded it.
Harry found solace in the library and in three months he was going through all the different history, science, and math books he could find. At his relatives' House (he never really called it his home), he taught himself to read at three when learning to cook and shop at the grocery store. Math and multiplication came in handy when needing to change the size of meals, and basic child science was learned when working in the garden. But, over the first few months of school, Harry flew through the books in the library and chose to read in class instead of doing to ridiculous tasks that he could finish in five seconds much less the ridiculous amount of time the teacher gave to finish (he defiantly knew what a square was, and seven plus eight obviously equaled fifteen- when multiplied equaled fifty six- and does Miss Rose really have to ask what the next shape in the pattern was?)
Harry worked on his penmanship, wanting it to be better than his aunts, and wrote just as much as he read finding it two things that he could do in his cupboard.
Also, he worked on his control of his powers. Firstly, just calling items to him and unlocking his cupboard at night to get food. It took a lot of energy at first, but as he got better, Harry pushed his abilities.
Harry first realized he could change his appearance, when his aunt cut his hair. Harry hated it, preferring to keep it longer. His aunt however, cut it military styles except for the front which he kept longer to hide his scar.
Harry had black unruly hair and bright green eyes. He was, of course, small and thin with knobby knees and a shallow look to him that came from being underfed. The last part of his appearance, that set him apart, what the thin lightening shaped scar on his forehead. Harry didn't know what to think of it being told that he got it in the car crash that killed his parents (although he was still pretty sure it wasn't a car, he was however sure that it didn't relate to his parents, if not their deaths.) On one hand, it was his only connection to his parents and it reminded him that at one point in his life he had someone who did care for him, but it also reminded him that they died and left him in the miserable place he was today.
Anyways, Harry was cleaning the bathroom staring at his horrible hair cut, wishing with all his might that it would just go back to the way it was earlier that day. And then, right before his eyes, it grew out again. Harry was thrilled, and then he got an idea. He looked in the mirror and willed his hair to be blonde. And it did, and then he changed his eye color, and then his nose size, and then his teeth. For the next ten minuets, Harry experimented and was frustrated that he couldn't change his skinniness, height, or hide his scar.
Harry was board out of his mind at school, when heard his librarian speaking in Spanish to one of the girls that was checking out a book.
For the first time in his life, Harry went up to an adult and asked a question.
"Can you teach me how to speak Spanish?" Harry asked, expecting to be shot down. He knew he wouldn't be hit, but still, an irrational part of him, expected abuse from all adults.
"I would love to, but I have to man the desk and," she said looking at the young boy in front of her, "I'm sure you're a very bright boy, but learning another language takes time."
Harry nodded, the wheels turning in his head. Maybe he could self teach it, he thought. Another language would be great and keep him from the boredom of being around other kids.
Looking at the little boy dressed in rags, the older Hispanic women felt a pang of sympathy. She saw him everyday in the library and never had anyone with him. He only talked with her, when he checked out books.
"How about this Harry? There are some books in back about Spanish and the Friday I will go over a few phrases with you," she hoped that would placate the boy. She knew he was always reading the older grade text books, but she thought he was just looking at the pictures or day dreaming.
Harry smiled a true genuine smile that has only passed his face a few times in his life, and rushed off to the back to get those books.
When Friday came around, the librarian was stunned. Harry had already memorized a tone of verbs and nouns and could hold a poor conversation. Every Friday for the next two months, Harry and the librarian went over Spanish and Harry became better and better until he was fluent. She even brought another teacher in who spoke French, to teach the boy, and then he mastered that.
And the school year came closer to the end, Harry felt sadness. For once in his life he found a place when he could speak freely and be himself to some extent. He never trusted the librarians or his French teacher, but he started to loosen up.
That summer was hell. Every single day, the beatings got worse and worse. It all started when Harry got a report card home saying that he was brilliant and his cousin got a report card saying that he needed a tutor. ("Freaks aren't intelligent. That boy must be using his unnaturalness to charm the teacher into singing his praise and putting Duddly down." His aunt and his uncle rationalized.)
It was Harry's birthday, his sixth to be exact, and he woke up to the usual banging of his aunts fist on the cupboard's door.
"Get up, freak. It's time to make breakfast. Vernon wants bacon his mourning." Aunt Petunia commanded in her nasally voice.
Harry did as he was told, and made his way to the kitchen. His uncle was sitting at the table reading the paper and he turned to his aunt, and said, "Pet, guess what day it is?"
"Something to do with work?" She guessed.
"No, it's the freaks birthday, and I think that we should remind him of his place." His uncle turned to Harry and the sadistic smile on his face worried Harry. Not for the first time, he worried that his powers would save his life this time. His uncle was starting to notice that Harry's injuries never lasted and it just made it worse. During the school year, his uncle stayed away from his face and made sure not to break any bones, but he wasn't as careful over the last month or two.
Harry decided right then and there that he wasn't going to sit by while his uncle killed him. He was going to use his powers. He turned and looked his uncle in the eye, and then something happened that Harry didn't expect.
You see, Harry usually only stared blankly at people or avoided eye contact (which he learned was usually a side effect of abuse from his physiology books.) But when Harry looked in his uncle's eyes, letting the power he had learned to control out, his uncle memories started to flash before his eyes.
He saw his aunt explaining how her sister Lily (his mother's name is Lily he thought in wonder) was a witch and she was marrying a wizard named James Potter. He gulped at this revelation. He was a wizards, and his powers were magic powers. Magic was real and his aunt and uncle knew about it the whole time. Harry had known for as long as he could remember that he had powers, and his parents probably had powers, and that his aunt and uncle knew about it. But seeing it in front of him, something snapped.
"You never told me I was a wizard," Harry said to his uncle.
His uncle didn't know what to think. That fact that the boy knew, or that he had finally spoken (he wasn't smart enough to realize that Harry must have spoken at school.)
He uncle sputtered and, "Don't say that word! Magic isn't real. You need to learn your place boy!" He changed at Harry, but hit an invisible force field.
"My name is Harry. My parents are James and Lily Potter who are a wizard and witch and you are a non-magic person. You will not speak to me that way," Harry demand with such force and magic in his words that his uncle stupidly nodded.
To prove his point, Harry used his magic to push his uncle into the wall and then turned to them.
"From this point forward, you will be cooking your own meals and cleaning your own house and you will leave me alone. If you touch me ever again, I will kill you." Harry didn't even wait for his relatives replies, but instead walked right out of the house for the day, hoping to enjoy his sixth birthday silently acknowledging the fact that his whole life had changed that day.