Disclaimer: Just in case you hadn't figured it out yet, I don't own these characters. They belong to the awesome J.K.R.

Warnings: This story contains elements of abuse, cutting, and depression. Also, this particular chapter contains a few swear words, as well.

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Where Do I Go From Here?

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Chap. 2 Seeing Red

Harry felt as if he were floating in darkness. Distantly, he could hear someone yelling, but they seemed a far way off and he was unable to understand what they were saying. He allowed his mind to settle down again and he relaxed in the marvelous darkness that bathed his senses in peace.

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Petunia had eaten her lunch and had sent Dudley out the door with some cash so he could eat out with his friends. As she gathered her plate from the table, she looked at the clock that hung on the wall near the back door, and realized that she had not checked on her nephew for almost an hour now. Scowling with the thought of the little brat, she yanked open the door expecting to see him still sitting on the bottom step where she had left him, but found no one there. She called for him, but getting no response, she slipped her shoes on, grumbling under her breath the entire time, and stepped outside to find the little nuisance before any of the neighbors had a chance to notice any of the boy's abnormal behaviors.

First, Petunia checked the front yard, inspecting the flower beds as she passed them, looking for any weeds the boy might have missed, but she was disappointed when she saw that, not only had every weed been pulled, but he had also trimmed back the bushes as well. She narrowed her eyes as she walked back into the backyard, scanning the expanse of it until her eyes rested on the open shed door.

As she neared the shed, she could see something on the ground just in front of the door, but the tall grass blocked out most of it from view. She continued her approach, mentally adding mow the lawn to the boy's chore list, and upon closer inspection, she could make out Harry's legs. She allowed a look of fury to cross her face at the thought of the lazy oaf just taking a nap and ignoring her calls while she was spending her time and energy looking for him. Her mind working in overdrive trying to think of a suitable punishment, she almost fell when she got close enough to see into the darkness of the shed and came to a sudden stop in her surprise.

There the boy laid, his body sprawled in the dust, with his back to her and his arms still stretched out beside him, as if he had been reaching for something and fell asleep. But she knew he wasn't taking a nap. The pallor of his skin and the blood pulled beneath his left hand told her as much.

Gingerly stepping forward, she used her foot to push his bleeding hand to the side and saw what had caused the injury. The old blade that had been taken off the mower so it could be sharpened, had been left on the floor of the shed and one of its tips now gleamed in the shed's relative darkness, a dark coating of drying blood standing out in full clarity against the dirty metal.

Petunia sneered in disgust; even when he hurt himself, he seemed to find a way to contaminate her belongings. She called to him again, but when he still didn't rouse, she gave him a kick to one of his legs. His leg was moved several inches by the force of the kick, and still he did not respond. With a glitter of malevolence in her eyes, she picked up the old, blue bucket that sat in the corner and left. She returned a few minutes later, struggling slightly with the weight of the now filled bucket. Without another moment's consideration, she upended the bucket over the boy's head, pouring the flood of cold water directly over his face.

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Harry had heard someone calling to him again, and had just about decided to ignore the voice and keep floating in the peaceful darkness when he suddenly felt like he was drowning.

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Harry suddenly spluttered awake, his arms and legs flailing in the dust as his clouded mind tried to help him escape the sensation of drowning that had shocked him into awareness. Spitting out a mouthful of the liquid, he opened his eyes and was able to blearily make out his Aunt's form silhouetted against the sunlight streaming through the open shed door. She was tapping her foot impatiently and Harry panicked, knowing he must have been out a long time for his aunt to have come looking for him.

Knowing he was in a lot of trouble now, he tried to get to his feet, but when he pulled his hands under himself to support his weight, a searing pain answered him in return as his left hand made contact with the ground. He couldn't help the small gasp of pain that escaped his lips when it had happened, and he quickly bit his lower lip to prevent it from happening again as he once again put his hands on the floor.

Rising from the dirt, he snatched his glasses from the ground on the way up and caught, out of the corner of his eye, the blood stained mower blade. He suddenly realized why his hand was hurting and he chanced a look down, seeing dried blood smeared across the back of his hand and fresh, dripping blood from a wound on his palm, the red liqued oozing out and following a path between his index and middle fingers, where it fell in big, thick drops onto the shed floor.

He looked up and saw that his Aunt had her eyes trained on the wound as well, her face screwed up in a look of abhorrence. He quickly tucked his hand behind his back, hiding it from her view, causing her eyes to shift, meeting his gaze as if in challenge. Harry wisely said not a word, knowing that he would get no compassion no matter how bad the wound, and that complaining of the pain would garnish him no sympathy.

"Well?" She questioned him, "What are you just standing around for? Clean up your mess."

She pointed one of her bony fingers to the puddle of mixed blood and water on the ground and she exited as hurriedly as possible, as if staying in the same area as his spilled blood would somehow taint her. Harry watched her go and was able to relax slightly, glad he was able to escape the confrontation without an extra punishment.

He checked to make sure she was gone and he looked out just in time to see her slip into the house. With the coast now clear, he pulled his hand from behind him and held it in the sunlight streaming through the doorway. The palm of his hand had been sliced from the joint of his index finger, across his palm and down, stopping at the juncture where the slope of his hand met the bony joint of his wrist.

Harry hesitantly stretched out his fingers from the half-curled up position they had adopted since the injury and winced as the sheared flesh of his palm shifted open and fresh blood came gushing from the opening. Seeing nothing else for it, he used his other hand to bring the bottom of his baggy shirt to his mouth and he bit down on it and pulled. He was instantly rewarded with the sound of the worn fabric ripping and he managed to pull off a strip about the length of his arm.

Finding a spot on the shed floor that was not soiled with water, he sat and stretched his legs out in front of him. He placed the end of his make-shift bandage across one of his legs and laid his injured hand upon it, grasping the end of the fabric in his bloody palm. He then wrapped the strip of cloth around his hand over and over again, neatly tucking the end of it underneath when he was done. With a little wiggle of his fingers to be sure the bandage would stay in place, he was satisfied that he'd done the best he could, and he set about soaking up the water from the floor with an old, raggedy mop he found in the back corner.

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Needless to say, Harry had missed lunch that day and didn't fare any better at suppertime. When Vernon had found out that the chore list had not been completed, he grabbed hold of Harry from where the boy had been standing at the stove making spaghetti, and he threw him into his cupboard, telling him that he would be in there for the remainder of the night and would not be returning to his bedroom again until they no longer had to worry about him contaminating the house with his abnormal blood.

Feeling morose, Harry looked down at his hand and inspected it. The wrappings were damp in the middle with fresh blood. It wasn't as he could make it stop bleeding altogether, and his relatives knew that. In fact, Harry was sure that if Dudley had been injured that way, not only would Dudley have received medical treatment for it, they would probably have called an ambulance for him and everything.

Harry kicked at the wall in irritation. It wasn't fair. What had they expected him to do? He did his chores as best he could, but it went so much slower with the use of only one hand. In fact, Harry was sure that he would not have fallen on that blade at all if his relatives would have had the common decency to at least feed him a little. Harry knew that the weakness and dizzy spells, even the episode of fainting this afternoon, was due to a lack of nourishment. This hadn't been the first time he's had to suffer the effects of forced starvation.

Deciding to try to get some sleep, he attempted to stretch his body out on what remained of his old cot, but even that turned out badly. Not only was he too big for it, but the cupboard itself was too small for him to fully straighten out, forcing him to lay upon the uncomfortable thing with his legs scrunched up near his chest, wrapping his arms around himself to keep warm.

It was than, laying in the quiet darkness, that he suddenly realized that he had not been bothered with his usual stomach pains ever since the accident with his hand. Yes, he had a dizzy spell or two since then, but the gnawing pain of hunger never made itself known. Harry wondered briefly about that phenomenon and concluded that the soreness from his hand must have distracted him from all his other pains. Cataloging that fact away in his brain to use another day, Harry shut his eyes in an attempt to sleep.

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When Harry next awoke, it was not to the sound of his Aunt's screeching, but to his body's urgent need to relieve itself. Sitting up on the cot, nearly missing hitting his head on the overhead stairs, Harry briefly wondered what time it was. He couldn't hear Dudley's normal t.v. program blaring its noise through the house from where he usually watched it from the living room, so perhaps it was just early and he was the only one awake yet. But that couldn't be right. The small sliver of light that made its way into his small space from the foyer beyond was ample evidence that it was not early in the day. He remembered all those years he had spent living in the cupboard before he started at Hogwarts, and he knew that the sun did not reach high enough in the sky to cast its light at such an angle as to reach his cupboard until about 10:00. So, what was going on then?

As Harry waited, he examined his bandaged hand again. The oozing blood that had soaked the inside of his bandage yesterday was now dry and felt scratchy against his skin. He flexed his fingers carefully and was thankful to note that it was not quite as painful to do as it was the day before. After a while, the scratchy dried blood began to irritate his hand, so he started to remove the bandage, slowly unwrapping the material, layer by layer. It was slow and tedious work, especially since the dried blood acted like glue, making the layers of cloth stick hopelessly to one another.

He had gotten almost the entire bandage removed but then stopped before attempting to lift the fabric covering the wound itself. The edges of the cloth were stuck fast to his skin and he worried what would happen if he were to remove the cloth altogether. Thinking that it would perhaps be better to wait until he was allowed into the bathroom so that he could loosen the bandage from his cut with some water, he rolled the crusty strip of cloth up into a ball and clung onto it loosely within his left hand.

Half an hour later and Harry was considering how much trouble he would be in if he were to just relieve himself on the floor. He was just looking for the best spot in which to do so when the cupboard door was flung open and he was staring at the face of his Uncle Vernon. Wait, Harry thought, What is he doing home on a Friday? The confusion must have registered on Harry's face, because Vernon soon answered the unspoken question.

"You lazy clout of a boy! Finally up I see."

Vernon reached into the cupboard to grab Harry out, and Harry flinched out of habit, pulling his arms over his face in protection, despite knowing it would do no good. His Uncle managed to seize one of Harry's legs, and the boy was forcefully yanked out of the cupboard, his body sliding on its back until he was laying face-up in the foyer with his arms still over his face. And that's when the blows started, his Uncle unknowingly informing Harry of what had happened as he ranted, kicked, and slapped the boy around.

"Did you honestly think there would be no punishment for you after you skipped an entire day's work?!"

A vicious kick landed on Harry's ribs and he groaned out his pain.

"We, out of the goodness of our hearts, allow a freak like you into our home, and the only thing we ask in return is for you to help out around the house, and this is how we are repaid?"

Harry hurriedly tucked his injured hand under his chin, shielding his head and face with his right arm as Vernon grabbed a handful of his hair, twisting his beefy hand back until Harry was forced to look into his purple, rage-swollen face. When he next spoke, spittle landed across Harry's face and he struggled not to throw-up in repulsion.

"You slept through all of Friday and most of this morning, you miserable little bastard!"

A hard slap across his exposed face sent Harry's senses reeling. And he was only distantly aware of what was going on around him as his Uncle dropped his weakened body to the floor. Then, another kick landed, but this time, it was to Harry's abdomen, and he was unable to prevent what happened next. His bladder suddenly released its contents and Harry started to shake in fear of what his Uncle would do to him once he saw it.

"What the bloody blazes did you just do?!"

Vernon was quick to stand back as the puddle of pee neared where he stood. With a look of absolute disgust and loathing, he started his tirade again, but mercifully, this time he stayed back, afraid of soiling his new, expensive loafers in the urine.

"You little, worthless wretch! You'll be cleaning this up, I'll have you know. There'll be extra chores for a week, now, as punishment. Maybe if I keep you busy enough, you'll have less time to spend pissing on the floor like a common animal!"

And then Harry was alone once more. His Uncle flung a piece of paper to the floor in front of him with the scribbled list of chores before he stomped into the living room, turning on the television and increasing its volume, as well, in an attempt to drown out the whimpers of pain from the quivering form still lying on the floor in the room beyond.

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Harry was still unsure how he was able to rise from his spot on the floor and make it to the bathroom, but not being one to snub a miracle, he washed up as best he could, and rinsed out his bandage, carefully peeling back the cloth and wincing in pain as it clung relentlessly to his raw flesh in a few spots around the edges of his wound. He scrubbed at the bloody spots on the cloth under the flow of water, watching as the pink, blood tinged water flowed down the drain. After it was as clean as he could get it, he wrung it out the best he could with his one good hand and he rewrapped the still damp cloth around his injured hand, holding in the yell of pain that tried valiantly to escape as he cinched the fabric tight.

Harry then fetched the mop and bucket from where his Aunt kept the items in the corner of the basement, next to the washer and dryer. He cleaned his mess up from the foyer, still wearing the same urine-stained clothes he had on when the accident occurred. Hopefully, his Uncle would be repulsed enough by the pungent smell that he would allow Harry a chance to shower and change clothes soon.

He carried the bucket of mop water into the bathroom to empty it down the drain and, not knowing when he would next be allowed the use of the bathroom, Harry leaned down to the sink's faucet and slowly sipped some water from his cupped hand, relishing the feel of the cool liquid on his parched throat. Afterwards, he made the decision to use the toilet one last time before he left to start the new list of chores he had been given. When he stepped forward and started to empty the little bit that was still in his bladder, he was dismayed to see it come out looking awfully bloody. Sincerely hoping his Uncle hadn't caused permanent damage, he left the bathroom.

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It wasn't until later in the day, when Harry overheard a conversation between Aunt Marge and Uncle Vernon on the phone, that Harry discovered where Aunt Petunia and Dudley had disappeared to. Dudley had insisted that she buy him the newest video game that was to be released that day, and she relented after only twenty minutes of his pleading, where he had blubbered and stamped his foot like a toddler being denied a treat. Of course, Vernon didn't see it that way. He sounded proud of his fat lard of a son that he had been able to use his 'superior negotiating skills' to get his way again.

They had left for the day, which as far as Harry was concerned, was a small reprieve. For, as harsh as his Uncle's punishments always were, he didn't follow Harry around like Petunia always did, pointing out his mistakes and criticizing his every move. As long as Harry kept busy with his chores and stayed out of Vernon's way, he would be virtually ignored, leaving him free to sneak a few bites of food if he were both careful and lucky today.

It was later that afternoon that Harry was offered the chance to do as he planned. Harry waited until Vernon stepped into the bathroom, carrying the newspaper with him. Harry knew that he would have a little time to get into the food, and so that's just what he did. He hurried to the pantry, and glanced over its contents, snatching up a few of the items from its shelves. He ran to his cupboard to stow the things away and hoped that his relatives would not notice them missing. Surely, they would never miss a package of muffin mix, a can of Vienna sausages, and the mostly empty jar of peanut butter.

He slid the items underneath the cot and grabbed some rags of old clothing from the corner to lay over it all, using the rags to hide the food further. Once satisfied that none of it would be easily found, Harry raced back to the kitchen, slinging open the refrigerator door in search of more. He found some lunchmeat, but worried that it would definitely be noticed if it disappeared, so he passed it up. Finding two pieces of week-old chicken legs wrapped in foil in the back, Harry decided that those would be better than nothing, and he greedily snatched them up.

He sat on the floor and unrolled the foil from his prize, grabbing up the first piece as soon as it was free, he stuffed the end into his mouth and tore off a big chunk of it with his teeth. The old, cold chicken felt rubbery and slightly slimy in his mouth, but he choked it down and took another bite. He ate as quickly as he could and finished both pieces in record time. Hearing the distant sound of the toilet flushing, he hurriedly crumpled the foil into as small a ball as he could, hiding it in the trash can underneath the remnants of the morning's junk mail.

Harry had just rinsed the crumbs from his fingers and grabbed up the wet dishcloth as Vernon stepped into the room. Harry started wiping down the spotless counters, trying his best to look both innocent and busy. Without making eye contact, he hastily wiped the table down as well and left, his uncle watching him go as if he knew he was up to something, but nothing was said and Harry was able to escape the possibility of enduring his Uncle's wrath yet again that day.

Harry had just gotten safely away from the kitchen and was about to head out the door to do the mowing when he felt the first cramp in his stomach. Harry slowed his steps as the pain got worst, finally coming to a full stop with his hand still upon the doorknob. He grunted at the pain, willing it away. He couldn't afford for this to happen right now, not when he had been so close to freedom.

Suddenly, a particularly harsh cramp started that brought him to his knees and he was powerless to stop the moan of agony that escaped his parted lips. When he felt his mouth watering, he knew he was in trouble. If he threw up here, where his Uncle could easily see, there was no way he'd be able to hide the fact that he had stolen some of their precious food. Forcing himself to his feet, he made his way out the door just in time as Vernon came out of the kitchen on his way to the living room.

Once outside, Harry practically ran to the bushes that grew beside the house and dropped to all fours, spilling his meager meal on the ground behind the plants as he vomited everything he had taken in that day. When it was all over, and his stomach had stopped its forceful contractions, he pulled himself back up from his stooped over position, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and glancing around to be sure none of the neighbors had seen what happened. As he got up to leave, he nonchalantly kicked some dirt over the puddle of bile and half-chewed chicken and walked off on his way to the shed.

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It wasn't until late that night, as he lay on the cot clutching his stomach as it cramped again, that he realized it was futile trying to eat anything at all. He had waited for hours after he had been placed in his cupboard to risk pulling the string that hung from the bulb above, flooding the small space with much needed light before opening the peanut butter jar. He had been able to scrape out almost a handful of the substance, eating it greedily from his fingertips. Shortly after, the cramping and the pain started, providing no respite for him until he emptied his stomach again. He had at least enough foresight to catch the contents in the empty peanut butter jar, and then screw the lid down tight. He hid it back under the cot and planned to dispose of it the first chance he got.

Harry tried his hardest to sleep that night, but the pain was keeping him awake. He was so hungry that he felt as if he hadn't eaten in months, and yet, the mere thought of putting food into his stomach was making him nauseous again. He wasn't sure how he would make it through the summer this year. Granted, this was not the first time he had been purposely starved while under his relative's 'care', but never to this extent. He raised his hand to wipe away one of the teardrops that had formed before it had a chance to fall, and he couldn't help but notice how badly his hands were shaking.

He lifted his shaking, injured hand to examine it, and noticed that the bandage had thankfully been able to dry out that day and didn't seem to be bleeding any more. He took the wrappings off, twisting his hand this way and that in the light, noticing the deep red color of the skin near the bottom of the wound. Fearing that it was infected, Harry decided that tomorrow he would have to risk rummaging through his Aunt's medicine cabinet when he cleaned her bathroom in the morning.

It was several minutes later, as he was still clutching his left hand in his right, that another strong wave of stomach pain washed over him and he shut his eyes and inadvertently squeezed both of his hands in response. Pain flared from his palm and he quickly opened his eyes again to see that the wound had been reopened, blood dripping out in a steady flow to run down his up-stretched arm, to fall into his lap.

He wrapped his hand again and was just tucking the end of the bandage under when he realized he couldn't feel his stomach pains anymore. With a deep sigh, he soon fell into a troubled sleep, where he only felt the dull throb of his hand instead of the sharp pains in his stomach that had assaulted him all that day. Twisting and turning, nightmares plagued him throughout the night, the image of Sirius falling through the veil making him cry out in his sleep.

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A/N: Hey, all you wonderful readers! Did you all understand what happened to him? The combination of blood loss and starvation made him fall into a coma-like state, like what happened at the shed. He did not wake again until his body was given enough time to recoup a little from everything. As is common in these types of situations, where people don't eat anything for days at a time, reintroducing solid foods can be troublesome, more so for people suffering from routine periods of starvation…and I'm sure the injuries received from his Uncle and to his hand didn't help matters any.

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And to those of you who take the time, I promise to respond to each and every review I get, and I occasionally give a hint for what's coming in the next chapter for those who ask. As always, thank you and Happy Reading!!