The red and gold tie around Harry's neck feels like it's choking him the first time he puts it on.
After the Sorting Ceremony, Harry follows the Guard like the rest of his House does, right to the dungeons of a tower where the doors are made of thick steel bars. They stop at the bottom of the stairs and the Guard separates them into gender and then into fives, assigning each quintet to a room.
The circular rooms are mostly bare stones, with five stained mattresses settled by the walls and a chamber pot in the room's centre. Two threadbare robes lie on top of each mattress, faded through hard use. When they are in the room, the Guard shuts the door and moves on, leaving with the only light source nearby except a small, glassless window.
Not one of his new roommates speak. They all choose a mattress quickly enough and settle on them, staring at each other in the near-darkness, each wondering why the others have ended up here, in Gryffindor, the House of the Unfavoured. Some are easy to guess, like the redheaded boy in red robes - Harry's surprised they even let a traitor into Hogwarts, personally - and the shivering blonde boy with his mother's face who, like Harry, has been condemned for the sins of his parents in the Revolt.
Frank and Alice Longbottom were just as much Undesirables as James Potter was, after all.
And all three of them were Gryffindors, back before the Revolt. Harry's mother likes to tell him how it all used to be very different, how being a Gryffindor was a good thing. It's hard for him to imagine, lying there on the thin, lumpy mattress with the memory of the Council's baleful glares so fresh in his mind. Harry wonders if his father would be proud of his legacy.
Sleep is hard to come by that night.
Harry and the other boys in his room are woken up at six o'clock for wand assignment. They follow the Guard back to the room they were Sorted in, where an incredibly old man sits behind the Council's long table with piles of thin boxes stacked haphazardly behind. The old man - the Wand Master - looks at them with sharp grey eyes as they're lined up before him.
"The usual restrictions apply?" The old man asks the Guard, who nods gruffly and shoves Harry forward.
The old man gestures to the boxes behind him. Harry takes the hint and walks around the table to find two stacks of boxes with an aisle between them. When he looks back at the old man, he is told to touch each box until he finds his wand.
"How will I know?" Harry says curiously. The Guard smacks him for talking back.
"You will just know." The old man smiles.
The feeling Harry gets when he touches the box is the best thing he's ever felt, an encompassing sense of rightness that is truly magical. The old man is right; Harry does just know it's his wand, even though he's still got boxes left. He knows it's his wand because nothing will feel better than this.
He smiles and presents the box to the Wand Master. The old man frowns and pulls out the wand. It's slim, long and dark, and Harry cherishes it already. "Curious," the old man mutters.
The Guard clears his throat. The old man starts. "Hmm," he hums, waving his own wand over Harry's in a complicated twisting movement.
There is no light to indicate a spell, but when Harry picks it up again, the thrum he feels is distant and cold as if the heart of the wand were no more. A bitter part of him wonders whether Hogwarts is where magic is learnt or where magic comes to die.
Breakfast is after they've all found their wands and had them modified. They're led to a grand hall where four tables sit: one, on the far right, with a healthy abundance of food, from cereals to meats to dairy, more food than Harry thinks he's eaten all his life; the one next to it with a smaller range and amount, but still mouthwatering; the next two tables, however, have only a bowl in front of each seat place, filled with some sort of porridge or gruel.
It does not surprise Harry that they are led to a table with bowls.
He ends up sitting with his back to the outer walls, staring across the hall at the other three tables, including the two with plenty of delicious food. The students from those Houses, Slytherin and Ravenclaw, are dressed in neat, new black robes and enjoy their breakfasts in a way that Harry wishes he could, laughing and gorging.
The Hufflepuffs, the mudbloods, are dressed the same as the Gryffindors and eat the same way, sombre and silent and staring. The divide is clear here between the favoured and the unfavoured, as if it were drawn clearly on the floor, and it's obviously designed so everyone will know their place.
Harry's always know he's been on the bottom of society. It'd never bothered him before. But now, seeing how the other half of society actually lives, he does mind, and something ugly begins to grow within him.
Their classes are taught by a small, vicious woman with stooped shoulders and a sharp tongue. She teaches both the Hufflepuffs and the Gryffindors, the mudbloods and the unfavoured, since they all fall under the same magic restrictions.
Harry feels a sense of apprehension as a pair of built Guards escort them from breakfast to a large classroom in the dungeons. It's a strange room, long and thin, with rows of desks facing one larger desk where the professor sits, smirking unkindly as they seat themselves. A dismissive wave of her hand sends the Guards out of the room.
"What a sad, disgusting bunch you are," their professor drawls. She stands and beings to prowl in the aisles between the desks. "You are not worthy of what little magic you are permitted to learn."
For all her insults, the professor teaches them little that Harry does not already know. But when Harry raises his hand to ask her a question, her smirk turns into a scowl and her wand is raised the next second. A sudden burst of pain makes him scream, writhing so much he falls from his chair and onto the floor.
After it is over and he lays panting and shaking, the professor snaps, "No questions."
Their afternoons are spent providing assistance to the other students of the castle, the ones with full magical rights. Assistance is a broad term, one that Harry finds to be ever changing and constantly terrifying for its unpredictability. Sometimes, like on their very first day, they will spend the time cleaning the Ravenclaw and Slytherin dormitories, washing their clothes, preparing their meals; these times are Harry's favourites.
Most of the time, however, especially as the term progresses, their duties become more demanding. Target practise. Spell effect demonstrators. Stress relief.
It does no good to protest. The Gryffindors learn this quickly after finding, often firsthand, that the only response is pain, sharp and unrelenting. Even sullen glares are enough to warrant some sort of punishment, whether it be a backhand or a curse, and sometimes there are punishments for no reason at all.
Harry is no stranger to pain - he knows the agony of starvation like it's a family friend, gnawing and aching deep in his gut - but it is during these afternoons that he learns a new definitions of pain. It gets hard to define because it is afflicted in so many ways: the sharp scratch of a cut, the sear of a burn, the blunt force of a hit. And the bone deep agony of the curses, lingering and heavy.
Harry also learns to keep his head down and his mouth closed, however much he hates to do it. Someone will be punished, but if he's meek, it might not be him.
Harry's favourite time of day is when the Guard locks them into their room and leaves them in darkness. The steel bars of the room used to scare him because they meant he could not get out, but these days he's learnt to appreciate them because no one can come in, either. It's just him and the four other Gryffindors and maybe they don't talk all that much, but it's comforting to hear the cacophony of their breathing in the nighttime. He's not alone in his misery, and it's awful to think, but he's glad.
One of their favourite targets is the redheaded traitor boy who sleeps in Harry's room. The boy has wide, distressed eyes but can never speak a word, and Harry gets the impression that this makes all the teachers and other students angry. And because they can never punish him for speaking out of turn, they seem to make a game of finding little things to punish him for.
Like breathing too loudly. Or blinking too much.
It's horrible, watching the red traitor boy be tortured. Like all traitors, the boy has no tongue to scream with and the noises he makes instead are awful, pitiful things like an animal keening in pain. He writhes on the floor, dirtying his threadbare red robes, scratching at his own skin, eyes rolling, always making these horrible gasping keening sounds, and Harry feels sick.
For whatever reason, they're allowed to keep their wands on them at all times. Harry wonders whether that's telling of how useless their wands actually are.
Being under magic restriction means, rather simply, that they are only allowed to cast a few specific spells. They are taught what few spells they are allowed to know and little else; there is no point of teaching more, as the modifications on their wands make them incapable of casting more spells anyway.
It doesn't stop Harry from trying. He's seen the curse performed so many times that it's easy to remember the wand movement and incantation, and part of him really wants to make them hurt like they make him hurt, like they make the red traitor boy hurt. It makes him furious that he is so helpless, so unable to do anything but watch and hurt.
"Crucio," he whispers, swishing his wand. The tip of his wand emits a feeble red glow before dissipating.
Harry tries again. "Crucio!" He hisses. It fails again.
He feels like throwing his wand away out of disgust. The wand is useless, he is useless, and he is filled with a deep loathing at himself. He ends up dropping it next to his discarded robes on the floor, letting it clatter on the stone floor, turning on his mattress so his back faces it.
On the next bed over, the red traitor boy watches him with wide eyes.
Harry stabs at his porridge, watching angrily as the Slytherins and Ravenclaws receive their mail. It's the first day of the month - which one, he's not exactly sure, it feels like he's been here forever - and the wards restricting owl communication have been dropped for the morning. Of course, Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs aren't allowed to receive mail and it makes Harry seethe at the injustice of it.
After all, Harry would give a great many things to hear from his mother. He knows the world is not the kindest place for an attractive witch on her own, especially not a muggleborn one. It's not unheard of for them to go missing, to never be seen again.
And damn it all, his mother is the only good thing in his life. He can't lose her. He clenches his fists.
"Potter," the boy next to him hisses. It's the Longbottom boy, his right eye swollen shut and heavily bruised. "Stop it."
At first, Harry doesn't know what he means. Then he looks down in his hands and notices how his spoon has transformed into a wicked-looking curved blade. Shocked, Harry drops the knife, and it rattles loudly on the table and everyone looks at him, even the teachers. Their morning teacher looks furious. A very real fear grips him.
"You there," The Headmaster calls stiffly from his grand chair at the head table. "Potter, go to my office."
And Harry, all eyes in the hall on him, leaves.
The Headmaster is a tall man, imposing, with a beard as pointed as his gaze as he sweeps into the room, Harry trailing behind him. There's not much chance to look around the office before the man rounds on him, wand in hand, and gestures to an uncomfortable-looking wooden chair in front of the large mahogany desk.
"Every year, Potter, we always have one student that does not seem to grasp the status quo." The Headmaster says, sounding oddly measured. "It would seem that this year, it is your turn. Do you know what this means, boy?" He taps his wand on the palm of his hand calmly, appearing disinterested in whether Harry knows or not.
Either way, Harry doesn't answer. The Headmaster continues to speak.
"It means that we need to take drastic measures to ensure you understand how things work."
A dark room. Feet chained, hands chained, barely clothed. Panting. Dehydrated.
"You are worthless."
The curse hits. Pain explodes in his veins. Harry screams.
"You do not deserve to learn magic."
A blunt object slams solidly into his chest. A rib snaps. Harry grunts in pain.
"You are barely human."
Curse hits. Pain. Screams.
"You will never be anything but dirt, like your father."
Hit. Snap. Grunt.
And on and on and on and on and on-
"Do you understand now?"
Harry nods.
His hands won't stop shaking and he can barely hold his wand but maybe that's for the best because he doesn't deserve to learn magic and he's worthless and it's in his DNA because his father was worthless as well and nothing he can ever do will ever change that because worthless is worthless always but maybe if he's quiet enough they'll forget about him and Harry'll forget about himself and he'll fade into nothing and the world will be a better place.
Returning home is like stepping into another life, one that is a lie. In many ways it is uncomfortable; Harry doesn't remember how to be his old self anymore (doesn't deserve the pleasure of remembering) but the new person he has become does not fit in this small flat, with his mother's intimate touches and affection and love. He does his best to be what his mother needs - it's the only speck of worth he actually has - but it's hard to be important to someone when you're worthless. He tries and tries but as the summer progresses, she gets angrier and angrier which obviously must be because she's realised what a pathetic worthless boy he is and visions of his mother casting that awful red curse haunt his dreams.
And when she leaves him at the gates of Hogwarts, she has this look of regret in her eyes that must be because she never got the chance to curse him. He wishes he could stay so she'll be happy - it's not like he deserves to learn magic anyway.
But the Guards are waiting and Harry's wishes are just as worthless as he is.
"Bye mum," he says, and walks back into the school, his red and gold tie tight around his neck.