Chapter 8: One Step Forward, Two Step Back
"Stealing is wrong!" Harry hissed for what felt like the hundredth time.
He mostly did it out of habit now and not because he expected Mr. Lord to actually listen. Mr. Lord simply did not care about stealing. When he'd asked how he would feel if someone else stole from him, Mr. Lord just said he would have deserved it for not protecting his things better.
Harry didn't really have an argument for that. It still felt wrong, but it was impossible to win an argument with Mr. Lord.
'What are you so worried about?'
Harry shrugged. He didn't know. The whole reason Mr. Lord was making him steal from an actual store now was because he had enough power to… confuse? Confound? He didn't remember the word. But he was powerful enough to actually help him out if things went wrong.
They wouldn't, but it still felt good to have that security. To know that Mr. Lord will be there, and not just as emotional support.
"What should I steal?" Harry wrung his hands together, trying to, discreetly, look at the people entering and exiting the store. The bird tittered around his head, both calming Harry and making him agitated at once.
He really didn't want to steal. But also… he really wanted to make Mr. Lord proud. And also maybe get something nice to eat. That'd be so brilliant.
'That is up to you,' Mr. Lord said, 'And stop fidgeting.'
Harry quickly forced his hands to his sides, tensing up as the bird landed on his head. The bird somehow always landed up on his head. Mr. Lord said it was because it always looked like a bird's nest.
'Focus, Harry. There's several people in there already.'
"You know too much about stealing," Harry muttered, before squaring his shoulders and shooing the bird off his head. He walked towards the store, trying to look like he belonged.
'With time, you will too.'
He had worn his best clothes today, the smallest, cleanest outfit he owned. There were still a few tips and tears on it, but Mr. Lord said that much was okay. He just needed to not look like a vagabond. He played with the hem of his shirt, slowly patting down the small lump of money in his trouser pocket. It was for the absolute worst case scenario. Back up of the back up plan.
Mr. Lord said he wouldn't even need a back up, but Harry had been too anxious.
What if he was caught and sent to jail?
Mr. Lord had said he wouldn't but what if he did? He wouldn't be able to go to Hogwarts then. And jail sounded bad. He couldn't even fly properly yet so that he could escape.
'Stop worrying about inane things,' Mr. Lord said, sounding a little annoyed. Harry jumped, before biting down on his lips and slowly making his way towards the store.
No one really glanced at him, and he surreptitiously checked to see where the bird had gone.
It had been a slow process, trying to figure out the ins and outs of how the bird functioned, now. It didn't need food, or water, or sleep. It was always somewhere nearby. And could either be remarkably loud, or remarkably quiet.
It also did whatever Harry wanted her to do.
Mr. Lord had been the one to suggest using it to his advantage. At first, Harry couldn't really think of anything a tiny, undead bird could help him out with, but. Well. He would use her now, wouldn't he?
He looked at where she was tittering about, blending in completely with the surroundings. No one paid attention to her. His eyes darted around, keeping track of the people coming in and out of the store, and then he heard Mr. Lord give an exasperated sigh.
He was stalling, he knew that. He just…
He felt the snake nudge its head against Harry's wrist, offering silent support to Harry's anxious fidgeting, making him smile and some of the tension go out of his shoulders.
'Harry, if you're truly so against the idea, we can just go back,' Mr. Lord said suddenly, startling Harry. His eyes widened, because, really? Mr. Lord really would let him off like this?
Then he frowned. He was anxious about it, but also… well, he couldn't help but want the little thrill of doing something so exciting, of making Mr. Lord proud of something he'd done. And if Mr. Lord was talking about not doing it then.
Well, it made him want to do it even more. So he shook his head, and made his way over to the entrance. He entered, and then went down one aisle at random. It wasn't a big store, only as big as the master bedroom at the Dursleys. There weren't that many people in there either.
Harry had the bird wait almost one full minute before she came in, flapping her wings and creating a racket.
Harry ducked into one of the smaller aisles, one filled with snacks like chocolate bars and crisp packets.
And then there was a loud crash, which made Harry jump and wince, even though he'd been expecting it.
Another thing they'd found out about the bird had been that it had supernatural strength when it wanted to.
She hadn't done anything really bad. It was a small shelf, the smallest, mobile shelf, that she'd knocked over. There were some sorts of tools hung on it though, hammers and screwdrivers, and scissors. Which created quite a bit of noise, and thus, chaos.
Harry quickly grabbed several bars from the shelfs, taking care to spread his thievery evenly so as not to leave any part of the shelf bare enough to look suspicious. He stuffed some into his shirt, and some into his pants.
He didn't quite run out, but walked. Very fast. A couple people were helping the store employee right the shelf, but it wasn't quite an easy endeavour. Not with Harry's bird still flapping around their heads and shrieking in a distinctly un-blackbird like way.
He worried, for a moment, about what would happen if they managed to actually catch the bird, but then he remembered the time Dudley and his goons had tried to chase it and promptly left without looking back.
The bird certainly did not need his help.
As soon as he was out of the store, it took everything he had in him, along with some very stern words from Mr. Lord, to not break out into a run.
'The bird is fine,' Voldemort said, a touch exasperated.
"How do you know?"
'Can't you feel her?' he asked, because he could. He could feel most things Harry could, if a little removed. But necromancy was powerful magic, Voldemort's very existence was necromantic in nature, and he could feel, acutely, every single connection Harry had with it.
He'd never felt it before. Or rather, he'd never distinguished it before. He could now, though. He could tell when he felt it. Not distracting, but always there. Like the awareness of a limb.
It didn't make sense that Harry wouldn't feel it, not if Voldemort could. Especially when Harry was the one who resurrected the bird in the first place.
Reanimated.
Harry chewed on his lips, sitting cross legged on his bed. He was plucking at the lid of a sealed peanut butter jar. "I can…"
'Didn't you have a headache?'
Harry scowled, automatically raising a hand to his temple and rubbing it. "Yes," he said sullenly.
'Then stop picking and eat something,' Voldemort said. Harry had been covering his headaches with general pain numbing spells. But one couldn't keep such a spell up constantly. You had to treat the underlying cause.
Malnutrition, that is.
Harry had doubted him at first, saying he never got to eat much food anyway, and he'd never had headaches from it. Except Harry was growing and his shit relatives weren't going to do anything about it.
Harry could heal, better than Voldemort had been able to at his age, but then again, necessity is a great teacher. He could heal, so it wasn't too big of a problem, but his skin split far too easily. The smallest of scrapes would bleed.
Voldemort was intimately familiar with all sorts of suffering. There were a few that could only be inflicted in the long run. Slow, but more effective than a crucio could ever be. Long lasting.
He could see it in the way Harry would sometimes get dizzy spells, how he had almost constant headaches or the way his nails would break off at the slightest pressure, the dark circles under his eyes and the untamable yet thinning hair.
The boy was so young.
Voldemort would have sighed if he could.
He settled for just observing the boy, watching as the boy unscrewed the lid with the tiniest whisper of carefully directed magic, grinning in delight when it worked on the first go. Voldemort felt a trickle of equal parts fondness and disgust at the way the boy stuck his fingers into the peanut butter and licked it off.
Manners, he thought, were not something he had been focusing on teaching Harry. Especially not with the kind of people he lived with. Honestly, his manners were far better for someone who was growing up in this environment. Take that great lump of Harry's cousin, for example.
Despite the way he'd been dithering about, Harry inhaled down almost a fourth of the jar before Voldemort had to stop him, sharply enough that the boy startled, looking guilty.
'You'll get a stomach ache,' Voldemort explained.
Harry shrugged, "I could just heal it."
'You don't heal stomach aches, Harry. You get hungry and then decide to numb the pain. It's completely different from healing.' He should probably put a stop to the amount of pain numbing spells the boy casts. He doesn't understand why he's so sympathetic to his pain, when he's never bothered with anyone else before. Not even his own, if it was for a proper gain. It's not even like a little pain would harm the horcrux, either.
What was a little concerning was how the thought of the horcrux had been the last to occur to him.
He shook it off, like he had been doing several other concerning thoughts lately. He had to focus on breaking the boy's habit of pain spells.
As soon as he grew a little older.
He was too young to be in this much pain. Even at the orphanage, children under ten were only locked in the 'punishment' closet, corporal punishment saved for the older ones.
Maybe, instead of teaching the boy to not cast pain relievers, he'd teach the boy how to heal properly. It was a lot easier to tell him to do something than to tell him not to. Children were annoying that way.
His silent musing in the face of the boy's sheepishness as he stared longingly at the now shut jar of peanut butter was cut short at the shrill voice that called from right outside the door, which swung open without any other warning.
Harry yelped, flinching and scrambling to hide the jar he was holding, along with the several granola bars that were scattered on the bed like some decadent feast. He didn't quite succeed, nearly toppling off the bed in his attempt.
On the doorway, a hand planted on the door, stood his aunt. Her face was white as a sheet, except for the dark red blotches of colour on her cheeks as she stared at the scene before her. Voldemort felt a sense of foreboding, and braced himself. The look in her eyes wasn't promising. He vaguely noticed that she was trembling, and Harry had shrunk back quite a bit, all his previous joy wiped away.
"What– you– you freakish, thieving boy! Where did you steal all this from? Did you steal the money from someone?" she screamed, shaking a finger at him, "Is that what we took you in for? For– for this–"
She looked at a loss of words for her rage, looking almost hysteric. Voldemort didn't quite understand. He'd assumed she'd be angry, but not like this.
She stalked forward, and Harry flinched. And then she raised a hand and struck him across the face, bending over to yell, "Answer me!"
Voldemort, who had only been mildly alarmed behind the thick wall of disgust he was feeling at the woman, felt his patience snap. It's not the first time Harry had been hit, but every single time filled Voldemort with boiling rage rivalling that of his own condition.
He still had the energy reserves for a spell, the ones he'd been carefully conserving for Harry's thievery at the grocery store. Which hadn't been needed.
Something calmed in him as he remembered how nervous Harry had been about something he had pulled off flawlessly, and the calm gave him the control necessary to confound Petunia before she could strike Harry again, who'd gone silent.
'Harry, touch her head.' He would have been ashamed of needing contact to cast a spell, but he couldn't be bothered. Not any more, not after so long of having to deal with it.
"What?" Harry squeaked out, and Petunia's face got even redder, eyes flicking over to the food.
She opened her mouth, and Voldemort braced himself for the grating sound of her voice, but Harry decided to obey at that moment and slammed his hands none too gently on her forehead, making the woman yelp and stagger back. Voldemort didn't waste any time in casting Confundus.
Petunia let out a long, thin moan and crumpled to her knees, clutching her head.
Harry scrambled to his knees to peer at the woman, who was bent over now.
'Hide the goddamn food, Harry,' Voldemort hissed at him.
Harry jerked and quickly nodded, stuffing the bars beneath the mattress and the jar in one of the drawers. Not a great hiding place, but with Petunia still in the room, he didn't really have enough options. He could hide them better after she was gone.
Petunia gave another moan and made a noise which sounded almost like a sob. The immense satisfaction that swept through Voldemort at that was probably a little too cruel, but he'd never claimed to be anything but.
'Go, help her now.'
Harry nodded and cautiously approached her, kneeling down beside her. "Aunt Petunia?" he whispered.
"Shh!" she snapped at him, flailing out an arm wildly, which Harry dodged. The woman better hope Harry's cheek not bruise from her earlier strike, or there would be worse things coming her way than a confundus induced migraine.
"Aunt Petunia," Harry repeated, a peculiar expression on his face. Conflicted, perhaps, about seeing his aunt suffer, when she herself has been the cause for much of his own. Conflicted about the pull between guilty and vindictive satisfaction.
'Ask her if she wants to go to her room,' Voldemort said, 'Loudly.'
Harry did, and the resulting yell of 'shut up' cleared away any guilt Harry might be feeling. He truly did hate raised voices.
Good, Voldemort thought. There was no place for guilt here.
Petunia's head throbbed. It pulsed with the beat of her heart, and made it difficult to see. Every time she started to open her eyes, a stabbing pain overtook her.
She didn't remember coming into her room. The lights were off and the curtains were pulled. She had been lying on the bed for a while now. Or, at least she thought it's been a while.
The headache was dulling now, and opening her eyes didn't take her whole will. But it still hurt. She'd reckon this is what a hangover feels like, had she ever been stupid enough to indulge in enough alcohol to get one. She'd dealt with enough of Vernon's hangovers to know intimately what one might feel like.
She tried to sit up, and barely stifled a groan at a particularly vicious throb of her head. She raised a hand and dug her fingers into her temples in a futile attempt at relief. She could hear Vernon's car pulling up in the driveway and… and the last thing she remembers, the sun had still been high in the sky.
Just how long had it been?
She hadn't made dinner. The boy hadn't been locked in his room either, god knows what havoc he might have created in the meanwhile. She felt alarm trying to clamour for attention in her, but the pounding in her skull dulled it.
Then she froze.
The boy hadn't been locked in his room. That was exactly what she had been about to do. She… she entered his room? She thinks she did. Why would she do that? She was just supposed to lock it.
Why couldn't she remember?
Uneasiness settled into her stomach as she heard the front door open, Vernon announcing his return.
She should get up.
"Petunia?" Vernon called out, and she flinched a little at the volume.
Bracing herself, she took a deep breath and pressed her hands to her ears, before calling back, "Up here, Vernon!"
The boy, the door, the…
She must have heard something inside, that's the only reason she'd have gone in. Petunia had already given the boy some breakfast, there had been no need for lunch. And she hadn't had any chores for him either, not until the evening.
So, she must have gone inside and… and her memory went fuzzy after that.
The icy tendril of uneasiness turned to shards of fear in her.
The freak had done something to her. He must have. She's only ever had mild headaches before this. And the fact that this happened after she checked in on the boy…
She remembered, quite clearly, Lily telling her about their freak government and the way they would wipe memories off of normal people so they couldn't remember and blab about it. She remembered being utterly terrified of it happening to her. Of the things they could do to her, and her Dudley, and Vernon. She remembered the utter helplessness of… of not having magic.
Her worst fears were coming true.
Petunia knew the boy had magic. Of course he did. And she knew she had to be careful around him. But she'd grown lax. There hadn't been that many freakish accidents or raised brows from the neighbours lately. Things had started feeling almost normal. The boy had been pretty obedient lately too, the way he should be.
And then she'd grown lax. She and Vernon had grown lax. Vernon was right, the boy needed a firmer hand.
God knew what she'd seen, heard, in the room that the boy felt the need to– to hurt her. To curse her, maybe. She didn't even know what he'd done. The headache didn't seem to be worsening. But what if it was just a side effect of whatever he'd done?
The door opened, and Vernon came in. He turned on the light, and Petunia squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden brightness, gasping in pain.
"Petunia?" he asked.
Petunia opened her eyes, squinting a little. He looked concerned. She staggered off the bed, still squinting and stumbling with the pain. Pressing a hand against the dresser to keep herself upright, she spoke, urgently and low, "Vernon, the boy…"
