Title: Come What May
Author: DuchessAndromeda
Rating: Pg-13
Disclaimer: If you recognize them, there's a pretty good chance that they do not belong to me but to other people that make a lot more money.
Summery: All Harry wants is to be normal, but what you want and what you need are two different things. And sometimes it takes an extreme act to get either.
Author's Notes: On to chapter two, with two new reviews! Hmm, I'm detecting a pattern here! Anyway, a special thanks goes out to Wiccan PussyKat for continuing to review and voice her opinions on what flows and what doesn't. Also, thanks to AJaKe for reviewing and requesting this update.
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~Chapter 2~
It was cold. Harry shivered in the darkness. The only light came in through the vent at the top of the cupboard that his Uncle had forgotten to close after the last yelling session. He made a special effort to be quiet, which was particularly hard with lungs that rattled with each breath, and begged for him to cough in hopes of relieving the congestion. But coughing was loud, and travelled quickly through the paper-thin walls and door of his cupboard. And if there was one thing that Harry now knew, it was that noises of any type coming from him would no longer be tolerated.
The sudden sound of a vase smashing on the ground broke the silence. Uncle Vernon roared with fury, and Harry shivered in his cupboard.
It was time for another round.
~~~
Order Headquarters, the Kitchen
The silence was deafening. To one who had never heard of deafening silence, the phrase means little, but those in the kitchen at number twelve, Grimmauld Place intimately knew the exact meaning of those four little words. Hermione's last words still hung in the air, and all the possibilities that it opened up bombarded the room.
By saying that being able to live with Sirius would have been the best thing to ever happen to Harry, it implied that leaving the family that had housed him for most of his life would have been no hardship. That leaving any friends he might have had in the neighborhood would have been worth it to live with an at least partially insane escaped convict in who-knew-what type of conditions.
The implications behind that statement made the adults shift in their chairs, guilty looks beginning to take the place of polite curiosity. After all, they had all known what had happened in the previous years. Or at least, part of it.
After giving that time to sink in, Ron took up the tale of Harry's fourth year, leaving nothing out, not even the illegal trips to the cave that Sirius had been hiding in. Most looked uneasy when they were told that Harry still blamed himself for Cedric's death, and occasionally still had nightmares. Tonks and the older Weasely children had the grace to look ashamed that they hadn't fought harder to get Harry to headquarters sooner. After seeing a boy die, it wasn't right for Harry to have been practically cut off from his only support.
But still, the adults stayed quiet as Ron finished and Hermione picked up for Harry's fifth year. That is, they stayed quiet until they learned of the detentions with Umbridge.
"She WHAT?! Why, when I get my hands on that… that… no good, low down beast of a woman..." Mrs. Weasely cried out, jumping out of her chair. Others voiced their agreement, while a few turned green. Dumbledore and McGonagall looked down at the table in shame. Ron smirked, while Hermione watched the proceedings impassively.
"If you don't mind," she began in a bored tone. "I'm not yet finished." Still grumbling, the others settled in to listen.
And listen they did. They learned in detail the things that had only been briefly mentioned at various other meetings or in conversations with those involved. They learned of the formation of the D.A. and how they organized the meetings. Of Harry's reluctance to teach them, knowing that there would probably be older students in the group. Of the interview with the Quibbiler, and the ill-fated date with Cho. Ron and Hermione took turns telling the tale, and when the last of the words faded away, the Order were all looking at the two teens who had seen so much, in no little bit of shock and awe.
Lupin was the first to move. He stood up and practically slammed his chair against the wall before quickly striding towards the exit. Ron stepped to block his way.
"I'm sorry Professor, but I can't let you leave."
"But I have to go to him! I have to do something!" Ron looked at the distraught werewolf impassively.
"Anything that Harry would have wanted you to do, it is too late to accomplish. You see, you have heard our tale, but what do you know of Harry's home life? Anything really new? Anything to warrant taking him out of there now, and not in five minutes? No, I thought not. Please, go and sit back down." Snarling, Lupin did as he was told, but he sat so stiffly, as to be ready to leap up and run at a moments notice.
"You see, Ron and I are deeply worried about Harry, but there's nothing that we are able to do right now. Harry is very good at hiding everything that he thinks and feels, and in fact, if there wasn't something that we were there for, he never tells us. We have a lot of the pieces to this puzzle, but there is still something that we are missing. When Professor Dumbledore took Harry back with him after the disaster at the Department of Mysteries, something major happened. After he came back to us, it was if something had clicked, changing everything from the way he held himself, to the way he ate. No, I'm not asking you to make any excuses or to even tell us what you said. I just want you to be aware that whatever it is you told him, you chose the wrong time to do so. The young are easy to change, as they often times forget what had happened the day before. But Harry… he has never been given the chance to be young. And the only thing that he has ever asked from any of you was honesty, but I find myself doubting that you even gave him that." Hermione's look had forestalled the raising reasons that Dumbledore would have given voice to, in the vain hope of freeing himself of the guilt that had attached itself to his soul.
"There is more than what Hermione has said. We would not have come in here to merely inform you all of the mistakes that had been made. You see, Hermione and I have reason to believe that Harry Potter is being abused. Dreadfully, mercilessly abused. And not one of you have noticed. Tell us, Professor Dumbledore, how often did you check on Harry in all the years that he lived there, in the house with the perfectly normal muggle family who might not take very kindly to the introduction of magic into their home and everyday lives? I know that I would not have taken kindly to an intrusion of something that I had no comprehension of, and less of how to deal with." Dumbledore cleared his throat before fixing his gaze upon Ron's.
"Mrs. Arabella Figg lives close by to Harry. She is a trusted associate of mine, and would have brought it to my attention if anything had gone wrong with Harry's acceptance of his new life." Hermione gave him a pitying look that made the old wizard squirm in his seat, as if he were a young boy who was speaking of things that he had no knowledge of.
"Headmaster, with all due respect, you have no idea what the hell you're talking about. The first rule any abused child learns is either Don't Ask Questions, or Don't Let Anyone Find Out. The first keeps them from being beaten any more than they usually are, the second is out of belief that no one would believe them, or care if they told the truth."
Snape looked ill. Not just the, 'I have a cold and will sneeze on you, so get out of my way ill', but the 'I can't believe what has happened, it is turning my stomach, and I am going to vomit all over you, ill'. Being the head of Slytherin, he had seen many abused children, and had even been one himself. If anyone in the room was supposed to have recognized the signs, it would be him. Looking back, if one of his Slytherins had displayed the lack of regard for their own welfare, he would have immediately delved into their past and home life, in hopes of finding out the source of their low self-worth.
But this...this was Harry Potter! Potter, who had access to gold that practically defied imagination. Potter, who merely had to grimace in distaste to get an item removed from the Hogwarts menu. Potter, who...who handled his knived in the manner of one used to chopping up various items, and who dissected live worms, without a flicker of nausea at the amount of blood. Potter, who flew with a disregard for rules and safety, and seemed to delight in almost hitting the ground. Potter, who had barely winced when he had broken his arm in his second year, and had only looked at it in astonishment when that fool of a defense teacher dissolved the bones.
Around him, plans were being made in regards to getting him out of there, and legally keeping him out, but Snape merely looked down at the table in shame, wondering when he had become to conceited as to be able to see what was right in front of him. That Harry was not the one like James Potter....
But he was.
~~~
Four privet Drive
Harry liked being in his cupboard, even if it was rather cold and dark. As he had discovered early on in his life, as long as he was in the cupboard, he wouldn't be hurt. It was outside that the world entered in and brought with it the pain and misery of those who perpetually inhabited it.
But the cupboard was his. And in that little space, it didn't matter that Dudley was upstairs in his large room with all the toys and computers. Or that all too soon Aunt Petunia would be awakening him to make her precious Diddiums breakfast, before loading Harry down with an even longer list of chores than the day before. It didn't even matter that as soon as Aunt Petunia and Dudley were asleep, that Uncle Vernon would come downstairs to "play" with him.
All that mattered were the shadows on the wall, and Harry's continued breathing.