Even Number Four Privet Drive can seem welcoming when outlined with enough Christmas lights. Harry Potter looked at the shining colors with approval and pride from his place on the ladder balanced against the home's outer wall. He was five years old, and Uncle Vernon had decided that he was old enough to hang the lights for the Dursleys all by himself. It didn't really seem like this was intended to be a fun gift for him, but he couldn't help but enjoy being a part of even one family Christmas tradition. It just didn't happen often enough.
Despite the Dursley's best efforts, Harry always loved Christmas. Perhaps not the day itself, of course. Unwrapping an old sock while watching his cousin complain that his new remote-controlled cars wouldn't burn when he crashed them into each other tended make him feel a little bit sad. Harry also wished that he could eat some of the delicious-smelling Christmas dinners that everyone else got to enjoy. Still, the days leading up to it were nice. There were mesmerizing lights, sights, nice smells, songs, and his teacher had even given him a Christmas cracker on the last day of school before the holidays. All of those were still only festive promises of warmth and family, never fulfilled. But Uncle Vernon had asked Harry to help light the house! He stared into the twinkling lights, not quite ready to climb back down to the ground and staying oblivious to the world around him.
His first clue that someone was there was when the ladder began to shake and move, making a great rattling noise as it rocked slightly. The next was his pig of a cousin's voice taunting him.
"Come on, Harry!" he yelled between kicks. "Don't you have chores to be doing?"
The moment, he had heard Dudley's voice Harry had looked down before grasping the ladder in fear when he nearly slipped. Every time the winter boot connected with the light metal, the bottom of the ladder slowly slipped sideways away from Dudley's legs. The top however stayed where it was, forcing the ladder into a gradually steeper angle.
"If you don't stop staring at the lights and get to work, I'll call daddy!" he screamed upwards.
Harry finally tore his eyes away from Dudley as his gloves and shoes began to slip on the rungs. Oblivious to the danger the child above him was in, the chubby boy below gave one last vicious kick.
Harry couldn't remember falling. One second he was looking at the shining lights from eye level scrabbling desperately for a handhold, and the next he was flat on his back on the concrete looking at the same sights from a greater distance. His back hurt and his head was pounding.
Dudley looked down at his cousin and the ladder lying on the driveway, and seemed to realize that he'd gone too far this time. He ran away to avoid being caught. Harry lay there, writhing in pain until the front door opened and Uncle Vernon ran out to investigate. "What's all this? Don't be so clumsy, boy! What were you doing, dancing on there?"
"I'm sorry, Uncle Vernon," said Harry.
"I'd hope you are, boy! I swear you are as stupid as your parents were." Harry's uncle seemed to consider what to do for the boy laying in the driveway for a moment before muttering, "Well come on, let's get you some ice for that head."
Vernon led Harry inside, and gave him an ice cube wrapped in toilet paper. Dimly, he remarked that this was probably the best present he'd get that year and placed it on the sore spot of his skull. After a few moments of rest, Harry began to feel rather groggy. There was a tingling pain on his forehead where his lightning-bolt-shaped scar was that seemed to throb with the rest of his body.
"Hold this to your head, and after it melts you can finish vacuuming the downstairs. Then you can go back to your cupboard and rest until dinner. You have to be careful during chores, we don't have time to take you to hospital whenever you bump your head."
Even before the ice had melted, the sleepiness was getting difficult to ignore. "Uncle Vernon, I'm really sleepy," said Harry.
"It's just past noon. These chores teach you discipline, and you only have one left today. Don't be lazy, boy."
Harry vacuumed as fast as he could, afraid of what would happen to him if he fell asleep on the carpet, or worse, the stairs. His head was getting foggier, and he had a odd sensation in the area around his scar not unlike static electricity. After finishing up and getting back to his cupboard, Harry took off his glasses and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
Harry pushed the vacuum in the Dursleys' living room as Dudley sat watching television on the couch. The sound of televised gunfights filled the room, and Dudley chuckled to himself. His curiosity was piqued and he leant forward to get a look at the screen. He felt himself being pulled forward somehow, and knew that he was going to fall. He couldn't stop it. It was too late. Remaining upright, keeping both feet on the floor, both hands on the vacuum, and maintaining eye level with Dudley, something inside of Harry fell forwards.
Harry was sitting in his cupboard, drawing a picture of Father Christmas with a small piece of old green crayon. He debated with himself about whether he should add a snowman or an elf to one side of the drawing. An elf would go well with the green crayon. As he bent closer to his drawing, Harry fell forwards.
Harry hummed to himself happily as he shoveled the sidewalk in front of the house. If he was to be honest, he would have to admit that he liked shoveling snow. It felt a lot like playing, and he sometimes found some of Dudley's old broken toys that he could hide away and play with later. Suddenly his shovel struck plastic. As he bent over to pick up the yellow toy truck buried in the snow, Harry fell forwards.
Upstairs. Downstairs. Outside. Harry kept falling, faster and faster, each time ending up in a different place. A few times, he found himself somewhere he didn't recognize. An old, strange-looking house. He thought he caught a glimpse of an old woman, but he fell again before he could get a good look at her. Harry fell from chore to chore, drawing to crayon-nub drawing, for what felt like forever.
Harry looked up at the Christmas tree in the living room, and tried very hard to stay where he was. It took such an effort to keep upright in his head, but somehow he managed it. He wasn't allowed to be so close to the tree! But now that he was there, he wanted to stay and admire it. He sniffed the smell of pine and reached out to touch an ornament shaped like a train engine. 'What am I doing?' Harry wondered. 'I'll be in so much trouble if Aunt Petunia catches me now!'
Harry couldn't stop his hand from wrapping around the train and pulling it closer to his face. He stared at it for a few seconds and then let go with a sigh. There was no way he'd ever get to ride on a train like that. Uncle Vernon wouldn't even let him near the car usually.
He turned around, only to see the gigantic red-faced Uncle Vernon taking up his entire field of vision. He grabbed Harry's wrist, looking ready to explode with anger. "Alright, where is it you little thief?! Where have you put it?"
"Where is what?" Harry asked, confused and defiant. "I didn't take anything!"
"And a liar too! Your aunt and I took you in and fed you with money from our own pockets. We put clothes on your ungrateful back and what do you do to repay us? You steal our best wrapping paper! The whole roll! Where have you put it? Those no-good parents of yours have saddled us with a monster, and I won't have any of that in this house. You should be grateful that we didn't send you off to an orphanage after the accident."
Harry trembled with rage. "...Accident...?"
"Of course! Your car accident, remember? Your no-good, drunken slob of a father crashed his car into a telephone pole and you were sent to hospital where we picked you up. You were babbling nonsense about make-believe things because the crash messed with your head. You've gone mad, talking about abnormal things that don't exist."
"You're lying! My daddy wasn't a drunk - "
"You're the liar!" Aunt Petunia interrupted, having just walked into the living room. "Your father was no good and your mother was no better. You're just like them. If you're going to live with decent people you have to behave decently."
"Come on." Uncle Vernon grabbed Harry by the wrist and shoved him into his cupboard. "And no food until you tell me where you put our paper!"
Harry sat unmoving on his cot in the dark of the cupboard, staring at the wall. He had been sent to live with family after losing his parents, but the Dursleys weren't really his family at all. Not in any way that mattered, at least. He wouldn't cry. Sadness, anger, fear, loneliness, and a strange resolve all carved out their own spaces in his mind. These people couldn't make him cry. He hugged his knees and kept staring for a long time. Eventually, he sighed and closed his eyes.
Harry awoke with a start. He could hear the noises of televised gunfights coming from the living room, and the faint sound of Dudley's laughter. Harry sighed in relief that his terrifying argument about his parents and wrapping paper had been only a nightmare. He had no idea how he'd ever eat again if it were true, because he would never have been able to tell Uncle Vernon where the paper was. He had truly just not known. Feeling better, Harry decided to draw Father Christmas with one of Dudley's old crayon pieces that he stashed away in a hidden corner of his cupboard room.
He sat up, and saw a faint fuzzy shimmering shape hovering somewhere above his cot. He rubbed his eyes, trying to clear it away. Harry put on his glasses but the shimmer remained the same, like static on a television set. He took off his glasses, cleaned them again, and put them back on. It was still there. It was… growing.
As he watched uneasily, the shape grew and spread downwards and forwards in a vaguely triangular shape. It took on form as well, of a figure sitting hunched over on his cot bed. The figure became more and more detailed as he watched, transfixed. First, he could make out a face-like shape, then legs, then arms. It was like watching a photo develop on one of Uncle Vernon's polaroids.
"Hello," Harry said to the shape, which was now unmistakably that of a child about his own age, "Are you a ghost?"
The shape gave no sign of hearing him. Slowly, it became clearer to him that it was a little girl, sitting on Harry's cot with her arms wrapped around her knees. She wore what might have been a particularly large and ratty dress. No, Harry decided. That's Dudley's old shirt he spilled chocolate sauce on last month. What's she doing with it? The girl had black hair that reached a few inches past her shoulders. As he watched, she buried her face between her knees. Her shoulders moved as if she were sobbing, but he couldn't hear any sound. Harry worked up the courage to touch her shoulder and try to get her attention. Even if he had a real ghost on his hands, she didn't seem to be the kind who would scream "Boo!" or turn into a bat.
Harry's hand passed through the girl's shoulder. His hand tingled as it went through, and he felt the same strange pain in his forehead that he felt after falling off the ladder earlier that day. The girl's head snapped up and her eyes darted around suspiciously. After a few seconds, they seemed to focus in on Harry. Her green eyes were the same shape and color as his own. Now that he could see her face, he noticed a scar on her forehead identical to the one he saw in the mirror every day. It looked red and angry, as if it had recently opened up again or had not completely healed. Her lips were moving, but he couldn't hear a word at first. As she went on, however, he heard a voice that started as a whisper and became louder and louder.
" - to get rid of monsters. I know what to do, you know! So you can just go away, whatever you are. You don't belong in a place like this. Hello?" said the girl. "Oh, so you look like a boy now? That's clever with the scar. What are you doing here?"
"I live here! This is my bed!" cried Harry.
"Is it?" asked the girl, looking completely solid now, as well as completely annoyed. "Are you sure? Who are you?"
"I'm Harry! This is my room and I live here."
"You shouldn't live here. Aunt Petunia wouldn't like you living in here. I'd leave if I could but they won't let me." she admitted, defeated.
"Who won't let you? Who are you?"
Harry was almost blinded by light as his door was thrown open. Uncle Vernon said "Boy! You forgot to put the ladder away. Hop to it now."
"Oh, ok! But Uncle Vernon- " Harry stopped talking as he turned his head back where the strange girl had been just seconds before. There was no sign that anyone had ever been there at all. Not even a speck of sparkling dust
AN: Thanks so much for checking out my story! I'll have the next chapter up next week. Big thanks to the kind TheMisprint for helping to make it all come together as nicely as possible.
