Warning for slight violence and child abuse
Harry had given up yelling half an hour ago, the punches kept coming, the belt kept lashing, and the shouting kept assaulting his eardrums. All he could do was curl up in a ball, wrapping his arms around his head, and trying his best to bare the pain. This was the worst beating he had ever received, the worst pain he had ever felt and he'd recently been under the cruciatus. Just as his vision began to swim out of focus and the noises became ever fainter, Harry heard two loud pops from outside. Too close to unconsciousness, Harry couldn't quite take-in what the sound meant.
The next moment, Harry became aware of, was still agony but he could feel the beatings had, at least, stopped. Someone was calling his name, actually it sounded like more than one person.
"Harry hang on, you're going to be okay, I promise, please stay with us". Was that Sirius? Harry fought to open his eyes but his body wasn't quite obeying him.
"Stay back, Black, I need room" Harry knew that deep voice too, but couldn't place it.
Sirius was here and Harry felt safe, he drifted back into unconsciousness. The next few days were hazy for Harry, all he could process were sounds and touches. His whole body throbbed dully and he felt light and floaty, like after drinking a healing draft but notched up several degrees. People would hold his hand and stroke his hair, there were soothing voices too, Sirius he recognised, Remus as well and once or twice a woman, McGonagall? Mrs Weasley?
The first day he woke up feeling more like himself, he found Sirius sitting beside him, face down, snoring into the mattress he was lying on. Harry knew these mattresses, he was at Hogwarts, the hospital wing. Harry shifted his neck around to see more and groaned when he felt shooting pains race down his spine. Sirius sat bolt upright.
"Harry, you're awake, thank Merlin, how're you feeling?".
Harry tried to answer but his throat wouldn't obey, he squeaked out unintelligibly.
"Hang on, I'll get Snape". Snape! Harry thought, what on Earth would his godfather want with Snape?
"Aha felt like returning to the land of the living did you Mr Potter?" somehow Snape's usual sarcasm felt comforting to Harry, here was something that made some sense.
Harry cleared his throat and tried to cough away the obstruction, "What happened?" it still came out a bit squeaky.
"We'll get to that soon" Sirius placated. "How do you feel, are you in any pain?"
"Just achey really and kinda thirsty"
"Of course" Sirius jumped up and, presumably, went to get a drink.
"Where about's are you feeling 'achey'" Snape carried on clinically,
Harry took a moment to examine his body, his head felt a bit heavy and woolly, his neck was stiff and his torso felt bruised. When he tried to move his limbs one by one, he gasped when he flexed his left arm. Harry blinked up questioningly at Snape
"You had a shattered ulna"
Harry had no idea what one of them was but he guessed it meant he had broken his arm, "anything else?" Harry asked drily.
"2 broken ribs, several bruised, severe internal bleeding and a concussion" he answered, equally devoid of emotion.
Harry nodded, "Where's madam Pomfrey?" expecting her to come bustling around the curtains at any moment.
"She took the opportunity of your absence from the castle, to take a well-deserved rest, seems she was mistaken in thinking you could go a whole summer without injury coming to your person".
Harry would have found that amusing if it weren't for the murderous glare Sirius arrived back with. "Don't you dare blame this on Harry you miserable excuse for a man"
Snape glared back but didn't reply.
"Blame what on me?" Harry asked slightly confused, oh did they mean him being beaten up, he supposed this must look shocking to them, they didn't know, with Vernon around, this was a regular occurrence.
"What he did to you Harry, your Uncle" Sirius sounded uncertain "when we got to your house, he was attacking you, you were nearly dead"
Harry was shocked when Sirius sounded close to tears, "Siri, it's okay, I know it looks bad, but I'm fine now"
"You are never going back there Harry, and that man will be made to pay" Sirius promised vehemently "why did you never say anything? if you were being hurt, you could have told someone, we could have protected you".
Harry sighed, he didn't know why, at first he hadn't realised it wasn't normal to be abused by your guardians and then he'd worried no one would believe him, Vernon was always careful not to leave visible marks.
Snape and Sirius were still waiting for him to answer, Harry stalled by sipping the water Sirius had brought, then took a deep breath "I didn't want to be a bother, Dumbledore said I was safe at Privet Drive, that meant I was in danger if I was elsewhere and that meant I'd be a danger to those around me, I couldn't do that to the Weasley's or you Siri"
Sirius smiled sadly, "there would have been something we could have done, how long did this go on for?"
Harry shifted uncomfortably "it wasn't that bad, he never beat me like this before".
Snape snorted in disbelief before bending down and catching Harry's gaze, before he could look away he felt a weird sensation, it felt as if his mind was being opened and rifled through, random memories flickered across his consciousness until one started to play out, a recent one, Harry panicked but couldn't stop it.
Dudley was in his room, this in itself was odd, Dudley never came in here, what was more odd was the expression on his face.
"What have you done to me?" what? Harry was pretty sure he had not done anything to the teen in front of him "Is it a spell? do you think this is a joke?"
"D, what do you mean? I haven't done anything"
"Don't lie, you think you've been so clever using magic on me, to turn me queer".
Harry was struck dumb by his cousin's words, he thinks I made him gay? Dudley's gay? Oh oh, what's he doing now? Dudley had paced forward and grabbed Harry by the back of the neck with one hand, and the other he used to thrust Harry's face towards his, Harry tried to jerk his head away from his cousin's questing mouth.
"Get off, eww!" Harry yelped but Dudley kept adamantly trying to kiss him, "aaaaah" Harry cried in disgust.
The door banged open and Vernon thundered inside, "what is the meaning of this, boy?!" he yelled "get off my son, you disgusting freak"
Dudley jumped up, stammering excuses, as Vernon stalked forward and grabbed Harry around the collar, "you couldn't just be an abomination to humankind could you? oh no, you had to be gay as well!" and with that he threw Harry on the floor.
The vision swayed and Harry became aware of the black eyes gazing into his.
"What was that, what were you doing Snivellus?"
"Leave it mutt, I was just ascertaining the truth of Potter's words".
Harry flushed with embarrassment, realising Snape had just seen all of that. How weak must he think he was now? Harry wondered, the man had already risked his life to get him out of that graveyard and now he had seen that Harry couldn't even defend himself against a couple of muggles.
"Satisfied?" Harry asked bitterly,
Snape gazed at him with a curious expression, "no, Potter, I am not" and with that he left.
A/N: This story is also being posted on AO3, under the same username. The plot's nearly exactly the same but with more adult themes and language, I don't like putting stuff like that on here, with there being no age restriction. But if explicit is your thing, feel free to read it over there instead.