Brick by Brick
By Rey

After his first recallable punishment of a long, long week without meals in his cupboard, little freak boy dreams and vows that he will never go hungry, thirsty, locked in and lonely again. He will achieve it brick by brick, figuratively or literally.

Or…

What may happen if the little boy that should have been Harry Potter is more proactive and crafty, not only defiant? What may happen if Arabella Fig is much more secretive and much more sympathetic to the plight of a helpless little child?

(The experiences, understandings and opinions of a stunted child with lots of potentials, regarding topics and events which are oftentimes far from childlike.)

Story tags: Stream of Consciousness, Universe Alteration, POV Harry Potter, POV Third Person Limited, Present Tense, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, character introspection, Character Development, Character Study, Loneliness, Understanding, Unexpected Help, Unexpected Fluff

Author's notes: I don't know where to put this fic, since there are various elements of fandom crossovers in it, all of which can be read without being confused – or so I think, at least. So, for now, I am putting it in the Harry Potter section. Regardless, I do hope you will enjoy the ride. Please tell me what you think of things you find here? I would really love to know!

Started on: 12th February 2020 at 06:10 AM
Finished on: 12th February 2020 at 08:09 PM

1. Determination

Summer 1984

There is a little boy who lives in the cupboard under the stairs of the house on Privet Drive number 4, Little Whinging, Surrey, England. This little boy has little to him. Not even a name and a birthday, as he is called either "freak" or "boy" by the family of three who live upstairs, and what use is a birthday for a freak? He has his bright green eyes, his messy black hair which always stays the same, his little, skinny body, two sets of ratty and far oversized clothes, and little else. Not even a mind, "Uncle Vernon" likes to say.

`But, if I don't have any mind, why can I think and feel? A mind is for thinking and feeling, he said,` the little boy asks himself, confused and angry and tentatively hopeful. After all, he does feel how his belly, long empty, twists and sinks into itself, probably trying to eat itself because there hasn't been any food put into it for a week already. And he does think how unfair the punishment that led to this predicament is, and how he might avoid more punishments like this in the future, and how he might even succeed in leaving the house and the family someday soon, for ever and ever and ever.

Why soon? Because he was still learning how to fry bacon correctly a week ago, and "Aunt Petunia" already cupboarded him entirely for burning his learning piece, with no hint of when he will be let out. What will she or "Uncle Vernon" do if he did something worse? Like, maybe, break a vase or the stove? He would rather not find out.

Sadly, his previous attempts to leave have never succeeded. In fact, each attempt resulted in worse and worse punishments, namely longer and longer sessions of being belted by "Uncle Vernon," with longer and longer times of no-meal punishment and more chores by "Aunt Petunia." It is quite a huge dilemma, between more time locked in the cupboard with his own poop and pee and a small bottle of water and more chores to do while hungry and in pain, and the little boy is made more frightened and cornered by it.

`I need to go,` he thinks, senses, feels, wishes, begs.

And, as if responding to his desperate wish, the bolt lock on his cupboard's door clacks open, sounding like thunder in the stillness of the night.

The little boy jolts and curls into himself on the old, stained, smelly dog mattress that is his bed, awaiting punishment for yet another freaky thing that he must have done, accidentally or not.

Nothing in the ambient noises changes, though. He waits for a long, long, long time, but the snores from upstairs remain the same, and the very, very faint noise of nature outside the house likewise.

`I wanted to go, and the door opened for me,` he marvels. He even pinches softly at his terribly dry skin, checking if he is dreaming.

The pain that he feels from that small action is a beautiful thing, now, instead of a bitter one.

Carefully, carefully, carefully, he inches the two halves of the door outward, wincing at the loud, crieking noise it makes. But, even after a tense while waiting for any reaction from upstairs, the noises don't change. So, carefully, carefully, carefully, he pads on bare, silent feet to the kitchen, and straight to the pantry closet.

It is, as always, a heaven of various rather long-lasting foodstuffs. His belly rumbles and twists even tighter, just by looking at the shelves of boxes, crates, tins, packets, bags, sacks, jars, tubs and bottles. He shoves warningly into the stupid belly, but it only makes him want to throw up, so he satisfies himself with being thankful that the sleeping family upstairs still don't wake up from all the noises. After all, he will need some time to filch some supplies without making even more noises, and he won't be able to do anything if the family is awake to harass him.

With that in mind, he begins to work, carefully, carefully, carefully selecting tinned soups which have at least two duplicates in stock and picking up the one on the very back. Afterwards, just as gingerly and slowly, he picks up two bottles of water the size of his arm, a few apples, and a sack of flour the size of his chest. All the loot goes into a spare – among many – shopping bags that he fishes out from a cardboard box by the pantry's door, before he drags it to his cupboard for safekeeping.

He can only hope that this will not end up like the last time he smuggled food and water into his cupboard. The punishment that "Uncle Vernon" gave him after that is too horrible to even remember. It made him go to the hospital for the first time ever, and the far longer list of chores that "Aunt Petunia" gave him after that, while he was barely recovered, only added to the misery. But then, he was so stupid, just letting his pilfered tins and bottles lie around on his bed; and he happened to have picked the last tin of tomato soup that "Aunt Petunia" had wanted to use that day, at that.

Now, he covers the heavy, bulging shopping bag under his spare set of clothes, carefully, carefully, carefully making it look just like a messy heap of garments, like those in "Cousin Dudley's" bedroom. The "heap" is also somewhat hidden behind his bucket of pee and poop.

Sadly, before he can go for the fridge to see what he can eat right now, one of the snoring sounds from upstairs – the softer snoring sound, to be exact – suddenly stops, then the master bedroom's door clicks open.

"Aunt Petunia."

Heart pounding, the little boy waits until the upstairs toilet flushes to carefully, carefully, carefully inch the cupboard's door shut. He can only hope that the long, noisy sound from above manages to mask the noise down here. He daren't imagine what kind of punishment the grown-ups will give him, if he is caught now.

He daren't get out of the cupboard for the rest of the night, as the result. He even wishes with all his might, until a strange tingle runs up and down his body, that his loot here is safe and protected and forgotten by all three people sleeping upstairs. Maybe the unlocked cupboard bolt lock incident is repeatable?

Well, in any case, he feels so very exhausted, now, all of a sudden, far more than before, and there's a strange field of tingles round his hidden loot.

He drops into a light doze and jerks back into wakefulness in what feels like barely a moment after, when his cupboard's door is yanked open and "Aunt Petunia's" sharp voice snaps at him in a hiss, demanding him to make breakfast. "And don't you burn this one too, boy, or it's another week in this stinking hole for you!"

The little boy obeys her, staggering with slitted eyes to the kitchen, no longer accustomed to the morning light. But he is soon shunted to the back yard to clean himself with the hose and his lumpy amalgamation of soap stubs, after "Aunt Petunia" proclaims him as stinky as his cupboard.

This makes him late to make breakfast, as he can already hear "Uncle Vernon" yawning loudly and stomping upstairs by the time he comes into the kitchen, and so he is punished for it. There will be no breakfast for him today.

"And no stealing, either," "Aunt Petunia" sharply reminds him.

`I hope she doesn't notice what I took from the pantry,` the little boy winces inwardly.

The smell of the cooking bacon makes him feel both faint and about to throw up. But he is determined not to ruin the breakfast today, so he does his best.

Well, his best still sees a corner of one of the bacon rashers burnt, sadly. Luckily, he manages to cut it with the flat edge of the spatula, then flips it to a spot behind the stove when "Aunt Petunia" isn't looking, so he is still safe.

"Aunt Petunia" teaches him how to make various kinds of fried eggs, after he is finished with the bacon. The smell is even more dizzying and throw-upping, but he persists doggedly. The grown-ups won't have any reason to punish him today or any time after.

Still, he takes the time to gag uselessly amidst the sound of running water when he is next sent to clean the upstairs bathroom, as the first chore of the day. Luckily, after he takes a few sips from the tap there, the urge to throw up lessens a little.

Even more luckily, among the various chores that "Aunt Petunia" has listed out to him, he is to clean "Cousin Dudley's" two bedrooms. The bedrooms are dirty and messy and even somewhat smelly, yes, but they are also filled with treasure, each!

He manages to secrete away a handful of loose coins and even a few pound notes in the folds of his oversized trousers, while tidying up in "Cousin Dudley's" main bedroom. He pilfers the smallest book among the other, far larger boy's untouched collection of picture books in the second bedroom, and puts it flush against his back, pinned in place by the rope that holds his trousers up. Lacking any more place for big things, he gathers his other finds in the far corner under the baby bed that's also there, neatly tucked into a little backpack which is apparently too colourful even for "Cousin Dudley," with how brand new it is.

He finds a few more loose change of money in the master bedroom, where he goes next. The coins and pound notes are even found in dusty places, so none of the grown-ups will be suspicious.

As night comes again, the little boy finds himself locked back in the cupboard under the stairs; with clean body, clean bucket, not-so-empty belly, and with various little, useful things from all round the house secreted away under his bed. The fierce determination that has pushed him forward all throughout the day now makes him unable to sleep, but maybe it's a good thing. He is determined to go away as soon as possible and never come back, after all, so he can't slouch even for a night.

He was ordered to oil all the door hinges today, and he managed to sneak some oil to rub into his cupboard's hinges. So, maybe, he will get lucky tonight and pilfer some more things from the newly stocked pantry, or even the fridge.

Remembering the brief excursion to the neighbourhood's household shop, he frowns. Somebody – a grown-up – bowed to him, when he was going out of the shop behind "Aunt Petunia" and "Cousin Dudley." The grown-up called him "Mister Potter," with an awed tone that he sometimes overheard used by the other children in the neighbourhood, but that is not much of a problem, since freaky things seem to like happening to him or all round him, including this one. The problem is: The grown-up greeted him after briefly looking at his forehead; at his lightning-bolt-like scar, most likely. The scar is maybe what made him fail to go away and never come back before! `If I want to be able to go and not come back, the scar must be gone or hidden,` he thinks.

So, when the house settles into its nighttime noises, he opens the door in the same freaky way as before, though now no longer accidentally, and sneaks up the stairs to "Cousin Dudley's" second bedroom. He will hide the scar with a crayon or a colouring pencil, or hide it through another shape, and for that he needs to look slower and better through "Cousin Dudley's" discarded and broken things. He found a few crayon stubs in the main bedroom during his cleaning, yes, but the colours sadly don't match his skin or the scar. They are neither blue nor green nor purple, after all!

Well, he does find a packet of broken but complete colouring pencils underneath the stack of untouched picture books, thankfully. Emboldened, he rummages more, ever so slowly and gingerly, and finds three kits of writing tools.

Eyes wide, he tucks one into the bag that he previously hid under the bed. `I just need the writing book that "Cousin Dudley" used last month, now!`

His happiness doesn't last long, sadly, but as per usual in this house. He has to dive under the baby bed, keeping his new bag of things company, when a set of heavy footsteps trying to be sneaky sounds from the master bedroom, getting closer.

"Uncle Vernon."

And he has just realised that, in his excitement of getting what he wanted to find, he forgot to close both the cupboard's door and this bedroom's too.

Then again, he forgot to listen to the clicking sounds of the doors before he did anything as bold as going out of his cupboard. And he indeed didn't hear a second door-click in the nighttime routine.

The grown-ups have put a trap for him, apparently. The list of chores with the oiling of the door hinges and the bedroom cleanings….

`Please let him pass. Please let him pass. Please let him pass,` he thinks, chants, wishes, begs. Curled tight behind his bag in the farthest corner under the bed and with his body all atingle, he jams a fist into his mouth to stifle his sobs.

And then, as "Uncle Vernon" thumps softly down the stairs, passing "Cousin Dudley's" second bedroom indeed, the panicking little boy realises that his newly pilfered things are still under his bed in the cupboard under the stairs, unprotected.

`I must be down there! They will be mad if they know!` he senses, thinks, wishes, begs. Screwing his eyes tight, though it's useless against the tears that are now pouring down his hollow cheeks, he wills the tingles to carry him to his bed, with all his might, so that "Uncle Vernon" won't know.

He falls unconscious before he knows for certain if this desperate wish, too, has come true.