You pretend what you say you feel,
You pretend that you're something special,
All the lies that you hide behind,
I see right through you.
Perfect Life - Red
~~#~~
In the end love had had little to do with the survival of young Harry. The minute or so of time in-between killing the mother and finding the courage to kill the child- "he`s just a baby, please no"- was just enough for the curse to activate, unearthly green eyes starting to glow. If the killing curse had hit Harry straight after his mother there would have been no problem, just one more dead family in a war claiming hundreds.
But that was not to be, the pause was enough for the death of the mother to register and the curse had started to claim the next in line. Hadrian James Potter. It was sheer dumb luck that the killing curse struck in the centre of the transfer, not able to kill the changing boy, instead the power of the curse was drained into providing protection, left buried, sleeping deep inside the psyche of little baby Harry, trapped until enough power had regenerated for it rear its head, prevented from bonding with its host.
A power the Dark Lord knows not.
~~#~~
Petunia Dursley was normal, absolutely normal; she most definitely did not have a drop of not-normalness not at all. That was why it was so easy for her not to strangle that pig she called husband. She didn`t have 'anger management issues' like her mother had said, it was all that freak boy`s fault, after all it was only with the death of her sister that this had surfaced. With a hatred for all of humanity, killing one of the neighbourhood cats wasn`t a problem, it wouldn`t be missed and it was such a relief to get the urges out of her. Once she had removed all of the blood from the knives she`d used it wasn`t surprising to see the freak just smiling at her with those unnaturally green eyes- obviously she was imagining the faint look of glee in the vaguely luminescent orbs. Most definitely; however she`d still tell Vernon about his freakish behaviour- honestly killing a cat in the kitchen, definitely a freak.
If he was punished for it, well it wasn`t her fault; And if every time they tried to break him, snapping bones, cutting flesh and bruising skin their gazes caught- well she definitely wasn`t smiling back into those glowing eyes, wasn`t sharing in the joint joy of pain and torment. It was all the freak after all.
~~#~~
Harry grew up year by year, a child playing at being average, keeping up the charade like his aunt showed him totally unintentionally. He knew a kindred spirit, noticed her hatred of her own family, how she gravitated towards him; It was a twisted form of affection that meant more to him than any fake smile from friendly teachers and the only reason why he didn`t report child abuse, after all blood is thicker than water. Especially in the Evans family.
However an unnaturally fast healing rate can only do so much with a broken neck without emptying all of its reserves; So the power that had been rising to the surface was sent back to sleep and Petunia`s hatred grew. They`d hurt hers, changed him, the darkness was sleeping there was no dark glee at the sight of blood. She felt empty, lost without his familiarity.
~~#~~
On Hadrian`s sixth birthday she snapped. Dudley never came home from school, Vernon was devastated and Petunia finally could give Harry the attention he craved, starting with more food and Dudley`s bedroom. With Vernon losing himself in the bottom of a bottle daily there was nothing in the way of her showing her Hadrian, hers only hers now, the town. Signing him up for martial arts with her; an excellent way to control the urges. Exercise food and a lack of daily abuse quickly but height and weight on his frame, the overwhelming darkness was still sleeping but she knew it strengthened by the day.
~~#~~
On Hadrian`s eighth birthday she divorced her husband, claiming sole guardianship of Hadrian, her hate of freakishness forgotten instead leaving a bond forged through blood, pain and family. Rejecting her husband`s name and returning to the only name she felt kinship with; Evans. Her son, now officially Hadrian James Potter-Evans, when finally allowed to push himself to his limits he soared, a prodigy in school, excelling in all forms of fighting he took part in, her perfect son.
~~#~~
On Hadrian`s tenth birthday they discovered that he could speak with snakes and a new weapon took its place in his arsenal. She watched with joy as with each day the darkness in his eyes grew again and they glowed a little brighter. When one Saturday night she found him covered in blood with cat intestines spread over the kitchen floor, she joined him and they pretended to interpret the future from the mess left behind. Memories of hatred and pain from his uncle were replaced with blood, killing, joy and overwhelming love and acceptance from his aunt.
~~#~~
On Hadrian`s eleventh birthday when a letter written in bottle green ink arrived Petunia finally accepted that she would have to part with her beloved son for most of the year as he received his schooling. As a last outing before their coming separation they worked together to lure two of the neighbourhood bullies into one of the abandoned parts of town and taught each other the delicate art of torture, a temporary goodbye written in the blood of those who had tried to harm her son.
On the first of September she waved goodbye to her Hadrian from platform nine and three quarters, watching him move with the grace of a trained fighter and the arrogance of a person who knows their true value. A white kneazle with red eyes winding its way around his feet; she held the cage of the owl Deumos by her side, she had been a present from the supposed-teacher-but-actual-oaf Hagrid, however already having a pet Hadrian had gifted it to her so she could communicate and he could respond like other wizarding families did.
They had practiced how he would act, practicing the mask he would have to use once he reached Hogwarts. After all nobody could know that the saviour of the wizarding world was a practicing serial killer with his muggle aunt. No instead they would see what they wanted to see; a lost little boy with no clue about his magical potential, innocent and naive.
~~#~~
And if the population of animals in the forbidden forest started dropping, well Hagrid was an oaf. And if Harry was unnaturally good at defence against the dark arts and clearly knew spells more suited to fifth years, he was the chosen one, the boy-who-lived, the defeater of the darkest lord of all time, he definitely wasn`t reading as many of the dark books from the restricted section as possible. Just as Petunia wasn`t sending him field guides to torture and books on 'essential dark curses for causing pain'; and even if she was, he was the Gryffindor golden boy, the apple of everyone`s eye, he couldn`t possibly be doing anything wrong, he was just 'curious' and anyway isn`t the saying know thy enemy.
So what if Mrs Norris was found torn apart, his kneazle was perfectly trained thank you very much. They didn`t have to know whose standard she was trained to after all.
Obviously the Cerberus was killed by Voldemort. Why would Harry have removed it`s eyes? Yes Harry knew they were valuable potions ingredients, however everyone knows that Harry hates potions.
And logically the Philosophers stone was destroyed when Voldemort escaped. It would`ve been fun to play with though if it hadn`t of been destroyed of course, a real shame that.
Most definitely his eyes weren't glowing. It was just the awfully bright lighting in the hospital wing.
Sometimes Harry really missed his aunt, she had this lovely habit of making nuisances like Severus Snape and Ronald Weasley vanish, permanently and quietly.
~~#~~
And still the shadow slumbered on inside, waiting, strengthening in the dark. It wasn`t needed yet.
Hadrian was doing just fine on his own.
~~#~~
So I did a thing with a dark!Petunia as well as Nice!Petunia she also might turn out to be a squib but hey. This may be left as a one shot, it just depends on people's opinions. This is just a taste of a really dark Harry. I guess I just thought it was an interesting idea; there are so few fics with the Dursleys being nice.
Enjoy :)
SuchaNarcissist