To say Petunia Dursley did not like her nephew Harry Potter would be like saying that having a limb amputated without general anesthetic might hurt just a little tiny bit: completely inaccurate and horrendously underplayed. In fact, if Petunia were to be honest with herself (which she mostly never was) she would admit that she didn't so much dislike her nephew as she did fear him. Because if there were one thing on this earth that completely and utterly terrified her, it was Hadrian Potter.
He wasn't natural. Of course Petunia knew that going in, there was no way her freak of a sister could've possible spawned a normal child being what she was. If she had any choice in the matter the little freak would've been off to an orphanage in no time at all, but she really didn't have a choice. Not with all the other freaks watching and the old man contaminating her household so she couldn't kick him out. She did try once or twice when he was smaller… but it never worked. She'd drop him off at some poor sod's doorstep, run to the car, slam the door, and rush off home only to see him curled against the floor like he never left. Such unnaturalness.
Well, it didn't matter. Petunia was nothing if not adaptable, and the little freak was nothing but compliant. She made sure he understood early on that he wasn't right, that her and her family didn't want him here and he should be thankful they didn't kick him out on the streets. She set him to earn his keep early, what with washing and cleaning and whatnot, and shoved him in his cupboard as early and often as the day would allow. He never complained, completed all her tasks as if they came from the gospel itself, and acted as if he himself did not exist on demand. On its own, that would've made the freak almost tolerable. If only he wasn't so unnatural.
Vernon maintained if they beat him hard enough he would become normal. A little hard love had done him and his brothers wonders growing up, perhaps it could help straighten out the freak too he said. Petunia was all for the idea. That half-lidded stare the freak would always watch her with was getting on her nerves and if anyone need a bit of hard love, it was him. A couple taps on the wrist to get a normal child? Petunia was willing to try it. Surely then the freak would stop all it's unnaturalness… right?
Petunia didn't know what to do with the results. She supposed she should've been happy the freak stopped with his unnatural acts… there were no more calls from the teacher saying something strange had happened at school, nothing in the house would randomly explode when she gave him a firm hand, and any punishment Vernon gave the boy stayed to see the next morning (which her dear husband was very pleased to discover). The freak was as normal as one of his kind could be thanks to her husband... so why was she still so afraid?
Hadrian (or Freak as he was mostly known) had no trouble admitting that there were things he did not understand. In fact, he had it on good authority (also known as Vernon Dursley) that he wasn't to understand anything at all because he was a freak. It never worked- he seemed to be very good at understanding things he wasn't meant to understand- but Hadrian understood that it was not his place to understand. If Vernon said that there was no such thing as magic (even though Hadrian understood that there was and Vernon was lying because he was afraid) then he absolved to treat the world as if it wasn't there. Ignoring the magic wouldn't make it disappear, he knew, and letting it be left Vernon with fewer opportunities to grace him with "tough love".
He understood that Vernon's "tough love" wasn't a typical disciplinary pattern for people his age. He had watched all the other children in his class closely, looking for signs of discomfort and distrust in regards to the adults meant to watch them. If they were treated in the same manner as he was then they would be there. He watched the adults too. Perhaps the other children were handled more gently because they weren't freaks and that is why they were unafraid, Hadrian remembered thinking, but then why where the adults being so soft? Vernon and Petunia would've told them he was a freak. They liked saying out loud, he knew. They probably would've shouted it from the rooftop if they could physically get up there. After weeks of observing Hadrian could only come up with one conclusion: "tough love" wasn't normal.
But neither was he. Petunia made sure he knew this, as did Vernon. They liked to say it was because he was a freak and was born a freak and all freaks aren't normal, but Hadrian understood it was because of magic. He could see magic. He could feel it, he could taste it in the air he breathed and watch it dance across his fingertips when he made her move. Petunia and Vernon did not like it when he made her move, and as far as he could tell, couldn't see her either. If being normal was "conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected" (he looked it up) then he wasn't normal. He understood that.
What Hadrian didn't understand is why he should care.