It's the holidays and in between serious revision and dating I decided to write some decent Harry Potter ff. So here you haven't, one of four ideas I'm posting. Enjoy the prologue ladies and gents.
It was a hot summer for a child of aeven. That child's name was Harry Potter and he was dressed in what had once been shorts, for a boy about four times Harry's size, and on Harry looked like trousers with the crotch at the knees. Harry had had to tie a double knot in the string around the waistband to hold them up. His shirt hung around his knees and the sleeves finished at his elbows. There wet splotches all over his cloths. Uncle Vernon had ordered him to wash the car and so he was, manning an emerald green hose. He'd borrowed a stepladder from the kitchen in order to reach onto the top of the car. Suds were everywhere as Harry scrubbed and scrubbed.
He was interrupted however when someone said, "Nice job you're doing there lad."
Harry turned, the hose still spewing water onto the roof of the car. It was one of the neighbours; Harry had seen them come over for dinner once. Filthy, common trash, Uncle Vernon had called them afterwards. "Thank-you," Harry said. If there was one thing his Aunt and Uncle didn't like more than anything 'not normal' was a lack of manners. The man smiled at him for a while but Harry couldn't think of much else to say.
"Fancy doing me a favour kid?" the man asked. Harry blinked at him, he knew he wasn't supposed to talk to strangers, his Aunt and Uncle didn't like him being seen either. But to say 'no' would be rude, at least, Harry's nine year old, none testosterone fuelled, mind thought so, because testosterone means teenagers and teenagers always say no.
The man carried on, still smiling, "If I give you five quid would you do mine?"
"Your what sir?" Harry asked.
"My car boy, my car," the man laughed.
"But," Harry knew he should protest but what exactly he should say was lost on him.
"Of come on, you've done a bang up job of that one, so lad, will ya do it?"
Harry had never spoken to this man before, Harry didn't think the man had even seen him before as far as he knew and then it clicked. Harry had often answered the door to kids twice his height in loose cloths and carrying buckets. They were offering to clean cars, handing out charity leaflets and other such things. Uncle Vernon had gotten rid of them quickly and then demanded to know what Harry had said to them. Harry didn't understand why but he realised that the man must think him one of those kids.
In an effort to be 'normal' Harry agreed and soon found himself washing the man's car. He was handed a piece of green paper with pictures on it and a number five in the corner. He'd seen similar things handed to Dudley and assumed this must be 'big money'. Harry was used to handling coins when sent to fetch something for Petunia's latest concoction that she said was quality cooking.
When he came back however it turned out that Uncle Vernon had spotted him. Before he knew it his trousers were down and he was clenching his teeth to keep from screaming. Ten slaps, twenty, Harry stopped counting and tried to focused on something but the pain, anything but Dudley's laughing, not looking at Petunia's contorted face, a mixture between a smirk and disgust. Disgust at him, he knew, and not his punishment.
His trousers pulled back up and his feet back on the ground he was dragged by the wrist to his cupboard and thrown in. He cradled his wrist that felt hot as if Dudley had given him another 'Chinese burn'. A nasty trick that involved pulling the skin at the wrist in two different directions till friction caused a layer of skin to break. Harry pulled the screwed up note out of the back pocket of his shorts and held it to the sliver of light coming from the crack beneath his door.
He watched as the spiders came out of their cracks to great him. Crawling over his fingers and ears, whispering things to him. Harry knew that if he kept the note in his cloths Petunia would find it when they went for wash. If he kept it in the cupboard Petunia would find it, or suck it up in the vacuum, when she cleaned his cupboard on a Sunday. If he tried to spend it he'd be caught and it would be spent on Dudley.
"Hide this for me?" Harry asked the spiders. They scurried, Harry laid the note down, strings of webbing bound the note between several spiders and up the wall they scuttled. The note crinkled as it was tugged through a crack in the wall and so the saving began.
Every summer, odd jobs around the drive, mostly when the Dursley's where out. He never spent any of it, even after he discovered Hogwarts; he kept it, hidden and secret. The spiders made sure it was never found.
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P.S. If you don't review, don't expect to find out what happens to Harry and the spiders.