It's surprising to see how much a person can change in such little time. Harriet went from being meek and attentive to her relative's moods into being withdrawn and absentminded.
The Dursleys didn't really notice. Not one bit. Sure Petunia had a few times where she enjoyed slapping Harriet around when the girl didn't notice her snapping fingers. But other than that, the Dursleys didn't notice that Harriet kept to herself more often. No longer was Harriet jumping for Petunia's every wait and demand. No longer did she have the desire to make her Aunt and Uncle look at her with fondness, the kind of looks they gave Dudley. The thoughts that had once plagued Harriet, the kind that said that only if she was better then they would love her more, ceased.
It wasn't like that desire wasn't there anymore, no. Harriet had other things to think about.
Harriet was pulling herself into a new direction. Night after night, when she was certain that the Dursleys were in bed asleep, she'd click on her light and read her mother journal (not a diary). She didn't dare read it when they were awake. The chances of them discovering it was too great that Harriet put it down. She'd nap during the day when Aunt Petunia left her alone. Some days she'd get no sleep. Aunt Petunia wanted her to be outside in the hot weather weeding the garden. Harriet learned that she liked it when the sun was out, and when the rain wasn't coming down because she could hide in the rose bushes and sleep without Aunt Petunia noticing. Harriet couldn't nap easily when it was raining on her.
Some days were worse. Those were the days that Dudley would come after her. With his gang of minions, Harriet had to dodge and weave in order to get them off her trail. Some days she was successful, only coming home when she had no choice. (Uncle Vernon would yell at her being ungrateful and for not doing the chores. Aunt Petunia would loudly tell her that her mum should have aborted her and that she wasn't going to have any food for a week. And those were the good days.) And on other days, it was when Dudley and his team of brainless hench-people shared their two brain cells and something bright might have occurred. Those were the terrible days when they'd find her or corner her and then beat her to the ground. Harriet learned that she had to cover her face and head when they got her on the ground after suffering from another headache that seemed to churn her empty stomach.
Summer was closing to an end in Surrey. Although the days were long and hot, the school months were crawling closer. Believe it or not, Harriet looked forwards to school. Dudley and his group always bemoaned the endless days trapped in a classroom, but Harriet enjoyed the time away from number 4 Privet Drive. She got to go into a nice classroom where she didn't have to clean everything, got a meal every day for lunch, and didn't have to spend every waking moment being called a freak. Harriet figured that school was pretty much the closest thing that she could get to freedom while living with the Dursleys. Sometimes her teachers were nice, but she knew that the ones that got along with Aunt Petunia were the ones who didn't really like her. It had happened twice already, and those school years had been, while tolerable, awful in a sense. Better than being in her cupboard for ages though. There are a few times where Harriet was around when Uncle Vernon wasn't having a good day and Aunt Petunia had to call in for Harriet a few times. But on the bright side, Harriet knows that they can't keep her in her cupboard forever when school was in session, just a few weeks here or there.
And lately, the cupboard hasn't felt like a punishment anymore. Sometimes Harriet desperately wished that she could be in there instead of within Aunt Petunia's watchful sight. Harriet used to hate it sometimes, how the Dursley's could easily banish her back into her hole once she wasn't useful to them anymore. But now… Harriet liked the quiet. She liked the darkness and being able to read. She was able to pick it up faster now that she could read words better. The only noise that could be heard during the night was the sound of pages being turned.
Harriet read her mum's story. About how she enjoyed learning about magic at Hogwarts. How she made a friend named Alice, a kind girl who couldn't hurt a fly. About how Sev was still friendly, although some of the people in his house were dicks. About how she excelled in potions, but her transfiguration skills were dismal. She read about her mum's darkest secrets, her thoughts and feelings, her animosity against Black and another boy who she called a Half-Brained Twit. How they picked on Sev and the other boys from Slytherin. Her feelings on the fact that houses were apparently a huge deal, and how they outcasted others because they weren't in their houses. She read on, talking about her frustrations and happiness on a potion and delight with Sev with their success. They were potions partners. Harriet read until her mum came home from school, and how her sister was still bitter with her. Lily's frustration with her sister. Harriet read until she couldn't anymore, learning more and more about the wonderful magical school that awaited her at 11. Day after day, night after night, Harriet survived under her relatives care and learned about her mum during the darkest hours when she was awake.
Things softly began to change once again. As time continues on indiscriminately, the changes to Harriet came as a fleeting thought or a touch of wonder here or there. It was like a domino effect that never showed the picture as a whole, as the differences that were appearing were too small to notice. Not even Harriet could see what she was slowly becoming, as she stayed in her cupboard for the rest of the summer. As August stepped boldly forward into September when leaves were turning into different shades. October came smoothly, transitioning into the cooler months. Leaves began to fall when finally- the first large instance of Harriet's new self began to immerge.
It was a single thought. It felt like a sliver of light had touched Harriet's mind and vanished. And within that second, Harriet's point of view up and shifted two steps to the left. Of course, it could be also contributed to the fact that Harriet was lying on the cement of a sidewalk as Dudley and his gang of poorly disguised monsters stood over her.
'They don't have a single original insult out of all of them.' Harriet's enlightening thought appeared. Shifting her from the old Harriet into the new one.
It was true though. Every single one of the five seven-year-olds was just repeating the same word over and over again. Freak.
"-nothing, freak." Dudley was saying again. And Harriet shifted herself up off the ground, her emotions almost feeling numb by the absence of… what? She didn't know. But suddenly the looming presence of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia's wrath was gone. Harriet… She suddenly didn't seem to care about it anymore. She didn't care at all.
Staring Dudley in the face, Harriet wondered what on earth could somebody see in him. The moment felt long as Dudley leaned in to push her into the ground. Harriet didn't have to stop him, the look on her face made him hesitate. And using a delightful arsenal from her mum's journal, Harriet retaliated.
"At least I'm not failing class, you half-witted piece of shit. Mummy and Daddy are paying your teachers off because you can't even read." Harriet steadily spoke in one breath. Then stepped forwards. "If you call me a freak or your buddies try and hurt me again, I'll show you exactly why your parents are so afraid of me."
"Mum and Dad aren't scared of you." Dudley jerked forwards to reply as if he was caught off guard.
"Your Dad puts a lock on his gun safe to keep people out, yeah?" Harriet said. "Well, they put a lock on my cupboard door to keep me inside."
Dudley swallowed. He and his cronies didn't look as confident as before. Figuring that Harriet said something rather logical, and they were seven. Most children are gullible to a degree, and Dudley even more so. And with one sharp movement towards Dudley, he and his small wannabe gang took to the streets.
Harriet stood by herself in the empty alley. Her injuries, although minor, throbbed with every pulse. The sun was at her back, and she stared at her shadow lengthened until it seemed huge. The first step of her change gave Harriet an idea. She could fight back. She didn't have to take whatever bullshite that her family gave to her. Steel crept up her back and it was at this moment that Harriet began to grow a spine.
Even when she gave in that night and walked home to Privet Drive, where Uncle Vernon was waiting for her, Harriet's first few steps into becoming her own person were tremendous. Beaten black and blue, to the point where Harriet knew that she wouldn't be able to go to school for a few weeks at least. Harriet bit her tongue and waited until she was thrown into her cupboard to really think.
It was in the dead of night when there came a small muffled thump from inside of the cupboard. And Harriet set aside her mother's journal for the night to peruse her mother's many books hidden in her trunk. And from there, she made a few discoveries that would forever change her life.
(Out of this day, 4,524 universes were created. Not too many in the grand scale of things, but enough that it was yet again a memorable day. They were mostly small differences that didn't make a single difference in Harriet's decision when it came to her family. Once again, small changes do not make the outcome any different, nor do they have much of an effect upon the world. But Harriet herself was the one who made the large changes this particular day. Upon threatening her cousin, while her emotions were high, Harriet could have had a chance of accidental magic. Scaring off her cousin and his friends, she would have come home to a murderous Uncle Vernon who didn't take prisoners that night.
1,891 universes ended that night with Harriet's death. Of course, in most of those, she went out swinging. Uncle Vernon was either scarred for life or harmed so badly that he had to quit Grunnings and live on disability funding from the government. Aunt Petunia, unable to survive with the sudden loss of income from both her husband and her niece (who had to stay alive for her payments each month), left in the middle of the night leaving Dudley and his father.
The two of them sold the house and lived elsewhere until Dudley was old enough to realize his father was a murderer and then reported him to the authorities. Dudley bounced around the system until he aged out, found a wonderfully nice woman to marry him, joined the army, and had a steady job until Petunia floated back into his life. Petunia, although abandoning her child early in his life, wanted his undivided attention and love. She would verbally (and sometimes physically) attack the woman who he married. After boundary stomping, being a general bitch, violating a restraining order that Dudley had placed on her, and trying to kidnap Dudley's two-month-old child, she ended up in the same place that Vernon did. Jail.
102 universes had Dudley changing his life around. After seeing what strange magical abilities his cousin had, Dudley had experienced what some might call a mid-life crisis at the age of seven. He was not the youngest person who had ever had a crisis like that, but he was definitely on the younger side of the scale. Dudley, upon seeing the vast difference between his parent's treatment of him and his cousin, found himself unable to stop seeing it. He hadn't been aware of all the abuse before, he was so used to it that he thought it was normal. But he watched on as his dad yelled and hit his cousin, about how his mum always made her make food but never gave anything for her to eat. He knew sometimes what it felt to be hungry but he couldn't imagine what it would feel like to starve.
Finally, one day Dudley did the unthinkable. He asked his teacher at school why his parents hit Harriet and why they didn't like her. It brought a landslide of accusations and Dudley and his cousin being taken away to different families. It wasn't until Dudley was at the court to testify that his mum saw him. Petunia and Vernon lost the case as Petunia did the unthinkable- she slapped her son and called him a freak.
Dudley was placed with a nice family and they treated him well. Although not as pampered as he was once used to. Harriet had been placed somewhere else as she had to stay in the hospital for a while due to malnutrition. The then nine-year-old Dudley, as this took place over several years due to court being held up, was happy. And he got to see his cousin every other weekend and they got along fairly well. Dudley lost weight, and he was able to get help where he needed it at school. Turns out dyslexia is a bitch when his mum denied anything was wrong with him.
Then one night he woke up needing a glass of water. That night, he met strangely clad men in dresses in his foster parent's kitchen. He hadn't even a chance to make a noise as they bespelled him and obliviated his memories.
The next day, Dudley woke up in his first bedroom with his mum giving him a plate full of bacon and eggs, saying that he looked too skinny. His father was downstairs reading the newspaper before work, and the freak was under the stairs.
Out of the 102 universes, only 1 Dudley remembered. Who really knows why. Perhaps he had a smidge of magic in his blood from his Aunt Lily that had protected him. He was as muggle as muggle could be. But that one Dudley was still just a child, and after having a mental break down when seeing his mum, spent the night in a psychiatric hospital. That same night, disappearing men and pointy sticks appeared once again to clear up a few loose ends.
Perhaps, if Dudley hadn't been so young, he could have perhaps coped with the sudden change and came up with a plan to remove himself and his shy cousin away from his abusive parents. He could have come up with plans to deter a rather famous and stubbornly impossible wizard that ruled over too many lives. If Dudley hadn't been nine, and perhaps a bit older, he could have saved his cousin from countless heartaches.
But alas, we will never find out. In any universe out there, with however many billions upon billions of them, Dudley had never been sorted into Slytherin. He was honestly more of a Hufflepuff than what people believed.)