"Wake up Harry! Wake up! It's Christmas!"
Harry woke up, his roommate was shaking him. He sat up and looked around his room. It was a fair size. It had two beds with two closets. It was bigger than the room Dudley had back at home. He didn't tell anyone too much about his home. He didn't want his uncle to come after him. He didn't want to go back home, he liked the orphanage, everyone was friendly.
Harry looked at the older boy who was still shaking him excitedly. Harry liked his roommate; he stopped the other kids from picking on him. His name was Sam Harper; he was ten-years-old and very friendly. Some of the children laughed at Harry's size. Apparently he was scrawny. Harry would never admit that he didn't know what 'scrawny' meant.
"Come on Harry! The presents came," Sam said.
"Father Christmas?" Harry asked.
Sam shook his head, "Father Christmas doesn't come to orphanages… don't you remember? People donate gifts. Some Ms. Jen buys."
"Do I get a present?" Harry asked.
Harry climbed out of bed and Sam took his hand. "Course you do! Everyone gets presents."
"I'm a bad boy. I don't get presents," Harry answered.
"No you're not," Sam answered.
Harry hadn't told Sam about his aunt and uncle but had told him about his beatings. Sam had been brought to the orphanage when he was six-years-old. He had been beaten too; he understood what it was like to be 'abandoned.' Harry hadn't known that his uncle had abandoned him, but that's what Sam called it.
"You're a good boy Harry," Sam said. "You're very quiet and all the girls love you."
It had been hard for Harry to adjust to the orphanage his first few weeks. He wasn't used to playing whenever he wanted. He'd also been given his own clothes that fit and pajamas as well. He was allowed to play pretend whenever he wanted to. On Halloween, the older children had taken him and the other young children around trick-or-treating in costumes. Harry had worn the wizard costume Ms. Jen had given him.
Some of the children were very angry about being at the orphanage. Harry had learned to stay away from them. Some had been abandoned, some lost their parents, and some had been there since they were babies. The ones who had been abandoned were the ones who were the angriest. They'd once lived in a home with parents one day and lived out on the streets the next.
"You're not angry?" Harry had once asked Sam who had explained it all to him.
"I used to be. But my parents weren't nice people, Harry. They were very angry all the time. My big sister ran away when she was sixteen. Sometimes I wonder what happened to her. I wish I knew where she was," Sam had said. "I prefer it here. Sometimes people come here to adopt kids, but I don't want to live with parents ever again."
Harry hadn't answered. Not all parents could be bad. His had died when he was a baby but they had wanted him. His aunt had told him that once while they were cleaning the kitchen together. He'd asked her where the lightning bolt scar on his forehead had come from.
"It came from the car crash that killed your parents! Now don't ask questions!" She'd snapped.
He hesitated then asked, "Do they miss me?"
She'd softened at that point, which was rare for her when it came to Harry. "Yes, your mum and dad loved you very much. And I'm sure they miss you."
Harry often wanted to tell people that his parents were dead so people wouldn't think they were bad people. He was too scared to reveal that it had been his uncle who had hurt him. As it was, Ms. Jen was trying to find out where he had once lived. She was looking into the schools to find out. This scared Harry, he had promised his uncle he wouldn't say anything.
"Maybe I shouldn't have told her my name," he told Sam as they headed to recreation room.
"Why?" he asked confused.
"Cause… she'll find out where I once lived. I don't wanna go back. I like it here. I get presents and I get to play with toys. I get clothes that fit and I haven't been hit once!" he answered. He stopped in his tracks and rolled up his sleeves. "Look! No bruises! My tummy never hurts from growling too! I get food and my tummy is happy."
"You won't go back," Sam answered knowingly.
They entered the recreation room where the other children were. There were piles of wrapped gifts sorted for each age group. Harry was part of the group for age's three to five. Once of the attendants called him over. There was only one five-year-old, he was the only four-year-old and there were two three-year-olds.
"Now, let's see… you each get three presents each this year."
Harry stared at her in disbelief. He'd only ever had one present in his life, which hadn't been for his birthday or Christmas. His aunt had given him an old stuffed dog of Dudley's one day. The cotton had been coming out of where a tail had been and it had no eyes. He'd been happy to have a toy at all.
"These are for me?" he asked taking the three small gifts she handed him. "Why?"
"Because Harry, it's Christmas. Everyone gets presents on Christmas."
"Even bad boys like me?" he asked.
"You aren't a bad boy Harry," she answered.
"Then why didn't my aunt and uncle want me?" he asked without thinking.
Although Harry was very pleased to have Christmas presents, he couldn't help but think of his home. His aunt and uncle had always made it perfectly clear that they didn't want him in their home. He'd been told more than once that he was unworthy of love. He was often told he was the worst child alive. He knew that was why his uncle had left in the middle of the night. He was a bad boy and he knew it. Everyone at the orphanage would soon learn the truth as well.
The attendant was hugging Harry as he cried. He hadn't realized that he'd told her some useful information. He was just sorry that he was spoiling Christmas. His uncle had told him that he was bad when he cried. Harry couldn't help it. He couldn't stop thinking about the insults that had been thrown at him, the beatings, and the fact that he had been abandoned.
"It's okay, Harry, it's okay," she murmured.
"NO!" he shouted.
He pulled away from her; he forgot about his presents and ran from the recreation room. He ran all the way back to his and Sam's room and threw himself on his bed. He lay on the bed sobbing.
I'm finished with you! I knew we shouldn't have sent you to school. You are the stupidest child alive! You are worthless. Now you are causing problems at school. Since you can't stop being ungrateful for all we've done for you, I am getting rid of you. You are going to live at the orphanage!
You don't deserve to eat. You are bad! Why aren't you out there working and making money instead you worthless scum? You are nothing but a lazy spoiled brat!
You should have went the same way as your parents you pathetic excuse for a human being!
You are nothing but a waste of skin! You don't even deserve to be called a person! You are a thing! Got that a THING! You pathetic ugly creature!
"Harry!"
Harry looked up to see Sam; he had a look of concern on his face. Ms. Jen had come into the room as well. Long ago he'd learned to trust her. He'd been wary of her at first because she wanted to take him to the hospital. Doctors asked questions and answering questions with the truth could get a person a very long spanking. However, that hadn't happened. She'd given him a chocolate bar afterward.
"Harry, you are not a bad boy," Sam told him. "You deserve those."
He was pointing to three gifts that were lying on the bed. They were the same gifts that the attendant had given him. Ms. Jen walked over to Harry and kneeled beside the bed so that she was eye level with him.
"Harry, you're aunt and uncle dropped you off here?" she asked.
"No," he said.
He started to cry harder, he had broken his promise. He wasn't supposed to tell the truth about his aunt and uncle or Dudley. He was going to lose all of this. His uncle was going come after him. Harry threw his head back and screamed.
"Harry, it's okay, you can tell me the truth," he heard her say.
"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" he yelled.
He rolled himself on the floor and screamed louder.
"They must have threatened him," he heard Sam say.
"Yes, Sam, stay with him for a moment please… if he hits you-"
"He won't Ms. Jen." Sam answered.
"Harry, listen to me. They can't come get you. When I first came here, I was scared of that too. Guess what! Ms. Jen tracked my parents down and they are in jail! When they are released, they can't come near me. I learned that what they did to me was illegal," Sam said as he rubbed his back.
Harry sniffled and sat up. "What's illegal?"
"It's when you do something really really wrong. Your aunt and uncle beat you and then abandoned you. That's illegal," Sam answered.
Harry thought about all that his uncle had told him. "I'm illegal?"
"No, you aren't illegal. You aren't bad. I bet you've never been bad… but why did you live with your aunt and uncle?" Sam asked.
"My mummy and daddy died when I was baby. They loved me and they miss me," Harry answered.
Sam handed him the presents and Harry opened them. One was a stuffed teddy bear. He could tell that it was brand new. He'd never had anything brand new before, even the clothes he wore at the orphanage weren't new. The next gift was a pack of cards; Sam told him it was a game called Match. The last gift was a new book.
"I get to keep these?" Harry asked.
"Yes, they are all yours. You're lucky you are young. People always donate more presents for little kids," Sam told him.
"Did you get a present?" Harry asked.
"I got a new book," Sam answered and pointed to a book on his bed. "The babies always get the most gifts. The little kids the next. The teenagers here really don't get much either. Ms. Jen usually has to buy gifts to make sure everyone gets one."
"Why? Are they bad?" Harry asked.
"No. It's just that people always think to buy more for the little ones then they do the older kids."
Ms. Jen answered as she entered the room with an older lady who had a cane. Harry froze. He was going to be beaten with a cane! His Aunt Marge had always threatened to beat with a cane. Harry climbed into Sam's lap and clung onto him. His eyes didn't leave the cane as the two women approached.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" He cried.
"What?" Ms. Jen asked. "Harry, what's wrong? We're not angry with you."
"It's the cane. He thinks you are going to beat him with the cane," Sam told them.
"Oh no, Harry. Mrs. Dunlop needs it to walk. We just want to talk to you. I promise that no one here will ever hit you," Ms. Jen said.
"I'm not going to get beaten?" Harry asked.
"No," Mrs. Dunlop said, she didn't have a soft voice like Ms. Jen. "I just want to talk to you Harry. Ms. Jen told me you were screaming. Can you tell me why?"
"I'm sorry," Harry answered. "I'll never scream again."
"Well if you do, it's okay," Ms. Jen said. "Now, you lived with your aunt and uncle?"
Harry buried his head in Sam's shoulder. It hadn't seemed scary telling him about it, the adults were a different story.
"After you left he told me that he had lived with them because his parents died. He's scared that if he tells you what they did then they'll come after him," Sam said for him.
"My uncle told me that he'd come get me," Harry whispered which Sam told them.
"Harry, this information is very important. I can assure you that your uncle will never touch you again. Neither will your aunt," Mrs. Dunlop said, "and I'd like to start having meetings with you to talk about it some more."
"Sam too?" Harry asked looking up at her.
"I don't mind sitting with him," Sam told her.
"At first yes, if you want Sam around. After a while we'll do it by ourselves," Mrs. Dunlop said. "Just one more question Harry, and then you can enjoy your Christmas. Do you remember what their last name was?"
Harry didn't answer for a few moments. Everyone in the room believed that he didn't know what a last name was at first. Ms. Jen was about to ask when Harry spoke.
"Dursley. Petunia, Vernon and Dudley Dursley. Aunt Petunia never hit me but Uncle Vernon did. Dudley did too; he is four, like me."
The meetings started with Mrs. Dunlop after the Christmas break. He usually had them on weekends since he was at school during the week, however at times he had them after school as well. Harry no longer flinched when he saw the cane because he knew that he wasn't going to be beaten.
The Dursley were tracked down shortly after his revelation. Jen McDenver had a good lead on them before. She'd track a couple down who lived in Little Whinging before Harry had told them the truth. They had a small boy named Dudley and a nephew named Harry James Potter. Jen had planned to meet with them but had waited because she had believed Harry lived with parents.
Immediately they were confronted and shortly afterward they were arrested. The hard part came next; they wanted Harry to tell the judge what had happened. Jen knew that Harry would be terrified to do so. She decided to talk to Sam first about it. Harry was very drawn to the boy; perhaps it was because he'd been in the same situation as Harry.
"Sam do you remember when you had to talk about what your parents had done to you in front of the judge?" she asked him.
Sam nodded, "They need Harry to do it don't they? He'll be too scared Ms. Jen. He still thinks his uncle can get him. They did some really horrible things to him you know. He has a burn mark on his arm because his uncle had stuck his arm on the stove! Ms. Jen, his uncle was a lot meaner than my parents ever were."
"I know. Ms. Dunlop has told me what Harry has told you two. If we can guarantee that the Dursley's won't be in the same room as him, it might work," she said.
"I hope so. Harry told me that his uncle had spanked him for a long time the last day he lived with them and then beat him up. My parents never did that. They only beat me when they got drunk. Ms. Dunlop doesn't think Vernon was ever drunk when he did it. He did it because he hated Harry."
"I know. That's why I want to see them locked up. I just can't understand why a parent wants to beat a small child… when I saw him laying on the steps wrapped up in that blanket…" but she stopped.
Sam was still really young after all; he was only ten-years-old even if he acted older. Sam had been in a similar situation. She remembered when she found him sitting on the steps holding a broken wrist. He'd had a black eye, with a long cut running down his cheek. He still had the scar from it. It had taken a while to get anything out of him, even longer than Harry.
He had been a very angry boy when he first came. He'd wreck toys on purpose, and pushed the smaller children down. After talking to Ms. Dunlop who was an expert with children, he had calmed down. It was the reason she had put Harry in the same room with him. Normally she kept the ages close but she thought that since the two boys had similar experiences it could work out. She had been right; Sam was very good with Harry.
They found Harry in the recreation room playing the match game he had gotten for Christmas.
"Want to play with me?" he asked when he spotted Sam. "You're the only big kid who doesn't let me win."
"We wanted to talk to you Harry," Sam told him.
"Harry, remember when I told you that your aunt and uncle had to go to a hearing?"
Harry nodded, his eyes were wide, and he looked terrified. She knew he was worried that they were going to get him.
"Well, we wanted you to tell the judge exactly what happened when you lived with your aunt and uncle," Ms. Jen told him.
Harry's face scrunched up and he started to wail loudly. Ms. Jen touched his arm and explained to him that they couldn't hurt him. Harry shook his head and cried harder. The other children stopped what they were doing to watch.
"NO!" he yelled. "I can't tell! I can't! I'm a bad boy. Please!"
"No, Harry you are not a bad boy. Your aunt and uncle are bad. You did not deserve what they did to you. Ms. Dunlop has told you that."
"Are my aunt and uncle going to be there?" Harry asked.
"Yes, but they won't see you if you don't want them to," Ms. Jen told him.
"Sam will be there?" Harry asked, he reached out and touched Sam's hand.
"If you want him to be, I'll see if we can arrange it."
"Then I want to see them."
His last statement shocked them. His tears had stopped. Ms. Jen looked at Sam; she knew it was him that Harry got his strength from. She had never felt so proud of a child's development since she had opened the orphanage. Sam was a child she'd be proud to call her own son.
Harry had to sit in a chair in a large room beside the judge. He trembled when he saw his aunt and uncle nearby. The rest of room was almost empty except Ms. Jen and Ms. Dunlop. They sat at a table across from the Dursley's. In the rows behind them sat Aunt Marge and Dudley as well.
Sam was with Harry. He was currently glaring over at the Dursley's. Harry had a hard time looking at his aunt and uncle so he stared down into his lap instead. A woman asked Harry if he swore to tell the truth and he nodded, then glanced at his uncle. He mouthed something but Harry wasn't sure what he said. He regretted his decision to be in the same room as him. He felt as scared of him as he had been when he'd lived with them.
"Now, Harry can you tell me, did your uncle ever hit you?"
Harry couldn't answer. He stared at his uncle who was glaring at him. Sam leaned over, "He can't hurt you Harry. It's okay."
"I object! That kid is whispering stuff in his ear. He's telling him what to say!" Uncle Vernon shouted.
"I told him that you couldn't hurt him ever again!" Sam shouted back.
The judge used what Harry thought was a hammer and started hitting the table in front of her. He whimpered, but then she gave him a smile. In the future, Harry wouldn't remember what got him through it, but he managed to answer every question that was asked.
"I don't wanna live with them. I like the orphan," he said at the end. "I get to play with toys! I got Christmas presents too! And I like Sam. Sam is my best friend. I don't get spanked and my tummy doesn't growl all the time and when it does, I eat!" he then looked at his uncle whose face had gone pale. "I hate you Uncle Vernon! You're illegal!"
Thanks to jesusfreak100percent, Elfwynja, barber69, lonelylittlewolf, panther73110 for their reviews. Hope you enjoyed this chapter as well.
I'm going to have some chapters of Harry growing up in the orphanage before he goes to Hogwarts.
And to quote a certain part in the story:
"I got a new book," Sam answered and pointed to a book on his bed. "The babies always get the most gifts. The little kids the next. The teenagers here really don't get much either. Ms. Jen usually has to buy gifts to make sure everyone gets one."
"Why? Are they bad?" Harry asked.
"No. It's just that people always think to buy more for the little ones then they do the older kids."
This is true. So if you are one of those people who donate around Christmas time, don't forget about the teens either. Usually it's children ten and younger who get presents. The older children need gifts as well!
