Fear of Light
By: Lady DeathAngel
Disclaimer: Not mine, not profiting, 'nuff said.
Warnings: angst
A/N: this came out of nowhere but hey, that's where half of my stuff comes from anyway. . It's only been self-beta read so excuse any errors. By the by, would anyone be interested in beta-reading for me in multiple fandoms, probably just one-shots? I've got someone to work on a WIP that I've started, but no one for any of my other stories. Sorry, just thought I'd put that out there. Anyway, please read, enjoy, and review!
Harry wasn't scared of the dark, not really. He knew that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia thought he was. The first time his uncle shoved him into the cupboard under the stairs he'd heard his aunt yelling that maybe that was a bit much, he was too young, he'd get scared and panic and hurt himself. Uncle Vernon just reminded her that she didn't like 'the brat' either and if he was going to be raised properly he had to be punished when he did something wrong.
Harry figured he'd done lots of things wrong to get locked away without dinner. Usually he just got a beating and then had to clean up all of Dudley's toys. There were tons of them, broken and hidden under sofas and behind bookshelves and in the bathroom and even Harry's own, small bedroom. It took hours and by the time he was finished, his cousin was sleeping in his aunt's lap and she and his uncle were watching the news. The beatings were bad enough; his aunt had to excuse herself from the room when it happened, though Dudley liked to peek in and snigger. He always seemed to miss a spot when cleaning up though, which would make Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia even angrier.
The cupboard under the stairs wasn't too awful bad at first. Just cold in the winter or muggy in spring and summer. There were lots of spiders and he learned not to cry every time one crawled on his hand. But at least he wasn't getting hit anymore. His Uncle would just grab him and throw him in there and that was that.
They didn't give him a light, even though he'd felt the chain to turn one on. He didn't ask for one, either. He was too scared of being beaten again. And besides, he wasn't scared of the dark. Not like Dudley was. Dudley had screamed like a piglet when a lightning storm took out the power in the neighborhood. Harry'd been washing the dishes, standing tip-toe on the chair with the uneven legs, when the lights had gone out. He'd gone very still and lowered the glass in his hand back into the water along with the rag and then climbed off the chair carefully.
That's when Dudley started screaming.
"Turn 'em back on!" he yelled from the living room. His favorite show had apparently been interrupted and Harry knew from experience how dark the living room was at night with no lights on. He crept in and saw that it was even worse with no street lamps on outside of the window.
"It's Harry's fault!" he yelled then. "Tell him to turn 'em back on!"
"It's not your cousin's fault!" Aunt Petunia scolded, sounding desperate to believe it was so.
"And stop your whining," Uncle Vernon added. "Won't bring the lights back and real men aren't scared of the dark, anyway."
"Vernon!"
Dudley was still whimpering and his aunt and uncle were arguing and didn't seem to remember he was even around. He slipped through the house quietly, completely comfortable with the pitch-black because as his eyes adjusted to it he could make out shapes. The table in the hall between his and Dudley's rooms, the open doors leading to the bathroom and his aunt and uncle's room. And there, second door on the left was the upstairs closet with all the towels and knicknacks.
He reached in and found the candles and matches with ease and then lit them and took them to the living room. He put one on the table in front of his aunt, uncle and cousin and Dudley stopped crying almost immediately. He stared at the fire amazed, but Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon was staring at him. He was a bit unnerved by it, but took his own candle and started walking toward the kitchen.
"How'd you do it, boy?"
Harry turned and frowned.
"What?"
"The candles, how'd you light them?"
"Matches."
Uncle Vernon went red, though it was a bit hard to tell in the flickering candlelight.
"And just how did you learn to light matches?"
Harry shrugged and didn't even see it coming when his uncle hit him across the face and then turned him and pushed him in the direction of his cupboard.
"Stay in there for the rest of the night!" he yelled.
Just because he wasn't scared of the dark but stupid Dudley was, was no reason to hit him. And just because he'd lit the matches and shut stupid Dudely up was no reason to hit him either. But maybe five-year-olds weren't supposed to light matches, so he didn't light another one for a long time.
He was nearly six, though, the first time he realized how much he didn't hate the dark. Because there were more frightening lights out there.
After the incident with the power outage, Dudley demanded a nightlight to get rid of his nightmares and quickly started a collection. Dinosaurs and stars and farm animals and snakes (Harry particularly liked those, actually) and lions and birds and funny looking almost-animals with smiling faces. Once the lights in them burned out, his cousin either threw them away or put them in Harry's small room, which was gradually getting filled with more and more of his broken things.
Then one night Dudley pushed Harry into his room and smothered him with a blanket and asked, "Scared of the dark, Harry?"
To which he'd stopped struggling and answered no, slowly. Seemingly deflated Dudley hit him on the head and then pulled away the blanket and the room was dark except for a flash of green out of the corner of his eye.
His cousin noticed him freeze and then frowned.
"You're not scared of the light are you?"
But Harry didn't hear him. It was the oddest sensation, one he didn't think he'd remember year later but that he did. He was apart from himself and he could sense something wrong with that green light and he was terrified. He felt strange and someone was screaming and it took him a moment to realize that he was the one screaming. He'd dropped to the floor, curled in a ball with his hands over his eyes, yelling and wailing and he felt like he could never stop.
He didn't know what happened after that. He remembered being dragged out of the room, he remembered being asked what the bloody hell was wrong and it was the first time Aunt Petunia had ever cursed, even lightly. He looked up at her and the light was still on but he thought to himself that this was his mom's sister, she'd understand because this light had taken her away, after all. This light was wrong.
"What are you talking about?" she asked and he'd been babbling without noticing.
"The green light," he said in a high pitched voice. "It took mum with it."
She'd stared at him and then looked at the light and pulled it out of the wall.
"Go to your cupboard," she said.
"Don't you care?" he asked, sniffling and angry because she had to. "Don't you miss her?"
She sat heavily on the floor and bit her lip and she was shaking but couldn't answer. So Harry glared at her because she had to care. She may have hated him but she had to love her sister because if she didn't . . . it was just awful and wrong. But she never said anything about caring or missing her and he clenched his fists and took a deep breath.
"I hate you!" he yelled. "I bet she hate you too because you don't love her! You don't care!"
He was moved into the cupboard shortly after that and he loved the dark because anything, anything was better than that green light.