Disclaimer: I can only dream that I will one day be creative enough to pull an internationally beloved alternate universe out of thin air and make millions from it. Sadly, I own nothing. All of the credit for these characters and their lives goes to J.K. Rowling and a bit of the inspiration came from paganaidd's story "Dudley's Memories".

Chapter 2

Don't Ask Questions

From the outside, we lived an idyllic existence. The successful hardworking father. The loving mother who kept the house immaculate and dinner always on the table. The cherished son that they both doted upon. We lived together in a cookie cutter neighborhood, which was completely homogenous. It was full of right angles and meticulously manicured front gardens, oozing normality from every scrupulously straight curtain. Everyone drove the same kind of car, lived the same kind of lifestyle, and knew everyone else's business.

I don't think many people knew about the boy, though. My parents certainly worked hard to keep it that way. He was a threat and a danger to our picture perfect family, and he was treated as such. After all, normal people don't raise other people's children. Normal people don't know the kind of people who get themselves killed. Normal people don't wake up one morning to find a dirty little orphan with a scar on his face suddenly intruding upon their family. Normal people would shun that abnormality, pretend that it doesn't exist, like the beggar on the street corner asking for coins. That is what my parents attempted to do.

If one were to tour my childhood home, they would find no sign of him. The pictures proudly adorning the front hall and the living room mantle featured only one child. Although there were toys enough to satisfy an army of children and food enough in the cupboards to sustain the invasion indefinitely, everything belonged to me. A quick look upstairs would find, despite the house having four bedrooms, only one was fitted for a child, and one was converted to an overflowing playroom. There was one closet filled to bursting with children's clothes, one size of children's shoes in the coat closet, and one child's safety seat in the back of the company car.

He was almost nonexistent, and that was the way my family preferred it. From the day he moved in his only room was a small cupboard under the front stairs, a cramped space shared with miscellaneous cleaning supplies and the Hoover. I didn't begrudge him this space; it was dirty and full of spiders, so I would certainly never deign to crawl inside.

As a small child, he couldn't reach the knob of the door so it was dependent upon my mother or my father to let him out. They rarely did. After all, the boy had a cot of his own, a few broken discarded toys to keep him occupied, and a bucket in the corner to relieve himself in. He had old clothes that I had discarded and what food was left over from our family dinners. What else could he possibly need?

While Freud has been largely discredited, I find some of his less controversial views on children to be valid. Freud taught that all children are blank slates, neither good nor bad. All of us are innocent of moral delineation, unable to do anything but what makes us happy, what is best for us. Morality is a learned behavior. It is necessary for someone, usually a parent, to teach the child what is acceptable behavior and what is unacceptable. What is right and what is wrong. Without this training, a child will continue to act in his own best interests, to the detriment of all.

Watching my parents, assimilating their attitudes and actions, I soon learned to treat the boy with disdain. Aggressive behavior was encouraged, even rewarded. While most parents were teaching their children the value of sharing and how to play well with others, I was taught superiority and entitlement. If I pushed the boy down, I was given sweets. If I pinched him and made him cry, he was sent back to the cupboard for disturbing the peace.

Anything that he touched, I felt obligated to take from him. After all, everything was mine anyway. Never mind that I had more toys than I could possibly play with during a given day. Never mind the fact that it was old or broken or unloved. It was mine. Any sense of camaraderie or kinship that may have developed from growing up together from practically infancy was quickly quelled. The boy was not a friend, was not family. The boy was trouble.

In the way of children, I trusted my parents implicitly. They loved me, because they told me so. They showered me with affection and presents and sweets, so that made them good. Parents don't lie. If they said the boy was a Freak, was bad, was trouble…then he was, unequivocally.

It wasn't until we began primary school that I realized that Boy was not the boy's actual name. I am sure on some level I had always known this, but I had never heard him called anything else in our home. As it was, when the teacher called roll on the first day of class, I had no idea who Harry Potter was. I looked around the room curiously, as I had at all the other names, waiting to assign it to a face. No one raised a hand. She called again. No response. It appeared that the boy didn't know he was Harry Potter either.

Finally, the teacher turned towards me in exasperation.

"Dudley, is your cousin here?"

I stared at her, a bit bewildered. I had a cousin?

"Your cousin who lives with you, Dudley," said Ms. Atherton, when I didn't answer. "Your cousin Harry."

I was still a bit baffled, but the boy was the only one who lived with me. I pointed in his direction, to where he sat hunched in the far back corner. The teacher made her way over to the desk and sank into a crouch beside it.

"Harry," she said a bit loudly. "Do you have a hearing problem?"

The class immediately began to snigger.

He shook his head emphatically, knowing better than to admit to any kind of problem, even if he had one.

"Okay," Ms. Atherton replied, not unkindly. "Harry, next time I call your name for roll call, I want you to put your hand up, just like everyone else. Can you do that?"

A small nod was her only reply.

"Good boy," she murmured as she made her way back to the front of the room, obviously deciding that he was just a bit touched in the head. I snickered quietly to myself. I knew the truth. The boy wasn't a good boy at all, but I would let her figure it out for herself.

That day when we got home from school, we broke one of the cardinal rules for peaceful living at 4 Privet Drive: Don't ask Questions. Especially questions about the boy. His origins had always been shadowy to me. He had just suddenly appeared one day to live in our cupboard. He was unwanted, unasked for, but we couldn't send him away. I had never put too much thought into it before, but I was now curious. After hugs and kisses had been dutifully accepted, but before the boy went back to his cupboard, I broached the subject.

"Mummy, Ms. Atherton said he's Harry," I said, pointing at the boy.

"Yes, I suppose he is," she murmured quickly, trying to steer me into the kitchen for a snack.

"She said he's a Cousin. What's a cousin?"

My mother got a look on her face as though she had smelled something extremely unpleasant, but she had never been able to deny me anything.

"It means that the boy's mother was unfortunately my sister, which is why we are stuck with him."

"Where is my mother?" the boy suddenly interjected, shocking me. It was a good question. Why didn't he have a mother and a father of his own, instead of sharing mine. Why did he not have a room and toys of his own, instead of sharing mine? Why wasn't he with his own family? Why was he in my life? I think this was the first time I ever completely realized that the boy was a boy like me, instead of some sort of creature. It was unsettling.

"Don't ask questions!" my mother snapped. "Your parents are dead. They were no-good-lazy-drunks who went off and died in a car crash and didn't have the decency to take you with them. That's where you got that horrible scar on your forehead. Now go to your cupboard and stay there."

She slammed the door behind him and stalked off to the kitchen. By the time I arrived, she had cakes and soda on the table already and was smiling beatifically at me as I prepared to dig in. Thoughts of the boy were quickly overwhelmed by a familiar swirl of sugar and affection and I beamed back. All was once again right in my world.

AN: Thanks to all of you who have read this piece and added it to their favorites. A special thanks to Ashtin Nightwalker, Lyssa117, paganaidd, ceara1888, Roz, Doni, B00kw0rm92, and Drayconette for your lovely reviews. Please let me know if you think that I am doing an acceptable job of integrating the memoir portion and the psychology portion, or if it is too heavy on either side. Also, let me know if there is a scene that anyone specifically wants me to explore. I would also appreciate someone pointing out anything that is too "American." I am trying to channel my inner Brit…but I don't really think I have one.