Seven years later.

In a musty closet, a girl opened her eyes to reveal startling emerald irises. She stared at the vague, shadowy shape where the burnt-out bulb above her bed rested. Without any light by which to see, the girl might as well have been trapped in her own head. Alone with her thoughts and her dry tongue and her growing despair, she wondered if this was it for her.

Summers were the worst.

Without school giving Harriet an outlet from her relatives, she was stuck in proximity with the Dursleys for two months, giving the girl ample opportunity to misstep and invite punishment.

Which was what was happening to her right now.

The latch slid open, and Petunia's narrow eyes appeared. "Bathroom?" she asked, as though having to ask the question irked her.

"Water," Harriet croaked out, hoping her voice would reach this time.

She hadn't been quick enough in the morning, while everyone was bustling about and getting ready. She didn't realize Aunt Petunia hadn't filled the jug until they'd left. That was over twelve hours ago.

Nearly a full day without water.

Petunia unlatched the door, one bony hand reaching in to snatch up the empty container. Her aunt left the door open behind her as she went to fill it at the sink. At the sound of distant, running water, Harriet finally sat up, mouth parting in eager anticipation. She knew Aunt Petunia left the door open so she could go to the toilet, but Harriet hadn't had a bite to eat for the past two days, and with no water for eighteen hours, there seemed no point.

Harriet had grown to dread a lack of water above all else. She'd gotten used to starvation. Going without food wasn't anything new or scary. Her stomach shrank and she grew dizzy and weak, but she put up with it. The times she'd gone without water, however, were occasions she'd never forget.

In a fugue state, Harriet squinted her eyes, trying to remember where it was the Dursleys had gone.

'Oh, right. Dudley's ninth birthday party.'

It was a talk about this very topic that had resulted in her confinement to the cupboard for over two days.

Three days earlier

The Dursleys were eating breakfast. Harriet, dusting the furniture in the room nearby as she waited for them to finish up so she could eat the scraps, overheard Aunt Petunia posing Dudley a question.

"Where would you like to go for your birthday, Popkin?"

It didn't take the child long to decide. "The arcade!"

"Are you sure?" asked Petunia, worried. "I've heard things about those games…"

"Cody's parents took him to the arcade for his birthday! I want to go!" he shouted, spraying crumbs of bacon all over the tablecloth.

"Right. The arcade it is," said Vernon, as if the matter was settled.

Harriet could tell that Petunia still didn't approve, but she didn't press the issue.

"How many friends do you want to bring?" she asked.

Harriet tuned out the conversation, uninterested. It wasn't as if she'd get to go.

She leaned over to wipe down the legs of an end table, adjusting her messy mop of hair when her fringe fell over her eyes. She swept a hand over her forehead, revealing a thin, white scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on her forehead. It was so faded that it was almost invisible.

With short hair that barely covered her ears and a thin, androgenous frame, people seeing her for the first time tended to think her a five or six-year-old boy rather than an eight-year-old girl. Frequent malnutrition had not only stunted her growth, but eaten away at her baby fat, giving her a gaunt look.

Aunt Petunia didn't want Harriet's hair getting too long, as it would become too long to manage. Still, the girl was reaching the age where she was getting made fun of at school for her appearance. Not a day went by that Harriet didn't hope her aunt would renege and let her at least grow it to her shoulders—not that she dared to ask.

Dudley's voice grated on her as she worked.

'What's the big deal about birthdays, anyway?'

It wasn't as though she ever got to attend. Still, when her cousin started to talk about the games, she couldn't help but listen in. He spoke of games he'd played at the arcade before, practically bursting at the seams with excitement as he chattered on to his pair of largely uninterested parents.

Harriet was never that excited about anything, but eventually her interest got the better of her. She listened to Dudley speak about a game where little aliens came down from outer space, and how he shot them all down. As Harriet made her way into the kitchen, she spotted him waving his meaty fist, mimicking the barrel of a cannon firing on the invaders.

Vernon glanced over his paper. "Atta boy. You'd make a fine gunner in the special forces, eh?"

"Not my Duddy!" gasped Petunia. "You won't join the army, will you, Sweetums?"

Tuning out the adults and with her work done, Harriet let her mind wander. Pretending to dust a cabinet she'd already gotten, she gazed up at the lightbulbs. In a mild fit of imagination (that thing Aunt Petunia warned her to never use), Harriet imagined aliens descending from the bright spots of light, landing their crafts on the surface of the breakfast table. She lifted her bottle of lemon scented wood polish and pretended to shoot them down, one at a time.

Dudley's movements and sound effects set the stage, and in her mind's eye she saw dozens of little ships creeping down towards the table, attempting to abduct the food. She joined Dudley, shooting down one of the creatures, two, three… and then her stomach growled. She paused, bottle pointed at nothing, and saw the stupidity of this game.

With a flash of anger, she realized that she didn't want to fight the aliens. The Dursleys deserved to get invaded. Day after day, she watched them eat from their plates of bacon and eggs, hoping for a piece of toast and a dribble of yolk once they were done. She watched as Uncle Vernon's fat, quivering jowls worked on a piece of undercooked bacon, as Aunt Petunia's thin lips forced a smile as she sipped on fruit juice and humoured stupid Dudley's every stupid story… an alien crashing through the ceiling was just what they needed—the lot of them.

Dudley continued to blast them down with his imaginary gun, and Harriet prayed that Dudley would miss. She wanted it so bad that her vision started to blur at the edges, that she clutched her spray bottle with white knuckles.

Then she felt it: the tugging sensation somewhere in her stomach that she feared above anything else.

'No. No, wait! I didn't mean it—stop!'

That was when centipedes began raining from the ceiling, peeling from the plaster like old wallpaper.

Once the screaming stopped and the four inhabitants had evacuated to the front lawn, Uncle Vernon stomped over to her. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Aunt Petunia consoling a sobbing Dudley.

She didn't resist as he grabbed her arm in his crushing grip.

"You ruddy freak!" he growled out, shaking her. "I've had enough of this!"

She cringed but didn't utter any cry of pain. Sounds never helped. Though he stopped hitting her a year ago (after his belt turned into a live snake), the memories of his fist remained.

Then, he snorted like a bull and stopped shaking her. She chanced a glance up and saw him looking around. They were outside—exposed.

'He's worried about the neighbours. He won't hurt me out in the open.'

That realization didn't stop the cold pit of fear in her stomach. Even if she was safe for the moment, the instant things had settled down, a punishment would be coming her way.

"Get back in there," Vernon finally spat, shoving her towards the door. "I know you made it happen. If you can't get rid of them, you might as well live with the bloody pests."

He turned back to his family, adopting an entirely different tone of voice. "I'll head over to the neighbour's and phone pest control. They'll sort this out…" he said, his voice fading as Harriet approached the front door.

She glanced behind her. No one was watching, but she knew better than to directly disobey an order from Uncle Vernon. Aunt Petunia was a constant, spiteful presence in her life, but the things her husband could do in a fit of anger frightened even the other members of the family.

Tentatively, she opened the door and darted inside. No insects menaced her in the hall. She crept all the way to the kitchen without seeing a single creepy-crawly. She poked her head through the door to the kitchen, confirming that the bugs had all vanished as mysteriously as they appeared. That was when her eyes fell on the half full plates of food.

Recognizing her chance, she fell upon the table. She was careful, taking only a morsel from each plate. The few times she'd been allowed to gorge herself had taught her that doing so would only make her sick. She picked out choice pieces of bacon and some sweet wedges of fruit on Aunt Petunia's plate, careful not to deplete anyone's too much, lest they notice.

She hadn't had a decent meal since school let out, and it showed in how she grew less careful and more ravenous with each bite.

She didn't know how Aunt Petunia managed to sneak up on her, or why she'd entered the house in the first place when it was supposedly infested. Perhaps she hadn't heard Vernon order her to go in and she grew suspicious when she saw Harriet go inside. Maybe she was even concerned about the girl getting bitten by a venomous centipede. But there was no concern on her face when the woman grabbed Harriet's shoulder in a death-grip, steered her to the cupboard, shoved her inside and latched it securely shut.

"Ungrateful child," she hissed through the slot. "Greedy, ungrateful girl! You planned to steal our food from the beginning, didn't you? You used that nasty freakishness of yours to threaten our family! I won't let it happen again—we'll see how you like living in that dark little hole until September!"

"But I didn't—"

"Quiet! You're lucky we even keep vengeful little freak like you! We give you food, shelter, clothing—we'll see what Vernon thinks of this!"

The present

Harriet was jarred from her recollection when Aunt Petunia returned with the water jug. Harriet grabbed it in both hands, gulping down water. She slopped much of it down her front in her rush to drink. When she finally put down the container, she risked a glance up at her aunt, and found her staring down at her with a strange look in her eyes. If Harriet didn't know better, she'd assume it was guilt.

But that couldn't be right.

The look was gone in an instant. The door slammed shut, and Harriet wouldn't see the sky again except from brief glances out the bathroom window until nearly a month later, when the weeds in Aunt Petunia's garden became unmanageable.

Summers really were the worst.

Notes

Dudley's birthday is later here than it is in canon. July 15th instead of June 23rd, if you're wondering.