"I see that the lesson still has not been learned! It knows that It is supposed to be standing at attention when I arrive. I will not have this, will not have this disrespect. Oh well, I suppose it just shall have to be added on to It's punishment." The man looked down at the boy, barely conscious after falling down a flight of hard stairs, with a vile grin on his face. "Better get into position now, before Master gets even angrier"
The boy stumbled to his feet, internally chastizing himself for his behavior-'Oh, It had sure done it now! Why could It never be good? Why was it so stupid?' The boy stood squarly in front of the man, waiting for the command he surely knew was coming.
"Strip"
And the boy did. He always did this. He did not really even mind it, for he really did not want to ruin his clothes with his freakish blood. They were so graciously bestowed to him by the family, and he knew how difficult it must have been for them to give any of their possessions away to someone as awful and undeserving as him. So, he treasured them- guilty appreciation forced him to.
The man looked hunrgily at the boy, sizing up his every feature. He was a beautiful mess in the mans mind. The boy was covered, head to toe, in pain. Bruises of all sizes, but generally large, covered his body-the different colors running into each other wonderfully. The boy had all sorts of burns, old ones and new, and he was covered with scabs. Just every square inch of this child, had been hurt in some way- and the man took great pleasure in knowing that he was the one to have caused it. It made him feel powerful.
He really had so little power.
Although he boasted frequently about how lucrative and important his job was making drills, he knew that he could have had so much better. Well, he at least at some point had dreamed of better. He had dreamed of being a high powered exectutive somewhere, of having freshly plucked college interns rushing to get him coffee, of having lowly secretaries and underlings that he could harass and or fire at the snap of a finger. But the man, Vernon Dursley, did not have this. Instead, he had Harry. And now his favorite outlet was going to pay for all the failures and frusterations in the mans sorry life.
"Today, It will be a bad one. A long one. I think you know you deserve it though, don't you boy?" He always went back to personifying the boy when he was about to punish him. For some reason, it made him feel closer to his own idealizations of power-letting his victim think he had ever really had a chance of getting out of this situation. "Yes, I think I will start with... well we will start with a bath. Need to get you all clean of course. Then a good thrashing, decide the extent of that further when we come to it, yes? Then some special punishment... then perhaps another bath boy? And then you can spend a few hours in penance position... and then a night in the box? But of course, this is all flexible, and depends on how you behave through it. We have a deal boy?"
The boy nodded, gaze never leaving the floor.
"Alright, well you can spend the time it takes me to run your bath in penance position. You know that you deserve this, don't you boy?"
Again the boy nodded.
The man then spit on him, the boys signal that he could move on to his task, and then walked to prepare his 'project'.
The boy meanwhile, walked to the corner of the room where there was a small area of the floor covered with small spikes. And he went, and he put his heavily scarred knees down, and he kneeled over. And he prayed.