Author's Notes: Merry Christmas and happy winter holidays, everyone. As the school at which I am teaching is also on holiday break, I've got some time to do what I've been wanting to do all year. But since it isn't much, I'm not holding any hope on finishing many things that have been on hold. This particular muse, dark though it is, has been nipping at my heels for quite some time and refused to give me a reprieve even when I've begged it nicely. So I apologise for such a dark theme for a holiday mood, and would like to point out that it is dark only at the beginning. Only the readers can be ensured of the intensity of the story though, so I shan't lie and say one or the other. Hopefully you'll still like it! And since the story leans more heavily on the side of The Harry Potter Series, needing no explanation needed as to the other half of this crossover, namely The Inheritance Cycle, I've decided to put it in the Harry Potter category. I'm sorry for anybody who feel offended by this. And I apologise too if I've got some words, phrases, grammar or spelling wrong. Not a native speaker of English here, sadly! And now I present you…
The Slave Boy
He is just a boy, a little nameless one at that. He is just a slave, a most unattractive one at that. But he has a big heart, an extraordinary one at that, and many other unseen weapons to boot. So the question is: Which will win over him, along the bitter path chosen for him by all too many? And when they all find out…
Chapter 1
The Routine and the Non-Routine
Rating: K+ / PG
Warnings: Child Neglect, Indirect Child Abuse, Mild Swearing
Word Count: 3,699
23 April 1985
Privet Drive Number 4, Little Whinging, Surrey, England
"Wake up!" the shrill, irritated voice of a woman insisted. The door to the cupboard under the stairs was banged just as demandingly meanwhile. And then, just a moment afterwards, footsteps could be heard leaving the vicinity without any more fussing or threatening shouts.
The house was never silent; there was always the sound of snoring, crieking, thumping, and many others related to the telly or the videogames; but it always felt silent after one of this episode, including now, and the small form inside the cupboard dared not make any noise as he prepared to begin his day. The small cheap lightbulb hanging from the cobwebbed ceiling of the cupboard was switched on, and the place of the tatty, faded, much-oversized pyjamas was exchanged with the equally tatty, faded, and much-oversized T-shirt and trousers; and then it was time for the makeshift belt – a length of rope – and the hole-ridden, yellowed, thin, much-oversized socks. The lightbulb was switched off then, and with a deep inhale of stale, dusty air, this tiny bundle of skin and bones was more or less ready for the chores ahead.
The door to the cupboard was pushed open from inside with a resigned air, and the small form, swimming in his ragged dayware, stepped out to the house proper. A mop of short black hair framed his thin, palid, sunken face, managing to block the top half of a jagged scar just above his right eye. His almond-shaped green eyes, meanwhile, were currently half-lidded to protect him from the sharp difference of lighting, although he still stumbled to the kitchen anyway, blinded by the cheery morning sunlight beaming into the frontroom. In fact, by the time he was standing on the door to the kitchen, thankfully having managed to avoid all obstacles along the way, he had not recovered his bearings yet. It had always been that way anyhow, and he knew that he would regained his equilibrium in just a few more moments.
But in those other days, she had not been there.
"Stop squinting like that! You're looking more like a hooligan that way. Or were you thinking to threaten me, boy?"
He shook his head, then blinked, blinked, blinked, blinked again. The light stung his eyes badly and he saw stars even when his eyes were closed! But she wanted him to open his eyes wide and he had no other choice but to comply, or today's chores would get twice as many from the original list.
"Cook the breakfast. I want toast, and the boys will need their bacon and eggs. Don't forget what I've been teaching you this last week, or you won't get any breakfast again."
He nodded, and began to feel his way towards where he knew the stove was while still being half blinded. He had met with many accidents this week because of that thing; but she wanted him to learn to cook for the household, and so he had learnt: slowly, painstakingly, painfully – with still-healing burns on his skinny, miniscule hands as prove – and waylaid gleefully and as often as possible by the other boy in the house. But this morning the other occupants of the house were still absent, and he was most grateful for the reprieve. He worked as quickly as he could, quicker as his sight returned to normal: hurrying on and off the stepping stool that always helped his three-year-old-like self to reach the burners, as the bacon sizzled on a skillet on one burner and a scrambled egg on the other, and the toaster was crisping a few slices of bread. When the bacon and eggs were ready as well as the toast, he ran to the pantry to fetch the tub of butter and the jars of jam, then to the front door to fetch the refilled bottles of milk and also the day's stack of mail.
He got two burnt slices of toasted bread for all of that, and a quick gulp from the water-tap on the kitchen's sink.
He was handed a list of chores afterwards, a ritual the both of them had done since a year ago when she had caught him teaching himself to read, even as thumping and crieking sounds replaced the snoring upstairs. And then the other males in the house came thundering down and into the kitchen, possibly attracted by the smell of freshly-cooked food, and again he took a ritual cue from the moment. He swiftly slipped outside via the back-door with the list in one hand and a pair of ragged, much-oversized trainers in the other, to avoid them. Oh he knew, technically, that she was his aunt, that he was his uncle, and that the other was his cousin, but all those were meaningless to him, when she could just as well assign him thrice more chores, when he could play a vicious kind of tag with him always as the prey, when the father cheered his son on. It was always better to distance himself from them, to distance himself from the hurt of being in a family and having them not at all.
They went away in their brand-new car to enrol him to a kindergarten. The freak staid home; he always staid home, and got on with the chores, and waited till the family returned, bearing gifts for him and flaunting them and some takeaway food to him without giving him any.
Well, not until the toys were broken, or the food was stale, at any rate.
Done with the outside chores and filthy from his work, he took a bath with the garden hose on the backyard before returning inside the house: dripping wet, nude, and having hung his dirty laundry on some out-of-the-way corner of the backyard. After donning a new set of clothes, he began to grimly and tenaciously tackle the indoor chores, but stopped when he came to the middle, as he read: "Clean the master bedroom."
He had never been allowed to have a peep into that room or his, before now…
He raced upstairs, clutching the list of chores in one hand almost like a shield. He could show it to any of them if they asked and accused that he was lying, if this turned out to be some horrible joke!
The slip of thin notebook paper crumpled in his sweaty grip when he crieked open the door and peeked inside.
The large, ornate, stuffy room was clean, tidy and spotless; even the bed was already made, and the rug was uncluttered.
A joke, indeed.
He hastily stepped back from the door, alarmed, and looked around wildly, clutching the list of chores even tighter.
But nobody was there. No Dudley, no Uncle Vernon, no Aunt Petunia, and nobody else too.
Holding his breath, he scuttled into the bedroom and clicked the door shut behind him.
And then the withheld breath whooshed out, as nothing and nobody suddenly materialised to frighten him.
The Dursleys were not the joking type of people, even the horribly joking or the viciously joking; but still, he defended himself, everything could happen and everything could change. So, filled with relief and an odd sense of excitement, he began to explore the room, while still clutching the list of chores in one hand and checking the door every few steps. He could always escape from the window if somebody came in from there, and he would have ample forewarning if he constantly checked, or so he thought.
But the more he looked, the more bored he became. The flowery, stuffy bedroom was just as sterilely neat and tidy and gaudy as the other parts of the house, and there was nothing exciting at all about it. So, excusing himself by his age, he began to have a trampoline party with himself on the huge fluffy bed set on the centre of the room. He was just five years old after all! And he could always remake the bed afterwards.
Sadly, without a partner, the game was not as fun as he imagined it could be, so he stopped just after a few bounces. Panting and grinning goofily to himself, he remade the bed then, on a whim, checked under the bed for hidden treasures. Now he could pretend to be a treasure hunter! He had listened to a few films that the Dursleys had watched from inside his cupboard, and the action films had all seemed so exciting and rewarding. Perhaps he could be a treasure hunter when he was grown up? Now, what were the tips of treasure-hunting, again?
Well, treasures were always hidden, so of course he must find their hideout. Perhaps the treasure here could be… under the floorboard? It would not hurt to check, anyway, so he did: tapping gently at sections of the flooring with his knuckles and listening for the feedback sound attentively with one ear pressed on the panelling.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap—
He sucked in a breath, then sneezed, then bashed his head on the underside of the bed-frame when he attempted to scramble up into a sitting position, having forgotten that he was still under the bed. But all the discomfort was pale compared to his finding: One section of the flooring was rather loose and it seemed to be hollow underneath! With careful fingers, and also with the liberal help of fingernails and tenacity, he got the loose board away from the hidy-hole, then peered inside, stifling a bout of sneezing all the while. The ambient light in the bedroom was barely good enough for his poor eyesight; but he had trained himself to cope with less, and so did not give up.
His dogged, ginger inspection was rewarded with several small boxes lined neatly inside the hole, as if the whole business with the loose floorboard had not been accidental at all. But right now he refused to think about what might have been in her mind during the construction and fill-up of this little secret compartment, so he continued his search in determined silence and, when he had discovered nothing aside from those small boxes, proceeded to unearth the little treasures out and into the dim light of the bedroom. How happy he was when he found out that the lids of those little boxes were each neatly labelled!
Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily… Harry.
His hand froze on the last box, which bore the name that the Dursleys instructed him to say whenever people asked for his name – a rare occurance on itself. Was it originally his name, instead of something that the Dursleys had made up on the spot to fool the neighbours? Then who was Lily? Was the bearer of that name perchance his mother? He had never gotten the names of his parents from the Dursleys anyway, save for the fact that they had been killed in a drunken car-crash.
He opted to forgo the "Lily" boxes in the end, uncomfortable with prying into things that were most likely not his. He would show at least to himself that he was miles better than Dudley! But the one box labelled "Harry" was fair game, was it not?
Returning the other boxes into the hidy-hole and sealing the loose floorboard back, he raced to the door and closed it hastily behind him. There were still half the number of chores to be finished, but first he had to see his treasure stowed safely in his cupboard. Nobody must ever know of this or he might end up in the kiddy jail, as they had always threatened him!
As the Dursleys were not home yet by lunch, he took it upon himself to liberate some leftover milk from the morning as well as two apples and a wedge of old cheese from the pantry for himself. More, and his pillaging would have been found out when she checked the contents of the fridge and pantry in the evening; he could not afford that. This was already a kingly feast for him anyhow, and saw him doing the rest of his chores with renewed vigor. After all, his stomach was not protesting for once!
It was the first time ever that he welcomed the prospect of being locked early in his cupboard for the night without any dinner, too. The Dursleys arrived back home in time for supper, which the takeaway food had already provided for them, but this time he somehow saw it fit to lock his 'dear' nephew early for the night, instead of taunting him with the feast-like spread of McDonald's on the kitchen table. The small box he had liberated from the master bedroom and the hearty lunch he had eaten ensured him an entertaining night, as the family of three chatted and laughed their evening away in the kitchen. The absence of any of the Dursleys freed him to use the lightbulb in his cupboard without repercussions too, which was to him a huge bonus point as he examined the contents of the mundane cardboard box now resting in his lap.
There were not many inside, but he had guessed about it indeed judging from the size of the box. In fact, he only found a necklace with a strange pendant and a letter folded small tucked underneath it in the aforementioned box. Fearing that the necklace would be torn away from him all too soon with dangerous questions to boot if he dared wear it, he regretfully set it aside and reached for the letter.
He loved the small, round, neat green-inked handwriting which filled the thick yellowish paper in tidy lines. He spent a while just touching the paper and drinking in the handwriting before he actually read the actual letter, slowly and painstakingly, with growing bewilderment.
Harry,
I'm sorry that I and your dad can't be with you. I left this with Tuney in case the worst happened. We love you very much and want the best for you, Little Green, but sometimes things are just that: a wish. I hope Tuney treates you well, but sadly she might not. She and I haven't been in good terms ever since I was accepted at Hogwarts and she wasn't.
You might be wondering about Hogwarts now, eh? Well, if your aunt hasn't told you yet, which I'm almost sure she hasn't, then I've got to explain it to you. You are special, Little Green, and not just to your mum and dad. You have special powers, and this school will help you to use them when you are eleven. Weird things have been happening to you all the time, haven't they? Well, don't worry, they are examples of those powers I talked about. Even last month you were already running our poor cat ragged with that flying stunt of yours! Your dad was mightily proud of you, and I couldn't decide whether to be proud or very, very afraid in case that dratted thing Sirius bought you dropped you mid-flight.
But I'm digressing, and there's not much of the parchment left for some whimsical reminiscing; you can always ask for our picture frames from your trust-vault in Gringotts. I'm writing this letter not only to let you know how much we love you or that you are a wizard, although those are certainly true. There is currently a war going on in this side of the world, and we are in the thick of it, but not because we are special, although your dad likes to joke about that too often. Half a year ago our former headmaster happened to hear a prophecy which stated that a child born on the end of the seventh month to parents who have defied the Dark Lord thrice will be marked by the Dark Lord as his equal, and then the child will be fated to either kill or be killed by the Dark Lord. To our horror, the prophecy could apply to either you or Neville Longbottom, your godbrother, as he was born on 30 July and you were born a day afterward. We and your godmother's family have been in hiding since then under a Fidelius ward. (You can research it in Hogwarts when you got there.) I don't know whom Alice picked as her Secret Keeper, and I'd better not know for her family's sake, but we've chosen Sirius – your godfather – as ours. Your dad and that mut are thinking of changing it to Peter though. You reading this letter means we are dead and either Sirius or Peter have been tortured for information or betrayed us, but I don't want you to dwell too much on the past, since there is much of the present and hopefully the future to live on.
I'm giving you this information just so that you will enter the Wizarding World with open eyes and know what to expect. Live your life to the fullest, Little Green, and don't bother about the prophecy. The future is not ours to dictate, and it can shift by the slightest of difference. Your dad certainly expects you to take up responsibility for the House of Potter as soon as you turn eleven, but hopefully by then you are ready for it; and with or without the prophecy you will unfortunately have to shoulder the responsibility anyway, given that you are our eldest son and we haven't got much progress on trying for a second child. Find a hobby, find a job, find a good woman to marry when you are of age and wish for that kind of life, and find how you'd like to shape your own life and House Potter according to what you think is best. Take advice from others, but don't let yourself be steered by them. Respect people and you'll be respected in kind; love people and you'll have a good chance of being loved too; but life's sometimes unkind and unfair, and you've got to guard your heart against such chances too.
I believe in you, my son, and so does your dad. Make us proud? But don't worry, we'll always love you regardless. Remember, Little Green: Live your life to the fullest. If you are reading this letter then neither your godmother nor your godfather are there to raise you properly; but I hold much hope that someday someone will be there just for you. A mother's prayers are said to be powerful, and I'm putting much stake on that. The necklace is there to protect you too. Wear it always, and don't ever let it go. I spelled it invisible so it's safe to wear it anytime; but still, don't let anybody see you looking at it, or they'll think you odd and investigate. The coat-of-arms embossed on the pendant is of House Potter, and it was your dad's before I made him give it to you. It's quite useful aside from protecting the wearer, you see. If you touch the plain back of the pendant to something while saying "In," it'll suck the thing in until you need the item once more. I don't think you can store live animals in there, but I haven't tried it and it's worth trying. When you want the item out, just say "Out" and make sure that your mind is picturing where the item is supposed to land. (Don't repeat my mistakes, dear. I don't think our poor cat has forgiven me yet for dumping that bowl of soup on her last week when I was last testing this.) Use the necklace wisely, Little Green, and don't use it to bully people. Pranks are fine, but I shan't tolerate bullying, especially from my own son. Open your eyes to everything, see everything from all angles, and open your heart with some caution thrown in.
The parchment doesn't allow me to blather on, so here's a brief farewell from me, and a hope that we'll see each other again long, long, long down the years. Don't be too eager to see us! Remember: Live your life to the fullest first.
Your loving, chatty, lovely (or so your dad says) mum,
Lily Evans-Potter
It hurt very, very, very much, as the suspicion of the writer's identity wormed ever deeper into his heart, and he could not stop the deluge of silent tears that poured from his squeezed-shut eyes after reading that damned letter. But he still could not believe –would not believe – that he was that much-loved, apparently-wealthy, titled "Harry" addressed in it, not with how they had been treating him so far and how they had made everyone else treat him the same. Harry was a lucky boy; he was not. Harry was a wizard of House Potter, whatever and however it meant, while he was just the little unwanted freak in the household. But all the advice and admonishments in the letter seemed good and true, and he desperately hoped for a mother who would love him regardless, and so he put himself in the "Harry" shoes and claimed everything for himself. That decision saw him putting on the necklace too, as the charade went on, and he was determined to put it to good use starting from tomorrow. Pilfering food and water would be quite useful indeed for one like him, and he would not go to sleep with protesting belly ever again if he could help it.
The letter and its box were the very first items that he tested, and a wide goofy smile stretched his lips when they vanished with a small pop on his whispered command. He would not go hungry and thirsty again starting from tomorrow! With that thought in mind, he prepared himself for bed, namely by switching the light off and stretching out on the thin, smelly, old baby mattress that had been his bed for as far as he remembered, then clutched at the pendant even as his body relaxed into sleep in spite of the raucous blaring of the kitchen telly and the Dursleys.
Tomorrow was a new day, and hopefully a better day for a freak who named himself Harry of the House Potter.
