Oh my God, Harry's not a normal boy...who woulda thought?

Aunt Petunia is emotionally and mentally abusive but she's also bloody boring. Can she be redeemed? idk bro.
I didn't put a POV here...wow...improvement no?
I know there's not a lot of dialogue but it'll get better later on but gotta set the scene first ya know?
Italicized quotes are Parseltongue


June 10th, 1991


It was a hot summer's day. Children were playing in the street or eating ice cream while the adults sat around discussing family matters or gossip as they drank iced tea in front of their air conditioners, trying to beat the summer heat. It was a typical summer's day for the residents of Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey, England. It was normal for everyone except Harry Potter, the forgotten boy who lived at Number 4 Privet Drive with his aunt Petunia's family. Instead of ice cream and iced tea, he welcomed every summer for the past 6 years with the taste of his own sweat as it made its way down his face and over his lips while he worked pulling weeds in the garden, and this time it was no different.

Instead of being surrounded by friends or sitting in front of the air conditioning, the unforgiving sun was his only companion, and the shed in the backyard was the only place he could find solace. He could feel the sweat rolling down his arms, and his fingers were beginning to ache with the amount of time he'd spent grabbing and pulling up weeds. Harry knew he was going to need a break in the shed soon with the sun's unforgiving and harsh rays burning his skin. It was not such a bad thing when a breeze passed by; it kept his skin cool and made it easier to resist the urge to ask for water or risk being caught drinking from the hose. There was always a greater chance that his aunt or uncle would give him a bottle if he showed some kind of restraint. It took a while, but soon Harry learned that doing these things became a sort of test for him to see how much he could handle—or rather, how much his aunt or uncle would allow him to handle before giving in.

This was not normal treatment for a child, but if you asked his family why they treated young Harry this way, they would tell you it was more than he deserved. The neighbors wouldn't know anything if you asked them either; all they would do is stare with false confusion clouding their eyes. Willful ignorance was their alibi, while misinformation and lies became their refuge in the face of the abuse they could see if they only looked his way with more than poorly veiled contempt and judgment. If you asked Harry, he wouldn't say a word. Not because he didn't know it was wrong, but because he knew it was. At first, he truly believed it was normal and that if he did everything right, eventually he'd be able to go outside and play. As the years passed, however, he stopped believing. He noticed that the other children did not have to do various chores. He noticed that the neighbors called in workers to weed their gardens or repaint the faded wood stripped by the rain.

He watched mothers cooking and washing dishes while their children played outside, and if he had to remain out late, he saw families gathered around the table, talking and laughing, and he longed to join them. Harry was aware that if he turned to face his house, he would see his family seated at the table and taking pleasure in a supper that he had cooked himself. He was more than aware that his cousin Dudley was treated with affection and kindness, despite the fact that, as his uncle put it, he had not "earned it." Despite being disillusioned and a non-believer, he had little choice but to accept it; it seemed like everyone else did, and he despised it. He longed for parents who would love him, who would acknowledge him, and who would not dismiss him as a burden. He hoped for friends who would always be there for him, not mock him or throw rocks at him. He yearned for a place where he belonged—a place where he could be a normal 10-year-old boy.

Needless to say, Harry knew he would never have that chance living with his aunt.

His aunt liked to say that she was as normal as the next person, living a normal, modest life, looking like a normal, modest woman, and having a normal, modest family, and Harry's presence disturbed that. Harry wasn't so sure the modesty part was correct, but his family was as normal as they came, or at least they were his aunt's definition of normal. His aunt was a petite woman with pale blue eyes and straight blonde hair that was neatly pinned to her head in curls. She was a true 1950s housewife transported to the 1990s. Her skin was as equally pale as her eyes; it was almost a dull white that only showed signs of life when she was angry; her flushed cheeks took on an unnatural hue due to the blush she'd apply every morning. Harry once saw a photo of his grandparents on the fireplace before his aunt removed it, and he noticed his aunt shared one single feature with each of her parents. She had her mother's blonde hair and her father's blue eyes. Harry thought his aunt could have been adopted; she looked nothing like her parents, whose smiles were wide and full of life. From what Harry could remember from the picture, his grandmother's blonde hair was a dark but thick golden yellow, and his grandfather's eyes were a deep and vivid ocean blue. His aunt truly looked nothing like her parents; compared to them, she was too normal and almost boring.

Maybe she was used to being the boring kind of normal, Harry thought, and so that's what she aimed for. His aunt, Harry knew, was not one to divert too much from her comfort zone, and for a while, his aunt had everything she desired—until he arrived, that is. For her, there was nothing he could do that would ever make him a normal boy in her eyes, and as Harry grew older, he couldn't always say that his aunt was completely wrong. There were many things about Harry that made his aunt angry and the rest of the neighborhood suspicious of him. Even though his family lied and said he had behavioral problems, there were some things Harry could not explain away. He tried once, to find some sort of explanation for the things he could do and even though his aunt repeatedly said it was impossible, Harry had a feeling that what he could do was magic. His aunt hated whenever he suggested that magic was the answer; she'd always say that magic wasn't real, not that Harry believed her.

One of the things about Harry that had no reasonable explanation was his long, unruly hair. It reached the middle of his back and could never be brushed into compliance. Truth be told, Harry didn't mind the long hair. Sure, it wasn't ideal in the summer, but he didn't hate it. His aunt, however, felt it was too "girly" for a boy to have such long hair. The first time his aunt tried to cut it, the next day it was back to its previous length. She ranted and raved for a good hour or so before she tried to cut it again, and later that day it grew back longer than before. It took a few more times before she gave up trying at all. To Harry, it seemed as if his hair was rebelling; to his aunt, however, it was another thing that made him a freak. Funny enough, Harry had noticed that whenever it happened, his aunt was almost expecting it, and instead of freaking out because it wasn't normal, she seemed angry that it happened in the first place.

The second thing Harry didn't have an explanation for was the strange things that tended to happen around him: lights flickering like in horror movies, books flying off the shelves—odd things no one could explain, despite Harry's insistence that it had to be magic. Even when his aunt was able to come up with excuses that the neighbors easily believed, it didn't matter much in the end, not when they resulted in negative reactions regardless. It made dinner guests refuse to come over unless Harry was in his room after a particular incident involved an entire pudding being thrown across the room when Harry was running from Dudley. That night was the first time Harry was ever truly afraid of his aunt and uncle; their anger seemed to seep into the walls and replaced all the oxygen in the air, aided by their embarrassment and Dudley's fake tears as he played the victim.

Harry was lucky; they were able to explain it away, but it left a sour taste in their guests' mouths regardless, and word quickly spread to the rest of the neighborhood. From that day on, Harry was looked at with distrustful eyes by almost every adult, who warned their children against coming into contact with him. However, while Harry had many unexplainable things about him, for some strange reason, the one thing that seemed unforgivable in his aunt's mind was something so very simple. With that in mind, nothing was more offensive to his aunt and uncle than his skin color.

For a moment, Harry stopped his work and just stared at his hands; they were interesting, to say the least. While his cousin, Dudley, had beefy hands, Harry knew his hands were soft from the times Dudley pushed him to the floor. Harry could not say the same about his own. Brown skin blemished by cuts and dirt that seemed to take up permanent residence beneath his fingernails, giving the impression he never took a shower. Lifting his hands up toward the sky, his brown skin had a radiance to it as the sun's rays hit him. Harry, as far as he knew, was the only person with darker skin on his entire street. While his neighbors would get sunburned if they stayed out too long, Harry's skin only darkened in shade, and while Harry didn't think his aunt was racist, the darkening of his skin tone surely didn't help the matter.

It was unusual for his aunt... to be so different from their neighbors; she despised it, but more than that, his aunt hated when random strangers stared at them when they took Harry out in public. Their puzzled looks, small frowns on their faces as if seeing the family was something they couldn't comprehend, and finally, their pitying looks directed at Aunt Petunia as they took in Harry's baggy clothing and dark skin.

Harry often wondered if they truly believed him to be a burden as well; it was as if his place in his aunt's family was the oddest thing they'd seen. It made the neighbors ask questions; it made them watch the Dursleys just a tad more carefully. The ladies of the neighborhood sniffed out a story; the gossiping women, with their mob mentality, were like sharks in the water. His aunt did her best to keep the story as short and simple as possible, and it went a little like this: Her sister married an Indian man despite the family's reservations, and they had a child. Then, less than a year later, her sister and her husband died in a car crash, leaving their child an orphan. The Dursleys later took Harry in, much to their own detriment, but with "open and caring arms." It made for the perfect lie, Harry came to realize; it spared his family any potential wrongdoing while, at the same time, placing the blame upon both him and his dad.

"Such a problem child; he must have gotten it from his father," his aunt liked to say as if that would explain everything, and to Harry's disbelief, it did. No one questioned her, and no one confronted her; they simply nodded as if they were expecting that answer all along. It was the first time his aunt mentioned his father; most of the time, she chose to ignore the fact that he existed at all.

Just like his father, his aunt did not spare Harry's mother from the same treatment. In fact, his aunt barely mentioned her sister, choosing to treat her memory as if it were a figment of her imagination or like a bad dream—remembered but soon forgotten, placed out of sight and out of mind. He had long since learned not to inquire about his parents after a particularly awful rant from his uncle, so any questions about his heritage would go unanswered. Truthfully, he only learned he was Indian from a passing comment his uncle made; Harry didn't remember what it was, but he mentioned Indian immigrants, and Harry never forgot about it. Nonetheless, he did manage to learn about India from various books in his school library, but it was all vague; he had no idea which state in India he came from, so while it satisfied him for a short time, it wasn't long before he once again had questions tickling his brain.

Even so, despite his family's unwillingness to sate his curiosity, not all of his questions went unanswered. The first question of his that he received an answer to was about the matter of his scar, even though he wasn't the one who asked.

You see, Harry was left with a particularly interesting scar on his forehead. Though Harry was more than used to seeing scars on his body, this one was most unusual because it was in the shape of a lightning bolt. It was a bit raised, and because it never faded from its bright pink, it always looked as if it were days old. Against his dark skin, the scar stood out like a sore thumb, and it was another thing his aunt disliked. No matter how much scar cream she put on his head, the scar was there to stay. Ironically, even though his aunt never bought him a single thing, she spent a hefty amount of money on the creams she used on his scar.

Maybe he would be grateful if that weren't another thing about him that placed him firmly in the category of not normal. People typically ask about his scar when they go out quite often, sometimes to the point where it takes precedence over his skin color. Because of this, his aunt gave him something he never got from her again: advice about how to handle questions about his scar and information about his mother, and it was honestly the only good thing Harry could say his aunt ever did for him.


*FLASHBACK* May 6th, 1990

"Never let anyone ask about your scar, boy." Aunt Petunia said as she drove them home from the grocery store one day.

While it wasn't the first time someone asked about his scar, it was the first time someone tried to touch it. Never before had his aunt protected him from anyone, but the moment she saw the stranger reaching out, she grabbed him and quickly placed him behind her while she berated the man for trying to touch him. Harry, like his uncle and cousin, had no idea what to make of her strange behavior, staring at her as if they didn't recognize the woman, and it didn't change for the rest of the night. Harry knew why the man wanted to touch the scar; it was a bit weird that the scar was in the shape it was, so it made sense that it caused people to lose their manners in the way they did. Harry often wondered about it himself; all he knew was that he got it the night his parents died.

"Why?" Harry asked, and Aunt Petunia stopped driving at his question, pulling over the car.

At first, Harry thought she was going to give him a quick smack on the back of his head, but instead, she just stared at him for a long moment through the car mirror. Her gaze was distant, and her pale eyes grew dull and lifeless, but somehow, as she stared at him, her gaze was sharp and focused. It made Harry squirm, and his movement caught her attention, causing her to answer his question.

"It's not a nice thing to ask, and it will almost always head toward where and why you received it. I do not like having to tell the story of how my sister died over and over again."

Her tone was off, and her eyes took that distant look again as her gaze focused on a point behind him. It was the first time he'd seen his aunt show any form of emotion other than dislike or disinterest when it came to his mom. Maybe it was her grief that didn't allow her to speak about her sister, but he doubted he'd find out the reason anytime soon. So, he did the only thing he could do: he silently nodded his understanding as he reached up to stroke his scar. After a while, she looked back at him, her eyes still holding that vacant look. It was a minute before she spoke again, shocking Harry more than she already had.

"You have her eyes, you know."

Harry's eyes widened at that, but before he could say anything, his aunt began driving once more in silence. No one knew what to say to her words—what more was there to say?

It was the last thing she said to him that night. The next morning, she acted as if yesterday had never happened. Her contempt for his existence was back in full throttle.

*END FLASHBACK*


Harry sighed softly. Ever since then, whenever he caught a glimpse of his reflection, he stared at his eyes until he could count every single golden-brown fleck that intertwined with the bright green. He memorized her/his eyes and committed them to memory; no matter how little he knew of his mother, he had her eyes, and for now, that was enough for him. Harry returned to his work after lowering his hands from the sky, his thoughts drifting to other matters. It wasn't long before he was done, and with one last pull, Harry threw the last weed into the pile beside him. Slowly he stood up, his knees cracking in protest, and he frowned at the pain. As Harry stretched his sore body, a small hissing sound reached his ears. Harry looked all around him for the sound, but he couldn't see where it came from.

"Ants," a small voice hissed out.

Turning around, Harry was met with a small grass snake as it slithered toward his aunt's flowers.

"So pretty," Harry whispered. Harry had a fascination with snakes; he felt a certain kinship with them and found them all to be utterly beautiful. This snake was no different, with its bottle-green scales that, while they glistened in the sun, almost blended in with the grass, which turned a darker shade in the shadows of the garden. The snake turned its head in his direction as if it recognized him. For a brief moment, the two exchanged stares before the snake did something Harry swore they could never do.

"Thank you, young speaker."

The snake spoke.

Stunned, Harry could only stand there as he tried to process what he had just heard. When the snake continued on its way, Harry shook his head and stared as it passed him by.

"Wait," he said. Stopping, the snake turned its head in his direction and waited for Harry to speak once more.

"How can you understand me?"

"No." A weird hissing sound came from the snake's mouth. It wasn't loud, but Harry could hear it under the word.

"I do not understand you. You understand me," the snake clarified with a shake of its head. It was strange to hear a snake sound offended as if it were a human.

"How can I understand you? I've never heard of people being able to talk to snakes," Harry said, his words filled with wonder.

This couldn't have been normal… Surely if anyone could speak to snakes, it would have made the news by now... Unless it was one of those things, his aunt and uncle would think it was freaky.

"Only those with the ability known as Parseltongue can converse with us," the snake answered, sounding horrified that it needed to explain this...

How a snake can sound so put-out was not something Harry ever thought he would wonder about. The more important thing is: how could he have an ability he never knew about? Over the years, Harry has seen plenty of snakes, but this is the first time one has talked to him. It's not the first time he's complimented one, but they've never responded before. Why did this one do it?

"How does someone gain this ability? Do other humans have it? Where does it come from?"

His mind was working a mile a minute, and the questions came out even faster. Harry wanted to know; here was a chance he could learn something new about himself, even if it came from a snake. He needed to know.

"You cannot gain the ability." The snake hissed, and if a snake could sneer, this snake would have it down perfectly.

"You're born with it, and humans do not have this ability, you silly little boy. Wizards do."


Next chapter, Harry starts to grow some confidence, learns a new language and we get to see how much of a B-word Petunia can really be. Okay maybe not the harsh b-word but she's definitely a lil brat.