Family Affairs and Frustrations

Collapsing back onto his pillow, he shut his eyes forcefully. Maybe if he was lucky he could get a couple more hours of dreamless sleep.

Five minutes later he sat up again. Tom's smug amusement still echoed in the back of his mind, causing him to sigh heavily. He knew a lost cause when he saw one.

This was not going to be a good day. That was already evident.

Sometimes he...

Well, sometimes he wished he didn't have to bother at all.

"I think we should run through the schedule one more time," Uncle Vernon said, some degree of nervousness evident in his voice.

His bloody relatives were so thick they needed a schedule to entertain guests.

"We should all be in position at eight o'clock. Petunia, you will be -?"

"In the lounge, waiting to welcome them graciously to our home."

Aunt Petunia was a lot of things, but never gracious.

"Good, good, and Dudley?"

"I'll be waiting to open the door...May I take your coats, Mr. And Mrs. Mason?"

"They'll love him!"

Honestly, he felt a bit sick now. No, seriously - his stomach was squirming at this point.

"Excellent, Dudley. And you?"

Splendid, now it was his turn.

"I'll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I'm not there," he said in deadpan.

"Exactly." The man took a moment to smirk viciously at him, his pudgy face turning a pleased shade of red, before he turned back to his eagerly listening wife and son. "I will lead them into the lounge, introduce you, Petunia, and pour them drinks. At eight fifteen -"

Exactly eight fifteen, Harry wanted to snark.

"I'll announce dinner," his Aunt said proudly, as though she was impressed with her own ability to remember to announce dinner.

"And Dudley, you'll say -"

"May I take you through to the dining room, Mr. and Mrs. Mason?" Dudley rehersed smugly.

"My perfect little gentleman!"

Harry almost choked on air.

"And you?" Uncle Vernon turned to him with a nasty scowl.

"I'll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I'm not there," he repeated tonelessly, straightening his face and doing his best to look as witless as the rest of his...family. The very word made his skin crawl. There were times when the fact that he was related to these stupid muggles truly disgusted him.

"Precisely. Now, we should aim to get in a few good compliments at dinner. Petunia, any ideas?"

"Vernon tells me you're a wonderful golfer, Mr. Mason...Do tell me where you bought your dress, Mrs. Mason..."

Harry doubted Aunt Petunia even knew what a wonderful golfer was. He sure didn't. He didn't even realize you could be 'wonderful' at golfing.

"Perfect...Dudley?"

"How about, 'we had to write an essay about our hero at school, Mr. Mason, and I wrote about you'."

Aunt Petunia burst into tears of joy at that, embracing her son with rapturous pride.

Meanwhile, Harry's eyes were wide. That was...he was mentally speechless. Not a single intelligent thought managed to take tangible form in his brain.

The stupid muggle had broken him.

Hopefully it was only temporary.

"And you, boy?"

"I'll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I'm not there," he said automatically, the slightest bit of wonderment in his voice.

Uncle Vernon looked at him a bit oddly, before saying, "Too right you will!"

Now focusing on piecing back together his own sensibilities, he drowned out the rest of the conversation, repeating, "I'll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I'm not there" whenever necessary.

It was times like this when he really wished he could do some real magic outside of school. Not just silly unlocking charms, disillusionments, and levitations. It was all so tame, all so boring. The cruciatus curse -

He almost slammed his head on the table. His dream was still messing with his head. He grit his teeth, suddenly aware of how Tom-ish his thoughts had been up until that point. Honestly, he didn't feel like himself at all.

After that ordeal - that impressive test of his never ending patience and longsuffering - he'd, predictably, been expected to do some last minute yard work, which he was thankful for; there was nothing like a bit of hard labour to make him feel more like himself. Tom didn't have a very happy childhood, but one thing he'd never experienced was a mile-long chore list. In fact, to the best of his knowledge, Tom had never done a day of hard labour in his life. Lucky him.

Well, maybe not. The fact that tasks like weeding or mowing the lawn were clear-cut divisions between his experiences and Tom's was enough to make Harry less averse to his more physically demanding chores. There were times when he still struggled to separate himself from the boy that haunted his dreams – in fact, there were times, like that morning, when he thought it was getting worse. More and more, his experiences were mirroring Tom's – learning magic, attending classes at Hogwarts, and even performing spells with a wand that was a brother to Tom's (which felt remarkably similar) – and it was disconcerting in some ways. Every night he witnessed a few poignant moments of his best friend's journey from being a model Hogwarts student, much like himself, to being the most feared dark lord in history, which Harry never wanted to become...and bearing witness to this journey always served as a sobering reminder of how close he was to becoming somebody he didn't want to be. He didn't want to take pleasure in hurting people – he didn't want to enjoy killing people. That wasn't Harry Potter – that was Tom Riddle, and they were not the same person. They weren't.

So these days, Harry valued every departure his life took from the template Tom had laid out in front of him; and physical exertion was a big part of this.

Tom was an extremely cerebral being. The dark lord was clever, cunning, and unmatched magically – he could defeat most of his foes while lounging casually on a cozy sofa (really, Harry could just picture it) – and so had never felt the need to play Quidditch or run, which were activities Harry was keen on enjoying. And he really did enjoy them. It was so easy, when his best friend was in his own head, to forget to really savour how it really feels to be in the world. Too often, he was caught up in his own mind – where everything really happened – and even his own body seemed far away, at times.

He would always remember that first time he lost control of his own body – the first time he became a being of pure spirit, without physical grounding...at least, the kind of physical grounding that makes you feel truly alive. He knew what it was like to feel far away from his own finger tips; to witness the world through a veil; to breath hollow breaths – and sometimes, knowing this didn't bother him so much, which scared him. He didn't want to relinquish control of his body. It was one of the few things his parents had given to him that he still had, and he'd die before he let that be taken away from him.

So while Harry was a rather cerebral being himself, he valued the aching of his sore muscles, the feeling of sweat dripping from his brow, and the kiss of the fresh summer breeze on his face. He savoured the frailty of the human body, because it reminded him that he was there. That's why he never complained when Aunt Petunia gave him his list of chores for the day – there was a part of him that craved exhaustion and pain. It somehow felt comfortable. When he was there he couldn't be guilty, sad, restless, or lonely – he was there. And sometimes that's exactly where he wanted to be.

But that was not to say he did not feel immense relief when shutting himself in his room after a few hours of hard labour.

When he did so, he always removed Tom's mirror from beneath his pillow for a friendly hello.

"Happy birthday, Harry," Tom said immediately that day, holding an expression on his face that Harry believed he was supposed to interpret as encouragement, but really just came off as what it really was – Tom's haphazard attempt to put Harry in a mood that was agreeable to him.

Harry smiled at him weakly nonetheless. "Thank you, Tom."

....

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