Barely Surviving
A Short Story on Harry's Life Before Hogwarts
By Lucienne Ashes
Chapter 1
"Goodbye, Dudleykins! Have fun at school!" Petunia Dursley handed Dudley his lunchbox, which was approximately the size of a large suitcase. "I packed you your favorite: sliced lamb sandwiches and grape juice! I packed four sandwiches so you won't get hungry! Oh, and I almost forgot… six chocolate chocolate chip cookies!
Harry's stomach growled. He trudged to the counter and grabbed the wrinkled paper bag his aunt packed his lunch in. She used the same paper bag every day. So, as you would expect, it wasn't in the best shape.
He looked inside the paper bag. Half a smashed peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a battered orange juice box. He sighed; he had that for lunch every day since he started school four years ago. His aunt would put a pinch of peanut butter and a tiny glop of fig jam on a thin slice of stale rye bread. The jar of peanut butter, the jam, and the loaf of bread had all lasted the four years.
"Come on, shrimp, you're going to make us late!" Dudley shouted to Harry from the front door. Harry hurried into the entryway, Aunt Petunia was helping Dudley into his new mink coat.
"Don't just stand there, boy! Get your coat on!" his aunt barked at him. Harry scrambled into his jacket. It was a thin, sky blue windbreaker that had been Dudley's as an infant.
Aunt Petunia helped Dudley put on his backpack, which had special heated pads on the back. Harry lugged his giant canvas knapsack from the closet. It had been his Uncle Vernon's great grandfather's when he had fought in the Revolutionary War. A moth flew from it as Harry heaved it onto his back. He stepped out into the freezing cold February morning. Dudley sat in the passenger seat of his mother's car. Harry climbed into the cramped trunk.
With a jolt the car turned off the Dursley's driveway. A box fell off the seat and hit Harry in the face. This was going to be a long day at school.
Chapter 2
When they finally got to the school, Harry trudged into school after Dudley. He went to his third grade classroom. It was the first door on the second floor. Dudley went in the second door on the second floor, the other third grade classroom. There was one normal third grade classroom, and the other one was for mentally challenged children. You can probably guess which one Harry was in.
The morning went by very slowly for Harry. In math his class was learning about adding one. Harry found this very challenging and got all of the problems on his worksheet wrong. The next class they had was spelling. Harry pulled out his workbook. Then he remembered, We have spelling tests on Monday! Oh, no! I'm not at all good at spelling tests, even when I do remember to study! He quickly put his spelling workbook away as the teacher passed out the spelling tests.
"Cat," the teacher said. Oh, that's a really hard one! Harry thought. After a while he slowly wrote down K-A-H-T-T. "Dog," the teacher said. Harry banged his head down on his desk; this was just too hard! He couldn't do it! It was impossible! He was only nine! How do they expect him to know how to spell dog!
The rest of the morning didn't go much better. By lunch time Harry was starving. All he had for breakfast was a little piece of bacon that had slipped off Dudley's plate and fallen onto the floor. Harry hurried to the coat closet where his class kept their lunches. A kid had put his twenty-pound lunchbox on Harry's lunch. His lunch was now a regular pancake.
Chapter 3
Harry and the rest of his class lined up with their lunches. He followed his classmates to the cafeteria, where they joined the other third grade class to eat. It was very noisy and crowded. A big kid from the other class bumped into Harry, and Harry got a big hole in the knee of his only pair of pants, greenish brown corduroys. He pushed through the crowd to the table closest to the trash cans, where he and his friends had to eat because the bigger, tougher kids always took the good tables.
Harry's friend Richard P. Prune had saved him a seat. Harry, being the shortest kid in the third, second, and first grades, was usually the last of the three friends to make his way to the table.
"Hey, Harry, what happened to your pants?" Richard questioned when he saw the hole.
"Oh, it was just one of the kids from Mr. Hudgens' class." Harry replied.
"Yeah, I could have guessed it," Richard said. He looked warily over at the table where Dudley and some of his friends were beating up a little computer geek. "They're so mean. Don't you agree, Alex? Alex?" Alex Patronskio, Harry's other best friend, was chomping on soy nuts, absorbed in a book about the size of himself and approximately a foot thick.
"What is he reading?" Rich asked. Harry peeked at the cover: Webster's Complete Dictionary. Alex was in Mr. Hudgens' class. He was probably the only student in that class that wasn't spoiled or mean.
Rich got out his lunch, cheese and crackers, and began eating. Harry's stomach growled. He opened his lunch bag. It was depressing. Harry almost began to cry. When Harry had fallen, his juice box had gotten torn, and the juice had leaked onto his sandwich. Now, not only was it flat, it was flat and soaked in orange juice.
He threw his whole lunch away and went back to join Rich and Alex. Rich offered him a cracker and a piece of cheese, which he gladly accepted. The cracker made his throat dry, so he went to the water fountain to get a drink. At the water fountain there was a line of kids that stretched all the way across the cafeteria and out into the playground. By the time it was Harry's turn, lunch period was almost over. When Harry bent down to get a drink, all the water sprayed in his face. This would happen to him. He had the worst luck ever.
Chapter 4
Harry's next class was reading. Today they were having silent reading time. Harry was reading The Red Dog.
Harry opened his book. He tried to make out the first word on the page. T-H-E-R-E. Okay, that was hard. Sound it out; it's all very easy if you just sound it out, he thought to himself. Okay, if I sound out the whole word, it would be…tear… yeah, a tear. You know, tears that come from your eyes when you cry. Wow, I'm a real genius sometimes! After that Harry's book started to make no sense at all.
Harry was glad when reading was finally over, but much to his horror the next class was P.E. with Mr. Hudgens' class. Being the little shrimp he was, he usually got hurt at least once every P.E. class. Today they were going to play baseball. Okay, I can do this. I can do this. All you have to do is hit the ball and then run to the base. It's that simple, Harry thought as he waited in terror for his turn to hit.
Then it was his turn to bat. Harry heaved the baseball bat over his shoulder and braced himself. He actually hit the ball on his first swing! The hit was a foul ball, but as soon as he hit the ball, Harry went sprinting straight to third base. The P.E. teacher made him go back to home plate to bat again. This time the pitch was very fast. It hit Harry right in the face. Harry fell over with a yell of pain, blood covering his face.
Chapter 5
The P.E. teacher called 911. Harry lay unconscious in a puddle of blood on the ground. Kids crowded around him. Most of the students were laughing. It served him right for being a stupid, little shrimp of a kid. Richard was panicking; he was telling the unconscious Harry to stay calm and breathe. Alex, on the other hand, was off in left field reading an encyclopedia.
Finally, the ambulance arrived. The medics ran over to Harry with a stretcher. "He's still breathing!" one of the medics announced. "Get him on the stretcher!" They drove at top speed to the hospital.
Harry had broken his nose and cracked his skull. He had to have a couple of surgeries to repair his skull. Harry would be stuck in the hospital for four months. During that time the only people who visited him were Richard and Alex. The Dursleys were quite sore about him having survived. They could have gotten rid of him once and for all.
As for Harry, he quite enjoyed being in the hospital. For once in his life he had three square meals a day. He also didn't have to see the kids from school. His room was nice and quiet, and he also got a bed, with a mattress and blankets and everything! Back at the Dursley's, Harry slept in a mothy, old sleeping bag in a cupboard under the stairs, next to the room where the radiator banged away all night, making it impossible to sleep.
Yes, this was the life. Harry decided he was going to live in a hospital when he got older and moved out of the Dursley's house. But until then, Harry had to go on living a painful life with the Dursley's. Or so he thought…
The End