The cupboard beneath the stairs had a padlock on the door, and not the one that needed one; it needed two to pry it open. As there was one for the first and then a second for the other, the keys were upstairs — locked away in a drawer.
And that drawer was in a closet, where you had to navigate through the hangers, and somehow pry it from the back because it was pushed-in and it was backwards. And only then could you open it had you had what you needed.
And the only way to unkey it, so as to grab what you wanted, you'd have to tiptoe from the room and bend the door — much like so; so that your Vernon or Petunia couldn't hear you when you toed — and then head down the hall to the next little room, where your Dudley was as handsome whether awake or while he snoozed.
And where he curled with his thumb jabbing halfway down his throat, gnawing on his fist and rather fitful if you pulled it. And if you were there to have caught it, to have seen it in the moonlight or by the nightlight near the crib you installed a week before, you'd realize what had happened.
You'd freeze with where you were: you had tiptoed out of bed without Vernon or Petunia. You had come within a trance and were standing above your son. You were tugging a little key from the mobile in the air before you glanced, caught your Dudley, and by the sight of him you snapped out.
Because your love for him was the antidote of what had vexed you to have come, that you batted the little key and mumbled at your breath that nothing freakish could ever stand between you and your kin.
That nothing — and not even magic — could make you love that wretched thing, that little freak inside your cupboard and its bewitching upon your family.
This was the fifth time in over a week that the nuisance had been a bother, trying to lure you or your other into freeing it from the cupboard. So it could nestle between you both and leave Dudley to the wolves, that the thought of it had you seething like the wind above your roof.
So try, try again, try to bewitch you and them — and with a bullet through the floor from your righteous, bleary stare you carried Dudley into your arms and gently pried his little fist.
It didn't matter if you were slobbered or hunched over when he fussed; the only thing that ever did was that you held him and not it. And that you were nowhere near a cupboard when you brought Dudley to your bed, and tucked him warmly to your other and eventually, fell asleep.
Knowing nothing could compel you because you had everything within your reach; there was no room for another and you saw to it that it stayed. With Dudley at your chest and in the shape of him, your heart. With your other between your arms and above both of you were the blankets.
Knotted and folded and cuddled beneath a storm, you were as you were.
There was nothing you needed more.
You needed sleep, then you smiled. And there was darkness — a flash of lightning — as there was you and there were them.
All was normal while you slept.
.
.
In the cupboard beneath the stairs, there was a little, orphaned boy. Tucked with anything but a blanket made of cotton or that of wool, unraveled above a cot that one of the dogs had outgrown. It was a gift from Aunt Marge from the first time she ever knew him, when she thought of Harry as a puppy when he scampered from her brother.
Whining, crying and fussing up a storm — that she pulled Vernon to the side and filled his head with all she knew, that crate training was a must to teach a mongrel how to kneel. And if this mongrel came from them, she didn't bother to hide her frown or the uptick of her brow when she pointed at the boy, then he needed to do it now.
"The sooner come the better," she muttered through her lips. And before she left, there was a dog bed and a stained blanket within the cupboard that at night, became the crib and the only place for a Potter.
That if the padlock and the keys had been all figured out, that if Vernon or Petunia were still within a trance, that the sight of their little nephew swallowed in the bed and hastily wrapped around to tire him while he slept — that this would wake them up.
They would leave him in the cupboard. Because this was where he belonged.
There was no room for him in the house and if there was, it wasn't his because everything was for Dudley. And in time, he'd remember that. But right now, he could not.
Harry stirred and made a fuss, trying to grab within the dark perhaps a finger or a lock of the brightest hair he'd ever known. Because if he did, he'd be up.
He'd be held. He'd be loved.
He'd see the brightest and the widest and the biggest, bright smile that would say his name — not "You boy!" or any other derivative — and he would feel so very warm because this smile was like the sun. And he'd try to grab it so he could hold it within the silvers of his palms.
But when he reached out to try to find it, there was nothing bright or warm. He felt the silkiness of the air and thought that maybe, it was a game.
Where if he reached and if he grabbed and if he pulled at the right spot, tumbling would come a blanket and a ruck of laughter from above him. And the untidiest, tidy hair would crown out like a forest that Harry could touch to all he wanted while he was lifted in the air.
And not an "ow" was ever pulled when Harry pulled at all the strands, and he would giggle when someone told him that he was their best little man.
So Harry pulled with all his might and reached to where he could, but he never found the forest or the laughter from before.
All he heard was the thunder and the howling of the wind, and all he saw was the darkness and the flashes from the lightning. And there were spiderwebs on the ceiling and spiders down the threads, like a star and an apple and a letter on a mobile. That Harry reached — for even them — but then he couldn't.
They were far: they were as far as all the laughter he still remembered from before. They were as far as all the 'Harry's and 'Mummy loves you's he had heard. They were as far as all the hair he used to gather between his hands, and they were as far as all the sunlight he used to touch without being burnt.
Yet farther — still — was all the warmth and all the love of being up, that Harry tried with all his might so that someone could pick him up.
He fussed louder and louder, but no one would ever come. He shouted from the cupboard, but the thunder drowned him out.
He wailed until it hurt, until it was hard for him to breathe, because it was a basket on his chest growing heavier with every heave. And he couldn't cry with any English or in a language understood because his mouth and then his tongue couldn't find any words.
But in hisses, then he could. They were cannons to his ears.
'Could someone come?' he cried out. Or in Parseltongue: he said, 'Here!'
Because 'here' was the first word that any hatchling would come to learn. It was how their egg mates and their mother would come to find them in the nest and know that for a time, they would never be alone. And that nothing and no one could ignore them if they called.
It was against a mother's nature to abandon her brood if she had laid them, warmed them and tucked them to her coils. Until they were strong enough to venture out and then from there, they had their instincts.
But for Harry — little Harry, with just a dog bed and a towel and all the spiders he couldn't reach and the boomings of a storm — had nowhere he could go or anyone he could turn to. That all the muscles and the bones of his body seized up, exhausted without question and bitterly, they were cold.
They were so hard that it hurt, that Harry whimpered in the dark, that it felt like something other was moments from breaking out.
Something long, twisted and desperate in his bones: heavy upon his body and lurching for control, ravenous for what he couldn't and was impossible for him to ignore, and unforgivable that the bodies now asleep and unperturbed had ignored every cry and all the wants from its home.
That it coiled to his neck and just below his beating chest, wrestling and hissing for little Harry to let go. That all his struggles would be salvaged if he allowed it some control, that it could easily break the padlock and the door to this cupboard.
And a thrum of power held him tight when Harry scrambled for every breath, and his insides were the writhings of a vengeful little voice. That was this close to breaking him as he struggled through the night, holding on for dear life as if knowing of what would happen.
That not only would he lose this, he'd lose himself within the process. And in doing so, what remained would be nothing but an animal that was no different than those who lived in Privet Drive, Number Four.
'I can't,' he might've said had those words been apparent. In Parseltongue, he hissed, 'Here' with more conviction.
Because 'here' meant him and everything that would make him. What Harry wanted was much simpler than anything this could dream of, and what he wanted was what he craved because everything stemmed out of it.
The laughter, the sunlight, the forest and the red of what existed in his memories because to him, they weren't dead. Because they were somewhere in this world and he knew they would find him, and what they wanted was only him — not the voice inside his head.
'Here!'
If he had teeth, they would've bloodied his little lip. Because his body was a bedrock to the chill he couldn't hide from.
'Here!'
If he had strength, he would've wobbled himself up. Because the spiders had retreated and what dangled were their silk, reminding him of the blanket that the forest would hide under. And if he pulled, all the laughter and the trees and the sun and the red would catch him before he fell, and they would call him by his name.
'Here!'
If he knew Magic, he could easily cast a charm that would sprout a tiny flame that he could hold and not be harmed. But because he was a baby and a child and a little boy, Magic found another way from all the love within his heart.
But what came from it could never be all the laughter inside his head, nor the trees and pavilion that together made a forest. Or the sun that he could hold within the softness of his palms, and the red from memory when he was lifted into the air — and yet, all of these were there.
Only different when compared.
Different in that the red came from eyes instead of hair. Quirked and amused and there was fondness in that stare. Different in that the sun came from laughter instead of lips. Quiet yet hearty and astonished by what happened.
Different in that the forest was nowhere from above nor shrouded by a blanket that little Harry had to pull. Because it came from the hands and the bones and the skin that he found when they touched him out of nowhere. When they caressed him with a knuckle, when he felt a hand above his heart, and then the weight of it made him calm.
Because it was warmer than the towel or the dog bed to his spine, and with such a heft it had him still while Harry gaped through the darkness.
And more different than the laughter he remembered from before — and it was anywhere but up there when Harry met the other voice — he felt the murmur of another brushing softly at his cheek before they settled to his left and yet, the dog bed never sagged. And when he turned, there was someone meeting him halfway in the cupboard.
Someone different than who he knew, but familiar all the same. That when he found them and found the laughter, the forest, the red and all the sunlight he remembered and would never have again, Harry hugged them with all his heart and then, he burrowed into their chest.
With a 'here' and a 'here' and then another because he could, because there was someone for him to hold and someone he could trust. Because for the first time, there was someone who didn't shun him for what he wanted.
That he squeezed them with all he had and wiggled closer because he could. And when they held him, all the darkness and the thunder and the wind didn't exist as Harry knew them because this someone protected him.
That if you were outside and looking in and you were peering through the cupboard, you wouldn't find little Harry or the piping from behind him. But rather the back of something dangerous, that at the moment was domestic; and if they felt that you were watching, nothing would stop them from looking back.
With a pair of eyes — jet black — and a miasma of suffocation, where it felt as if a pair of hands were wringing you around the neck. So that you, your other, or your child were misfortuned: succumbing to a power that was darker than what you dreamed of, and as a taste of just deserts that would taste a lot like deprivation.
But that was neither here nor there as there was no one beyond the cupboard and honestly, they would know if there was someone unwanted who was watching when they could've helped.
Yet even this was let go, as soon as this someone looked to Harry, and then gathered him within their arms and kept him nuzzled to their being. As if it was the only thing that ever mattered, though their main part would disagree and shun them for their softness when they could easily kill Harry.
But then the fragment would argue back that they weren't that different from the boy.
That it wasn't long ago — that in winter — they were huddled to a cot and were pulsing with instincts that would kill for some warmth. Because there were a few things that the body and its touch wouldn't forget, especially when the mind was corroded to the brink.
That out of instinct or out of love when Harry called them into existence, this fragment of a person curled closer just to hold him. And because they didn't know for how long, they continued while Harry slept. And all the love within his person and the warmth he got back were what colored something light into this thing called a horcrux.
That, moreso than literally, they splintered into someone different.