Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all characters therein belong to JKR. I am using them for non-profit purposes. No copyright infringement is intended.

Warnings: slash (male-male relationship), AU (alternate universe).


Petunia showed him how to properly clean the windows, then sent him upstairs to start on those first. All except Dudley's room, because "Little Dudders needs his beauty sleep." Harry didn't think there was any amount of sleep in the world that would make Dudley look any better. A diet, maybe, or plastic surgery. Not sleep.

He took the supplies and went upstairs, starting at the master bedroom at the end of the hallway and making his way back towards the stairs. It wasn't hard work, and normally, he would have finished it within a few minutes, but it was taking him curiously long to finish even one room. Every few minutes, he'd find he'd drifted off again, and he'd put a token effort towards cleaning until he spaced out again shortly after.

Petunia didn't come to check his progress at all, but she saw him coming down the stairs after he'd finished the upstairs. It was a long while after he should have been done, and she was decidedly not pleased.

"Should have known you wouldn't be a proper worker," she said, shaking her head. "Probably fooling around in your room instead of doing your chores, or playing around with our things."

Her eyes narrowed. "Empty your pockets for me, boy," she commanded, suspicious.

Harry showed her his empty pockets, and she harrumphed, looking as though she was sure he was trying to hide something for her, and she'd have none of it. "I'll keep an eye on you while you're down here, so don't you try anything," she warned, then turned and went back into the kitchen.

It went a bit faster with Petunia's supervision, though the frequent chastisements took up some of the time that he saved by having someone else to get his attention when he'd drifted off.

It was in the den that the real trouble happened: he'd walked in there to do the windows and his eyes had fallen on the computer, a new, state-of-the-art model that nevertheless looked like it had gotten a bit of wear already. For the first time since it had happened, he felt a spark of excitement go through him. This was something familiar, a connection to his old life, to his friends. He could chat with them again, and it would almost be like normal. He walked over and booted it up.

There was no password, thankfully, but when he connected to the Net—no broadband available in a remote area like this, he supposed, or he was sure the Dursleys would have purchased it for Dudley's use—the loud squawks of the modem alerted Petunia and she came running, her face white with rage.

"What are you doing?" she screeched, coming to a stop just before him. Not giving him time to reply, she launched into a tirade.

"How dare you! Do you know how much we have to pay for this service? What was going through your head, using other people's things without permission? You're a little heathen, that's what you are, a heathen!"

She continued in that vein for a while, insulting him, his brain capacity, his manners, and even his parents and their brain capacity, manners, and child-rearing abilities. When she mentioned his parents, he got a sick sort of feeling in his stomach and worked harder on blocking her out.

Satisfied at last, she left, with an admonishment not to touch anything else if he wanted to keep his hands. He got back to work, telling himself he hadn't really wanted to talk to Ron and Hermione anyway. What did he have to say to them, after all? "Hey, guys, I'm having a great time here doing chores and trying not to think about Mom and Dad and all of you"? Pathetic, that's what it was. His life was fucking pathetic.


After the windows were done, Petunia set him dusting. The same routine, but with slightly different motions. Petunia, thankfully, had things to take care of upstairs at the same time he was there, though she still grumbled about having to go out of her way to supervise him.

It was well in the afternoon before he was finished with the dusting, and he was just starting on the dishes when it became clear from the ruckus going on above him that Dudley had woken up. Petunia bustled into the kitchen and began cooking breakfast (lunch now, really) for him, and she'd just about finished when he came lumbering down the stairs, demanding food.

As she was putting the finishing touches on the meal, Petunia sent Harry upstairs to collect the laundry, reminding him to separate the darks and the whites. He dried his hands off and headed upstairs, thankfully missing Dudley, who had already made his way to the dining room to await his breakfast.

Harry stopped in the master bedroom first, pulling out the hampers that were neatly stowed away in the closet, a few days' worth of clothes already sorted between them. He went to his own room next, adding his scant offering, then to Dudley's.

Holy crap. It looked like a tornado had hit the room, leaving objects strewn all over the floor and any available surface in its wake. There was a particular prevalence of empty candy wrappers.

Harry picked the disgusting-looking used clothing out of the mess, nose wrinkling at the stench, and got out of there as quickly as he could. There were some tasks one couldn't afford to linger over; clearing toxic waste, for example, or getting things out of Dudley's room. They were roughly the same thing.

Petunia took a break from sitting and cooing at her "little Duddykins" to show Harry how to operate the washer. It was surprisingly simple, and he was soon back washing dishes in the kitchen as it chugged away.

When he went to move the clothing to the dryer, however, he couldn't remember any of Petunia's instructions. Which setting did it go on, and how long? And was he supposed to put one of those little sheets in, or did they only go in which certain kinds of clothes?

Petunia explained it to him again, looking as though she'd about reached the limit of her tolerance for dealing with him, and then sent him up to his room, telling him she'd changed her mind about having him mow the lawn—she didn't think he could be trusted to handle the mower properly. He should have been insulted, but he found he didn't really care. It was one thing less to worry about, anyway.

The second evening wasn't much different from the first; when Vernon got home from work, there was another lecture about his "attitude problem," complete with threats to "shape up or be kicked out! This is no house for delinquents, boy!" Harry pretended to pay attention and escaped up to his room when it was over.

Nobody came to call him for dinner, and he didn't go down to check. He wasn't hungry, and he was sick of dealing with the Dursleys. He was sick of everything, sick of life, and he just wanted everything to go away. He shut his eyes and tried to pretend he didn't exist.