You Don't Need To

by cutie-tiger

A/N: I thank you for taking the time to click on my story and hopefully to read it. This is not a slash story nor will it ever be. Pairings may develop in time but they will not be the focus of this story. If you would be so kind as to leave a review I would be grateful, but I will not be one of those authors that refuses to update if no reviews are left. I will also not be one of those authors with insanely long authors notes, so, without further ado, on with the story.

Summary: Harry returns after his fifth year for another abusive summer at the Dursley's, but, when rescued, won't tell anyone what takes place. Snape grudgingly changes his opinion of Harry. Sixth year, not HBP or DH compliant, child abuse, no slash.

Disclaimer: I believe it common courtesy to state that Harry Potter is not mine, and that this is purely fanfiction.

Chapter One

"How dare your freakish friends threaten us?"

The first words Vernon Dursley had said to Harry since he had been threatened by the Order of the Phoenix at Kings Cross station were said in a deceptively quiet voice, one that may have almost led someone who was not used to his temper to believe that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't almost about to fly off the handle.

Unfortunately for Harry, he did know the large man well, and he knew that this deceptive quiet was just a front he put up for the outside world to see. He was well aware that as soon as they were inside Number Four, Privet Drive anything and everything that he owned that pertained to magic would be forcibly taken from him and he would be locked in the cupboard under the stairs without the prospect of light or substantial food for several days.

In the past Harry may have cared, he probably would have yelled at him, threatened him with Sirius, his supposedly murderous godfather. But now, it didn't seem to matter. Sirius was dead, gone, forever. And it was his fault. Sure, he'd listened to Dumbledore, and he really wanted to believe that it wasn't really his fault Sirius was gone, but he had spent hours contemplating Sirius' absence and kept coming to the same conclusion. It was his fault. Sirius was dead and there were lots of things he could have done to prevent his death, and he hadn't done any of them. And now Sirius was dead.

Sure, Uncle Vernon had no way of knowing yet that Sirius was dead, and Harry did not plan on telling him any time soon, he had quite clearly forgotten about Harry's godfather even existing and Harry felt sure that bringing up the subject of his death would not change the fact he was, in fact, gone.

Harry had long since come to the conclusion that he had to pay the price for Sirius' death, it was his fault after all, and one way of paying the debt he owed Sirius would be to submit to his Uncle's abuse. Of course, that wouldn't pay his whole debt, he would still need to do more. But he knew what he had to do. He had to defeat Voldemort once and for all. Even if the prophesy hadn't named him as the one to defeat Voldemort he still would have taken on the task now. He had to avenge Sirius' death. The only way for him to do that would be if he defeated Voldemort, and Bellatrix Lestrange.

"Boy?" Vernon asked again in the same deceptively calm tone.

Harry didn't reply, he simply shrugged his shoulders and continued to stare out the window. He could feel the anger radiating off of his uncle and knew that whatever was to follow would certainly at least start to repay his debt to Sirius.

Vernon maintained his façade of calmness as he directed Harry to lift his trunk out of the boot of the car. That changed as soon as the front door clicked shut behind them.

"Take it to the cupboard and place it in the corner. I'll be along shortly to lock it, but first I want you to get out of it about 30 pieces of that stuff you use instead of paper. Get one of those pen things to. You're going to write those letters to that Moby person. They will be short, no pleasantries, just fact. You will be writing simply to let him know you are fine, thank you very much. Nothing else, do I make myself clear?" The deceptively calm voice was gone now. It had been replaced by a snarl.

Harry simply nodded. He hadn't really felt like speaking since he got into his Uncle's car. He got the feeling it was going to be one long, quiet summer. He sighed as he lugged his heavy trunk over to the corner of his room. He was glad of the bit of muscle he still had left from before he received a life-time Quidditch ban. His trunk certainly did weight a lot, but that really was only expected considering his entire life was contained in what amounted to a box.

He quickly grabbed his wand out and hid it in the rafters just above his old bed; it was a place he had often used to hide food when Vernon had locked him in the cupboard. He certainly didn't want his wand locked in his trunk. When death eaters came calling they wouldn't politely knock and wait at the door for him to find the key to a lock so he could retrieve his wand. Not even if he said pretty please. They would just barge in and torture and kill both him and the Dursley's. Harry might hate them, but he was no murderer. He wouldn't say no to a stint in jail for them, but he was most definitely opposed to murdering anyone, not even people as vile as the Dursley's. The only exception to this rule was Voldemort himself, but Harry didn't really consider him to be a human, he was more of a monster, some perverted accident of Dark Magic gone wrong.

Harry then sighed, picked out thirty small pieces of parchment and a quill and began to write his letters to Moody. He would dearly have loved to use a duplicating spell on them, but knew it was not allowed outside of school and did not want to chance another run-in with the ministry. After about two hours of writing he had finished his thirty short letters. Each and every one of them read:

I'm fine. I'm not dead. No action of any sort.

HJP

His letters couldn't get any shorter or to the point than that he thought with a rueful smile as he glanced at the clock.

Not long after Vernon opened the door to the cupboard without so much as a knock.

"We've decided to move you back down here for the holidays. Dudley can make much more proficient use of his second bedroom than you can, so why would we waste the space on you?"

"You don't need to," replied Harry, having already worked out he would be stuck in the cupboard for most of the holidays.

"And don't think that just because your owl will have to deliver those stupid letters to Blueby or whoever that you'll be able to send letters to you supposed friends either. And I won't be allowing any birds in the house. Your owl will live in the shed. Any complaint from you and you'll live there too. "

"Don't worry, sir, I've written my letters to Moody. They're here for you. You realise Hedwig will need feeding? They may get just a little suspicious if my owl shows up and faints."

A thunderous scowl crossed Vernon's face. "Your owl can have food. But anything she costs us is coming out of the money we would have spent on food for you. Get used to being hungry, boy."

"Whatever". Harry really didn't mind. Why should he get to eat when Sirius obviously would never consume food again? Harry briefly remembered Nearly Headless Nicks death day party, where the ghosts had drifted through the rotting food trying to get even the briefest tastes of one of the things many of the living take for granted. Was Sirius like that now? Is that maybe what the people behind the veil do? Try to reclaim some of the basic parts of life, at the same time being doomed to never feel or taste again.

"Don't speak to me in that ungrateful tone," snapped Vernon. He wasted no more energy on words, instead deciding to slap Harry across the face. Harry didn't even flinch. He deserved the bruise that he could already fell forming around his eye.

"Next time it won't be that light," warned Vernon, "a client of mine gave me a whip for securing a good deal on his drills. I've been just dying to try it out."

Harry felt a small glimmer of hope. Maybe he wouldn't have to put all that much effort into punishing himself for Sirius' death.

Later that night he fell into an uneasy sleep, constantly disturbed by nightmare of Sirius' death.

Harry was still dozing fitfully when he heard a pounding on his door. When he realised it was morning he felt oddly relieved, a few more hours would pass before he had to dream of his godfather's death. Of course, he still dwelt on it almost every second, but somehow seeing it, and having no control over what he was seeing was infinitely worse.

Harry had obviously lain in his room contemplating his nightmares for just a second too long. His door nearly fell off its hinges as it was thrown open by Uncle Vernon.

"BOY!" he screamed, "GET UP THIS INSTANT". He didn't even give Harry a second to scramble out of bed, he strode over to Harry's bed, grabbed his arm and pulled. Harry fell out of bed and landed on the floor with a thump, but not before a load crack could be heard coming from his shoulder, followed by a sensation of pain. Harry didn't even need to look at his shoulder to be able to tell. It was most definitely dislocated.

"Good thing you already wrote those letters," sneered Vernon. "Now get up and make breakfast. I will not accept a sore arm as an excuse for anything going wrong. After that you can complete the list of chores that is taped to the fridge for you. If you complete them all before I get home you may eat any leftovers from Dudley's dinner. If not, then you can expect me to be in here later trying out my whip. Do you understand me?"

"Yes sir," replied Harry, still nursing his throbbing shoulder. He knew the list would be insanely long and with a shoulder in the state his was in there would be no way he could avoid a beating. But he would try. He would not swallow all of his pride just to please his Uncle. Besides, how would he ever stand up to Voldemort if he could allow Vernon Dursley to induce fear into his heart?

Harry cooked breakfast with relatively few mishaps considering he only had full use of one hand. He only burnt himself twice. He didn't dare run his burns under cold water. Vernon would probably try to drown him in the water as a punishment.

Harry couldn't really work out what had changed. Sure, Vernon had hit him occasionally in the past. But he had never basically promised Harry a beating. Not that Harry really minded. He was almost happy at the distraction from Sirius. But he knew he would have to be careful to hide his wounds when he went back to Hogwarts. Two months seemed so long away. He was sure it was long enough to come up with some reasonably believable explanations for the black eyes and burnt hands he was now pretty sure he would have by September First.

Harry contemplated his explanations as he dug and planted a two by one metre vegetable garden in the Dursley's back yard. Just one of the ten tasks he had been given to perform that day. He knew he would be hard pressed to complete even this one, considering that he would undoubtedly have to make a trip to the store to buy the seeds for the garden. By the time he had planted the seeds he had his explanations all planned out. The black eyes could be explained away by saying he slipped and hit his eye on the side of a table, then couldn't really see where he was going on his way to the kitchen to get some ice for it and crashed into a door knob on his way. The hands were a little harder, but he decided to settle on at least a little of the truth. He burnt his hands by accident while cooking dinner for the Dursley's.

It wasn't that he wanted to protect the Dursley's from prosecution. He just didn't want people to know that the great Harry Potter, boy-who-lived, couldn't even bring himself to stand up to a great muggle slob. He'd always wondered why he had more bruises than the other children when he was younger, why his chest always hurt more than those of others who Dudley used as a punching bag.

Once, when he was really little, just started school, this nice man his Teacher, said was a Policeman, talked to their whole class. He said people hitting you was not right, ever, and if they did you could tell him now, or your teacher, or your school nurse and they would help you. The whole time he was looking at Harry, kind of like he knew. Afterwards, as Harry was leaving, he asked him to stay behind.

'Hey kid, what's your name?' he asked in a kind voice.

Harry nearly shot through the ceiling he was so used to not being noticed. Even his teacher ignored him, she thought he was dumb, and probably dyslexic too. He didn't know why he couldn't see the board, he thought it was just more of that freakishness Uncle Vernon would always yell about as he beat him.

'I'm fr.. uh, Harry,' replied Harry timidly.

This wasn't lost on the Policeman, who studied Harry with an indecipherable look on his face.

'Your Mum and Dad, do they do what I was talking about to you, Harry?'

Harry shook his head vehemently, 'My Mum and Dad are dead, sir, Aunt Petunia says they died in a car crash when I was little. All I got was this scar, see?' He lifted up his fringe to show the nice man, while his heart beat quickly, Uncle Vernon had promised to knock the stuffing out of him if he ever told anyone about his punishments.

'Your Aunt and… Uncle, yes?' at Harry's hesitant nod he continued, 'do they do what I was talking about to you?'

Harry again shook his head, but the policeman noticed a slight hesitation beforehand. It wasn't much, but he was used to dealing with abused children, for him, it was an admission that this child was being beaten.

'Can you tell me how you got that bruise then?'

Harry's hand immediately shot up to cover his black eye. With his other eye he looked down at his shoe. After a few minutes he seemed to realise that it was being left up to him to make the next move.

'I… fell, sir.'

'Mmmhmm, and would you mind telling me the truth now, please?'

It was the please that swayed Harry, he looked up at the policeman, and began to speak in a voice so soft that it was all the policeman could do to hear it.

'Uncle Vernon, he says nobody cares what happens to freaks like me. He punishes me a lot when I'm a bad boy, and I'm a bad boy a lot. He tells me I'm a big freak and that no one cares about me. He tells me my parents were just as freakish as me, and were horrible to go off and leave me to be a burden on their hardworking relatives'. Once Harry got started he whispered this all out in quick succession.

The policeman had looked at him calculatingly after that, and had assured Harry that soon his Aunt and Uncle would be reprimanded for the way they had been treating him.

Sure enough, a couple of days later a social worker called at the door. Harry was in his cupboard, currently unable to move due to allowing Vernon's tea to become to strong.

Aunt Petunia had answered the door.

'Good afternoon, Mrs Dursley, I'm Yyvone Sinclair from Child Youth and Family Services, I'm here about a complaint regarding your treatment of one Harry Potter. Would I be able to see the child in question please?'

Petunia had paled at that statement, but quickly regained her composure. Certainly, if you'll take a seat on the couch, I'll just fetch him.

With that, she had run up the stairs, grateful that her rotten nephew was still passed out under the stairs. She had burst into Dudley's room and quickly explained that she'd take him to the dairy and buy him a nice ice cream bar if he'd pretend to be Harry for a few minutes.

It hadn't taken long to smooth over with the lady from CYFS, she had quickly concluded that, while slightly overweight, the child she saw before her was not abused.

When Uncle Vernon returned home that night he made it clear to Harry what he thought of him being an 'underhanded crybaby'. It didn't help that he was drunk. Harry certainly had the stuffing beaten out of him. After that, he learnt never to trust any adult that offered him help.

Harry signed as he worked hard in the garden under the scorching summer sun. He knew this year it would be worse than ever, but something had changed within him. Losing Sirius made it seem like nothing mattered any more. His perception of life had been drastically altered, a part of him felt like it was missing, every time he looked at something some silly little memory of Sirius would come to mind. He'd never had a father, and Sirius wasn't really like one, he was more like a concerned friend, but one of his last ties to his parents had been cut, and Harry just didn't know how to feel.

He wasn't going to welcome the impending punishment, he knew he had to fight it, he knew that death was the cowards way out, but somehow, he felt like he deserved it, like that was how his life would always go.