Circling the Dursley's : Chapter One, part one.
By DraconicalPriest
Disclaimer: I own nothing of Harry Potter. This little bit of fiction is none of mine save for it's vague claim to a plot, and the actual wording of it.
Rating: R, upon general principle, and for future plans involving slashiness
Pairing: Possibly eventual HP/SS or HP/DM…. Who knows what might yet occur? Well, actually I do, but I'm not telling. ^_^
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another New Beginning….
A historic event was about to appear on a quiet little street in the middle of the respectable middle-class suburb of Little Whinging. It had just been introduced to the scene a few minutes ago, and in less than an hour would be taking up residence in number four, Privet Drive. It was an event of world-wide significance; it would be written up in history books and spoken of around the world for years to come. It was a surprisingly quiet historic event. Very, very quiet indeed, which was a good thing, as it was not quite six in the morning, shortly before the milkman's run and no one on this quiet little street would appreciate being woken up so early by a noisy historic event.
The historic event was laying bundled up in a blue blanket in a small basket with an attached parchment note covered in flowing purple script. It also happened to be sitting squarely on Vernon Dursley's doorstep, just next to the milk bottles, and that was a very poor place for noisy historic events. In fact, it was a very poor place for events of anything besides complete normality. Mr. Dursley didn't approve of unusual things, and that included great historic events.
Unfortunately the little black-haired, green-eyed historic event in question was anything but normal, and very shortly this would prove to make it very unpopular with Mr. Vernon Dursley. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, had come to number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. He would go down in history for having defeated the dark lord Voldemort, but even historic events need to live somewhere. And this particular wizarding miracle was now sitting on the doorstep of his only remaining relatives, the very ordinary Muggles, Vernon and Petunia Dursley and their bouncing baby boy, Dudley Dursley.
In that last quiet moment, there was no one around to see the little baby stir and calmly open his eyes. The old man who had left him and written the note was gone, as was a certain suspicious looking cat which had been overseeing the proceedings, and the overly large man on a motorcycle who had brought the bundled baby to the house. Now there was none to note the tranquil gaze with which Harry looked at the door of his new home. No one was there to see his eyes wave in color, their bright green shifting to black and back to green.
No one was there, until Petunia opened the door to put out her milk bottles and shrieked loudly enough to wake the dead. The black-haired baby observed the ensuing hysterics, still quiet even when his basket was plunked down on the floor near Dudley and was promptly kicked sharply by him, in a rather disinterested establishment of the pecking order in the Dursley household.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the Dursley's….
The Dursley's never got over their distress at the newcomer's presence. They didn't appreciate having the Potter boy dumped on them, and they worried that he was just as abnormal as his parents. For the first few months they ignored him as much as possible and kept him in a cupboard to keep him from inflicting whatever aberrations he possessed on their precious Dudley. He was taken out to be fed, watered, and cleaned. The last was usually a rather painful affair, involving cold water and a harsh scrub brush, carelessly applied by Petunia as she talked on the phone or watched the neighbors through the window.
After the first half year or so in Harry's new home, Petunia cared for him with a kind of disdainful irritation when Vernon was present, and irritated resignation when he was not. He was still her sister's son, and too young to be much of a nuisance. As long as he was kept out of the way, and didn't cause any problems, she wouldn't go out of her way either for him or against him. Therefore he was fed when Dudley was (usually the leftovers, if any), let out to crawl around on the floor sometimes when Dudley was in the play area with his new toys, cleaned when he smelled bad (Vernon didn't really approve of her taking such care of him, but she simply wouldn't have a shitty little boy stinking up her perfect house), and even let outside to play in the backyard when he was making too much noise in the cupboard. As long as he smelled all right, Dudley wasn't bothered by him, and she didn't have to exert herself unnecessarily, she didn't particularly care what the brat was up to.
It wasn't so odd, then, that no one noticed the changes that Harry sometimes underwent. He never spoke or babbled, but was usually fairly pleasant, not kicking or screaming like Dudley. Sometimes though, when Petunia would shove him outside or into the cupboard in exasperation, or give him the mushy leftovers from Dudley's breakfast, he would…change. His eyes darkened to black, his hair often would lie flat, instead of remaining in its usual flyaway mess. His young face would settle into an impassive, yet somehow dangerous looking mask.
The first time Petunia noticed this was on Dudley's third birthday. She had been having a horrible morning, and was completely stressed out. The humongous chocolate birthday cake had fallen in the oven, and the one she whipped up to replace it wasn't big enough for her little Duddley-kins big day. Two of the neighbor boys Dudley had invited over had fallen ill and couldn't come to the party, and now her baby was heartbroken. He had actually screamed at her, shouting that she'd ruined his birthday party, and she'd finally had to ask him to go into the living room and unwrap one of his presents to play with for a while. When she turned back to the pile of party food she'd been prepared, she noticed the brat standing in the shadowy corner of the kitchen. Thinking that he could at least stir himself about and be a bit of help for once, she'd snapped at him.
"Boy! Go get the party hats and streamers from the hall closet! Then come back in here and set out these cupcakes while I decorate the living room." She turned back, expecting that he'd go do as she said. He usually did, unless she told him to do something he didn't understand, which was rare. She distractedly wondered why he never talked when he obviously could understand what people said to him. Suddenly she looked up and noticed that he hadn't gone to get the party supplies yet. Aggravated, she stalked over to him, about to repeat her request, when she noticed something…different about the brat. He seemed to be almost smirking, with his chin tucked in and his eyes peering downward at the floor. He was quite clearly ignoring her, and looked… almost maliciously amused by something.
Slightly uncertain, she tried again, "Boy I told you…." She broke off in shock as Harry suddenly looked up, gazing straight into her eyes. Absently she noticed his hair seemed to be much lighter than usual, and his eyes… weren't they usually that annoying green her sister's had been? She was sure that the brat usually had messy black hair, and was pretty sure on the green eyes, but now… now they were blue. His hair was very light brown, almost blond, and his eyes were completely blue, shining like the sky. And that smirk was still on his lips. Her thoughts completely scattered then, as Harry spoke to her for the first time in his life.
"I heard you the first time, silly woman! I was just thinking. Wouldn't it be amusing if we had snakes instead of streamers this time?" The witchy child, still smirking then raised his hand and gracefully gestured to the hall closet. While Petunia looked on in shock and disbelief, the door to the hall closet suddenly swung open and long, skinny, blue and green snakes started slithering out into the hall and kitchen.
Odd, Petunia thought as the world began to go dark around her, those are exactly the colors of the streamers I bought yesterday…
The first thing Petunia was aware of when she came to was Dudley screaming in the living room. The second was that she was lying on the kitchen floor. The third was that there was no sign of Harry or any snakes. Did I imagine that? Why is Dudley yelling? She groaned then rolled to her back and got up unsteadily. First things first. She staggered into the living room as quickly as she could manage, only to find that Dudley had apparently sat on his new Transformer robot, breaking it and cutting his…leg. The brat was hovering over Dudley, fretting and apparently trying to calm him down wordlessly, while Dudley swatted at him between shrieks. The brat looked normal again, she noticed as she rushed over to her baby. She quickly gathered him up into her lap and sat down with him on the couch as she leveled a cold glare at Harry.
"You!" she spat the words, "What have you done to my Duddley-kins?! Go to your cupboard, now. And stay there. And if I see a single snake during the party, or anything else weird, you are going to stay in there for a month! And don't expect to be getting anything to eat, either!"
The brat had the nerve to look completely confused, almost hurt, as she accused him. His brow wrinkled in an innocent-looking frown of bafflement, but he trudged over to the cupboard, and disappeared into it.
That night, after the party was finally over, she managed to tell her husband what she thought had happened. His face grew more and more purple as she nervously told the story. When she got to the part with the streamer-colored snakes he growled and marched into the hall, and wrenched open the door to the cupboard under the stairs. He reached in and grabbed the sleeping raven-haired boy and dragged him out and into the kitchen. He then proceeded to spank the boy as hard as he could, until his arm was too tired to continue. By that time, the brat's shrieks had woken up Dudley, who stood watching at the top of the stairs with his mother. When he finished he dragged the weeping boy back to the cupboard, threw him in, and managed to snarl, "Stay…cupboard…no food!" He then slammed the door and locked it.
Behind him, in the cupboard, the boy slowly got to his knees, wincing as his bruised bottom touched his heels. His tear-free black eyes glared at the cupboard door, and his face settled into an impassive coldness. "Someday…" he whispered into the darkness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: Well, that's it for this part! I plan to add some more scenes from Harry's childhood with the Dursley's, but this chapter was getting too long for me, and I wanted to upload it and get to sleep. I'll continue, perhaps around age five, in part two of Chapter One. I'll also start getting into Harry's viewpoints more and introduce the personalities as they develop. ^_^ For now though, I apologize for any errors or awkwardness in format. I have no beta, and thus all errors are both my own and unexamined. 'Till next chapter, then!
Oh, and while I only got one review, semi-warm, for the prologue, I didn't actually expect any so I'm rather pleased. ^_^ Now that I'm really getting started though, I'd appreciate some more reviews. They are the only thing that can drag me from the exhausting hell that is accounting during tax season and force me to go ahead and finish and post more chapters. So, review! *blinks innocently* Pretty please?