The first time Harry dies he's two years old. Dudley plays a bit too roughly with him, he stumbles, and his head hits the edge of the table wrong. While Dudley only reacts by grunting at him and waddling away, Harry doesn't even bleed. He just lies very, very still for a good minute.
And then he sits up, blinking his green eyes up at the harsh lighting. He shakes his head for good measure, staggers to his feet, and walk casually out of the room. No one is there to witness it, except for the echoes of his parents. Their gazes follow him in worry.
They did not part with their souls.
The second time Harry dies, he's four. It isn't an accident.
The starvation takes only two weeks. Petunia is the one who finds him, dead in the cupboard, and she stares at him for a moment before moving to write a note to Vernon. When she comes back to the cupboard to see if it's possible to make it look like an accident, Harry stares back at her, and his eyes are yellow.
Petunia drops the notepad in shock.
"Food?" Harry asks, his eyes fading to innocent green. His voice is soft, and Petunia doesn't notice, because he so rarely speaks, but it's colder than ice.
Dazed, Petunia nods, walking numbly to the kitchen to find some food for the thing that should not be.
She doesn't tell Vernon. Only says she can't bear to have his blood on her hands and begs to instead let him do chores around the house.
Her dreams are haunted by yellow eyes.
He dies again when he's six, suffering from internal bleeding after Dudley taught his friends some good punching techniques. It's a quiet passing, happening in the cover of night, with no one present to hear the stilling of his heart.
When he wakes again the next morning, he's as good as new, if not a little bruised.
Not much happens after that. Harry begins to attend school more regularly, and Petunia worries what might happen to Dudley if Harry comes to class covered in bruises. She has a stern talk with Dudley and doesn't budge even when he wails. Her family's safety is the one thing she will not risk.
Later she talks to Vernon, as well, making him promise to cease the comments whenever they're in public.
"He's a freak," Vernon tells her, the anger boiling behind those words.
"He is," Petunia agrees. "But do think, dear! If people know we treat him different they mightthinkhe's different, and then they mightinvestigate."
Vernon gave in, in the end. She did have to threaten him with sleeping on the couch first, though.
And then, after Dudley's very normal and quite mundane twelfth birthday party, the Dursleys have other things to worry about than being caught.