AN: So there's a big piece of the puzzle in this chapter, I hope some who have speculated enjoy the reveal.

The next few days passed as peacefully as they could given the circumstances. Harry was buoyed by attention and fawning from his childhood house elf, stuffed with homemade biscuits with more in his trunk, and feeling like he might survive this ordeal. Sure, the first week had been a challenge, but there were only three weeks left – and surely he could survive that? He had figured out how to keep his head down as his Dad had called it – he kept himself small, didn't speak unless he was spoken to, and was excruciatingly polite when answering – no matter what sarcastic or rebellious thing popped in his head. He worked hard – harder than he ever had in his life! – and he just concentrated on survival. And that survival was threatened indeed as the food portions became smaller and smaller, until he knew that he would be starving if it wasn't for the food supplements in the trunk his father had given him. They had systematically stripped him of everything – his family, his magic, food – but the one that really grate on him was the fact that nobody called him his name here. They made him into a faceless, nameless freak that was interchangeable with anyone and had no thoughts or feelings of his own.

"Boy!" he heard a low rumbling from up the stairs one night. "Get down here this instant!"

Harry, who had been laying on his hard bed resting from an exhausting day of clearing out the garage, sat up. He had just pulled out his notebook and was wondering what to write to his father that night, and suddenly felt fear twist in his stomach. Why was he being called? They never wanted him in the evening, and he'd already had his meager bowl of soup.

"Coming, Uncle," he responded quickly, quickly tucking his notebook under his mattress and brushing the crumbs from the house elf biscuit he'd eaten off his shirt. He wracked his brain on why he would be called, but no good reason came to mind – only bad.

"You were cleaning out the garage today!" his uncle thundered at him as he descended the stairs, his face almost purple.

"Yes, uncle," Harry answered. "Just like you said."

"Did it not occur to you that we wanted you to organize the foodstuffs area and throw away the empty and spoiled containers?"

"I did that, sir," Harry answered, hoping his answers would help his Uncle calm.

"You threw away Dudders favorite Pop tarts!" Aunt Petunia squeaked indignantly.

"I'm so sorry," Harry told them, his eyes going warily between the two. "I just threw out what was beyond the expiration date. He still had several boxes left . . ."

"You threw away the hot fudge sundae ones!" she shrilled. "What if he wants those!"

"You probably ate them yourself," Vernon growled, showing Harry his hand, which held the dreaded strap. "Taking food from my son's mouth."

"I didn't eat anything, I swear," Harry told them, his mouth dry in fear as he eyed that strap. He went up on the balls of his feet, he was ready to flee. "I can probably go find them in the rubbish bin to prove it . . ."

"My dear Duddems is not eating out of a rubbish bin!" Petunia shrilled.

"You're right," Harry agreed, using tactics his Dad had taught him. "Please let me see my cousin and I will apologize to him directly." He also knew that with Dudley there they were far less likely to hurt him.

"Dudley is gone this evening at a friend's house," Petunia told him.

"We didn't want him here for your correction," Uncle Vernon told him with an evil smile on his face.

Harry blanched, and then knew that they weren't trying to scare him – they were going to beat him. And the excuse seemed so thin – almost as if they wanted to beat him and just invented a reason to do so.

"Bend over the arm of the couch," Vernon told him, his voice menancing.

"No," Harry told him, backing away.

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I'm not going to let you beat me," Harry told him. "It's not fair."

"You will bend yourself over that arm before I make you," he growled, and that was enough. Harry did what his feet had been aching to do since he heard that first grumble – he ran. He nimbly dodged the grasping fingers of Uncle Vernon, dodged a lunging Aunt Petunia and was out the door before either of them knew what was happening. Harry felt the fresh air hit his face, and he didn't even have time to think about the fact that he had nothing more than the clothes on his back as he ran – not even the notebook to contact his dad or even his wand – he just took several glorious long strides as he broke free from that house of pain and fear and into the unknown of the world around him.

His freedom was arrested abruptly, however, as his body suddenly locked into what he realized was a petrificus totalis spell, and he hit the ground with a resounding thud just short of the edge of the Dursley property line and the walking path to freedom.

"Well, well, well, what have we here?" he heard a voice behind him, and shivered in fear at the sound of that voice. How could that person be here of all places? "Have you despised your relative's house so quickly that you would seek accommodation elsewhere Mr. Potter?" the voice asked.

Harry couldn't answer, but was left helplessly to lay on the ground, letting his enemy gloat over him. He watched as an elegant, well-dressed figure came into his view, and smiled at him as if he were a cake offered on display. "Let me see, was your accommodation not to your liking, Mr. Potter? And after I went through all the trouble to make sure it was perfectly suited to your needs. I have let your relatives know all the tips and tricks to keep a young wizard under control and weak in magic, including weekly beatings and small portions of food. And here you all, all ungrateful for my attentions."

Harry glared as much as he could with the hex on him, but couldn't speak.

"Your adoptive father would be proud with my negotiating skills, I must say," the man continued. "Your relatives really do hate you, you know. At first I thought them hard to convince to take you. But then I realized my mistake, I was really overthinking this. One visit to your Potter family vaults was really all it took, after that they were obedient to my every word. Especially with all of my assurances that I could give them tools to keep them safe. And here I thought I would need persuasion potions or spells. Muggles really are simple creatures. Speaking of . . . why are you able to run away at this point? Methinks someone is not taking their potion properly. Leave it to a boy raised by Snape to figure out he's being dosed and evade it. I think we need to have a talk."

Harry felt enough of the spell be cancelled so that he could talk, and he realized that at this moment he would have to use some of the cunning his father was always trying to get him to use. He couldn't just yell at this man.

"Lucius Malfoy," he spat. "I should have known it was you."

"And I shouldn't have tried to secretly dose a potioneer's son," he countered. "Let me see – a diagnostic to check for the potion. That damn dampener, well, it couldn't possibly be in your body, you would not have been able to run away with it in your body. That was a test to see if the potion was working, would you submit to a beating? Well, we are going to need to get that potion into you."

"How were you able to hex me then?" Harry asked. "If you can't even do a diagnostic?"

"I was outside the barriers of the property," he answered. "And you were very near the edge. For something simple like a hex that can work, not something complicated like a diagnostic. Now be a good boy, and I will go and get your potion for you."

"I refuse."

"You don't have any option to," Lucius told him.

"I beat it once."

"I can spell it into your stomach!"

"Not with the dampener on," Harry smirked. "Unless you want to take me outside the barriers?"

He could see Lucius consider it, but reject it. He didn't want Harry to have access to his magic either.

"If your big plan is me taking the potion, then why all the other torture stuff?" Harry asked him. "The chores, the low amount of food, the physical abuse – why all that stuff if the potion is what's important?"

"Because it's enjoyable," Lucius answered with a predatory smile. "And all of that weakens you. A weak hero is an exploitable and a beatable hero."

"I'm not taking the potion," Harry told him. "I don't care how much you beat me."

"They all say that," Lucius smiled cruelly. "But they are all wrong, in the end."

. . .

Lucius was right, in the end, Harry reflected. He cancelled the spell by stepping off of the property, and then dragged Harry back to the house, struggling a bit to control the teenager. Though he would normally have levitated the annoying brat and stuck him to the arm of the couch or the nearest table for his beating, without magic he had to settle for dragging the struggling teen and then pinning him over the arm of the couch. Though he vastly preferred magic, he was several inches and several stone bigger than the lad, and it wasn't too difficult to subdue him. And holding him down while the mouth-breathing muggle whaled on his ass with the magical strap, well, he would examine that memory in his pensieve later with great pleasure. The great Harry Potter, defeater of the Dark Lord and brat that had cost him his house elf, crying out and begging to be let go.

After a fairly harsh beating, the boy capitulated, and Lucius administered the potion himself.

"But what could have raised such a spirit in the boy?" Petunia asked. "He had been seeming so calm this week."

"It is meat, madame, meat," Lucius told her. "You have overfed the boy and have raised an artificial spirit in him unbecoming to his place."

"I did as you said and tapered down his food to less and less," she told him, sounding distressed though she was wholly innocent of Lucius' charges.

"You should cut his food to think porridge and soup," Lucius told her. "His spirit and magic will come under control soon enough."

Harry realized just how much of this was orchestrated by Malfoy, and grit his teeth. He needed his father, he would know what to do.

"Bedroom, now," Uncle Vernon snapped at him. "You have work in the morning."

Harry obeyed, swaying slightly, and limped up to his room. Once in his room, Harry looked around warily. If Lucius was in the mix, he was going to have to be a lot more careful. He was far smarter than Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, and he knew what things like notebooks and antidotes were in the wizarding world. He quickly quaffed a swallow of the antidote, hoping his father had made more. His supply wasn't going to last if this kept up. He then took the painkiller for his back and backside, wincing as he did. He thought about taking the deal of taking the potion without the beating, but he thought that might have looked too suspicious and would have tipped Lucius off that he had an antidote. Hopefully, the fact that he took a severe beating rather than take the potion would put Lucius off guard a little bit at least. His father had taught him to keep his head in hard situations, and today he thanked him for helping him keep his cool.

After applying the salve and feeling much better, Harry wondered what to tell his Dad. He always wondered if he should protect his father more and not tell him everything that went on for him, but somehow the man always found out anyway. And for this thing he really did need to have some help, so he knew he would have to come clean. But he was also terrified of being found out, so he sat in front of the door to his room, figuring that would give him a few extra seconds if someone walked in. He only winced a bit as he sat, and set his mind to his task.

Dad? He wrote.

I'm here.

There's a lot this time and I'm not sure how to tell you everything.

The most important first in case you are interrupted, came the prompt reply.

Lucius Malfoy is behind everything, he orchestrated everything, and the main point of it all is taking that horrid potion to make me obedient and cooperative, Harry wrote, surprising himself that he was near tears as he did so. He had held back tears during the entire encounter with Lucius, and now they bubbled up.

I will tell you everything that happened, but that's the main point.

Does he know you know?

Yes, Harry answered.

So no memory charm, his father observed. Tell me everything as succinctly as you can, you are likely in danger.

And so Harry told him everything as quickly as he could, and then waited for the answer with great trepidation. What was his father going to say?

You did well, his father wrote. Now hide everything you don't want found as well as you can and pretend to sleep. This means non-obvious places, stay away from under your mattress or in your trunk; that junk pile in your closet is probably your best bet. With Lucius here now this changes the game immeasurably, especially as he is making his presence known and not bothering to cover his tracks. I will need to think on the next best steps.

As Harry found nooks in the junk pile to hide the antidote, healing potions and his precious notebook, he thought about how helpless he really was. If he didn't have this lifeline to his Dad . . . he shuddered. He needed to protect it at all costs. And then he did obey his father; he laid down and pretended to sleep. Harry would have thought sleep impossible under the circumstances, but eventually sleep overcame his exhausted body.

AN: there was a reference in here to a classic book and movie, let me know if you got it!