Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter characters... sadly they belong to a very rich lady named J.K. Rowling... who.. is not me.. otherwise i would not be writing.... oh, what do you call this?.... fanfiction. I forgot to put one in the first chapter.. soooo.. i guess ill make up for it and put two.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter characters... if i did.. i would have butlers typing this for me....
...heh. i have no life.....
Chapter 2.
Over the next two weeks the Dursley's were rarely home. Dudley's birthday was special since he was turning 16 this year and treated him like a king, taking him and his friend Piers wherever they wanted to go. His aunt and uncle decided they would dote upon their already spoiled son even more since he had 'dieted' for the past two years 'successfully' losing 13 lbs. They locked Harry in his cupboard when they left, leaving him in there for the whole day, not bothering to give him breakfast, or caring that he didn't get lunch, and when they got back they would give him the simplest of meals for dinner.
After Dudley's special birthday, they stayed home and finally let Harry out of the cupboard under the stairs. They fed him and then threw him out of the house with a chore list to finish. He was told that he was to finish all of them before he could come inside. When he was about a third into the work, it started raining, but the Dursley's made no effort to let him into the house and out of the rain, so Harry kept working. It rained the whole time he was concluding his chores. By the time he was finished it was 3'clock in the afternoon and he was freezing cold, drenched from head to toe and hungry. Harry knocked on the doors leading to the kitchen. His uncle came to the door and let him inside, only after he had taken off his shirt and shoes.
"Go clean yourself up now, boy." His uncle snapped at him.
The raven-haired boy nodded and went upstairs to the bathroom. He shed his remaining clothes and stepped in the shower. The warm water felt hot on his cold skin. He wanted to stay there forever. Soaking the heat into his skin, but fearing punishment for staying in the shower too long, he cleaned up and got out. He went to Dudley's second bedroom and got out more clothes for him to wear. He put them on quickly after drying off and went downstairs. His shirt and shoes were still sitting on the tile, he went over, picked them up and put the shirt in the dryer. He took paper towels and dried the shoes off and put them on, sufficiently soaking his feet again with the water the towels couldn't get rid of. His Aunt set a plate of food, consisting of a piece of toast a small block of cheese and a piece of turkey, on the table. He sat down and promptly ate it from his hunger.
At the end of the day, his Uncle Vernon and Dudley had left to go shopping for new summer clothes for Dudley. Harry's aunt told him to go upstairs to bed and he did so, not waiting for her to catch her mistake of not putting him in his cupboard. When he got to his room he felt dizzy. He sat down heavily on the bed and caught his breath that he didn't know he had to catch. He lay down on the mattress and felt his eyes start to close automatically. He was so tired, but he couldn't sleep, cause he would dream of Sirius and death again. He snapped his eyes open and lay in the darkness of the room. His body was to exhausted to stay awake and his eyelids were gradually getting heavier and heavier. Before he knew it. He was asleep.
Vernon Dursely was sitting in the chair at his desk, waiting for Harry to wake up. When he saw the brilliant emerald of Harry's beautiful eyes, he got up and walked over to Harry and grabbed him by the hair. He snatched up the owls cage in his other hand ignoring the protesting squawks the bird gave as she was thrown about. The hefty man was beyond upset at his nephew and pulled him out of the room and down the stairs, not all surprised that the boy wasn't screaming or whimpering from the pain he was feeling. He pulled the latch to the cupboard under the stairs open and threw the dark-haired boy and the bird inside, locking the door afterwards, and shutting the small air vent on the front of the door. He very knew well that the cabinet was too small for the now 5'9" young man, but he didn't care. The boy didn't know discipline of hit bit him in the ass and he would teach it to him until he got it through his thick skull. The freak should have gone to the cupboard and not upstairs. He knew she shouldn't have. He was talking advantage of his wife mistake. The boy was to be punished for everything he did wrong until he got it right. That abnormality would learn to abide by his rules or he would be thrown out onto the streets.
Harry sat confined in the darkness of the tiny closet rubbing his aching head. He had a big enough headache as it was, but his uncle had made it worse by pulling on his hair. He shifted sideways so he could stretch out his body more. He leaned his head and back against the wall. He felt extremely dizzy and closed his eyes, breathing heavily. He felt Hedwig's eye boring onto him, but he didn't acknowledge her. There was little air getting inside the small cupboard since the vent was shut. It was dusty and smelt stale. When ever he moved the dust stirred, making Harry breathe it in and cough.
He sat there in the darkness listening to the sounds his incompetent relatives were making. Around lunchtime his aunt unbolted the cupboard door and let him out to go to the bathroom. She gave him half a sandwich and a small glass of milk. Harry ate it hungrily, saving the top slice of bread for his faithful owl. He knew the only reason his aunt was being more civil towards him was because of the threats the order had given her. Harry though about what the order had told his aunt about the wards around the house they had put up. When he finished eating, his aunt ushered him back into the cupboard and locked it shut. He wondered for a minute why he wasn't chore bound, but he quickly registered that it was a good thing in his head so he just sat there quietly and thought. He looked toward Hedwig in the darkness and saw her amber eyes glowing to him, reflecting what little light they had coming in. She hooted softly and he reached into her cage, gave her the bread, and stroked her opal white feathers gingerly. He started hard at the vent in the door, watching the day get brighter and then fade into the dusk of the evening. His aunt came back when supper came around and did what she had done at noon. She made his stay in the kitchen to clean the day's dishes up by hand before secluding him to the cupboard again.
This was the ritual for the rest of the week. Everyday he just stared ahead thinking. Mostly about Sirius. Harry knew it was his fault that Sirius had died. He had thought that since the incident. Everybody had told him that it hadn't been his fault, but he knew better. He hated the fact he was connected to Voldemort. He didn't want to feel his emotions or see what he was doing or anything. He just wanted to be left alone. He though about just killing himself to end it all. Then he would remember he was the world's 'savior,' but its not like he wanted to be. No one ever asked him what he wanted. They didn't care, they were just using him to save their sorry asses.
When Sunday came about, his uncle let him out in the morning so the chores he had been spared from during the week could be performed. By the end of the day, his muscles burned and ached. His fingers bled though the cuts he had received from the many weeds that were spread though his aunts flowerbeds. His knees were nicked and bleeding from the small, sharp, jagged rocks he had kneeled in cutting the underneath of the bushes, making them 'more shapely', as his aunt had put it. He winced with every step he took into the kitchen to collect his dinner. His aunt fed him a whole sandwich and a large glass of orange juice for the day's work he completed without lip. Soon after he finished his meal his uncle told him he could sleep upstairs, and he could do so if he got out of his sight immediately before he changed his mind. With that having been said Harry hurried towards the stairs, stopping to get Headwig and then rushing towards the smallest bedroom at Number 4.
He let Hedwig out of her cage and opened the window. Instead of flying out to stretch her wings and hunt for food, she fluttered over and perched herself on the head of the bed, watching him fixedly. When Harry sat down on the bed, he felt like he had just ran a marathon. His head felt swollen and there was a sharp pain in his temples. He lay down and curled up in the unkempt mattress and closed his eyes. He was completely drained of energy. He didn't know what was wrong with himself. His body was covered with a cool sweat. He was breathing heavily all the time, and felt weak while he was doing his chores, even though he wasn't working as hard as he usually was. He fell asleep with a growing fever and thoughts on how he would survive the summer.
The next few days passed by without few occurrences. He was given a chore list from his aunt to be finished b the end of the week and had worked twice as hard to finish them early. He had finished most of them in the first three days and took to resting on Thursday. His body was racked with painful coughs and terrible headaches and Harry dozed all through the day. He would have short nightmares about Sirius, or his parents, or Voldemort, and would wake up, but then exhaustion would take over and he would soon be right back asleep again. On Saturday, he felt worse than before, but went outside and started on finishing his chores none the less.
Around lunch time his aunt called him in for lunch which he barley touched. He was given a large glass of water which he gulped down. He felt extremely parched and dehydrated. He hoped that whatever germ that was making him ill would go away soon, so he wouldn't feel so woozy all the time. When he finished what he felt he could eat, he picked himself up and headed back outside. He went to the tool shed and got out the trimming equipment and began his chores again.
An hour after he had begun working again, a large white moving truck pulled up to the empty house on the street behind Privet Drive. The house had been for sale for about 4 months and the sign had read that it had been sold a week prior. He observed as a silver cruiser drove up and parked in the garage. A strapping man stepped out of the cabin and began to direct the movers in the truck. Harry stopped watching and went back to working silently, his vision blurring a bit from staring into the daylight. He worked for about a half an hour before he looked back up.
He watched the movers unload the new neighbor's things, while he was cutting the hedges of the bushes on the back fence. He stopped when a deep cough racked his body. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt, and grimaced as he pulled back and saw crimson phlegm on it. He looked back up at the house, and watched as a red car pulled up at the mailbox and stopped. A woman wearing a long lime green summer dress stepped out of the drivers side and went to the back door taking a crying toddler out of his car seat. She picked him up rubbing his back in slow circles trying to soothe him, walking toward the front door.
The passengers side door sprung open and a girl Harry's age stepped out slamming the door. She had long golden strawberry blond hair that flowed freely down to the center of her back. Her body was tall and slender. Harry watched entranced with the sway of her hips and the way her hair flipped and swung with her step. He watched her enter the house and close the door. He sighed and went back to work so he could finish sooner and rest. He felt weak and tired all the time. He was sure that he was ill, but its not like the Dursley's would ever care. His uncle would just beat him for 'slacking off'.
.................................................
Hi people who read my story. Sorry it took me a while to do this.. i had loads of crap to do and it stopped my creative juices from flowing... summer school sucked but its over now so i can concentrate on writing the story. .. yay i guess.