The kind of fic where Harry is not forgiving to the people who relegated him to a cupboard from ages 1 to 10.

The day is hot, turning cold. Day turning into night. The queer time when it is neither, in between and unique. It was fitting, Harry thought, that now should be the time when this all happens.

Privet Drive was just as 'perfect' as usual, if only a bit odd for the 20 or so men and women in black cloaks surrounding the second house on the left hand road when facing down the drive, this house was Number 4, the home of three (three and a half, FOUR!) people.

oOo

The fourth habitant of this house was called Harry Potter and he was a rather special young man. The other three, not so much.

oOo

The Dursleys were right at this moment kneeling on the spotless carpet in their living room.

{Questions that need to be answered:}

{Q. Why was the carpet so clean?

A. Because Harry Potter had spent the last hour and half cleaning it.}

{And an even more pertinent one:}

{Q. Why were they on their knees in their living rooms?

A. Because a megalomaniac called Lord Voldemort was just about to kill them in an effort to weaken his arch-nemesis, one 17 year old Harry Potter.}

They were terrified and there was a wet spot spreading over the white fabric of the carpet between Dudley Dursley's legs. It was rather off putting and Harry could smell it from where he was motionless in between two Death Eaters. The anger that such a thing would happen boiled up in him like a sea of rage. He had spent ages cleaning that carpet!

Vernon's moustache quivering blustering and Petunia's whimpering were silenced. Then Voldemort began to talk.

He said something like this:

Ah! Potter! Such a quaint little house you live in with your muggle relatives. You are rather a loyal creature, aren't you, Potter? May I call you Harry, Harry? Yes? Then I will do so. Feel free to call me My Lord, or Master, whichever is your preference. You ransack the oafish Ministry to save your pathetic blood traitor Godfather. You brave the Great Chamber of Secrets for another blood traitor. I do wonder what you will do for the people you raised. If you give yourself up, freely with no struggle and allow us to make an example of you, I will save these vermin for the last raids against the filthy cockroaches that are muggles.

(The reader should note that at this moment Harry is staring at his relatives and in that second Petunia closes her eyes and knows hopelessness.)

So what do you say, Potter? Will you let some more people for you? Or will you finally give in to the greater power?

Harry's eyes are a filmy green. His skin has seen too much sun after too little and is a pasty vicious red. His hair is black and he knows in this second mercilessness and his aunt knows hopelessness. He will not save these people. Not the people that keep him in a cupboard for 10 years, the people that starved and belittled him. That made it so he did not know his name was Harry until he went to school. That worked him like a slave and told him to carry on cooking when he spilt burning oil on his hand cooking Dudley's breakfast.

(HARRY'S GREATEST SECRET IS THAT DUDLEY PUSHED HIM DOWN THE STAIRS ONCE AND VERNON WHIPPED HIM WITH HIS BELT WHEN HE USED MAGIC TO SAVE HIMSELF)

Voldemort releases the spells holding him still when he fakes a few tears and nods – once, twice, three times. It is pathetically easy to ask him tearfully if he can say goodbye, although harder to add a sir on to the end. But he has been doing it for Snape for years and although he hates Voldemort he dislikes the potions master more.

oOo

This is what Harry does:

He stands.

He accios his wand.

He apparates.

He does not say good bye.

He does not say sorry.

But he can hear the angry curses of Voldemort as he leaves and almost relishes the screams of his family which he knows, although he cannot hear, are echoing across the road that had been his hell.

oOo

The night is beautiful, a purple-blue-pink which covers the sky like God was a painter and just grabbed a brush, mixed the three colours and just moved it smoothly over his canvas in a great swathe.

He can see the stars twinkling like in the nursery rhyme Petunia used to sing Dudley but never him and pretends his astronomy lessons were any good and that he can see Sirius and Orion and maybe even Polaris in the stars. But he can't.

He doesn't let that ruin his evening. He stares up at the sky and sees this perfect patch if night, all black to an average passerby, but to him it is purple, with hints of blue, pink and even green. He can see the colour in the black and thinks that maybe, he has found a new favourite colour, but will stick to blue if anyone asks. He doesn't know how to describe this feeling.

[I WOULD LIKE TO SAY THE THREE DURSLEYS WENT TO HELL AND LIVED OUT ETERNITY IN TORMENT. BUT THE TRUTH WOULD BE AFTER THE WILD RUSH OF RED AND GREEN WHIRING TO THEM IN PAIN AND HORROR AND SILENCE, THERE WAS NOTHING. ETERNAL BLACK WITH NOTHNG ELSE MIXED IN]