01
Sephiroth and Harry ruled with iron fists.
At least, that was what they would like to say. The truth was that they also sort of relied on the Dursley family for food, clothing, and a roof to sleep on, so they couldn't take their tyranny too far. Still, it was a welcome change to no longer have to feel completely repressed.
For years, it had been part of their dearest hobbies to sit and envision what it would be like, the Dursleys at Sephiroth and Harry's beck and call for once in their lives. Instead of being the ones to cook and clean and cater to their every whim, they would would have liked to imagine the roles reversed. Until nearly a year ago, that dream would have been impossible to come true. That was before they realized their were wizards, and suddenly the pecking order experienced a large and sudden shift. (Oh, they still had to do chores, but it was fun watching the Dursleys squirm when they dragged their feet doing so).
They didn't push things too far, though. No matter how terrified Petunia was of them, Sephiroth had a feeling she would get over it quickly if he actually went and woke her up at two in the morning, asking for a sandwich. That wasn't to say it wasn't tempting, but Sephiroth liked having a house to live in, and they were very capable of telling Harry and him to pack. So he would humor himself by picturing Vernon's face if he was to threaten him into doing the gardening in the middle of the day. They also didn't want to ruin their newfound freedom with the guilt that they were becoming even worse than the Dursleys.
But if Sephiroth prodded Dudley with his wand every now and then, well—he remembered a time Dudley had filled a cup with muddy water and tried to force-feed it to him.
Unfortunately, playing servant was so ingrained into him that he would sometimes go on autopilot. It wasn't until he had already stumbled down the stairs, half-awake and bleary-eyed, cooked breakfast and set the table, that he remembered he no longer needed to. The Dursleys would spend the rest of those particular mornings edging away from him as he fumed silently. Conditioning was a hard thing to break out of, especially considering the sole reason for his existence for the first couple years of his life was to cook and clean for the Dursleys. It was a shared sorrow, because Harry would occasionally find himself scrubbing the dishes without being asked.
Sephiroth only hoped that Vernon and Petunia wouldn't catch on to the fact neither of them could actually use magic outside of the school. If the Dursleys ever did find out their fear had been a meaningless one, he had a feeling their lives would take a dramatic turn for the worse. They would want to make up for nearly a month of fear over nothing, and Sephiroth wasn't keen on sleeping in the cupboard again. He had been using a cot, pushed against one of the walls in Harry's room.
Maybe if it had been just one of them with the Dursleys, even with the threat of magic, things would have been different. There was strength in numbers, after all, and two wizards, as opposed to one, outnumbered three Muggles by a long shot. Even so, Vernon had scrounged up every bit of fury-fueled courage he possessed and stared the two of them down one morning, his puffy face an interesting shade of vermilion.
Sephiroth stopped short when he noticed the man in front of them, wracking his brain in an attempt to remember what might have caused his ire. When he looked to Harry for help, he received a similarly bewildered expression.
"Yes?" asked Sephiroth.
"Today is a very important day," Vernon prefaced, and Sephiroth instantly zoned out.
Now that he thought about it, Harry's birthday was today. He would be turning twelve years old, but Sephiroth highly doubted that was the reason for Vernon's burst of courage. Celebrating Harry's birthday would be the very last thing Vernon would qualify as "very important," no matter what the circumstances. Sephiroth doubted Vernon even knew it was Harry's birthday. Harry also looked incredibly skeptical of whatever his uncle was speaking about and its importance.
"I will be sealing a career-making deal today," said Vernon, slowly pronouncing each word as if they were of subhuman intelligence. "And I don't want you two messing it up with your—your freakishness!"
"Way to pitch a sale," grumbled Sephiroth, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.
"I need you and . . ." Vernon glanced at Sephiroth—something he didn't like doing, as if Sephiroth's brand of abnormality was contagious by mere eye-contact. "Both of you need to stay out of sight while they're here."
"Just for this afternoon?" said Harry.
Vernon nodded stiffly.
"You'll need to eat early and head up to your room," said Petunia with a strained, painfully fake smile.
Sephiroth would rather she didn't try. When she looked at Harry, her face would twitch and she'd look as though it was physically difficult to acknowledge him. It was worse with Sephiroth—she wouldn't look at him, plain and simple, and sometimes he felt invisible. (It wasn't a good feeling).
"I think we should run through the schedule one more time," said Vernon—and Sephiroth wondered since when there was a schedule at all—taking a little heart when neither of the household wizards threatened him with magic.
One might think they flaunted their powers all the time, with the way the Dursleys reacted to their presence. They must have thought the victimized glares and expressions would have made Sephiroth and Harry somehow feel less human, or something like that. Really, all Harry did was wiggle his fingers a bit and chant a couple nonsensical words. And Sephiroth might have cracked the table a little. It was just that the Dursleys were so terrified of anything outside their minds' small range of normal, they would give it a wide berth. They didn't think for a second of calling Sephiroth and Harry on their bluffs. Suggestion was a powerful thing.
"Petunia, if you will—?"
"I will be in the lounge," said Petunia on queue, taking two sweeping steps to bring her closer to the door, "waiting to welcome them graciously to our home."
"Good, good," said Vernon, nodding approvingly. He turned to Dudley (Sephiroth and Harry were watching with a kind of mortified curiosity). "And Dudley?"
"I'll be waiting to open the door," said Dudley, trying very hard to sound important. "May I take your coats, Mr. and Mrs. Mason?"
Sephiroth felt himself die a little on the inside, observing Dudley's sickly grin.
"They'll love him!" Petunia had legitimate tears in her eyes—the pride she had for her son soaring higher than ever.
"I can't take much more of this," said Sephiroth.
Vernon finally turned to them.
"And you two?"
"We'll be as far away from . . . this as we possibly can," stated Harry flatly.
Vernon wasn't pleased by the answer, made obvious by the tic in his jaw, but he didn't press them.
"Anyway—I will lead them into the lounge, introduce you, Petunia . . ."
Sephiroth let out a small groan.
"Really, who plans out things this in-detailed?" he complained softly to Harry. "I get he wants to make the deal, but really?"
Harry shrugged, just as helpless as Sephiroth. He tuned back into the Dursleys' little rehearsal in time to hear Dudley claim he had written an essay on how Mr. Mason was his hero for a school project. Harry choked on a laugh and hastily covered it up with a coughing fit. Sephiroth just wanted to know when Dudley had learned to write a comprehensive essay.
He didn't notice Vernon turning to them, until he was already glowering.
"Same as ever," said Harry.
"You will take this seriously, understand?" hissed Vernon. (Sephiroth was trying to take it seriously—he was failing, but at least he tried). "The Masons don't know anything about you and it's going to stay that way. . . . When dinner is over, you take Mrs. Mason back to the lounge for . . .?"
"What if Mrs. Mason is allergic to coffee?" said Sephiroth suddenly, interrupting Petunia's line.
The Dursleys turned to look at him, nonplussed.
"Well, if you're going to plan, might as well do it for everything," he said. "While you're at it, it might rain. Better prepare some mats."
Harry was giving him a look that clearly translated to 'Shut up, you're making it worse.' Taking heed to his warning, Sephiroth snapped his mouth shut. Still, the damage was done, and Vernon looked as though he was about to burst.
"I'm off into town," said Vernon in an impressive reign over his temper, "to pick up the dinner jackets for Dudley and me."
"Dudley and I," said Sephiroth before he could stop himself.
He really wasn't surprised when Vernon finally lost his temper.
"I HAVE A LOT RIDING ON THIS VENTURE AND I WILL NOT HAVE YOU RUINING IT!" he roared, eyes bulging out of his lobster-red face. "STAY OUT OF THE WAY!"
He left a couple minutes later, all but steaming in rage and throwing them paranoid glares as he exited through the front door. When the car rumbled off over the gravel, Sephiroth and Harry let out sighs of relief. The house always seemed so much quieter when Vernon wasn't around, without the yelling or pacing, banging around the kitchen because he was still furious that they no longer fixed breakfast, lunch, or dinner, or even prepared snacks. (There would be no elevenses, either).
They were kicked out into the garden by Petunia, who had taken heart from her husband's temperament and wasn't shying away quite as much. Honestly, Sephiroth wasn't sure whether to be disheartened or somewhat gladdened. Amusing as it was to watch the Dursleys dance on eggshells around them, it didn't stop them from looking at him as though he was a monster.
Sephiroth tilted his head back, staring up into the wide, empty blue sky. There wasn't a cloud, or feather, to be seen. Since the end of the school year, Sephiroth had waited patiently for owls from Harry and his friends back at Hogwarts, but nothing had come. There wasn't a single letter, not even the hoot of an owl flying overhead, nor a single sign that anyone had bothered to remember them. Not one to be shaken off by the silent treatment (despite how it sent something akin to dread crawling under his skin), Sephiroth had already sent a small mountain worth of letters to everyone—including Draco Malfoy. He even thought of pestering Percy Weasley, but decided that was probably taking it too far.
He heard Harry humming under his breath, sitting hunched on the garden bench. It was a saddening sight.
"They're probably busy," said Sephiroth, voicing the words he had told himself over and over all summer long.
"Yeah," said Harry.
"It's not like they'd really forget, after everything we did last year," said Sephiroth, putting on a smile that was almost convincing.
And then he noticed the eyes looking at them.
"The hedges," said Sephiroth, blanching. "I knew there was something wrong with me. I'm hallucinating."
"No, I see them, too," said Harry, gaping at the hedges.
Sephiroth made to walk toward the eyes, which seemed like the best course of action when coming across something foreign. (He realized with annoyance that he would probably be in the first victim in those B-rated horror films).
There was a beat of silence as the eyes winked out of sight. Then—
"Okay, so that happened," mumbled Sephiroth. He sighed and added, "Dudley's coming."
Harry tensed up and tried to look normal, but only succeeded in appearing to be in pain. None of them were eager to be around Dudley, who was nasty even on the best of days. Sephiroth watched him warily; he had been unaware that Dudley knew the garden even existed. He couldn't remember a time Dudley stepped outside, let alone took the time to admire the finely tended flowers that Petunia had meticulously planted. That wasn't anything compared to the hedges, which Sephiroth and Harry trimmed themselves.
The light of day didn't flatter Dudley any more than the artificial lights of the house. On the contrary, in the sunlight they could see a couple more details that Sephiroth was perfectly fine without knowing. He angled his gaze away, hoping that if he ignored Dudley long enough, he would get the hint and leave. Except Dudley didn't care what Sephiroth wanted and even if he did pick up on the hint, he wouldn't bother taking himself elsewhere.
Ignoring him didn't work, either. Sephiroth drew the line when he felt a meaty fist give his hair a hard tug.
"What?" he snapped, yanking his hair away and stepping back to a comfortable distance.
Dudley gave a smile that made Sephiroth want to strangle him. It involved some eyebrow-raising, cocking of the head, and a smirk.
"I know what day it is!"
"That's nice," said Sephiroth. "Can you go now?"
"Today's your birthday," said Dudley, giving Harry a falsely sympathetic look. "How come you haven't got any cards? Haven't you even got friends at that freak place?"
Sephiroth gave him a poisonous glare.
"I'm going to turn you into a frog, so help me," he said.
Dudley moved faster than Sephiroth and Harry thought possible, tripping over his sagging trousers and almost falling on his backside. His eyes darted from Sephiroth to Harry in terror.
"You c-can't—Dad told you, you're not to do m-magic . . . he said he'll chuck you out of the house," said Dudley, digging his grave deeper with every word. Sephiroth was this close to throwing Dudley over the hedge. "And you haven't got anywhere else to go—you haven't got any friends to take you—"
Sephiroth lunged. Dudley let out a shriek and fell over himself trying to get away, screaming for Petunia, causing a general ruckus. Sephiroth stood back and watched his work in action, as Dudley tripped over the garden hose (now how did that get there?), fell headlong into a mud puddle, and came up spluttering for breath. He slipped getting up and soaked himself even further.
At last he reached the house, dripping wet and covered in mud, and Sephiroth had barely moved an inch from where he was standing the entire time. Petunia's screech rattled the windows, informing them that Dudley had spread the chaos into the clean house. With any luck, the pristine white floors would have permanent stains.
"That didn't even take a drop of magic," said Sephiroth smugly.
"You're going to get in major trouble," Harry warned, but he was snickering into his hand anyway.
"Worth it," they chorused.
Punishment involved nothing they weren't already used to, revolving around household chores and Petunia's nasally voice droning in their ears. Dudley was quickly changed out of his dirty clothes into fresh ones and spent his free time (meaning all of his time) pestering Sephiroth and Harry in every way possible. By the time a mere ten minutes had passed, Sephiroth longed for the ribbon Hermione used to tie his hair up with. His scalp was actually starting to get sore from Dudley's tugging. He didn't dare retaliate with Petunia watching and magical threats only went so far. They really couldn't afford to be kicked out on the streets.
As they moved through a list of chores that seemed endless, Sephiroth tried to convince himself that his life could be worse. The Dursleys could have been informed they weren't allowed use of magic outside Hogwarts. They could be locked up in the cupboard, starved day and night, tasked with doing literally everything again, and separated from their trunks. One of the first things Vernon tried to do was lock away their magical items, but Sephiroth persuaded him against it—there was some wand-waving involved. If their things were stored away, they wouldn't have been able to do their summer homework.
Sephiroth shuddered. Although, after weeks of hearing nothing from their friends, doing homework was a solace. He never thought he would enjoy homework assignments, but faced with the horrible loneliness of the Dursley house, it was a good pass-time. Homework only lasted so long and Sephiroth would swear it all went by faster when he wanted to do it. For once he had wanted those long, tedious hours, but it seemed to be over in minutes.
"So hot," he groaned as they toiled away in the garden.
"Imagine if they could see me now," growled Harry angrily. "'Famous Harry Potter'."
"Maybe I shouldn't have messed with Dudley," said Sephiroth regretfully.
Harry blinked in surprise, then shook his head rapidly.
"No, no, it's not . . ." he sighed. "I just wish I knew why! We were friends, right? Did we . . . misread it? I mean, it's not like we've got much experience with friendship. Maybe we got it wrong?"
"You've got friends here!"
That was what Genesis had said, at least.
"I don't know," Sephiroth replied glumly. "They could've just forgotten."
Harry didn't reply, and Sephiroth knew it meant he didn't think that was the case. He would have pressed the matter, refusing to believe that he had taken everything Genesis said out of context, but stopped when he felt eyes watching him. He turned his head slightly, staring at the hedges through his silver bangs, and tensed when he noticed the large green eyes were staring at them again. That confirmed it: someone was spying on them.
They were called in a couple minutes later for their early dinner, but Sephiroth hung back. He nodded at Harry, who glanced over at the hedges, and sped up for the house. Sephiroth didn't need words to know Harry understood—they were good enough at reading each others' expressions to communicate without words. As soon as Harry disappeared through the door, Sephiroth made a lunge for the hedges and grasped at the eyes.
There was a startled squawk and a thud, Sephiroth scrambled after the diminutive figure, tumbling out of the hedges and catching his foot in the freshly trimmed flower beds. He cast the crushed flowers a faintly apologetic look, as his fingers closed around a scrap of cloth that felt as greasy as someone's three-day old snot rag. He thought it was entirely understandable that he let go, grimacing, when he felt something damp. The thing (Sephiroth wasn't entirely sure it was human) darted off and disappeared again.
Five minutes later than he was supposed to, Sephiroth entered the house. Petunia nearly had a conniption when she saw the state he was in, with leaves in his hair and stuck to his clothing, covered in dust and mud. There were a couple flower petals scattered here and there, as well. The expression of dread on her face when she looked out the window at the garden made Sephiroth think she was expecting craters.
She sent him up to the bathroom to clean up, making him walk the entire way with newspapers, which was very time-consuming. By the time he was finished (it was difficult picking all the leaves out of his hair), she had cleared the table of dinner and sent Harry up to his room. Vernon had already returned and looked thunderous to see Sephiroth in the middle of the house, so Petunia ushered him into the cupboard.
Sephiroth was somewhat furious. The only thing keeping him from going ballistic and charging out of the cupboard, despite the Masons having arrived, was Shinra's calming purr at his side. He scratched the cat's head, letting out an annoyed sigh.
The minutes wore on, Vernon speaking with so much false cheer and friendliness it made him feel sick, before they set up the table and laid out the food. Sephiroth's stomach let out a piteous growl. He hadn't eaten anything the entire day. Mrs. Mason commented on the food and Sephiroth curled up on his side, hoping to sleep through listening to the Dursleys and Masons eat, while he starved.
Sephiroth hadn't dreamed much since leaving Hogwarts and the few dreams he did have, weren't of his inner world or Aerith, or even any of his memories. They were mostly the odd, normal dreams, such as the ones including falling off a building and bouncing off the pavement, or that really strange one where his hair kept growing and growing and growing, and he drowned in it. (When he had woken up, he found himself tangled up in his blankets).
This time, his dream came in snatches that made little to no sense. He wasn't even entirely sure it was a dream, because all he remembered was a pair of hard, angry blue eyes glaring at him.
"Get out of here."
Sephiroth would have liked to leave, but he didn't control his dreams. His mouth wouldn't move, so he couldn't tell the man. Instead, he suffered under his glaring eyes for what felt like ages. Everything was blurred, since he wasn't so much asleep as half-conscious, so he was also keenly aware of how hungry he felt the entire time. It was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of his life.
He was jolted awake when a loud thump sounded from upstairs, followed by another.
"Dudley must have left his television on again, the little tyke!"
Sephiroth wondered what kind of idiot would actually believe that.
The Masons, apparently.
He waited a few seconds, until Vernon and come and gone from Harry's room, and slowly opened his cupboard door. Petunia hadn't had the foresight to lock it, so he peeked his head outside. The Masons weren't in the hall, or in the living area, so the coast was clear. He went to open the door wider, and make a break for upstairs—
And a wrinkly creature with gray skin, long ears, and bulbous green eyes barreled by, slamming the door shut as he went. Sephiroth dodged back in time to save his nose, but he let out an irritated hiss. He was certain that creature was the one who had been spying on them all day.
He opened the door again as Harry darted passed him, ashen and shaking slightly. He didn't look very happy.
"Harry?" he whispered as loud as he dared.
Harry and the strange little gray creature scrambled into the kitchen.
"They're trying to get us killed," mumbled Sephiroth numbly.
He quickly followed them into the kitchen, in time to hear Harry attempting to negotiate with the creature. Sephiroth only then noticed how the creature was levitating Petunia's dessert, a pristine symbol of sugar-overdose and pudding, far above their heads. The creature was perched on one of the counters by the sink, arms held out with all the seriousness of someone holding a deadly weapon.
Sephiroth thought he might as well have been holding the detonator to a round of explosives. If that dessert was ruined, they were dead meat. Magical threats or not, Petunia was going to summon the demons of the underworld and let them feast on Harry and Sephiroth's guts.
"What is going on?!" Sephiroth snarled. He motioned behind him. "Do you not see that they've got people over? Are you insane?"
"Harry Potter must say he's not going back to school—"
"Is that what this is about?" said Sephiroth, his voice a little shriller than normal. "You want us to give up on the school that teaches magic?"
"Harry Potter must!" said the creature firmly. "It is for Harry Potter's safety!"
"And you think dropping the pudding will make that happen?" said Sephiroth incredulously. "Sure, the Dursleys will skin us alive—"
The creature looked horrified.
"—but we'll still find a way to go to Hogwarts," he finished. "You can't stop us."
The expression on the creature's face said something along the lines of: challenge accepted.
Harry was nearly begging.
"Look, he's right," he said. "We'll do whatever we have to. He even clung to the outside of the train to board when they wouldn't let him."
"Harry Potter must not go to school!" insisted the creature.
"Dobby, please—" said Harry hoarsely.
"Say it, sir—"
"I can't—"
"Then Dobby must do it, sir, for Harry Potter's own good."
Sephiroth let out a strangled curse as the pudding fell, perhaps moving even faster than he had ever in his entire life, and caught the pudding right before it smashed against the floor. Surprise flitted across Dobby's face.
Sephiroth threw him a murderous glare.
"You little—"
Dobby disappeared with a loud crack, which drew sounds of interest from the Dursleys and Masons. Sephiroth deposited the pudding on the counter, and then he and Harry made a mad dash for the stairs. They arrived at the top as Petunia voiced she had seen nothing out of the ordinary in the kitchen, drawing sighs of bone-deep relief from them.
"What was that about?" asked Sephiroth as they slipped into their shared room.
"He was a House-Elf," explained Harry, which cleared up absolutely nothing.
Harry filled him in with what happened while he was in the cupboard. Dobby had been waiting for Harry in his room, to warn him about something terrible that would be happening at Hogwarts that year. ("As if we haven't already experienced dangerous things at Hogwarts.") Dobby had told Harry not to attend Hogwarts that year, to which he had received a definite negative.
"He's the reason we haven't gotten any letters all summer," said Harry, frowning. "He's been stealing them since he got here."
They both jumped when, the second the Masons left the door, there was a shriek from Petunia. They both peered down the stairs bravely—although Sephiroth was trying to figure out why Dobby would steal their letters—and were horrified to see the owl flapping around the ceiling wildly. It dropped a letter, landing on the spot Mrs. Mason had been sitting mere minutes ago, and flew off through the kitchen window.
"At least it waited for the Muggles to leave?" said Sephiroth, drawing a glare from Harry.
Vernon ripped open the letter angrily. They watched his face go blank, then white with anger, and then he grinned widely. He waved the letter, noticing them standing at the top of the stairs, with a laugh that was an ugly combination of furious and amused.
"Come down," he said, almost jovial. "Read it! Go on—read it!"
Sephiroth eyed the letter as though it was going to bite him.
"'Dear Mr. Potter,'" said Harry out loud, for Sephiroth's convenience. "'We have received intelligence that a Hover Charm was used at your place of residence this evening at twelve minutes past nine.
"'As you know, underage wizards are' . . ." Harry trailed off, going white again.
"Oh, don't stop now," said Vernon with relish. "Go on, finish it!"
"'. . . are not permitted to perform spells outside school—'"
"Ah!" Vernon interrupted, seemingly changing his mind after Harry read the part he wanted them to hear. "Forgot to mention it . . . Slipped your mind, I daresay . . ."
Sephiroth wished the letter would spontaneously burst into flames. Their only threat, the single thing that kept them halfway decently fed, had vanished right before their eyes. He remembered every time he had threatened to grow monstrous warts on Vernon's face, as he loomed over them with the aura of a vindicated demon. And it was all because the Ministry had, for whatever reason, detected the House-Elf's spell as Harry's own.
In the hallway behind Vernon was Petunia and Dudley, the former thin-lipped with displeasure, while the latter seemed to be slowly dawning on what they were saying. Sure enough, thirty seconds of heavy thought later, Dudley's eyes widened. Sephiroth had a feeling that even if Vernon and Petunia didn't give him a hard time, Dudley was going to be nothing short of tormenting.
He could have punched them—but he had scrapped the thought before it even finished, as he did every time it popped up. While it was true that he could easily just punch them and be over with it, they would also kick him out on the streets and he would be out of a place to live. That wasn't even counting the fact he might have to leave Harry. So physical force was out of the question.
"Petunia, put that one in the cupboard," said Vernon, not even sparing Sephiroth a glance. It was back to pretending he didn't exist, it seemed. Vernon leered down at Harry. "I'm locking you up . . . You're never going back to that school . . . never . . . and if you try and magic yourself out—they'll expel you!"
Harry looked sick with stress and worry, as he was dragged upstairs by Vernon by the back of his shirt.
That was the last Sephiroth saw of him for a long while.
At least, it felt like a very long time.
The old light bulb in the cupboard had finally fizzled out several months ago, while Sephiroth was at Hogwarts, so it was mostly dark, save the thin sliver of light that came in through the bottom of the door. Sometime after he was shut inside, Vernon had installed several newer, much larger and fancier, locks on the door, clearly distrusting the old ones. They hadn't put in a cat-flap on the cupboard door, like he had seen on Harry's door, so Petunia was forced to open the entire door when she fed him. She threw in a whole can once, but he had to remind her that he couldn't open a can with his nails, so she tossed a can opener at his head and told him to "Figure it out."
Sephiroth spent most of the long hours curled up on the musty old mattress, reminding himself over and over that his friends' letters had been stolen. They hadn't forgotten him or Harry, as they had suspected. Their letters had simply never reached the house, because of Dobby. Except, he would think of how it was a little foolish to take a complete stranger (one that had tried to smash the dessert and nearly gotten them expelled, no less) at his word. Harry never did say if he saw the letters—maybe he forgot to specify.
It was easier to pretend he wasn't worried about Genesis, Angeal, Hermione, and Ron when he was with Harry. They were always together, so he could just imagine nothing was wrong. Locked in the dark, utterly alone, starving slowly and painfully, everything seemed even worse than it was beforehand. He was fairly sure Petunia had forgotten to feed him again (it wouldn't be the first time), but his stomach wasn't even growling anymore.
At some point, he sat up and realized they hadn't let him out in three days. He had knocked at the door for nearly fifteen minutes before Petunia came, but she only fed him (that was around when he remembered he hadn't eaten in three days, either), and didn't speak a single word, not even in his general direction. It as though he was under Harry's invisibility cloak, except there was no cloak and he just wasn't there. Harry was the secret they wanted no one to know; Sephiroth was the monster they wanted gone. They probably wished he would die, but they weren't actually willing to commit murder.
Two weeks of this came and went. Sephiroth had stopped moving halfway through that time, only sluggishly raising to choke down the cold canned soup Petunia fed him.
Vernon's sister, Marge Dursley, had visited them to celebrate Vernon's successful deal with the Masons. It was another example of how no matter terribly Sephiroth thought his life was, it could get worse. While Marge was over, none of the Dursleys had wanted to do the chores, so they had lifted Sephiroth's exile long enough for him to do the household chores. All throughout doing the dishes, setting the table, and preparing the meals, Marge had commented on this, that, and the other thing.
"Don't know where you got something like that, Vernon."
"What possessed you to keep it?"
"Terrible pity, birth defects. Unfortunately, I put down at least one a year from them."
Marge dealt with dogs and Sephiroth wouldn't doubt for a second that she could put down the dogs she raised for a birth defect, or for being a runt.
"Surprised it's not blind, with those eyes."
Sephiroth was fairly sure she didn't know his gender. Actually, no—he'd heard Petunia refer to him as a boy at least twice. She knew perfectly well he was male, but she liked referring to him as an it.
"What about the other one?" said Marge over a cup of brandy, which she claimed to be laying off of in her normal diet. "Your sister's runt."
"Oh, he's upstairs," said Petunia with a strained smile. "Grounded."
"Ah, yes," said Marge, nodding as if this was expected. Sephiroth's hands tightened on the dish he was bringing to the table. "Where'd you say he was going again?"
Vernon shot Sephiroth a warning look. He turned to Marge again.
"Saint Brutus's," he replied promptly. "It's an institution for hopeless cases."
Pure willpower kept Sephiroth from shattering a bowlful of gravy, which he set down hard enough to send the gravy sloshing over the sides, onto the tablecloth. He had to clean it up after, and then he spent the rest of the meal waiting on Marge's every whim, at Vernon's request. Ripper kept close to Marge's ankles, short, squat, and vicious for a dog of its size. Sephiroth was careful to steer clear of Ripper. Even though he could kick the dog like a football, it would not be worth dying for—Marge, unlike the other Dursleys, might just kill him.
This visit, however, she had brought not just one dog. Instead, she had brought three, because the person who usually watched over them wasn't available at the moment. Sephiroth ended up having a staring contest with the other two dogs, who were larger than Ripper and had much more energy, when they stood between himself and the dining room. There was a platter full of meat in his hands and he didn't dare kick them. He sidestepped one, dodged a nip from the other, and narrowly avoided stepping on Ripper's tail as the dog waddled in his path. The incident only served to reaffirm his liking of cats over dogs.
"All that hair," Marge was saying, slightly tipsy. "Why not just . . . cut it off?"
"It grows quickly," said Petunia, although she was eyeing his long, silver hair with a critical gleam.
Sephiroth hastily put the last dish on the table and escaped to the kitchen, before Petunia could try to wrangle him into a haircut.
"Where'd you find him?" said Marge, and it took Sephiroth a moment to realize she was still talking about him. It was the first time she had referred to him as anything other than 'it' or 'that one.'
Vernon cleared his throat before he spoke, setting his utensil down.
"Ah, the street," he said shortly. "He was abandoned, we reckon. Sick, underfed. We nursed him back to health."
Sephiroth bristled. Harry was the one who took care of him. They wouldn't even get close enough to touch him, let alone actually nurse him back to health.
"Too damn good of you," said Marge gruffly, giving him a sideways look. She didn't bother to hide her grimace, as if he was painful to look at. "Would have left him there—the streets are where runts like that belong."
Funny, Sephiroth thought sourly as he wiped the counters clean, she had just said that runts belonged at the bottom of a pail of water.
Her words burned, though, no matter how hard he tried to ignore her. Nothing she said was true, not that she knew any better. He hadn't been abandoned by that alleyway, although he didn't know how he got there, either. It was another mystery that Aerith had failed to shed light upon last time she spoke to him. Just like he often wondered why, if Genesis and Angeal were together, he wasn't reborn with them, as well. He didn't regret meeting Harry for a second and he wouldn't change it for the world, but—it was just another unanswered question.
They dismissed him as soon as he was done setting the table and cleaning the dishes. He was left staring up at the ceiling of the cupboard again, listening to Marge's loud, rumbling voice and Petunia's high, faked laughter. Dudley would occasionally throw something in and Marge would coo at him (a truly horrific sound). Occasionally she would throw a jab at Harry or him, knowing he could hear though the cupboard door.
Animal. The next day, Sephiroth started to think they were treating him like an animal. That afternoon, Marge asked for a couple cans of soup. She said the stores where she lived didn't carry that particular brand and she enjoyed it. Sephiroth knew she just wanted him to starve a little longer, while Petunia thought of something edible to throw at him. He heard Marge talking to her dogs on her way out, and changed his previous conclusion—they treated him worse than an animal.
Was Harry doing any better?
Sephiroth's thoughts came in snatches. It became harder to have cognizant thoughts as he grew weaker and weaker from hunger.
He told Petunia that he needed more food than the average human being to survive, admitted that he wasn't normal, that he was going to die if she didn't feed him more—or at least more consistently. Maybe there was a flash of pity in her eyes, high-strung as she was, but whatever pity she might have had, Vernon didn't.
It was night, two weeks from the start of the second year at Hogwarts, and Sephiroth decided if Petunia forgot to feed him again the next morning, he was going to break out. Granted, he would be punished and starved even more, but he had to eat something or he was really going to die. He had already been thinner than he was supposed to be when he left Hogwarts—Madam Pomfrey was going to have a coronary when (if) she saw him.
Sephiroth found it almost amusing, how his strength was a double-edged sword. He healed so quickly, was stronger and faster, his senses were better than the average person. It ate at his body, though, and he required sustenance. It wasn't as though his body could regulate his own metabolism for the amount of food he had to eat. Madam Pomfrey explained all of this to him and now here he was, remembering exactly what she said, word for word.
"Yes, yes, you're strong, I get that," she had said during a check up, right before he left for the year. "But that strength of yours is eating away at your body. Perhaps if I could get you the right supplements, it wouldn't be so much of a problem, but if I go down that route, I'd might as well send you to St. Mungo's. You eat plenty now, but you didn't before and don't think I didn't notice. Starvation is bad for anyone, but it would be deadly to you. So don't go skipping meals while you're away, or you'll have me to answer to!"
She had gone on for much longer than that, clucking over him like a mother hen. It had been confusing, but made him feel warm all the same.
"I'll punch them again," Genesis had said right before Sephiroth left King's Cross and they parted for the summer. "Just give me the word, I'll do it right now."
He was always so quick to jump into conflict. Of all of them, Sephiroth might have—
"Don't keep these things hidden," said Hermione, brows pinched with worry. "Honestly, I know boys like to play the strong, silent hero, but it's not doing you any favors."
He missed them all and it ached, like a physical wound. Hermione and Ron, Genesis and Angeal. Professor McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, the Headmaster, even Snape. Draco.
I am alone.
Sephiroth opened his eyes to the darkness, not even the faintest bit of light coming in. It had to have been around midnight, but he wasn't even close to being tired all of sudden. His mind seemed to have woken up, overwhelmed by the sheer weight of how much he missed everyone. He didn't like being alone in there, day in and day out, locked away and treated like something less than human. Remembering Hogwarts was bittersweet, as it only reminded him how impossibly far he was from everyone else.
He sat up, glancing around at the corners of the cupboard warily, as if the shadows would come to life and devour him. If he stared for too long, he could almost imagine they came to life, twitching and jerking and grasping at him. He was afraid and lonely, so cold and hungry and he just might die—
There was a splintering crack and the door was yanked open, free of its hinges.
Sephiroth looked up, pressed into the cupboard corner and folded in on himself. He wasn't sure what he expected to see, but it wasn't that.
The man looked tall to Sephiroth, but it was hard to tell, all dressed in black and leather. He was pale in a way that more natural than from lack of sun, his hair a crown of blond spikes. A pair of blue eyes glowed down at him, sharp and bright.
"I'm a little late. Sorry about that."
A/N: And so begins year two! Yes that person at the end there with the chocobo hair is exactly who you think he is. :D He's also a pain in the ass to characterize.
So, more noticeable canon divergences are going to happen from this point on, because the Final Fantasy VII characters don't seem to care how much easier it is when canon is followed. They're rebellious little hellions like that. XD Just in case some of you guys don't like certain divergences, I'll put in a warning right here of what I WON'T do:
-Alter canon Harry Potter characters. Harry, Ron, and Hermione won't be getting glowy eyes and super powers, nor with any other canon Harry Potter characters. I honestly feel like people underestimate how powerful magic is, and the extent of what they can do if they're prepared. A prepared wizard could take on a First Class SOLDIER any day. A prepared wizard.
...Okay, that's pretty much all I can think of. If you've got anything you're worried about, feel free to ask. :D
But yeah so second year and LOCKHART and other stuffs, but mostly LOCKHART and I'm going to have WAY too much fun.
Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favorites for Lotus! I hope you'll all enjoy Edelweiss as well! :D
~Till next week.