It had started like any other day, with Harry Potter being rudely jolted awake by his Aunt Petunia slamming on the door to his cupboard. Harry groaned under his breath, as his numerous injuries protested any movement. He desperately longed to stay where he was, but his relatives would never permit him to stay in bed all day. If he didn't want movement to hurt, he shouldn't keep doing his freakish things. If he only acted normal, Uncle Vernon would not beat him so viciously. He would still have to do all the chores and cook the meals, but he wouldn't be covered in so many bruises you would think he had been struck head on by a trolley. Harry meekly exited the cupboard under the stairs that served as his room and stood in front of his aunt, even as every fiber of his body protested the action. Aunt Petunia sneered at him as he stood there, eyes firmly on the floor. He knew better than to let her see his eyes, such a vibrant emerald green that they almost seemed to glow. She raised a hand and slapped him viciously, making him fall backwards into the door. Harry bit his lip, desperately fighting not to make a sound. Freaks were not to be heard unless spoken to. They were to silently perform all tasks and take all discipline.Any sound would just make his punishment worse. "Next time you won't laze around like an ingrate when you're called, Freak!" Petunia spat, as yet another bruise bloomed on Harry's face. "You're to cook breakfast immediately. Dudley's favorites of course. And you had better not burn anything if you want to eat this week." Harry nodded silently and moved towards the kitchen. He knew the chances of him getting any food were slim anyway, especially on his cousin's birthday. He had to hurry. It was going to take him an hour to make enough food to feed his obese relatives and he could hear them beginning to stir upstairs. Neither were known for their patience. Grimly, Harry set to the task before him, preparing Sausages, bacon, toad in the hole, omelets with ham and cheese, toast,beans, and a mountain of chocolate chip pancakes covered in whipped cream and caramel sauce. A carafe of coffee sat directly next to his uncle's chair and he pulled a jug of freshly squeezed orange juice from the fridge just in time as his rotund cousin thundered into the kitchen and began shoveling food onto his plate. Harry set the juice on the table and silently stood in the corner, waiting for his family to finish their meal, and praying to whoever would listen that they left him something. Hearing the slot clank, he silently went to fetch the post. Flipping through it, he was shocked to find an envelope addressed to him.It even mentioned his cupboard. Dazed, he began to examine it closer as he returned to the kitchen to lay the rest of the mail on the table for his Uncle Vernon to peruse at his leisure. "Daddy, look, Harry has a letter." Dudley exclaimed, snatching the yellowed envelope from Harry. "Give that back, it's mine!" Harry protested, attempting to reclaim the first piece of mail he had ever received in his life. "Yours?" his uncle scoffed, taking the envelope, " Who would write to you, you worthless freak?" He flipped the envelope to the back and paled. "Boy," he snapped," return to your cupboard. There'll be no food for you today." Harry suppressed the desire to groan or beg. It would only earn him another thrashing. Silently, he returned to his cupboard, pulling the door closed behind him. Immediately he heard the latch slammed over, locking him inside, with only a thin sliver of light leaking in from the grate on the door. Harry glumly wondered what could have been in that letter to get him locked in his cupboard. Resigned to never knowing, Harry delicately shifted himself into a more comfortable position. At least he didn't have to do his chores today. Sighing, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall into unconsciousness, sure in the fact that he wouldn't be leaving his too small room again today.
The following week was the strangest week of Harry's short life up to that point. No matter what his aunt and uncle did to escape them, more and more of those strangely addressed letters showed up. Vernon boarded up the mail slot and found five letters laying on the front stoop.Petunia tried to fry an egg but inside every shell was another envelope. Everywhere they turned, these letters were showing up. On Sunday, a day when there wasn't meant to be any post, hundreds of letters flew down the chimney as Harry was serving tea. Vernons mustache had developed a perpetual twitch. Finally having enough, Vernon packed them all into the car and began to drive towards the coast. Along the way, he made a stop at a sporting goods store. He went in alone and returned with a long thi package, wrapped in brown paper and twine. Even after reaching the coast, Vernon wasn't satisfied.He hired a jetty and once more they were off. Finally, long after dark had fallen, they reached a rickety shack set on a rock in the middle of the ocean, no other land in sight. The shack only had a single room upstairs, so Dudley was forced to sleep on the moth-ridden couch. Harry of course was made to sleep on the floor. But sleep was far from Harry's mind now. He had something important to do. He lay there on the dirt floor, covered by a thin threadbare blanket, with no pillow to rest on, and drew a rough outline of a cake, with eleven candles. Now he had to wait. Anxiously he watched as Dudleys wristwatch slowly ticked off the time. With ten seconds to midnight, Harry drew in a breath. But whatever his intentions, they would have to wait. Precisely as the clock struck midnight, Harry blacked out. A fierce wind began to blow around the room as Harry's limp body rose into the air. A blinding light, purple as the evening sky, pulsed out of him. His features sharpened and ten years of abuse and neglect were corrected in an instant. Invisible chains, wrapped around his head and heart, snapped like trees in a hurricane. Suddenly, a burst of unknown energy exploded out of the young boy and radiated through the shack and beyond, traveling all the way to an office in a hidden castle in the Scottish Highlands. Dozens of silver instruments all violently exploded before reassembling themselves, appearing as if nothing happened but no longer performing the same tasks they had for ten years. Back in the shack, two grief and guilt laden screams erupted from the adults, who for the first time in a decade had control of their own actions. The woman sobbed as she was finally allowed to grieve for the sister she lost so long ago. The man eyed a shotgun, still in its brown paper wrappings, and wondered if his death would atone for the horrendous treatment his nephew had endured at his own hands. Downstairs, his eleven year old son wept, the truth of his actions too much for his young mind to bear. Gently, Harry floated back to the ground, never knowing how drastically his life had changed. An enormous man, covered in wild, unkempt hair, paused with his hand raised and wondered what he was doing on a rock in the middle of the ocean. Deciding to go have a drink while he tried to remember his goal, he turned and left the way he came, Meanwhile, Harry slept, peacefully and without the pain that had plagued him for all his life. Upstairs, his guardians composed themselves and swore to do everything in their power to atone for what their nephew had endured with them.