Odd Day: Thursday – Day Four
Harry remained lifeless through the night and most of the morning. But, right on the dot, as though he'd been forcefully trained to respond even when unconscious (and Severus and Lucius realized that he probably had), Harry jerked awake as soon as the cracked digital clock on the rickety desk read 6:00am.
And it was apparent why, when not fifteen minutes later (barely enough time for Harry to feed and water Lucy and Sevvy, before trying to choke down some water himself) Petunia – The Hag – slammed open the door. The faint sounds of a shower and off tune singing of the Beast were heard through the open doorway.
"Get up!" She screeched, not paying any attention or just ignoring the sight of the blood covering her half-naked nephew and the red chain-link collar around his neck. Severus thought he saw a brief glint of malicious glee and vindictiveness in her eyes, and he couldn't believe that this was the same Tuney that used to pull Lily's pigtails and play tea-party by herself for fun.
"You're late making breakfast! You better get down there and hurry up; and no mistakes! If you ruin my husband's breakfast when he has an important meeting today, I'll take it out of your hide myself!" A hideous scowl marred the Hag's face; and Severus found himself mentally comparing her to Black's mother's portrait – Walburga came out on top in the beauty department. If they ever got out of here alive, he'd never complain about her screeching again.
Harry nodded before bolting past her, ducking under her swinging palm before flitting down the stairs. The Hag took one look around the torture chamber, eyes skipping over the invisible space under the bed, before snorting and sneering, "Disgusting Freak…" before slamming the door shut.
Just like the day before, Severus and Lucius found themselves listening avidly at the door and catflap; making sure to stay out of sight and sound.
To their shock, however, not ten seconds later the footsteps were back outside the door. They scrambled for their sanctuary as the doorknob turned and the Hag reentered.
She was carrying a screwdriver and – what Severus vaguely recognized from his half-blood days – an eyehook screw. It wasn't so much that as it was the cruel and vindictively malicious gleam in her eyes that caused even the clueless Lucius to cower back.
They watched with confused and uncomprehending eyes as she made a hole in the wall about mid-way up and twisted in the screw. She yanked on it a couple times to make sure it held, before stepping back and observing her handiwork in what was obviously a very self-satisfied way.
After she had left Lucius and Severus, not eager to risk being discovered again, stayed in safety beneath the bed until Harry returned. Little more than an hour later – in which they heard Dudley silently sob in his room for five minutes as he relived his actions of the previous day, then go downstairs and quietly eat his food – Harry finally returned to the room.
Actually, it was more like he was dragged up – The Hag pulling mercilessly on the collar while Dudley ran to his room, unseen tears pouring down his face as he saw what had been done to his cousin – before he was thrown to the floor. Harry coughed and wheezed as he attempted to breathe around the constricting collar and the overwhelming fear and panic.
In The Hag's hand was a length of chain and a black toolbox with the logo Grunningson the side. Totally ignoring her nephew, The Hag set down her supplies on the floor before removing a tape measure from the toolbox. She measured the distance between the eyehook screw and the floor before complaring that same length with the chain. Seeing that the chain was too long, she also took out – Severus identified it and mentally relayed the information to his clueless pureblood friend – a pair of bolt cutters.
After she had cut the length of chain to the correct size, she pried apart one of the links and fitted it onto the eyehook screw. She then pulled out her final item – a tool that had the appearance of a portable screwdriver, shaped like a large, fat pen. It wasn't until she put on a pair of sunglasses and some pink heavy-duty gloves, that Severus realized what was happening.
As soon as the knowledge hit him, The Hag flipped the switch on the tool in her hand, and a small, concentrated blue flame came out. What had originally been thought to be a screwdriver, had turned out to be a welding torch.
Without further preamble, The Hag soldered the link to the screw, permanently securing it to the wall. Harry, who had finally caught his breath and had been observing his aunt's actions uncomprehendingly, was in no state to fight back or prepare when The Hag grabbed his collar again and yanked him to the wall and connected chain.
Harry's sleep, food, and oxygen-deprived brain didn't understand what was happening until a link at the end of the shortened chain was attached to his collar and the blue-hot flame was nearing the exposed flesh of his throat.
He tried to jerk away, but The Hag was prepared for that. She grabbed Harry by the hair and slammed him into the wall, holding him there as she – with far less care than she gave to the screw and wall – welded the link together with the chain; burning and charring the tender skin and flesh of Harry's throat at the same time.
Harry opened his mouth the scream, but no more than a rasping wheeze came out. Somehow that, coupled with the anguished tears that fell unheeded from terrified viridian eyes, was so much more horrifying and heart-wrenching than if the child had been screaming at the top of his lungs.
Finally, after an eternity in which Lucius and Severus could see that The Hag drew out as long as possible to cause as much pain as possible, she turned off the blowtorch and allowed her nephew to collapse to the floor in silent, gasping sobs.
She then pulled a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs – something obviously bought from some cheap kink shop – and, using a thick, heavy duty staple gun, bolted the cuffs to the floor. Using swift, abrupt movements The Hag wrenched her nephew's wrists into the cuffs before locking them so tightly that they dug into his skin; putting the key safely into her pocket. Harry would be incapable of unscrewing the eyehook from the wall.
She gave a few tugs to the cuffs to be sure they were secure- and a couple more to the chain to cause Harry pain and cut off his air- before she loaded up all her tools back into the box along with the remains of the length of chain; before leaving the room with a pleased, self-satisfied smirk on her face and shutting the door.
She never said a word the entire time; and the silent response to her cruel action showed the level of her depravity and sadism.
Severus and Lucius waited until the tell-tale sound of the locks engaging sounded before darting across the room to their pain-filled, sobbing charge. The chain was just long enough to allow Harry to lie on the floor, but not much longer than that. He couldn't reach the door, or his bed, or even stand. Sevvy and Lucy licked at the wound, trying the sooth and clean it, but they couldn't do much. The metal was already cooling, red-hot fading to cool silver; a horrible molten collage of blood and metal and blackened skin solidifying against the base of Harry's throat, where the chain connected to the collar.
Harry whimpered and cried as The Hag puttered around the house and watched soap operas on the telly. Finally, after a sufficient amount of time, they could hear Dudley walk down the stairs and pitch a royal fit about getting this new video game for his Playstation. A few nauseating assurances and a period of horrid doting later, and Petunia had left the house with her purse and keys; having called a cab to take her into London for the imagined desired video game.
Dudley barely managed to wait five minutes before he was banging on Harry's door. "Harry! Harry, she's gone! Quick, pass me the keys to the locks and I'll get you out of there! We don't have much time!"
Harry coughed and grunted an affirmative, before moving towards the loose floorboard; only to be forcefully reminded of the fruitless nature of his attempt. Between the chain leash and the cuffs, Harry had no hope of reaching the loose floorboard with his hands.
Harry, desperate, turned and faced the wall, before stretching his right leg behind him and reaching with his bare foot for the board. He tried to look over his shoulder, but the chain was already pulled taut, and the jagged claws of the collar embedded into his neck and the lump of burned flesh and metal at the base of his throat wouldn't move; so Harry couldn't turn his head.
Harry whimpered and desperate tears leaked down his face, but still he blindly searched for his hiding place. Unable to bear watching the pathetic sight any more, Severus caught Harry's foot and nudged it until it moved over to the floorboard that Lucius was scratching at.
With a relieved sob, Harry eased his toes into the crack and gently eased the floorboard up, centimeter by centimeter.
He had it, barely clinging to it by the pads of his toes, gently inching it up and easing it to the side, before –
"Harry! What's taking so long! Are you awake?"
With a startled, near-silent cry and a jerk, the floorboard slipped from Harry's tenuous grasp and fell back into place. While Severus gently re-guided Harry back to the location and the trembling, taut boy began the slow process again, Lucius ducked out of the cat-flap and growled at Dudley in warning.
And, finally, after an eternity of sobbing and easing and lifting and praying, the floorboard was shoved away and the hidey-hole revealed. Harry, unable to do anymore, collapsed to the floor with a defeated sob that was no more than an exhalation of wet-sounding air.
But it was enough. Severus pawed aside the folds of the Invisibility Cloak to reveal the Ziploc bag of keys. He quickly grabbed the bag with his teeth before bolting across the room and out the cat-flap – that being the second and last time that it would be used for its created purpose – and deposited its precious cargo in Dudley's waiting hand.
With trembling fingers, Dudley swiftly undid the locks with a quickness born from years of experience; and opened the door. To his credit, Dudley gave no more than a horrified sob before he had bolted downstairs and into the cupboard, taking out the toolbox and bolt cutters and lumbering back upstairs as fast as he could; two equally frantic wizard-animals following immediately behind.
Not wasting a single precious second, Dudley cut the chain from the wall and the cuffs from the floor before he threw the offending tool away. Quickly retrieving the backpack he'd left in the hall, Dudley stuffed Harry's most dear belongings into it – Invisibility Cloak, photo album, wand, a small bag that clattered with shrunken items, and a couple books – before zipping it up and stowing it on his back.
He then leaned down and helped Harry to stand, wrapping the leftover chain around his cousin's wrist and the horrible fuzzy cuffs so that the weight wouldn't pull on the collar. "C'mon Har… do you think that you can walk?"
Harry nodded and took three shaky steps before he collapsed, Dudley catching him with a sad sigh. "No, you can't. Here, let's get you dressed, then I'll carry you to Mrs. Figg's."
After Harry had been donned in an overly-large pair of pants and a blood-stained shirt – the cleanest that he had – Dudley was carrying his cousin down the stairs bridal style, Lucy and Sevvy following behind.
"Is there anything in your trunk that you need, Har?" Dudley whispered, though there was no need to, as he paused by the cupboard under the stairs. Somehow, though, the situation felt that it warranted it.
Harry coughed and shook his head, patting Dudley's backpack as though to say, 'All I need is already in here.'
Dudley nodded and, at last, they left the house, never to return; leaving the front door wide open and swaying in the wind.
Finally, after a lifetime of torture and hopelessness and agony, the two tormented cousins departed from the site of their misery. One with a twisted mind and an alternate personality, carrying the other with the scars and bruises that told a story of survival and strength, of pain and despair.
Following the two was a black cat and a silver fox, who both swore with every bit of life and magic in their transfigured bodies, that Dudley and Harry would never return to Privet Drive again.
So mote it be.
A/N: If you want to see the picture of the blowtorch that Petunia used, just search "portable blowtorch" on google and you'll see a picture of it in "Images". The website is www. portable-heat-tools. com (just remove the spaces).
Sorry that it took so long, but I hope that the chapter was worth the wait. The rest of Thursday: Day Four will come out soon – the confrontation with Mrs. Figg and the escape by Floo.
By the way, I wonder if anyone else has ever asked this, but…
If Arabella is a 'Mrs.', who is the 'Mr.'? Food for thought…
As for Grunnings making the toolbox, I just thought that I can't think of a single company that just makes drills, and not other tools or accessories. So, in my story, Grunnings also made the toolbox, bolt cutters, blowtorch, and staple gun.
Review! And let me know what you think!