Chapter 2: I'm not having this, not at all

Disclaimer: Did the Dursleys keep a poor-relation orphan nephew in the cupboard under the stairs without one single nosy suburbanite arsehole gossip-monger noticing their odd behaviour? If so, I don't own Harry Potter.

Chapter 2

The address is clearly visible: Mr. and Mrs. V. Dursley, 4, Privet Drive, Little Whinging.

So, I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore. Again with the gratitude for no hormones and glands, because this is definitely the right time for hysterical giggling. That kid under the stairs is Harry James Potter and he's a wizard.

That theory that everything, no matter how absurdly fictional, is real somewhere? It just acquired my own personal anecdotal data point.

Fuck. Me. Standing.

Well, I can't stand - float, rather - around being all gobsmacked. I'm a ghost, no gob to be smacked in, for one thing.

Hang on. If this is running by Harry Potter rules, I'm not actually a ghost, am I? Harry would be able to see me, squibs would be able to see me. I'd be able to interact with my environment, at least to the extent of turning the taps on if I was haunting a bathroom. Whatever I am, it's either something that's unknown to the wizards or at least something that didn't make it in to the books.

That I might be in the movie version I don't consider for a moment. I've only seen four human beings so far and none of them look like their actors, the house in the movie is a completely different architectural style - which is all wrong for the dates in the books, as it happens - and I've never seen any of the movies more than once whereas I've re-read the books several times and so I'm hoping my knowledge is actually apropos. If Harry gets on that train in six years' time and meets Emma Watson, though, all bets are off.

And get a clear distinction between canon and fanfiction drawn in your mind, I remind myself. Unless you see incontrovertible evidence that there's more deviation from the books than just your presence.

I can't even entirely rely on my knowledge of the muggle world for more than the superficialities. This version of it has at least three, possibly four towns that don't exist in my world and while the generalities are unlikely to be much different, the specifics might well be. And I have absolutely no way of telling the difference: to pick an example I just saw on the news, if England win the Ashes this year is that the way it happened in my 1985 or not? I honestly can't remember.

I'll have to pay close attention to the news in any event. I grew up in a world that as far as I knew didn't have a secret society of mages hiding away from the world and only interacting as little as they possibly could. This one does, and there have to be at least some butterfly effect differences. If I can get Harry in front of a history of Nazi Germany I should be able to spot some differences, since it's a period I know pretty well and Grindelwald running amuck in that neck of the woods is bound to have made some difference I can spot.

Or maybe it won't have. It has to be said, the history of Europe from 1914-1945 in my own world would actually make a lot more sense if there really were sinister wizards behind the scenes with mind-control spells. Some of the decision-making was breathtakingly demented, and that's without the Thule Society and their Ariosophical beliefs in the descent of the Aryan peoples from extraterrestrial electric goddesses and their unfortunate interactions with subhuman rape-monkeys. Which isn't any kind of joke: that was a real thing that people took seriously enough in early 20th century Germany to form debating societies and print newsletters about. Doesn't have to be wizards behind the scenes, of course, they'd just invented meth and were selling it over the counter without prescriptions. That'd be diagnostic: if Nazi Germany's history is the same but the meth consumption figures are lower than I remember, then wizards.

I spend a few moments thinking my way around in circles about what the hell I'm going to do - can I affect the material world? If not, can I learn how? Is there any magic that can construct me a body? Actually, there's at least one method, but I'd like to find one without any unhygienic messing about with ancestral bone, servants' flesh and enemies' blood, or drinking snake venom in any quantity. Nothing else, I want a body that still has its fucking nose. Voldemort might have been going for 'serpentine visage' but to me that says 'congenital syphilis' a lot more emphatically. While I'm woolgathering, the Dursleys retire to bed and put the light out.

There's enough light in here that I can see what's what, but apparently ghostly eyes have the same response to light conditions that my human ones did. With better visual acuity, unless I'm wearing ethereal spectacles. I need to start finding what my limits are, and whether I can do anything about them. A quick check in the mirror above the mantelpiece and I learn that I can't see me either, but then I knew that already. You can always see your own nose, if nothing else.

The obvious test is whether or not anyone other than Harry can hear me. That would imply a whole lot of other stuff about what I'm supposed to be doing here - goodness knows there's a lot to fix about Harry's life, but if he's the only one I can talk to it gives me a very clear focus for my efforts. Among other things, and I'm going to have to think about that. Anyway: can I be heard by anyone else? Not testing that on the Dursleys, their response to anything 'freaky' will hurt Harry. Which: not on. They're at least close to the line for criminal neglect of a child as at this time. Harry is going to survive it in reasonable if underfed health, and I don't want to be the one that tips these freaks over the edge into outright monsterdom.

Do I need to test it right now? It's not like I'm confined to the house, I've been outside once already. Can I get back in if I cross the property line? Does it work like vampires? I've collected a lot of folklore over the years, which bits of it are true in this universe? Plus there's that nebulously described protection over this house that Dumbledore enacted. The fact that I'm in here right now suggests that I can get back in if I go for a wander, unless the boundary is as meaningful magically as it is for the property registration certificate.

What decides me is that I've only spoken to Harry once, and that briefly. If I get magically locked out, it's just one half-remembered dream. Leaving things until he's started relying on me in any way would be cruel. Finding out now is better, since he'll be starting primary school in September and I'll be able to get back with him then. The Dursleys are doing the absolute legal minimum for the poor kid, so he's missing his reception year entirely by reason of his late birthday. They're going to tell him his name so he can answer to it at school, and I don't doubt that they've made sure the staff have been told he's a problem child well in advance. They've had a year of parent-teacher interaction via Dudley to get the message across. Have to figure out a plan for that when the time's nearer.

For now, I drift out through the window again. The sun is fully set, twilight is over and the streetlights are on in all their orange-tinted glory. Down to the end of the drive, and look about. Nobody's out and about, but the sound of traffic is there in the distance. This close to London there's no escaping it. The sky is busy with aircraft, low enough that their winking navigational lights are easy to spot. No way to tell whether it's traffic for Heathrow, Gatwick or both.

From the looks, Little Whinging is one of those dormitory villages for people who can afford to commute to work in Greater London, what used to be called the Stockbroker Belt.

It's an old-fashioned village with at least one reasonably well-heeled housing estate built on to it. Right on the edge of the Greater London sprawl, still palpably rural but close enough to the metropolis that you can't quite call it country. Amazing what you can deduce from just one cul-de-sac, isn't it? Familiarity with several examples from my own world helps a lot with this sort of thing.

I start moving down the pavement and discover that with a bit of effort I can get my movement up to about a fast walk. I'm not conscious of any effort, but if I lose focus I slow right down. Privet Drive gives way to Magnolia Crescent - the main drag through the estate - and, just across and a little along the way, Wisteria Walk, with a combination Spar, newsagents and post office on the corner. I spend a little time drifting about: the housing estate is nearly a hundred homes, built to a whopping six different designs, and Privet Drive seems to be all the big expensive ones. It's the usual mess of curving streets and random patches of grass and a small play-park with swings, roundabout and seesaw, all cut through with what we'd call ginnels where I'm from but the rest of the world calls alleys.

The actual historic Little Whinging is a couple of dozen much older houses either side of one of Surrey's smaller A-roads. It consists, beside the houses, of two pubs, a church that's early 19th century if I'm any judge, and a short parade of shops next to the near end of Magnolia Crescent. The most exotic of which is the Chinese takeaway, which has apparently been shut since nine. I'm going to have to wait twenty years before 24-hour shopping and food delivery become a thing again. What Little Whinging doesn't have is its own railway station, but this close to London there'll be one within reasonable bus-ride if not walking distance. The primary school looks to be down the main road a mile or two - I can just see the school crossing lights in the distance - doubtless serving Little Whinging and the next village over alike, with kids bussed in from a wider area for Stonewall High.

I check at the church that I can enter and leave holy ground and discover that while the chap walking his dog through the graveyard can't hear me declaiming 'the Bishop of Buckingham' at full volume, his dog is aware enough of me to look right at me and woof a vague doggy greeting. I tell him he's a Good Boy and move on. All of the cats I've encountered on the way here have given me Hard Stares, the basic impoliteness of cat-kind being much in evidence. The one thing that can see me is the graveyard's other supernatural occupant. There's a Church-Grim lounging by the lych-gate, barely visible as a shimmering dog-shaped collection of shadows. He can see me, and hauls himself to his feet.

There's no sense of urgency to it, he takes the time to stretch and pads over with a slowly-wagging tail. At least I think he's wagging his tail, the whole made-of-shadow thing being altogether visually confusing. I suspect that I'd be able to see him better if I was firmly within his jurisdiction of departed-soul-needing-company-for-final-walkies. Certainly the living only get to see him and his kind when they're about to die. He shows no sense of urgency about approaching me, just a good boy looking to make a new friend. I pass an idle few minutes inquiring who, exactly, is the Good Boy and confirming that it is, in fact, him. He's clearly doing his job of taking folk where they need to go in as much as there don't seem to be any ghosts present. Everyone buried here has been properly escorted to their ultimate destination. What a good boy!

We take a turn or two around the rest of the graveyard, chatting all the while - I'm supplying the Grim's lines, as all good doggy conversations should go - and I indulge in one of my favourite pastimes, that of looking for picturesque names. There's not much of a haul - even the 18th century graves have decidedly ordinary occupants, but I do learn that while the church may be relatively new, it's built on the site of a much older one. There are still-legible 17th century graves, including one from slap in the middle of the Civil War, and a couple that might well be even older but are too weathered to be sure of. I'm faintly reassured that I've got it right about where and with whom I am by the presence of the Grim. They are, after all, canon to Harry Potter and I don't have to worry about him being a death omen what with already being dead.

All of this noodling about carries me through to midnight, and I return to Privet Drive to discover that, whatever enchantments are on number 4, they don't keep me out. Which makes at least some sense, since they're based on Lily Potter's intent to protect her son, whatever Dumbledore may have done after the fact. Being a parent myself, I'm a hundred per cent on board with that, and mean to help.

Which leaves finding out to what extent I can. Sure, I can do a lot just as a voice in Harry's ear being the ultimate Helicopter Parent, but I'd look a prize berk if I stuck to just that and it turned out that with a bit of effort and experimentation I could have done more, right?

Right.

I think I need to find somewhere else, though. I'm already resolved to not provoke the Dursleys - not riling up obvious lunatics is a good general principle for life, memo: teach that one to Harry at some point - so I think I'm going to go and haunt someone a couple of streets away. Not on Wisteria Walk, Dumbledore has an agent there and while he's a good guy with faults in the books, if I'm going to be meeting the man I want to be a lot better prepared than 'hey, I died and found myself here with this kid and decided to help'. I wouldn't trust the bona fides of a wandering spirit telling that story, after all, no more than the village idiot would. So no tipping off Mrs. Figg that there's something uncanny going on. She's available if Harry needs to get a message to Dumbledore and that's where I mean to leave it for now.

Several hours of patient effort in a house picked for its occupants being away on holiday reveals that I can, with huuuuuge focus, flip a light switch, turn pages and make light fittings swing gently. I don't notice it getting any easier with repetition, but decide to keep in practise. If wandering spirits can get swole with constant exercise, I mean to do it.

I get back to Number 4 when the sky's properly light, about half past five by the clock in the Dursleys' hallway, just as the milkman is leaving Privet Drive for the next part of his round. I get a moment of nostalgia at the sight of a uniformed milkman driving an electric milk float; they'll be a dying breed in fifteen years and gone altogether in thirty. He's left three pints of milk, a pint of orange juice, a dozen eggs and a loaf of sliced bread at Number Four. Petunia rises at six thirty, brings it all in and gets the kettle on: they've clearly not got Harry started on cooking yet. She bangs on the door of Harry's cupboard, pulls back the bolt and throws it open.

"Up, Freak. Go use the loo and clean your teeth. And get back down here and back in your hole before your Uncle gets up." She hisses the words, and Harry's in there looking all vulnerable and startled awake.

"I'm still here, kid," I say. "Petunia can't hear me, but you can. Don't say anything, just get upstairs to the loo."

Petunia doesn't respond, but Harry smiles briefly and then gets his head down and scampers. In the bathroom, he closes and bolts the door. "Is that you, Mal?" he whispers

"Yep," I say. "You keep whispering, they can't hear me so I can talk normally. You need the loo, and don't worry, I'm looking away."

Poor kid gets bashful kidney anyway, but finally manages. "Oh, no." he murmurs when he's done.

I look round. Small nervous boy, toilet too tall, inevitable accident. "Don't panic," I tell him. "Get some toilet roll, yes, like that, bit more, now scrunch it up and wipe up. Down the loo with it, don't flush yet, you don't want Petunia to know you're done. Now, wash your hands. Running tap, that's right." I talk him through washing his hands properly. He might have been taught, but I doubt it. He's able to reach well enough to wash his face as well, enough to get the tear-streaks squared away.

I move on to proper brushing of the teeth and Harry hisses "I know how to brush my teeth."

"You know how Aunt Petunia has taught you. I'm teaching you to do it right, kid."

A brief widening of the eyes and he follows instructions like a good boy.

"Right, now flush and go down the stairs at a sensible pace. What usually happens next?"

"Aunt Petunia gives me breakfast and locks me in until Uncle goes to work."

"Well, let's be about it. As soon as we're in the cupboard, which is now our secret base, I'll tell you what I learned while you were sleeping."

Downstairs, Harry gets his breakfast - two slices of bread and marge and a glass of milk, neither generous nor stingy but assuredly not right for a growing boy - and he's made to eat it sitting on the kitchen floor out of what I assume is pure spite. He's eating quickly and swallowing fast with what looks like the ease of considerable practise. I try not to pay attention to this since I'm already quite angry enough, thank you very much.

Instead, I watch Petunia. She's splitting her attention between cooking breakfast, the little boy on the floor and the doorway back to the hall, an air of watchfulness about her. I'm fairly sure, watching her, that the driver for a lot of the shit that Harry's getting is actually Vernon, and she wants him out of sight before her husband is up. I'm not cutting Petunia any moral or ethical slack for this, of course: there's no call for accepting Harry's lot as any kind of way to treat a child, unwanted poor relation or no. She has options that a short green-form interview with any general practice solicitor could open her eyes to, along with a great deal of information about how very easy divorce and restraining orders are to get.

As soon as the milk glass is empty Harry gets hustled back under the stairs and she locks him in. She leaves the key in the lock, which opens up a whole world of possibilities vis a vis my poltergeisting the shit out of her security precautions.

I ghost through the door. "All OK there, kid?"

There's enough light coming through around the edges of the door - the glass front door may be tacky, but it means the hall is well lit - that I can see Harry nodding.

"Shiny -" There's a thundering as of the sky falling in, which interrupts me. "What the blazes is that?"

"Uncle and Dudley coming down for breakfast." Harry's whisper has no intonation, because this is his normal.

"What a pair of bloody elephants," I remark, for the reward of a quiet little giggle. When you're five, hearing grown-ups swear is always funny. "Right, keep quiet while I go listen in on breakfast. If I know their plans for the day we might be able to get up to some fun. Mischief, even."

Harry's grin lights up the tiny space we're in, and I wish with all my might for a face to smile back with. Nearly four years of Dursley bullshit and he can still smile. Proper little soldier you are, my lad.

A few more reassuring remarks and I'm ghosting about the kitchen while the zoo exhibits sit down to breakfast. Toast and eggs and sausages and beans and bacon and fried bread and fried mushrooms and black pudding and holy jesus Vernon Dursley, a man eats like that and he doesn't exercise, he goin' to die. I'm as in favour of the Full English Breakfast as any proud son of Albion, but he's putting away the signature breakfasts of all four home nations in one sitting. He'd probably have a crack at the rest of the Commonwealth, but he's dead against any 'queer foreign muck' unless I much misjudge my man. Fucker even eats the grilled tomatoes, the mark of a wrong 'un in my book.

One might deduce that there was something wrong with Vernon - he grew up with a sister who could casually tell an orphan he ought to have been drowned and double down with an insult to his dead mother, tell me that didn't come out of a dysfunctional family I defy you - but what he's eating isn't breakfast, it's passive suicidal ideation. It's not like nobody knows that overeating is unhealthy: I'm pretty sure the F-Plan has been out for a couple of years by now. Wouldn't surprise me if Petunia - one slice of toast, no butter, one half grapefruit, one generalised air of misanthropy - had an autographed copy. I can't remember precisely when cholesterol got identified as one of the baddies, but I'm sure it was earlier than this.

My point, here, is that stuffing down a breakfast of that heft and variety on top of already morbid obesity is self-destructive behaviour, and you'd have to be invincibly ignorant not to know that. I'm willing to bet that he'll be snacking the rest of the day, eat a hearty lunch, come home to a dinner even bigger and then punish the whisky for a couple of hours to wind down. In the books, Vernon was still alive in 1998 and it's actually something of a surprise. Small wonder that he treats everyone around him like crap: he clearly hates himself.

Amateur psychoanalysis aside, I learn that Dudley will be at a childminder's today, Vernon at work, and Petunia at a regular coffee-and-bridge thursday. Vernon opines that the month-end meeting will see him kept late, and Dudley tries to get out of going to the minder's by throwing a nasty little tantrum that his father treats as him being an adorable scamp rather than cause for five minutes on the naughty step. I'm against corporal punishment for children - never raised a hand to my own, and proud of how they turned out - but lord, twenty minutes watching Dudley stuffing his face, whining, and kicking his parents makes me want to fetch the wee bastard a ding around the ear'ole with a sock full of shit.

I was mistreated as a child, and Harry's having an even rougher go of it than I did, but at least neither of us were never trained to be hated as adults the way the Dursleys are doing with their own crotchfruit. Vernon outright praises the little shit for trying his hardest to get his way, although I can see that Petunia wants to re-open an argument she clearly lost before the boy could talk. One can only hope that school can undo some of the damage before he reaches the age of criminal responsibility. From the look of things, the childminder also has some ideas on the subject of behaviour that Dudley doesn't care for much. I wish her, whoever she is, good luck and good hunting.

Ghostly calm or no, I have to take a moment or two to compose myself before going back in to the cupboard with Harry, who quite sensibly is getting a nap. Sleeping makes the time go faster, a lesson I remember learning around his age. I go back to surveillance on the Dursleys; Vernon heads out to work, while Petunia gets Dudley dressed and ready for the walk to whoever she's dumping him on for the day. I'm pleased to see that with Vernon not present she's actually somewhat firmer with him. On the way out, she bangs on the cupboard door. "Freak! You behave yourself in there. I'll be back at lunchtime."

Dudley gives the door a kick and yells "Freak!", which Petunia lets pass without comment.

I go back in to see that Harry has been startled awake. "I'm here, kid," I tell him. "Let's just wait until they're out of the house."

It's a tense few minutes until we hear the front door close and Petunia's heels clack off down the garden path.

"Mal, are you really a ghost?" Harry asks, once it's quiet.

"I'm really a ghost. I was alive, then I got deaded, and now I'm here. Haunting you. Wooooo!"

Harry giggles. "Why?"

"I really don't know, Harry. But I'm going to help if I can, because there's just too much stupid in this house."

"Who's Harry?"

"You are! Told you I'd find out your real name and I did. Harry James Potter. Oh, and since I didn't know the date yesterday, Happy Birthday and sorry I'm a day late." Name and birthday will do to start with; dumping everything on him at once would be unkind. It's not like we don't have time locked in this here cupboard.

A frown. "Freaks don't have birthdays."

"Harries do, though."

More giggling. "How old am I?"

"Five, Harry. And you'll be going to school quite soon. You should have been going at the same time as Dudley, but your Uncle and your Aunt are stupid." Wouldn't surprise me if they've been concealing the mere fact of Harry's existence from everyone until quite recently, because otherwise sending Harry to school with Dudley would be the more normal thing to do.

More giggling.

"Now, your Uncle and Aunt don't know that you know your name, so until they do, Harry James Potter is your secret name that you mustn't tell anyone. If they find out you know, they'll want to know how, and you can't tell them about me because they're stupid and scared of ghosts and magic."

"Magic?"

"Magic, Harry. Ghosts are part of magic. If there wasn't magic, ghosts couldn't talk like I do. Or sing like I do -" I give him a chorus of The Cat's Got No 'Air On which has him laughing until he hiccups - "or do this." I turn the key in the lock and give the door a push.

"Not 'llowed out," he whimpers, scuttling back in to the corner.. The fuckers have clearly tried to trick him like this before.

"Not allowed to get caught, Harry," I tell him, gently. Not letting any of my anger in to my voice is proving quite the challenge. "And here, let me show you that it wasn't your Uncle opening the door. It was me."

The pull switch for the light in the cupboard is quite hard to work, but it's only a couple of seconds. On, and then off.

Harry gasps. And grasps the implication immediately. From the look on his face, he's getting firmly in touch with his inner Naughty Little Boy.

"Now, with Mal the friendly ghost to help, it's time to do some scouting."

"What's scouting?" Of course, he's been raised in a fucking cupboard, he's got huge holes in his vocabulary.

"Looking about all sneaky like and not getting caught," I tell him. "First thing, we're going to the front door to check the car's gone."

It takes him a couple of tries to get up the nerve to leave the cupboard, but he manages like a little hero in the end. I explain to him about keeping low so's nobody looking in can see him, which windows he doesn't have to do that with because they're at the back or upstairs, and that time is important but I'll watch it for him and tell him when it's time to scamper back to his secret base.

After a tour of the house (watch whether a door is open or closed and leave it that way) I get him back to the kitchen just after ten and walk him through the basics of Stealing Food So They Don't Notice It's Gone. He ends up with a surprising amount of choice - Petunia has dozens of opened packets of fad-diet stuff, slimmers' meal bars are starvation rations for a grown woman but hearty nosh for Harry. The supply of sweeties and cakes for Dudley and Vernon is easy to raid, and Harry takes to covering up the evidence with aplomb. I reckon I've got five hundred calories down his neck in under half an hour.

We've just finished cleaning up when Harry says "Uh oh."

I recognise the expression and stance. Number two inbound, by the looks. "Need the loo?"

He nods.

"Bad?"

Another nod.

"It's getting fed properly that does it. Off you go, then."

"Aunt hasn't said I can."

"Mal says you must. Aunt Petunia is the enemy, Harry, and you only have to pretend to do as she says. Loo! Now!"

He grins as he runs for the stairs. Drifting along after him, I'm heartened that he was so ready for a minor act of rebellion, but annoyed that his first conscious revolutionary acts against the Dursley Regime include taking a shit. We've a long way to go before we work our way up to arson and riot.

"You know how to wipe your bum?" I yell through the door.

"Yes! Aunt Petunia made me learn," he yells back. There's at least some normality in this house, then.

I drift in when I hear the toilet flush, and Harry's trying to get his pyjama trousers to stay up. There's a worried look on his face. "Aunt Petunia ties them up for me." he says. And, of course, if they're not tied when she gets back she's going to know.

"Time to learn for yourself," I tell him, interrupting the panic before it can really take hold. "Get the strings in your hands and cross them over …" It takes a few minutes, but concentrating calms Harry down and I've got the patience of the literally dead. I slip in a few asides about how knots work and things you can do with them, because time spent educating a child is seldom wasted. Once we've got Harry's trousers properly secured, we go over Washing Our Hands and Cleaning Our Teeth again, and also checking the bathroom to make sure there's no obvious signs of use. Teaching Harry to be stealthy and confident in his stealth is going to pay dividends later: I didn't figure it out until I was ten or so and thereby suffered more than I might have done if I'd been smarter.

More chatting in the bathroom leads Harry to let me know that he does get a bath 'sometimes' in Dudley's used bath-water. I'm fairly sure that Dudley is the kind of difficult customer that makes enough of a fuss over bathtime that his mother keeps it to once a week. Not a problem per se, most kids are over-washed anyway and they don't start to pong until they're teenagers, but Harry, judging by the quick and eager responses to instructions on getting clean, is a naturally fastidious kid. Figuring out safe times for surreptitious bathtime is a project for later, I decide.

I stick my head through the wall to check on the Dursley's bedside alarm clock, which is actually a Goblin Teasmade. Which doesn't appear to get used. Could be because Vernon's a power-tripping gobshite who makes his wife get up to make his tea of a morning, could be because Petunia wants to get up to keep hubby from waxing wrathful over the sight of a Freak at breakfast time. "It's half past eleven, Harry," I say once I'm back in the pistachio-green hell of the Dursley bathroom, "time to go and pretend you've been in the cupboard all morning." A last check that the bathroom and kitchen are in order and the wrappers from brunch are properly buried under the rubbish from breakfast and I lock us in.

"Harry James Potter," I say once he's settled down. "That's your name. Now, I didn't find everything in just one night, but it's a start, isn't it?"

Harry nods. Big round eyes, he's drinking it all in. He's five and spends most of his time locked up in the dark, so he doesn't have any trouble accepting that he's got a ghost helping him.

"Now, your mum was Lily Potter, and your dad was James Potter. I know about them from hearing stories when I was alive, I never met them myself, but they were heroes who died in a war."

"Not in a car crash?"

"No, not in a car crash. Dying in a car crash is dead rubbish. I know, because that's how I died."

"Did it hurt?" Because of course a little kid is going to go off on every tangent imaginable and it's not like we're under pressure of time, here.

"A bit, at first, and then when I died it didn't hurt any more." It just all got really confusing for a while and took a hard swerve into the outright surreal. I'm pretty sure I'm in a fanfic at this point. "It all went strange, and then it all went black, and the next thing I knew I was in our secret base with you, a long way from home."

"Cor. Is that why you talk funny? You sound like Coronation Street."

Turns out that the dead can laugh. "Harry, I don't talk funny. I talk properly, it's you southerners that talk funny!"

"I do not!" Proper little-boy indignation. They've not broken him entirely, for all their effort, and I must be doing something right if he's comfortable enough to back-chat me this quickly.

"I know, I know, I'm just joking with you. I talk like I do because this is how everyone talks where I lived. Which is quite near Coronation Street, actually. When you grow up, you'll find everyone thinks that where they live is where people talk properly and everywhere else is where they talk funny. It's best to make jokes about things like that, or you end up stupid like your Uncle Vernon."

My attempt to introduce an important teachable moment misses the mark: five-year-old minds are an erratic and fast-moving target. "Coronation Street's real? Not just on the telly?"

Of course he's heard it. Apparently the TV comes with only two settings in this house: Loud and Too Loud. And Petunia, a stereotype down to the very bones of her, watches her soaps religiously. I decide to go with it. "Coronation Street is real, yes. I've visited there." No need to tell him it's just a TV set at Granada Studios and they do tours.

"Jack Duckworth is my favourite," he tells me solemnly. I like this kid: I used to think Jack Duckworth was brilliant too, not least because I knew about five real-life Jack Duckworths; he was a very well-observed character. Back in the day when Coronation Street wasn't complete rubbish like it… won't be for at least another ten years. "Are Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds real too?"

All hands brace for impact! Massive Nostalgia Trip Incoming! I fucking LOVED that show. "That one's just a bit real. There was a real man called D'Artagnan, and he was a musketeer, and there's a famous story about him called D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers. For the telly they made a children's version where they're all dogs instead of men and changed the name to Dogtanian because it was all dogs, and muskehounds instead of musketeers."

"Oh. What's a musketeer?"

"Old fashioned kind of soldiers. Named after the kind of gun they used, but they were famous for using their swords as well."

"Why did they use swords instead of guns?"

And we're off! I really can't do much for Harry except talk to him, and five minutes with any five year old will make you familiar with the phenomenon. Question after question after question until you go mad or the kid gets bored and wanders off. Of course, after the first time you're already mad and the whole process becomes rather fun, especially if you've got time to demonstrate the holy rite of Looking It Up In Books for the stuff you don't know the answer to.

Of course, the kid has to be comfortable with you and not have had the habit squashed out of him by years of psychological abuse. Seems like I got to Harry in time. What actually stops us this time is the sound of feet coming up the driveway and a key in the lock, right as Harry's in the middle of the important follow-up questions for the explanation of how special telly science can make it look like dogs can talk and fight and foil the evil schemes of the sinister Cardinal Richelieu.

Harry freezes mid-inquiry. He'd been getting quite voluble.

"Don't worry, Harry. She can't hear me and she won't have heard you. What happens now?"

"I get lunch and I'm allowed the loo and I have to do jobs until it's time to go and get Dudley from the childminder."

"Well, eat your lunch and do your jobs and we can talk more. Maybe I can tell you things about your jobs, you just have to pretend you can't hear me." I hear feet on the stairs above us, Petunia clearly needs the loo urgently judging by the pace.

"Sometimes I forget stuff and she shouts at me and I get the slipper," Harry says. The tone of his voice would make a statue weep. Sounds like something my own dear mother got up to: give incomplete instructions, or instructions no child can manage to grasp, and punish the slightest infraction. Of course Harry got right aboard the whole friendly-ghost bit, it was a distraction from what he knew was coming.

"I'll remember for you, let's avoid the slipper. The slipper is stupid, but don't say that out loud, you'll just get more slipper." I've no great hope that I can cheer him up, I have a deep-seated dread that even adult memory and attention to detail won't be good enough, but maybe I can help him get his mind right to take a little less damage to his s oul from what's (probably, I could be running in fear of my own personal ghosts here) coming.

"K." The key turns in the lock and Harry's visibly retreating into himself as I watch. I wasn't being pessimistic, I wasn't being pessimistic enough.

- oOo -

It was as bad as I feared and in some ways worse: after another bread-and-marge meal on the kitchen floor, Petunia snapped orders and stood over Harry while he damp-dusted and swept and mopped and made beds and all of the other sundry and minor tasks of regular housework for two hours. He's not big enough for the vacuum cleaner or cooking yet, and either there's nothing to do in the garden or she doesn't want the neighbours to see him. She'd have to give him shoes and something to wear that isn't pyjamas, too.

The standing-over is the worst part for Harry, constantly carping about how he's not doing the job well enough or quickly enough and how he's a worthless, stupid freak. It's calculated to put him off his stroke and give her an excuse to use the slipper on him.

And she wants to. Oh, she very clearly wants to. She's put on a housework apron with a big pocket in the front, and there's a nice, big rubber-soled slipper in it.

"Just let her words go, Harry. She's a sad, angry woman who doesn't know any better. Keep your eyes on the job, nice, smooth even strokes with the cloth. Now get a bit of the cloth over your finger and get in the corners. Keep going until you've got all the dust, I know you can't see too well, but I can and I'll talk you through it. Back up a bit, you've missed a bit, bit more, got it. The important thing is that you know and I know we're doing a good job, and a good job is worth doing. Don't look around, pretend you can't hear me, she's telling you it's the dining room next, move smoothly and evenly and don't be afraid..." Just a sample of what I pour into his ear. I hope it's helping.

If I had a throat it'd be sore, but we manage a success on our first day together: Harry doesn't get the slipper. What he does get is two hours of intimidation from a woman armed with something he knows will hurt when she hits him with it. Constantly in his personal space, every utterance from her mouth an insult or a criticism couched in the vilest terms she can think of that doesn't teach him coarse language, and demanding the kind of standards they enforce on basic trainees to accustom them to military harshness. Demanding these standards from a child with defective vision who, up until now, has been unable to see what he's supposed to be wiping up.

At no point does she do anything actionable before a criminal court. While inflicting two hours of emotional and psychological torture of the nastiest kind. In a dark, sarcastic, gallows-humour sort of way I'm actually impressed. Our 'success' is measured by her being satisfied by Harry's eyes brimming with tears as she pokes and prods him to be faster drinking a glass of water, using the loo and getting back into his cage.

It takes me the best part of an hour of patient, gentle reassurance to get him back on an even keel and reassure him that this is Not Right, that it is all Vernon and Petunia's fault, that his mum and dad would be right here haunting the shit out of them if they could, and that one day all this will be past. It stops us taking advantage of Petunia heading out to collect Dudley, which takes the better part of an hour, but I can't begrudge the time. There's a lot of damage to undo.

Forget what I said about Petunia being less culpable, her only difference from Vernon is her preferred approach. Insidious, rather than brutal, but every bit as barbaric. One way or another, her and her pet manatee are going fucking down. Made my peace with my own lack of vengeance years ago. Taking it on someone else's behalf? I foresee catharsis.

When I figure out the how of the thing, well: Lily sends her regards, you utter, utter cunt.

AUTHOR NOTES:

The Green Form: part of the old Legal Aid. A very mild means test entitled anyone to two hours of lawyers' time paid for out of general taxation for 'general advice and assistance on any matter of law'. It got cut down to near non-existence while I was still a lawyer and I'm pretty sure it's gone altogether now.

Harry not getting his reception year at school actually complies with the law, which requires a child be in full time education from the first term after his fifth birthday. It isn't actually from canon that the Dursleys went with the bare legal minimum but is precisely the kind of petty bullshit you'd expect from the sort of arseholes who'd keep a child in a cupboard and tell the neighbours he's a habitual criminal.

The Black Dog of folklore - including Gr im, Barghest, Gurt Dog, Old Padfoot and many more in Britain alone, it's very widespread across Europe - gets a bad press that, reading between the lines, they don't deserve. Guard dogs are notoriously grumpy creatures, after all, with people who aren't supposed to be there, but you're glad of them if they're guarding you.

Other matters: Grilled Tomato on a Full English is garnish, and should not be eaten. The Teasmade is an alarm clock with a built in tea-maker: rather out of fashion now, but surprisingly they still make and sell them. I really do miss the milkmen of old, it was an enormously convenient service that got driven out of business by the big supermarkets. The best picturesque name I ever found was in the churchyard of St. Andrew's at Slaidburn, where a Mr. Tempest Strider was buried in 1788. And it's completely true about the electric goddesses, rape-monkeys (Sodomit-Affelingen in the original german) and meth.

Fic recommendation: Messing with Time by Slythernim, on Archive of Our Own, which recently updated after a long hiatus. Harry ends up five again, with a thirty-something Auror's mind and skillset. He puts up with the Dursleys' bullshit for about fifteen minutes and then shit goes sideways in the most entertaining way.