Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto.
Escape
13 July, 1987, Little Whinging
Harsh hammering against the door of my cupboard awakens me. Blearily I open my eyes and blink a few times, trying to clear my head.
"GIRL! Get up and make breakfast!"
More hammering. I kick the threadbare blanket off of me and swing my legs over the edge of the mattress.
"GIRL! Get UP!"
"I'm up, Aunt Petunia," I say. Then I grab my toothbrush and towel, push myself to my feet and walk over to the door, just as she rips it open and harsh light from the corridor shines in my eyes, causing me to stop and blink sudden tears away. She reaches for my shoulder and drags me out. I manage to keep from wincing when her fingers dig into the bruises that Dudley caused when he shoved me aside against a wall while running towards his friends. I don't think he even consciously registered my presence, which is probably a good thing.
Aunt Petunia sneers down at me. "Clean yourself up. You look like you slept in your clothes." Probably because I did. It's not like I own pajamas. "And your hair looks like rats live in it." I nod and walk to the bathroom. "And hurry it up! I want breakfast on the table when Diddykins comes down!" Petunia yells after me. "And good morning to you too," I think, closing the bathroom door behind me. Inside, I turn toward the mirror. The face that stares back at me is unnaturally pale and framed by dark red hair that actually does currently look like rats played in it. On my forehead, an odd scar shaped like a lightning bolt mars my otherwise flawless skin. Spring green eyes that seem too big for my face stare at me hauntingly. Other kids eyes don't look like that, I think. Sighing, I grab the hairbrush and attack my hair with it until it falls slightly less messy to my mid-back. Then I quickly strip off my clothes and get under the shower. Looking down at myself, I see the faded bruises lining my body. Images of Uncle Vernon flash through my head, his booming voice echoing "Worthless!", "Ugly!" and "Freak!", insulting my parents and praising himself for taking in ungrateful me, all while his fists crash into my small almost seven year old body.
I shake my head and shove the memories away, then turn the water on. If I don't hurry up, Petunia will come and yell at me. Thankfully, Uncle Vernon isn't awake yet this early on a Sunday.
After I finish my shower, I towel-dry my hair, brush it again and braid it, then dress myself and brush my teeth. I grab my towel and toothbrush and leave the bathroom. The Dursleys don't want me to keep anything anywhere in the house except for my cupboard, and I'm sure that if they could, they would lock me in there too and pretend I never existed. But they can't do that since they need someone to cook and do laundry and clean and mow the lawn and paint the white picket fence and wash the car and and and. I try not to think about this. And when I do, I tell myself: "You are Jasmine Potter. You like reading and learning complicated words, observing people and running. Someday, you will escape from here and you will be free. You'll have friends and a home. Someday, you will be happy."
After putting my things away, I walk into the kitchen, hearing the sounds of the television from the living room where Petunia is probably sitting with her eyes glued to the screen so she can't miss a single detail of whatever gossip surrounds whatever royal family today. This afternoon, she will be meeting with other women to drink tea and discuss the newly acquired gossip unless some scandal happened to someone her little club actually knows. I'm glad they aren't meeting here at Privet Drive today. Petunia always locks me in the cupboard when the other women come.
While thinking about this, I take out bacon and eggs and set about making breakfast. Sunday mornings are my favorite, because Vernon and Dudley sleep in and Petunia watches the television. This leaves me alone in the kitchen with the food. On Sunday mornings I don't have to eat just scraps. And after breakfast, the Dursleys will go to church where freaks like me are not allowed, but that's okay because they'll take me to stay with old Mrs. Figg and she lets me eat lunch and after that, she takes a nap. She usually makes me take one too, but I know that she'll fall asleep in just fifteen minutes and then sleep for around two hours. And in those two hours, I get to go to the living room and read her books. Mrs. Figg has a lot of those, most of which are romance novels, but there are also books full of mysteries and adventures, books containing freedom, happiness, beauty and knowledge. They take me into foreign and strange worlds far away from Little Whinging. Those two hours of reading are worth having to spend time with Mrs. Figg who constantly rambles on about her numerous cats.
I have finished making breakfast, just as Uncle Vernon comes down the stairs with Dudley right after him. Petunia comes into the kitchen and greets her husband, then smothers Dudley in hugs and kisses and silly nicknames.
Breakfast is always a surreal affair for me. While they sit and eat and talk, I quietly clean the stove, scrub pans and pots until they are perfectly clean and put things away. It's like I'm invisible, a ghost floating around silently, here but not here. The Dursleys don't notice me observing them, studying them. At first glance, they seem like a perfect family, eating together in familial bliss. But looking closer, there are fissures in their perfect image. Vernon drones on about the government, his business and how much better he is than his colleagues and how he could do a so much better job than his superiors. Petunia replies with gossip about the neighbors and what knowledge she has acquired while watching the telly earlier. Occasionally they take breaks from their respective topics to marvel over Dudley when he actually says something instead of cramming as much food as possible in his mouth. Usually his sentences start with "I want". None of the three actually listen to each other. It is not just me that is removed from them, they are removed from each other too, and they don't even know it.
After breakfast and cleaning up, I am sent to my cupboard while the Dursleys get ready to go to church. For Petunia, this means putting on makeup and a flower-patterned formless dress that hides what few curves she has. Vernon will put on a suit complete with an obnoxiously colored tie. Dudley will play computer games until his mother comes and dresses him in knickerbockers and a dress shirt and then places a straw hat on his pudgy head.
It is the same. Every. Single. Sunday. Every Week of every month of every year since I can remember. The thought of having to endure this for years to come is distressing. I'm trapped in a prison without bars, wearing shackles that no one sees, pressed down by weights made of dull routines.
"GIRL!" Uncle Vernon bellows. And I walk out of my cupboard and follow his voice, because I am 'girl' and in this house, I don't even have a name.
The rest of the day progresses as expected. Petunia sends me over to Mrs. Figg where we sit on the couch and stroke her cats and I pretend to listen to her talk and talk and talk about them. Hours later, she gets up to make lunch and leaves me with her cats. They at least are blissfully silent. Sometimes I wonder if I should feel guilty that I like them more than her.
Until two years ago, I used to adore Mrs. Figg. She actually called me by my name and talked to me. I craved that attention she seemingly gave me. The realisation that I was wrong about her came after my first week of school.
I had been excited for weeks about starting school. I had told her all about which school I would go to, that I would read tons of books and find friends, and she had smiled and nodded. When I visited her that Sunday after my first week in school, she never mentioned school. She sat me down on the couch, handed me Ms. Emmy and was near tears telling me how Mr. Tibbers had had a splinter in his paw and the poor dear was limping. She never noticed that I wasn't walking right because I had twisted my ankle during my very first game of 'Jasmine-hunting'. That was when I realised that I was nothing more to her than the girl who listened to her talk about her cats. She didn't care enough to want to know me. She didn't notice when weeks later I stopped smiling and started flinching at sudden hand gestures in my direction.
After lunch, Mrs. Figg goes to lie down and I pretend to do the same. When I'm sure she is asleep, I sneak back into the living room. I walk over to the shelves and pull out a book. Then I sit down and proceed to lose myself within a world where people are strong and good always wins. Where girls like me get saved.
Petunia comes to get me about two hours before dinner which is always at 7 pm. Apparently after the Dursleys had lunch at a restaurant after going to the church, she went to her tea drinking club and Vernon took Dudley to a Rugby game. The only reason she tells me this is because she expects her darling Duddykins and her dear husband to be beyond starved when they return, so I am expected to peel what feels like thousands of potatoes and chop hundreds of onions while she prepares steaks and salads, and I just know that we will have so many leftovers that they would rather save them for tomorrow instead of giving some to me, especially since they know I got lunch from Mrs. Figg.
When Vernon and Dudley return, they are indeed hungry and in addition to that agitated because they were stuck in a jam on their way back. I don't think it could have been that bad since they are still in time for dinner, but Dudley acts like he is a returning war hero long believed to be dead by his family and Vernon is in a foul mood. I suspect that as much as he loves his son, being stuck with Dudley in a car with no escape had him entertaining the idea of giving him up for adoption. Upon their return to Privet Drive Vernon goes straight to the drawer in which he keeps his whiskey and pours himself a glass, glaring darkly at nothing in particular. Suddenly I am glad that I will most likely be sent to my cupboard.
I shouldn't have assumed I would be that lucky.
The Dursleys have sat down and I am carrying over plates of food over to the table. When I am bringing the salad bowls Petunia made for every member of her family separately depending on their likes and dislikes, Dudley kicks at my legs and I lose my balance and the salad ends up all over Uncle Vernon's shirt and trousers. I start to tremble as I watch his face go from its normal reddish color to puce and then to purple. Then he stands up and barely a moment later I bounce of the wall and the left side of my face is burning where he backhanded me. Get up get up get up run away! My mind screams at me. I only manage to turn my head in the direction of his voice that is roaring at me but can't quite overcome the rushing in my ears. I watch disoriented as he stomps over to me and grabs my forearm and hauls me to my feet, dragging me into the corridor in the direction of my cupboard. Once there, he buries his fist in my gut, driving all air out of my lungs oh god I can't breathe and throws me to the floor, my head hitting it painfully. His leg moves and something heavy slams in my side and I can feel something crack, are those my ribs? Vernon turns and stalks out, slamming the cupboard's door behind him, shutting the light out.
I don't know how long I lie there, taking in shallow breaths of air, trying desperately to hold on to consciousness, counting my own heartbeats because there is nothing else to focus on.
...sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy...
"I can't do this anymore," I whisper into the darkness.
...seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five...
"I need to get out of here."
...seventy-eight, seventy-nine...
Sometimes really weird things happen around me. Like that time I turned my teacher's wig blue. And that other time when Dudley shoved me against a wall to get to his friends faster and something just clicked inside me, and suddenly he was tripping over nothing and crashed into all his friends and all of them fell over.
...eighty-three, eighty-four, eighty-five...
And then that time when I desperately wanted to escape from Dudley and his gang and was suddenly standing on a rooftop.
...eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one...
I thought I was desperate then.
...ninety-eight, ninety-nine, ninety-ten...
I wasn't.
But now I am.
So I focus everything that I am, every fiber of my will, on wanting to escape, on desperately wishing to go somewhere they can't follow. Somewhere I can grow strong. Where I won't be alone anymore.
Somewhere to belong.
...ninety-eleven... no that's not right...
And the wish grows inside me, filling me, and I feel power surging through my veins, and I make it coil around my wish, pressing it into one tiny drop of wantwantwant.
...better start over again...
And then I let it loose.
It burns through my body, scorching me inside, and then my body isn't enough and it bursts OUT, lifting me off the ground, whirling and whirling and whirling around me, and I hear wild laughter somewhere in the distance is that me? and then it starts pressing in on me, drowning me, crushing me into tiny pieces but I don't fall apart because it pushes me together and it hurtshurtshurtsmakeitSTOP!
And then it's gone.
...one... ... two... ... ... three... ... ... ...
I'm not in my cupboard anymore.
...four... ... ... ... ... five... ... ... ... ... ... ...
I think I am dying.
...six... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... seven... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ..eight... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ..
Over me, leaves sway in a gentle breeze, the moon illuminating the gigantic tree that I am lying under. Around me I can see a lovely clearing full of flowers with little star-shaped blossoms blooming in the moonlight.
Not a bad place to die.
As I fall asleep, a ghost with a dog-mask lands in the branches above me.
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ni... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .n... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...e... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...