The following day, Harry and his relatives awoke to a note in the center of the kitchen table, where Harry usually served breakfast. The note was simple, a threat of retaliation if Harry Potter was injured further. His aunt paled, and his cousin flushed in fear, but his uncle had chuckled darkly, crumpling the note in his fist and standing from the table. He approached Harry, who stood his ground.
"Do you think I'm stupid, boy?" Vernon growled. "No one's been in this house except the four of us, and your bird's been gone all summer. Did you think this little trick would save you from the beatings you rightfully deserve?"
Harry paled, but continued to stand his ground. "I didn't write it. That isn't even my handwriting."
"He probably had one of his freaky friends write it for him before he left school, Dad," Dudley joined in. Seeing Harry threatened or beaten always put him in a good mood.
Vernon bared his teeth under his bristly mustache. He dropped the note on the floor. "Pick up your little lie boy."
Harry, who knew Vernon intended to humiliate him, even if only in front of his aunt and cousin, refused. When he didn't move, Vernon's hand flew up, back-handing him hard enough to send him sprawling onto the floor. Harry scowled against the pain in his cheek and eye. "It's not mine," He insisted.
Vernon's slippered foot found his ribs. "I'll not have liars in this house!" The man roared.
Before Harry could move, Vernon had grabbed him by the hair at the back of his head. He dragged Harry up from the floor, and began leading his nephew through the house. Harry's eyes widened in terror when he saw their destination. He began struggling against his uncle's grip.
"No, Uncle Vernon, I'm sorry, I swear it!"
"I'll show you what happens to liars in this house, boy," Vernon growled. He pulled open the door to the cupboard under the stairs and flung Harry in.
Harry, who was much larger than the last time he'd been in here, bounced painfully off of the wall, landing in a crumpled heap on top of the items Petunia had begun storing in here. The door slammed shut behind him, and he heard the twin bolts slide into place. He pressed against the door with all his might, but it wouldn't budge.
"No, Uncle, please! Let me out!" He cried.
A hand slammed into the door where his head was, and the force made his teeth rattle in his jaw. "You'll learn to accept your punishments, boy!" Vernon growled. "And you can stay in here until those freaks come to retrieve you in a few days. I've had all I can take of your freakish ways, you hear me?!"
"Please, Uncle! Don't leave me in here!" Harry pleaded.
It was the first time since he was very young that he'd pleaded against his uncle's brand of punishment, but his fear had overridden his reason. He heard Vernon chuckle again before walking away. At the sound of those heavy footsteps retreating from the door, Harry began to weep openly, curling as tightly into a ball against the door as he could. A nasty side-effect of having Voldemort in his head, and the nightmares that accompanied this possession, he was deathly afraid of the dark. Until now, he had been able to hide his fear from everyone, because most dark places had some source of light. It was only the pitch black that terrified him, and Uncle had been at great pains in Harry's childhood to ensure this room was as black as they came.
As Harry wept against the door, he felt the ghost of fingers in his hair. He started at first, and the touch vanished as he stared around at the dark. Feeling his fear creeping in on him again, suffocating him, he buried his face in his arms and tried to control his breathing, lest he pass out. Again the fingers came, carding through his hair tenderly. He recognized the feeling now, and slowly the tension began to leave him. Somewhere deep down, he knew those impossibly long fingers weren't really there, couldn't really be there, but it didn't stop him taking comfort in the memory. Feeling his way past the items piled into the closet, he found his old cot and crawled onto it, pushing aside the things which Petunia had stacked there. He curled up on the tiny mattress, the wall just a whisper against his back. Very carefully, he situated himself exactly as he'd been the night before, and allowed himself to imagine Severus was lying there behind him, protecting him from the monsters in the dark. He forced himself to recall Snape's every word which had so lulled him the night before. As if by magic, he felt his breathing slow as he began to drift in and out of sleep. He had slept so well the night before that it was unfathomable to truly sleep here, especially with the cold grip of fear around his heart, but he drifted, and it was in this way that he survived his day in the dark.
That night, Harry was startled by the door opening. He sat up like a spring, quickly wiping away the tears that hadn't really stopped the entire day. Vernon glared sourly in, lit from behind by the light in the front hall. Harry stared back, not daring to hope that he was being fetched from his punishment early. Vernon did this sometimes, when he grew tired of Petunia's less spectacular meals, or was angry and needed someone to vent on. It was too soon to be the former, but even so, Harry prayed it wasn't the latter. Those beatings were always the worst.
"Get out here, boy," Vernon growled, moving away from the door.
Harry decided quite quickly that even Vernon's worst beating was better than staying here in the dark. He scrambled immediately out of the cupboard and stood in the hall. Vernon jerked his thumb at the living room door, and Harry scuttled past, flinching in expectation. However, the harsh cuff he was accustomed to didn't come. Vernon only followed him silently into the living room. There, Harry stood waiting nervously, doing his best to look brave before his cruel relatives, who stood in front of the couch looking especially cross and disheveled. Ordinarily, he would have no trouble standing tall before his three greatest tormentors, but the fear from the cupboard still held its icy grip on his heart, and he was terrified he would be returned there as soon as they had done whatever it is they had summoned him out for.
"Boy," Vernon growled. "We're…That is, we're…" He cleared his throat. "Your aunt and cousin and I…" He cleared his throat again.
"Oh, for heaven's- We're sorry," Petunia bit out angrily. Dudley nodded enthusiastically, looking terrified, and Vernon grunted, giving his own stiff nod.
"That's all you'll get from us," Vernon said roughly. "So you can put a stop to all this damnable business."
Harry gaped at his relatives. He had to be hearing things. "What damnable business?" He asked in confusion.
"Stop the bad things, alright?" Dudley demanded in a trembling voice. "We're right tired of it, Cousin."
Vernon stepped forward and shoved a scrap of paper into Harry's chest. "You got a guardian angel, Boy. You tell 'em to stop, or no amount of bad luck will stop me beating you into a bloody pulp."
With that said, Vernon led his family from the room. Harry looked down at the note in his hands and smiled at the drifting, looping scrawl he found there. 'You were warned.' Yeah, he definitely had a guardian angel…and he wouldn't trade him for the world.