Intent

he Dursley household had been grossly underprepared - or they hadn't been notified - of their new obligation. An older wizard, whose name and whose relationship to his parents Harry didn't actually know, arrived that night to side-along apparate Harry to their small abode later that evening. When they arrived, the old wizard knocked on the door, and started explaining the situation to the large, baffled man who opened the door.

Vernon Dursley, the man who opened the door, was as daft as he was large. It quickly became apparent that he was confused, infuriated, and then openly hostile. He grabbed a nearby lamp and brandished it like a weapon, pointing the bulb threateningly in the face of the exasperated wizard.

Harry's mother was rather firm with raising her children with the knowledge of muggle gadgets and father had been amused and had laughed at the many lessons that she taught their children, although he did end up learning a lot too. Those lessons were the only reason Harry was aware that the lamp was, in fact, a lamp and not a weapon as the older wizard seemed to believe.

Vernon Dursley was quickly making a scene, his large face going red and his cheeks vibrating with the viciousness of his shouting.

A new woman appeared, dressed in a mint green robe, looking just as frazzled as Mister Dursley. When she caught sight of Harry, she grew pale and then rather dramatically swooned. Her body hit the ground loudly, her hair curlers rattling as her head hit the floor.

Harry's escort made some sort of objection and tried to make his way into the house. The large, loud man roared something angrily and tried to force him back out.

A child, roughly Harry's age but many times bigger, screamed something in shock and nearly the entire neighbourhood woke up in hushed confusion.

Harry exhaled slowly, straightened his back, firmly grasped his trunk, and bit back the growing sense of regret in agreeing to come to the Dursleys'. He was both surprised and frustrated with how quickly things had unfolded, but what was the worst thing that could happen?

It couldn't be any worse than what he'd already been through, could it?

The Dursley's, were a family of the worst people that Harry had ever met. They were as snobbish, rude, and arrogant as the nastiest of Skylar's friends.

Vernon Dursley, the head of the household, prided himself on being a successful, respectable provider for his family. In truth, he was greedy, selfish, and judgmental.

His wife, Harry's aunt Petunia, was a horse-faced liar who was always looking for rumours and gossip, obsessed with social status and maintaining the appearance that they were a perfectly normal family.

Their son, Dudley, was a greedy glutton and they spoiled him terribly. He'd learned exactly how to get what he wanted, throwing screaming fits if his parents didn't immediately capitulate. Harry knew that, although Skylar had been spoiled a bit, he was nowhere near as rotten as their obese cousin.

Behind closed doors, the Dursleys made absolutely no effort to hide their blatant hatred for Harry and "his kind." A growing part of Harry's own heart felt the same way about them.

Harry's trunk and a small cot had been thrown into a hastily cleared cupboard under the stairs. The ventilation flap was clogged with dust and, when he complained, Aunt Petunia gave him a nearly-clean rag and a bottle of noxious chemicals and told him to clean it himself.

The rest of the cupboard wasn't much better. It certainly wasn't fit for human habitation. Mould and mildew rotted the floor panels from wet shoes and thick cobwebs cushioned any sharp edges. The single lightbulb hanging overhead had long since burned out and no-one had ever bothered to change it.

When Harry told them that there was no way that a small boot cupboard was at all sanitary or decent enough for someone to live in, Vernon had shouted at him angrily for an hour about how ungrateful he was that they took him in. Harry thought about contacting his parents, or anyone really, to complain or retract his agreement… before he realized that he had no way to do so.

Post owls didn't just swoop by whenever a wizard wanted to send a letter, he couldn't just use any old bird, and even if he could, he had no way of knowing where his parents even were.

He was now alone.

The muggles seemed worried at first. They kept the window curtains drawn and talked in hushed, paranoid whispers. Vernon had to use some of his saved-up holiday days and he made absolutely no secret about how much he resented Harry for it, ranting about what a waste Harry was and how he wasn't welcome here.

(Harry wasn't welcome in his own home, so he wasn't quite sure what to think with even the Dursley's not wanting him.)

A week passed without incident and Vernon returned to work. The curtains were opened and Harry was set to work with a long list of odd jobs to do around the house.

Most of his tasks were lowly even for a house elf: pulling weeds and replanting flowers; washing the wooden panels; or hand-scrubbing oil stains on the concrete driveway. All of it was meaningless busywork. It was just time consuming and more than anything else, degrading.

Harry had been washing the floors with a quiet, intense focus, when Dudley casually waddled in and kicked over the bucket of dirty water, sending it spilling everywhere. Aunt Petunia had shrieked in anger about how her clean floors were now filthy and how Harry couldn't do anything right.

'Maybe that's why your freaky family got rid of you! You can't do anything right, you waste of space!'

Of course, she'd refused to believe him when he told her that it was all Dudley's fault. There was no way her precious Dudders did anything like that. She sent him to his cupboard without supper.

At night, he managed to see just the smallest bit through the ventilation flaps on the cupboard door. It was just enough light to find the thin sheets and nestle in the near silence, until he woke up again from stomping steps just overhead.

It took over three weeks for his lightbulb to be properly fixed and Harry himself had to be the one to mend it, though he accidentally cut himself while doing so. When Aunt Petunia bemoaned some sort of muggle disease that you caught from rusty metal, he looked at her blankly, not quite understanding. His mother's lessons hadn't gone that far.

That was when she had realized that his upbringing was very different from normal, respectable children. He didn't need to attend public school. He already knew how to read and write and he'd already learned the expected mathematics. He already knew everything that a wizard was expected to know before going to Hogwarts. He was already well ahead of other children his age and honestly, he was rather baffled with how his cousin was struggling with his school work.

When they realised that Harry wouldn't be going to public school with his cousin, Petunia started giving him a longer list of tasks to do, while Vernon installed an external lock on his cupboard. They tried to get into his trunk, but thankfully magic locks were impossible for muggles to open and they'd quickly given up on the task.

Harry's diet now mostly consisted of scraps, or the most burn edges of whatever food he'd struggled to make that day. Most of it bordered the fine line between barely edible and toxic.

Toilet breaks were restricted and outdoor privileges were established and the part of Harry's heart that hated them flourished in the depravity.

Alone in his cupboard, Harry came to a realisation, an epiphany of sorts that crept up on him over this first month rather than arriving suddenly. His mother knew what the Dursleys were like. She'd been aware of how cruel and selfish they were. And she'd still hoped that Harry would choose to accept this life and leave them, because it was convenient.

It was then, that very moment, that Harry found himself hating Lily just a bit.

The leaves had started to change colour and fall and Harry was sent outside to rake them up and see to the lawn. He did the laundry. He did the cooking. He did the gardening. He was, for all intents and purposes, just a house elf.

But other than giving him an exhaustive list of things to do each day, the Dursleys mostly just left him alone. They pretended not to notice him until it was time to punish him or give him more work, just like some purebloods pretended not to notice their house elves until they had need.

The days began to get colder and shorter, though his list of jobs never did. The large piles of leaves that Harry raked up each day always ended up scattered all over the grass the next morning. Dudley always seemed to wear that smug smirk at the sight of the front garden covered in debris. Vernon seemed particularly frustrated with the lack of progress, but he never lifted a hand against Harry.

He lashed out verbally instead and cruel remarks were common.

At first, Harry had recoiled and flinched from each drop of spittle that landed near him. It was disconcerting that, after months with no contact at all from his family - he was beginning to doubt they even thought about him at this point - and near-constant verbal assaults, he was becoming numb to it.

Harry still held out hope - a fantasy where one of the family's post owls would swoop in at supper with a letter for him that the threat was gone and he could come home. Or that his mother would burst through the front door and take him back.

Winter arrived and the days didn't seem to last at all. He now recognised that something ugly had begun to grow inside him. He'd been locked out one night and forced to try to find some slight shelter under the overhang of the back door. He was cold and he was wet and he was miserable and he just wanted his parents to come and get him and take him home.

But James and Lily never came.

He started to let go of the fantasy of being rescued. He started to hate them, James and Lily and Skylar, just a bit, just in the isolation of his cupboard, when he was alone with his thoughts.

Christmas came and went. Harry sat in the darkness, locked up in his cupboard on Christmas Eve. He spent Christmas Day under the stairs in his little cupboard, quietly reading his books under the single replaced lightbulb, with a plastic bowl for a loo. He spent the majority of Christmas break reading at the odd times of night, needing less and less sleep and kept awake by the numbing chill of winter permeating his cupboard. He was so cold and lonely and reading offered him some small comfort against his own treacherous thoughts, whispering that no-one would ever want him.

Instead, he read and practiced and tried, over and over, again and again, he tested the theory of magic without ever actually knowing what he was doing.

And on the first of the new year, Harry smiled, happy again for the first time. He'd gotten the lock on his cupboard door to unlock.

'The wand is used as a conduit.

Magic, similar to the concepts of souls, is an aura surrounding and permeating all living

Things.

Not being magical themselves, Muggles can be affected and altered with focused magic. Muggles are unable to store influxes of magic, thus are unable to harvest or use it on their own.

Wizards are able to produce and store magic.

Using conduits to direct the flow of magic, a wizard is able to alter the source into a specific object or energy if given enough intent and focus.

Spells are often used to direct magic in a specific fashion, each spell is created carefully to trigger a soul and magic response which will result in the desired effect. When combined with wands and proper wand movements, the magic is directed with an objective and pre-fashioned template which results in the desired outcome.'

Harry closed the thick book once again, running his fingers over the worn cover. The once crisp pages had long since become soft and almost fuzzy to the touch. Along the spine it had been stained with dirt and grease from his fingers. The back left corner of the book had cracked, the leather split from where it had hit against the floor a little too harshly. The letters were dulled and scratched, Magical Theory and Phenomena, was more difficult to read without struggling.

Harry had read the heavy book cover to cover twice already, understanding more the second time around. The theory of magic was more useful to him than the other book of spells. Although the book of spells did list countless spells and charms that did seem fascinating, Harry didn't have a wand, so he couldn't very well use the meticulously detailed descriptions of wand movements and pronunciations.

The last book he brought, Scalding Scales, was one of his favourites. He took comfort in the many pages, each drawn with magical ink which was charmed to move and swish

with each bat of the creature's tails.

He had opened his books many times in the dead of night, when he'd woken up unexpectedly, finding himself locked in the small cupboard. Watching Eelhounds swim through drawn water, or Swedish Shortsnout's breathing fire into the sky was enough to help him forget where he was, for a time anyway.

The days became longer and warmer and the frosts less frequent and less harsh. Harry's hands bled as his relatives put him back to work in the garden again.

His stomach had shrunk as he grew accustomed to less food. He found that fewer things amused him. The pages in his book only brought back nostalgia which was only painful to think about.

He set the book in his trunk, and locked it with a snap of his fingers. He had gotten good at unlocking and locking.

Dudley found it funny that his cousin had to work even in the rain, and he took great pleasure in tripping Harry and smashing him into the cement, soaking him to the bone while Dudley stayed dry in his brand new anorak.

Harry stumbled inside, dripping water only to be knocked back outside by a broom. Petunia had screamed angrily about how he was ruining her floors, never mind that Harry was the one who cleaned them.

Dudley came outside, having invited his friends over. One particularly rat-faced boy sneered at Harry and pushed him roughly to the ground.

Harry hit the ground, blinking blankly. He nearly hadn't realized what exactly happened- except the sudden throbbing on his back. He was distantly aware of them chortling at him.

It hurt.

Something in Harry snapped.

And then suddenly the rat faced boy screamed, his hands flew to his face and blood seemed to absolutely pour.

Dudley screamed, scrambling backwards and the blood spurted onto the wet pavement between them, staining the concrete crimson.

Petunia threw open the front door, screeching something in horror as the boy, Piers, was shouting and flailing.

People were shouting, shouting directly at him.

Harry felt someone grab the back of his waterlogged clothing, dragging him away from the mess on the cement driveway.

A fist hit his cheek, knocking his skull even harder onto the ground, and making him see stars. There was a deep throbbing and a small flash of warmth pounding behind his eyes. His neck felt wet and his stomach twisted with the sudden jerk of nausea.

His eyes rolled into his head when he felt something wet slide further down his neck. It was uncomfortably warm.

Harry was told that he had punched Piers in the face, breaking his nose and sending him to the hospital to have it reset. The Dursley's promised the mother of the hysterical boy that they would punish Harry for his outlandish behavior.

Harry was locked in his cupboard for three days. They'd given him just enough food to last, two cans of soup and a few bottles of water thrown at him before Vernon slammed the door shut and locked it with an ominous, final click.

Harry was returned to darkness, his uncle's unintelligible shouts and curses just on the other side of the thin door.

He didn't dare unlock the door or turn on the light when he could still hear the creaks of heavy footsteps just outside his cupboard.

Time blurred and distorted in a strange mixture of lethargy and restlessness.

His fingers ran over the pages of his books, already read and reread multiple times and each spell nearly memorized. The comforting smell of old paper was gone and had been replaced with the faint smell of rat urine.

He could hear Vernon laugh loudly, a muffled clinking of silverware on precious porcelain plates. They were having dinner; Harry's stomach cramped hungrily.

His fingers twitched as he trailed them over the worn vanes of the quill he had snuck into his trunk. It was old, fraying and broken on the very tip. Entirely useless.

"Incendio," Harry whispered. Nothing happened.

He leant forward slightly more, holding the quill closer to his face with more determination. "Incendio- Incendio!"

Harry snarled his nose angrily and threw the quill forcefully away. Instead, it fluttered disappointingly down to land with the softest of whispers. He couldn't even throw a proper tantrum.

Harry flopped backwards, hands rising to rub against his eyes. They burned, and for no comprehensible reason he felt a hoarse sob escape from his throat.

Knowing that the Dursley household could and most likely would, punish him further for interrupting dinner, he rolled and pressed his flat pillow against his mouth to muffle any cries.

Why was it fair, that they hated him for being a wizard?

'Skylar probably already knows how to do this.' That treacherous voice whispered in the silence. Harry felt a mess of anger and self-pity rise up, warring for control of his thoughts. He trembled in the dark, 'He's already so much better than I am.'

He didn't know when he had fallen asleep or when he woke up the next day, he didn't bother actually getting up. He didn't actually have the space to anyway. The room was dark, and there was no difference between standing or lying when you couldn't see as well.

He didn't see the point.

The house was filled with muffled voices, some he didn't recognize and others he did. He heard Dudley leave, and his distinct voice wasn't heard again for some time. It must have been a weekday, Dudley leaving for school.

Time passed and Harry alternated between nearly screaming or collapsing motionlessly for hours on his cot.

Things didn't matter, while at the same time, everything mattered.

"It's not fair," Harry raged quietly, hands clawing in a repeated motion over and over on his exposed hipbones where his shirt rode up. The skin was red and irritated from his long untrimmed nails digging in.

"Why?" He cooed half calm and half hysterical.

'Magic is an extension of the soul,' Harry thought almost from an outwards perspective, 'The soul is derived of emotions. I have to mean it, to crave it,'

Harry's head lolled to the side, piercing the dark with dulled green as he spotted the faint outline of the quill on the floor some distance away.

"I want it," Harry hissed, the words nearly distorting with how long he carried the vowels. His face twitched and he extended one hand towards the quill, a headache pounded against his skull and exhaustion weighed painfully on his bones.

"Incendio."

The quill burst into flames.

Indiscernible in the dark, Harry smiled.