Chapter 4

As soon as Dumbledore left, Petunia's impatient face turned venomous.

"Move boy, into the kitchen."

Startled and slightly fearful of the sharp, vicious voice that was so different to what people had used when speaking to him before, Harry complied.

"You will be cooking for us whilst you are here. I will show you once, and after that if you get it wrong you will regret it."

She proceeded to show exactly what he would have to do to make sausages, bacon, eggs, hash browns and coffee just the way Vernon liked it. He would have to learn the rest using the recipe books, and would undoubtedly get it wrong for a while. That was expected, and Vernon would make sure he was properly punished. Freaks like him must learn their place and Vernon would make sure he did. The old man had told them he could not use magic, but that changed nothing. He was still one of them. They would never dream of punishing Dudders the way they would punish him, but then they never punished Dudley at all.

After the old man had come and gone the first time, Petunia told Vernon all she knew about the magical world. That they were unnatural freaks, the scum of the earth. She told him about that dreadful Snape boy who had made a tree branch fall on her and sent her to hospital, how her parents had fawned over Lily and ignored her; she wasn't special enough for them. She was the only one who saw what they really were, what Lily really was; spawns of the Devil himself who would bring nothing but misery. Vernon had agreed whole heartedly - he hated anything out of the normal, and the magicals were as abnormal as could possibly be. That was when they had made their plan to discipline the boy. He would need to be fixed.

They had resentfully given him Dudley's second bedroom for now. Part of the agreement they had made with the old man was that they were not to be spied on or watched for any reason; the freaks were to stay away from them, but who knew if they would keep their word. So for now, they would test their boundaries and if the freaks really weren't watching, they would show that unnatural boy just how far below normal, respectable people like themselves he belonged.

The purr of a car engine and clink of an opening door announced Vernon's return, his fat frame barely fitting through the door. Harry did his best not to stare at him, but how could a person possibly be that big? Clearly his best wasn't particularly good, because Vernon noticed him and saw this as his first opportunity to show the boy his place. He couldn't do what he wanted yet, so words would have to do.

"WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT BOY!" He roared, causing Harry to jump back in fright.

"N-n-nothing Uncle Vernon."

"You will call me Sir, as you should your betters. I am no uncle to a freak like you."

The malice in his pig like eyes made it clear that this was a demand that he should never disobey.

"Yes Sir"

Deciding that the message had sunken in for now, Vernon set his briefcase down before he waddled to the sofa and fell back into it, causing the frame to sag and groan slightly under his immense weight, and then flicked on the TV and started to complain loudly about the "filthy foreigners".

Harry stood frozen in the kitchen, not knowing what to do or where to go.

"To your room, now. Upstairs and on the right, I don't want to see or hear you until tomorrow morning."

Scurrying quickly out the kitchen and upstairs, he pushed the door to his room open, noticing the multiple locks that opened from the outside and the cat flap on the door. He hadn't seen a cat, maybe it was out? His "room" wasn't really a bedroom at all; it didn't even have a bed, just a yellowing mattress thrown haphazardly in the corner. The floor was entirely covered by piles of toys and clothing, broken and otherwise. Faded, greying wallpaper was peeling off the walls and stretched out into the room like grotesque arms, seeming to want nothing more than to grab him before pulling him into the pockets of darkness cast by the heavy, moth bitten curtains. Stretching slightly to reach the switch, he flicked the light on and carefully tiptoed towards the mattress, clearing a path as he went, before pulling his shrunken trunk out of his pocket. Mr Dumbledore said it couldn't break and that only he could open it. He need only put it on the floor and say "grow" and it would go back to its normal size. Quickly clearing away junk until he had a roughly trunk sized space, he put the matchbox sized object on the ground and returned it to its original size, before opening it and getting out his pyjamas. Closing his trunk again, he changed and shuffled under the threadbare blanket that was haphazardly thrown next to his 'bed'. The day had been long and draining, and Harry was asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.

~Scene Change~

Harry awoke to the sound of Vernon's angry bellowing; either that or a bear had been caught in a trap. The clunk of locks being opened shook him from his still half-asleep state, and if that didn't wake him up the slam of the door against the wall did.

"BOY, you were to cook breakfast for us and you stayed in bed! Get up you miserable little brat and get in the kitchen this instant or so help me God you will regret it!" Petunia screeched, her eyes narrowed and brimming with hatred.

He scrambled to his feet and rushed downstairs. He didn't want to anger his uncle more than he already had; Vernon didn't seem like the kind of man to forgive anything, and the obvious hatred he held for Harry made him desperate to avoid any punishment.

Scampering into the kitchen, Harry started cooking, frantically trying to remember what he had to do, but it was like trying to hold water in an open hand; the more he tried to remember, the more he forgot. He struggled to see over the stove, but if he stood on his tiptoes he could just about see what he was doing. The shrill voice of Petunia near his ear made him jump, and in doing so drop the plate he had been holding which cracked against the gleaming floor of the kitchen. A momentary silence proceeded Vernon surging to his feet and crossing the kitchen faster than a man of his size should have been able to, before his hand was flying towards Harry's face. The sharp crack of the slap and the rapidly reddening hand print on his cheek caused Vernon's face to change from a deep purple to a pasty white almost instantly before he started wildly turning his head as if he was about to be ambushed from all sides.

Meanwhile, Harry was sprawled on the floor struggling to see through the film of tears as blood slowly started to drip from his nose. Petunia too was swivelling her head so fast it was liable to unscrew, a hand covering her mouth in shock. Dudley was sat at the table wide-eyed, seemingly enjoying the show if the gleeful look on his face was any indication.

After several minutes with no appearance from the freaks, Vernon's fearful demeanour turned shark-like. The freaks really weren't watching? Well that certainly opened things up a bit. Turning to face his wife, they shared an equally vindictive smile, her face showing the pure hatred she felt every time she saw those bright green eyes look back at her, while his only showed excitement and deranged anticipation. Petunia grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and threw him out the back door, hissing after him that he would not be let back in until they were sure he had stopped bleeding.

Harry desperately tried to control his sobbing and stop the steady flow of blood streaming down his face but he couldn't. He hated it here. He wanted to go home, to see Sirius and Nymmie and his parents. They always fixed him when he was hurt, made sure he was okay. And they certainly never would have hurt him like that.

It was a Tuesday, so Vernon sent a final hate-filled glare out of the window before waddled out to his car to leave for his job as an executive at Grunnings Drills. As it was the summer, Dudley was home and his friend Piers was coming over and they would constantly stare at him out of the locked glass door and taunt him, as if he was an exhibit at a zoo. Harry found himself amused despite the situation at the irony of that thought, considering Piers looked like an overgrown rat and Dudley looked like a beached whale; if this was a zoo, they would be the ones behind the glass.

As the sun moved up in the sky and the day became stiflingly hot, Harry crawled into the sliver of shade provided by the bush while he tried to wet his cracking lips, only to find his tongue was dry too. Sweat ran down his back in rivulets and his shirt stuck to his body; he was unbelievably thirsty, but with those inside the house constantly watching he dared not take a drink from the garden tap just yet. He doubted they would take kindly to it after that morning. It did not take long for the two boys' chimp like attention span to run out, and they wandered off, allowing him to dart across the small garden to the tap for a drink.

The hours seemed to blur as the shadows elongated and stretched, before it was comfortably cool compared to the suffocating heat of the afternoon. He was feeling hungry and dehydrated, like he had spent a week in a desert. The door swung open to reveal Petunia, who looked disdainfully at his sweaty appearance.

"Dinner, now. The recipe is open on the counter. After you have made it, you are to take a single piece of bread and a cup of water from the counter and go have shower. I will not have your disgusting stench in my house. 5 minutes, no more or I will drag you out myself."

Nodding quickly, Harry entered the kitchen and got to work. She had put a stool there so he could actually reach this time, but that didn't help with the strength he needed to lifts pans on and off the stove, strength a five year old doesn't have. The recipe wasn't a complicated one, but it was still asking a lot of child who had never cooked before. Nevertheless, he managed and slid it into the oven on a timer before hastily grabbing the slice of bread and tearing into it ravenously, then gulping down the water. He had never been that hungry before.

Keen to avoid any more notice from his relatives, Harry ran upstairs to the shower before greedily drinking from the tap. A short 5 minutes later, Harry was showered and back in his room, reading the book he had got for his birthday last year. He had noticed a few scratches on his trunk, clearly Vernon had tried to get into it, so he was poised to quickly hide his most precious possession if he heard anyone come up the stairs.

The metallic slam of a car door announced Vernon's return, and he hid the book back in his trunk in case the dinner was unsatisfactory and Vernon saw the need to punish him for it. He heard the muffled greetings and sat tense, waiting for the angry outburst and heavy footsteps. After 10 minutes of nothing, Harry finally relaxed as the tension left his aching muscles, and he picked his way across the room to turn off the light, before dropping back on the mattress and curling up, his earlier light-headedness finally catching up to him.

~Scene Change~

Awaking the next morning, Harry rushed downstairs to get started on breakfast, wanting to avoid a repeat of yesterday. He carefully but quickly began making breakfast but felt himself tense at the entrance of Petunia and later Vernon and Dudley. After deeming it adequate, Petunia shoved a slice of burnt toast into his hands and told him to go back upstairs while she wrote down his chores. In the silence of his room, Harry realised it was his brother's birthday. There would be a party today. The thought made him think of home. Would they miss him? He wondered if Sirius and Andi even knew he had gone, he hadn't even got to say goodbye. He always loved the parties, though not as much since Jack became the "Boy-Who-Lived". There were too many people he didn't know, too many people trying to talk to him. Him and Nymmie would run around causing as much trouble as they could, eat sweets and cake and try and persuade the older kids to let them fly on their brooms – they only had training brooms, and they weren't very fast. Sometimes, she would morph to look like him so they could mess with people. He missed her.

The door being unlocked drew him out of his memories, and he sat up and saw Petunia thrust a list of chores towards him. His eyes widened slightly when he saw it. Not even a house elf could do all this in a day!

"Vernon is at work and Dudders is at the Polkiss'. I am going out for the day and I expect all those chores to be done by tonight, or you will not be getting dinner. There is a sandwich and glass on the kitchen counter, you eat anything more than that and I will know." The threat in her voice as she said the last sentence was clear and sharp, like a knife waiting to plunge into his stomach.

With that, she left and slammed the door behind her, leaving Harry to get on with doing the impossible list of chores. And so, not eager to go a night with no dinner, Harry got to work. He pulled weeds from the garden until his palms bled, scrubbed the bathroom floor until he could see his face in it and dusted every inch of the living room, despite the fact it looked like it had been dusted 5 minutes earlier. The day went on like this, until Harry had done over half of the things on the list. He was exhausted, sweaty and hungry, but he still had plenty of chores to do and little time before Petunia got home, but some of them were impossible. A 5 year old repaint a fence? It seemed like Petunia was looking for excuses not to let him eat.

An hour later Petunia returned, an irritated yet accomplished look on her face. The housewives she had spent the day with were constantly fishing for gossip, and apparently one had seen the boy the day before. The cow had been most curious as to who he was, and had questioned her incessantly, looking desperately for any holes in her story. Petunia had said he was her nephew, the child of two drunken layabouts who had been deemed unfit to look after a child. And the boy was no better, she had said, a thief and a liar of the worst sort. Why, just yesterday she had caught him trying to steal her pearls and her mother's ring! The other housewives lapped up the lie like a cat would milk, by the time the freak started school the following week the entire neighbourhood would know. Even better, one of the housewives was the wife of the school headmaster, so the boy would be getting no help there. The thought of him feeling as alone and as worthless as she had felt as a child filled her with vindictive glee the likes of which she had never felt before! After all these years she was finally getting back at her freakish sister.

The sight of him immediately soured her mood, his green eyes taking her back to all the times she was pushed to the side in favour of her sister. There was no way he could have completed all the chores she set, so she satisfied herself with the punishment he would surely get when Vernon got home and walked straight past him, her nose in the air.

Unsure of what to do, Harry followed his aunt into the kitchen. It seemed as if this was the only room downstairs where he was allowed, he didn't even know what the living room looked like. As much as he wanted to shower, he knew it wouldn't be wise to risk it without permission, even with Vernon out. Grimacing slightly as he peeled the shirt off his back from where it had stuck, he just hovered in the doorway until his aunt noticed him.

"What are you doing freak! Go and shower, 5 minutes, then you will be preparing our dinner."

Quickly complying, Harry was showered, changed and in the kitchen 10 minutes later. He meticulously followed the relatively simple recipe Petunia had left out for him while she watched the telly in the other room, occasionally gasping and spitting scathing comments at the telly. He was just finishing when Vernon and Dudley walked through the door, their fat jiggling visibly, and collapsed into the chairs at the dining room table, clearly expecting what must surely have been their tenth meal of the day. There was no other way they could get that fat.

Carefully, Harry carried the now plated food to the table before going back to the kitchen to carry on cooking. He had to make a desert this time as well, which seemed to be an entire meal by itself. Judging by the lack of angry shouting, he had done alright on the dinner and hoped his luck would extend to desert. He somehow doubted he would get any of it though.

It was as he was carrying the desert in, apple crumble with enough custard to drown a small country, that disaster struck. The smirk on Dudley's face reeked of malicious anticipation as he shuffled his chair backwards slightly just as Harry walked past, causing Harry to drop the bowls on the floor.

Swelling to his feet in rage, Vernon's face was an ugly purple as it twisted into a snarl.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING FREAK! THINK YOU CAN STARVE GOOD HARD WORKING PEOPLE LIKE OURSELVES DO YOU? I WILL NOT HAVE IT!"

A meaty hand grabbed onto Harry's neck and squeezed, while the other was pummelled into his side. Harry felt something give way. The hand around his neck released, and Harry gasped for breath against the pain in his side before he noticed he was being dragged out of the room. Vernon threw open the door to the cupboard under the stairs and hurled the young boy into it and latched the door shut with a click.

The darkness was consuming him, suffocating him in its unyielding embrace. The walls were closing in. He couldn't get out. He had to get out. He banged and kicked at the door but it did not budge. He couldn't breathe. And he screamed, a sound so filled with terror that it brought both Dursleys a sense of pure euphoria. But they couldn't let the neighbours hear. Yanking open the door, Vernon blindly lashed out with a foot, catching Harry in the sternum and sending him flying backwards into the wall.

"You make a sound and you will regret it boy!"

The door slammed shut once more, and Harry concentrated on staying silent, on controlling the tears pouring down his cheeks. A few minutes later, Harry lost consciousness, the strain of being drowned by his greatest fear too much for him to bear.