Harry Potter is by no means an ordinary boy. Ordinary boys read books, play with their friends, sleep in beds, and enjoy meals with their family. Harry Potter does none of those. There was a brief period when Harry was around eight when he did read. He'd stolen some books Dudley had gotten for his birthday, doubting that they'd be missed. He'd also found a flashlight on a park bench one of the rare times he was allowed outside. Every night, over the course of a year, Harry, in his lightless little cupboard, had read. While he'd been lacking instruction, he had made up for it with determination and intelligence that no amount of abuse could suppress.

That came to a violent end around a week after Harry's ninth birthday. One night, Uncle Vernon, despite his walrus-like build, had quietly gotten down the stairs and opened the cupboard door to find Harry reading. He had slammed the door on Harry's hand until he couldn't feel it, and the only thing that had saved Harry's hand from permanent disfigurement was Petunia Dursley storming down the stairs in outrage at being woken.

"Vernon! What is the matter with you? We are above such things," Petunia had exclaimed, kindling a little flame of hope in Harry's näive heart.

"Let the boy have all the books he wants. A little reading never hurt anyone," she'd said, looking at Harry with an insidious smile on her face. Vernon was very confused by this point, but Harry, who was looking into Petunia's eyes, wasn't. He'd seen a wicked little gleam that replaced his little flame of hope with a sinking feeling. Wherever this is going, it isn't good, he'd thought. He wasn't wrong.

"You," Petunia had spat into his face contemptuously, "can have all the books you want. Anything in the house, you are free to read," she'd said. While the words were amiable, her nasty tone had made Harry very aware that there was a catch. There had been; they'd taken his glasses, and then strode up the stairs, leaving Harry blurry-eyed, not just with tears. He frantically opened The Wizard of Oz, his favorite book, and put his face as close as he could, straining his eyes to read it. It did him no good, and the last thing he'd heard before he passed out from the pain in his hand was Vernon and Petunia laughing. He never got the glasses back.

That was just one of several incidents. Harry was sitting in his cupboard, two years later, remembering (possibly deliriously) his past altercations. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Harry wanted to laugh at that, but he couldn't quite bring himself to; his ribs hurt too bad. He'd experienced plenty of bone-breaking from sticks and stones, but two years later he still knew that lack of words could hurt much, much more. His mind drew back to the events two days prior which had lead to his cupboard incarceration.

Vernon had been hosting a dinner party for his work, and he'd kicked Harry out of the house to "stay out of sight" on pain of not eating for a week. The moment he was outside, Dudley's favorite game had commenced: Harry Hunting. Dudley's gang had caught Harry after less than three minutes; that was the only outcome for a race between a malnourished ten-year-old and six boys on bikes. He'd been surrounded, and quickly realized he'd made the unfortunate mistake of running into a park, full of natural instruments of torture.

When kicking a curled-up Harry got boring, they'd started beating him with sticks and stones, laughing the whole time. He had taken some broken ribs, but when he saw Dudley lifting a heavy rock above his head he'd been flooded with fear. Harry had shut his eyes, not wanting to see it come down, and suddenly something changed. The grass he was curled up on was no longer grass. It was a hard, sloped surface that he was currently sliding down. He opened his eyes just to see himself slide off of the edge of the roof of No. 4 Privet Drive and into one of Petunia's precious rose bushes, cutting himself all over on its thorns. And, with natural comedic timing, he fell right in front of the sitting-room window where Petunia was showing her (uninterested) guests said rose bush.

Vernon and Petunia were furious, though they'd done an admirable job pretending to be caring and concerned, if frustrated, people. They'd used their customary 'disturbed cousin' excuse, and Harry had gone along with it (the last time he'd tried to get help from strangers, Vernon had run over Harry's foot with his car). The moment the guests had left, Harry had been thrown into his cupboard with the door locked. The promise of no food for a week would be carried out without a doubt.

That's where Harry is now. He is scratched (but thankfully no longer bleeding) all over, with several broken ribs, trying not to breathe as much as possible so it doesn't hurt. It's pitch black; the most work Vernon ever put into the cupboard was to make sure that no light could get in, and no "freaky little shit" could get out.

This is fairly typical. Harry hasn't been to school since mid-second grade after his teacher, Mrs. Andrews, had noticed a bruise on his arm that was a little bit too dark to be attributed to 'easy bruising and sensitive skin'. He'd been pulled out the following week after Vernon received a concerned letter from the school.

His daily routine has always been the same: wake up (usually unpleasantly), prepare breakfast, collect the mail (until a month ago, when Vernon inexplicably forbade him from so much as looking at it, which seemed rather pointless to Harry, who was blind as a bat), eat the leftovers (which tended to be rare, given Dudley and Vernon's appetites), wash the dishes, sit in his cupboard, and repeat the process for every meal, taking out the trash after dinner. The only variation in this monotony is the weekend, where he tends to the lawn (except for Petunia's rose bushes) and does various cleaning chores around the house, including the whole household's laundry.

Harry has grown to prefer the blackness of the cupboard. Some days, locked in here with his thoughts, he thinks he might go insane, but most days are fine. He is interrupted from his thoughts by the sound of mail coming through the door slot. He doesn't move. Several minutes later he hears Vernon blearily mumble something as he comes down the stairs to the front door. He hears the rustle of paper on paper as the mail is picked up, and the mumbling abruptly stops, replaced by an ominous silence.

A stream of vicious swear words followed by the sound of ripping paper leave Harry confused, but not overly concerned.

It's probably his stupid golf club getting canceled or something. He closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep, but it won't happen. He'd been woken by his customary nightmare, a random mess of various senseless things; flying motorcycles, random words that don't mean anything, evil laughter, and, always, a flash of green light just before waking.

Harry sits and listens for the regular morning sounds; Dudley's heavy thumps above and to his right sound the same as usual, but something's missing. Normally Vernon can be heard stomping about, accompanied by various toothbrushing, toilet-flushing, or showering sounds from Petunia, but all of those noises are conspicuously absent. Several minutes later, he hears Petunia and Vernon go down the stairs, whispering. He can't hear what they are saying, but they sound very anxious. All of a sudden, he hears Petunia shush Vernon and then nothing.

His stomach growls as the smell of bacon filters into his cupboard, and Dudley's footsteps come down the stairs almost instantly. Is it cannibalism for Dudley to like bacon? Harry grins a little bit to himself at that but quickly stops. There's nobody to smile with. Dudley's footsteps thump past the door to his cupboard, and Harry mentally braces himself for one of Petunia's sickeningly sweet greetings for her 'perfect little Dudders'. It never comes.

Something is wrong. That has never happened. Petunia never misses her morning greeting. He wonders what it could be. Is it related to the letter? Are they in debt? Are we moving? Harry hopes not; it hadn't been pleasant here in No. 4, Privet Drive, but he doubted it would be better anywhere else. Was Dudley expelled for beating someone up? A little bit of pleasure at the thought, but he knows that can't be it. The last time Dudley was threatened with expulsion for bullying Petunia had started breakfast with proclamations of innocence for Dudley. It'd been a funny (and awkward) little scene; Petunia had seized upon the first person to enter the kitchen to wail about the general unfairness of the world and the misunderstanding of her perfect child that she loved him with all her heart, only to suddenly notice that the boy she was holding was a solid thirty kilograms lighter than 'her diddykins'.

Their breakfast is quiet. Only the little tinkles of utensils on dishes indicate there is anyone in the house at all. The meal wraps up, Petunia does the dishes, Vernon leaves for work, Dudley for school, and the house is quiet once more. Harry settles in to think about what had happened. It's not as though I've got much else to do, he thinks. I've only got around a day left before I start losing it from the hunger. He's scared. In around a day the pain will be so intense he'll barely be able to move, and after that is when he starts hearing the screaming, seeing the flashes of green and bright red eyes in the corners of his vision. And last time, it was only five days. He settles in and waits for it to begin.

It's started. It's only the morning of the fourth day, but he's hearing things. It isn't the high cold laughter or gibberish words though. It's a papery rustle of what sounds like thousands of letters. He hears the furious bellows of an enraged walrus (or maybe Vernon, on second thought). The house shakes; he can feel the vibration in his bones. He feels paper on his skin; the door must have been blown open. He shuts his eyes at the light, it's painfully bright after four days in pitch blackness. He reaches out and grabs a letter though. Written there, in an emerald green ink, is… nothing. Or at least, nothing he can read.

Vernon has removed every last letter from Harry's cupboard, laughing at him all the while for not being able to read them. He locks the door to the cupboard again, and Harry sits in silence for a whole five minutes wondering if it had happened at all before the laughing starts again. It isn't Vernon's deep, vindictive chuckling. It's the laugh of someone completely insane, someone who doesn't care about anything anymore and finds only the misfortune of others entertaining. It doesn't stop. Even in his sleep, it torments him.

The woman is screaming now, wearing away at Harry in tandem with the laughter in his head. Harry wants it to stop, wants them to both be quiet. He wishes she would die so then he wouldn't have something to laugh at.

No. That's wrong.

Is it?

He should be helping her. I should be helping her.

Why? Does anybody deserve my help? After everything that's been done to me? Nobody ever helped. Even Ms. Andrews never did anything to help except for one stupid letter.

It's still wrong. If nobody helps anybody else-

Then I end up where I am right now. The only difference between the Dursley's and me is power. I need to be the Dursley, I need to be the one with the power over them, and I can make them, and everyone else, suffer.

Even Ms. Andrews though? It feels wro-

Doesn't matter, that's the way it is.

Resolve grows and strengthens in Harry. No matter what it takes, I will end up on top, no matter who or what I am against.