Eleven-year-old Percy Weasley looked proudly at the rat in front of him, sitting curled up in his new Hogwarts hat. A pet of his very own, even if it was a hand-me-down, and such a nice one too. He had almost nothing bad to say about it; its fur was a pale grey and was unusually clean, and its little pink ears were, he thought, rather cute. The rat was also abnormally inquisitive. Percy knew that rats were supposed to be intelligent, but he had never seen one so very curious before. Sometimes he thought that the rat listened to the conversations his parents had at the table, moving its head between the two of them, focused on whomever happened to speak, and Percy could have sworn one morning that the rat had read the paper over his shoulder. The only other odd thing about the little rodent was its left paw, which was missing its middle toe. It had been severed very close to the foot, and very cleanly. Percy was very excited to take it to Hogwarts with him. He would be leaving in just two weeks, off to join Bill and Charlie at the school they did not stop talking about all summer. Bill was Head Boy this year, and Charlie was a Prefect, and the seeker for the Gryffindor quidditch team. If he was honest with himself, Percy was quite nervous about living in the shadow of his brothers. Granted, it would help him to have such popular siblings, especially ones whom the teachers liked, but he wanted to make a name for himself separately. Well, Bill and Charlie both had owls, and now he had his rat, so perhaps that little bit of difference was a start.

The rat had been Bill's first. According to his parents, it had wandered into the house six years ago, a few weeks before Bill was due to leave for Hogwarts, bleeding from the stump of its toe. Bill had found it, and had treated it as best he could, but being only eleven and unable to use magic, he had done a messy job of it. The blood had clotted, and had left an abnormally large scab. Thus, with the connections often made in a pre-adolescent brain, the rat had been dubbed Scabbers. Even though Mrs Weasley had fixed the little thing properly, the name had stuck. Upon entering his fifth year, and as a present for being made Prefect, Bill had chosen an owl, and Scabbers had been passed on to Charlie. When Charlie had chosen his own owl in Diagon Alley just three weeks ago, again as a reward for his being made Prefect, the rat had been bequeathed to Percy.

It sat on Percy's desk, nibbling on some cheese, as he took notes from A History of Magic. It was getting dark, but Percy didn't mind. He had always loved reading, had always loved the pursuit knowledge. And he wanted to be prepared for the classes, ready to prove his worth. He half expected for the Sorting Hat to shout "Ravenclaw!" before it even touched his head. But he wanted to be in Gryffindor, with the rest of his family.

"Percy! Dinner!" The warm voice of Mrs Weasley floated up the rickety staircase of the Burrow and through the crack in Percy's door. Percy's stomach rumbled. He deposited Scabbers into his shirt pocket and walked down the stairs.

"Oh, Percy dear, don't eat with the poor thing in your pocket, just set him down, will you?" Mrs Weasley asked as she attempted to coax Ginny away from the cat and to the table. "Why don't you let him outside for a while? He's been stuck in your room all day."

As Percy went to the front door, he could see Fred and George lightly kicking Ron under the table.

"Stop it!" Shrieked the poor seven-year-old, banging his fists on the table and upsetting his glass of pumpkin juice.

"Ron, Fred, George," said Mr Weasley, sighing, "enough at the table." He sighed again, before pointing his wand at the mess and saying, "evanesco." It vanished instantly.

"But it wasn't us Dad," said George.

"No," agreed Fred. "It was the spiders."

"They're everywhere. They creep,"

"And crawl,"

"And burrow,"

"And bite."

And at the twins' synchronised grins, Ron burst into tears.

"It's alright, Ron," said Fred.

"Yeah," said George. "You just have to make sure you don't sleep with your mouth open."

"Otherwise they'll crawl in and bite your insides!"

Ron's cries intensified, even though his mouth was now clamped shut.

"Oh, for goodness sakes," shouted Mrs Weasley. "You two will leave your brother alone! Bill, Charlie, stop laughing, it isn't funny! Arthur!"

The air was cool outside, and Percy breathed it in, refreshing himself. It was a lovely night, and he released Scabbers into it, watching as the little rat ran towards one of the flowerbeds and settled himself. Percy could see the outlines of some gnomes wandering around, and sighed. He, Charlie and Bill would have to deal with them tomorrow.

A large black dog sat curled up in the corner of a stone cell. It was cold, sea spray occasionally wetting his fur as it flew in from the barred window, making it even colder. Outside he could hear the breathing of the cloaked dementors as they floated along the corridors, and the tortured screams of the other prisoners as they relived their worst experiences, slowly going insane. The dog pressed his ears down like flaps over his head with his large paws. Single words rang around his mind, words the dementors hadn't been able to suck away, for they were in no way filled with happiness. Harry. His Godson. Harry. An orphan because of him. Probably living with Lily's muggle sister because of him, because the Ministry would never have let Remus take care of him. The child he had let down. And James. Lily. His own best friends. James. James. His brother in all but blood. He had let them all down.

A few cells down, a woman shrieked, her terrified screams echoing down the corridors. And to the other side of him, another woman laughed, a voice he knew very well. High-pitched and piercing, her cackling joined the screams reverberating through the air. When put together, Sirius Black couldn't tell which was which.

The only light came from the crack between the cupboard door and the floor. It wasn't enough to see by, but for the little seven-year-old boy, it was a comfort; a reminder that he was still in the house. And it was warm, a reminder that he wasn't somewhere else, somewhere dark and scary, like it was in the dream that had never gone away. In the dream where the flash of light had been green and strong, almost fluorescent, and had been accompanied by laughter which sounded like the scratch of a knife on a metal pole. Harry always woke up shaking and sweaty, with tear tracks down his face, but he knew better than to go to his aunt and uncle for comfort. Dudley was always allowed in their bed when he had a bad dream, but Harry was three when he realised that they did not love him like that. Harry had woken up crying and scared, and unable to go back to sleep because of the dream, had padded his way up the stairs to his aunt and uncle's room. He had entered, and had gone to his aunt's side, putting a small hand on her shoulder. He had not expected the anger in her eyes when she saw who had woken her.

"What are you doing here, boy?"

"I… I had a bad dream, and… and –"

But here he was cut off, as his aunt swung her legs over the edge of the bed, grabbed his wrist rather roughly in her hand, and all but dragged him back down to the cupboard under the stairs.

"You are not to leave your cupboard at night, and you are not to enter your uncle's and my bedroom, under any circumstances. We don't want you in there. Do you hear me?"

As she hissed at him, tears started to form in Harry's eyes. "But when Dudley gets scared –"

"You are not Dudley. You are not my son," she said as she held the cupboard door open. "Now get in there."

Now Harry's tears had begun to fall properly, and trying to take her hand in his, said, "but I'm scared Auntie Tunia!"

"I don't care," was her reply, accompanied by an unceremonious shove into the cupboard. And right before she closed it, engulfing the little boy in darkness, she said, "and it's Aunt Petunia to you."

The next morning, as Harry had been cleaning up Dudley's toys, he had watched his uncle drill a bolt onto the cupboard. Every single night since then, they had locked it.

It was locked now, but it wasn't night time yet. No, Harry was locked away because he had been naughty. Very, very naughty. He had broken the window. He didn't know exactly how he had done it, but he knew he had, and his Aunt and Uncle seemed to know it too.

Dudley had punched him in the face, breaking both his nose and his glasses in the process, and then had proceeded to taunt him with names of freak and burden. At the peak of Harry's pain and anger, the window behind him had shattered, glass flying everywhere and cutting them both.

Dudley had howled. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had rushed in from the backyard, and once they saw the scene before them, had all but lost their minds. Harry's aunt and uncle had yelled at him like they never had before. His aunt had given him a hard slap across the face, one that made Harry's head spin, before leading a screaming Dudley back to the kitchen.

His uncle was not so kind. His slap was harder than Aunt Petunia's; his hand was bigger. And then he had picked his nephew up by the wrist and hurled him into his cupboard. Harry had hit the wall behind and had fallen rather painfully on his other wrist. He heard a crack, and then his wrist was on fire. Blood trickled down various places where the glass had cut him, and biting his lip and screwing his courage, he yanked upwards on the chunk of glass embedded in his thigh. The tears came, but he was careful to make no noises, as he knew his punishment would then be worse than just being locked away. He could still hear Dudley howling outside while Aunt Petunia tried to calm him, and Uncle Vernon yelling on the phone to someone to come and have a new window fitted.

Harry dabbed at the cuts with his worn old blanket, silent tears streaming down his face. He screwed his eyes shut, and wished the same wish he had been sending to the stars for the past four years. That someone loved him, and wanted him, and would come and rescue him from the Dursleys.