Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, it all belongs to JK.

Now on to the chapter,

Chapter Two.

Early July 1996

Harry was in his room, which was really not his at all - but Dudley's second bedroom, staring miserably out the window. It had been two months since his godfather Sirius Black had fallen through the veil in the Department of Mysteries and Harry was missing him more than ever. Part of him expected Sirius to walk through the door any moment asking if anyone had been gullible enough to believe him dead.

Actually that wasn't just a part of him, it was all of him.

Harry refused to accept that the one person who had made him feel wanted and appreciated after years of neglect by the Dursleys' was gone. It just couldn't be happening.

So Harry had spent the holidays so far in his room staring out the window waiting for Sirius.

The holidays had started 45 days ago, but who was counting?

His relatives had left him alone during the first week, wanting nothing to do with him. After their warning from members of The Order of the Phoenix, the Dursleys had steered well clear of Harry.

But that hadn't lasted long.

During his second week at home Vernon had gotten fed up of Harry's passivity and had given the boy a list of chores to be done, without fail. Failing to finish this rather impressive list of chores would result in a severe beating, five minutes for every chore he didn't complete to his Uncle's satisfaction.

Needless to say the first day Harry had only managed to complete two of his assigned list of ten chores so had been beaten that night for 40 minutes. He still had the scars to prove it! Vernon had foregone the use of his hands and had instead settled on his favourite belt. Favourite, not because he liked wearing it, but because it was great for inflicting pain upon his worthless nephew. It was a long leather belt with studs along it and a large metal buckle. A few whippings with this and Harry's back and front were all riddled with blood and mutilated flesh.

This had happened very day since. Harry was never able to finish all his chores, he was depressed and missed his godfather terribly, and so every night Vernon would produce the belt and beat Harry til he lost consciousness.

That was 38 days of beatings, most at least twenty minutes long and the list of chores grew longer each day. Harry could have sworn that his Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia spent all night brainstorming to produce a list of chores that couldn't possible be done.

Harry was sitting in his bedroom after a particularly nasty beating when the regular owl from the Order arrived. He would write back as usual that he was fine. A lie but who cares. Certainly not him, he had gone past caring when after weeks of beatings no one had arrived to pick him up. Surely Dumbledore must know what was going on and he had done nothing. Nothing! You would think that after a whole year of ignoring Harry to apologise at the end that he would at least try to make amends. So far nothing.

Harry had given up on anyone coming and was just looking forward to school starting so he could get away from the beatings and his uncle.

It was four days before his birthday when Harry received a letter from Remus Lupin, his former DADA professor. He opened it feeling anger at not having received anything from Lupin before, he was one of his favourite professors and Harry had thought that he cared, obviously not, hadn't sent anything until now. Harry had many feelings towards his old professor, he'd had a crush on him since the beginning of his fourth year, but he wouldn't admit to himself or anyone that he liked guys. It was just too weird, he could see the headlines "Boy-who-lived prefers to jack off with same sex". How he hated the Daily Prophet, bunch of lies. Not trusting himself to open the letter and not rip it to shreds, Harry stuffed it in his pocket carefully without knocking any of his scabs on his legs, the beating the night before had left several welts on his upper thighs, then he set to work on the ridiculously long list of chores.

After a long day, and before his work was to be checked, Harry ducked outside to read his letter.

Dear Harry,

Sorry I haven't written to you before now but I've been busy with missions for the Order. I hope you are ok. How are the Dursley's treating you? Hope to see you soon,

From

Remus J. Lupin

Harry read the letter over. It didn't make him feel any better, didn't Remus have any idea what was going on, they were supposed to be Wizards, hell Dumbledore is supposed to be all-knowing! Harry couldn't see that lately, unless Dumbledore was deliberately ignoring him, thinking him safer with his relatives. 'They'll soon lose that notion when they find me dead or worse after all these beatings', Harry thought to himself. 'Ha, if I died they'd have to find a new way to defeat Voldemort, that would give them something to worry about! See if I care'. With this Harry went back inside to the inevitable beating.

July 31st dawned bright and sunny, the total opposite of Harry's mood at that point. Today the list of chores included forty items; he pondered whether his uncle had exhausted himself thinking up that many. No doubt there will be more tomorrow. By the time schools starts he could be up around 50 chores a day. What fun.

Harry was in a rather poor state of health, he was on stale bread and water. After most beatings he couldn't even eat that, the mere thought of food made him sick. Many of the early cuts had scabbed over and left a myriad of scars all over his body. It had got to the point where bending was very painful as he couldn't stretch his cuts. So most of the chores he couldn't do without inflicting considerable pain on himself. Today's chores included weeding, a task that opened up all the cuts on his knees and back as he stretched over to pull out weeds. By lunchtime his back was bleeding in several places and his knees were a mess. It was no better by dinnertime. He had made a mess while vacuuming due to all his cuts and the blood so when Uncle Vernon got home that night he was far angrier than usual and had got the belt out without preamble and had beat Harry senseless. As if that wasn't enough Vernon had decided to take the punishments to the next level and had raped Harry. Luckily for Harry he had lost consciousness before the worst of the pain as he was forced onto the knees he had aggravated weeding that day.

When Harry finally regained consciousness he was aware only of a searing pain in his loins and the feeling of dried blood caking everywhere. He groaned as he tried to roll over to see where he was. Ah, he thought to himself, the cupboard. Oh well, this feels more like home than that room anyway. Harry lost consciousness again.

Whilst Harry was unaware of things, Vernon had brutally raped him repeatedly before throwing the boy in the cupboard under the stairs. He was sitting down to watch the television after dinner when there was a pounding at the door. Vernon opened the door to face a man with a large cloak on masking his face from view but Vernon could tell it was one of those freaks; it wasn't hard to tell when he had a wand pointed at his throat.

"Where is Harry Potter?"