“Don’t you even dare come out of that cupboard until you look halfway presentable! Do you understand boy?” he shouted.

But Vernon Dursley did not wait for the answer. He slammed the door of the cupboard shut, not even caring that he had just smashed his nephew’s left hand. He simply kicked the arm back in the cupboard and savagely slammed the door for the second time, then went away muttering to himself about lazy freaks and how he would finally teach them to show some respect.

The dust falling from the wooden stairs finally settled on the starved, semi-conscious, cramped body of Harry Potter, but he was far too gone to even notice. He was cradling his left arm to his chest. The pain close to unbearable, he felt as if he were going to be sick. His fingers were throbbing and he could not move them. He knew that his hand was broken, it had been for at least two weeks.

Once again, summer had all but started well for Harry Potter.

When his uncle picked him up at King’s Cross station at the beginning of the summer holidays, he had done nothing to hide his depression, but with his last ounce of self-preservation he had kept the death of Sirius a secret, hoping that the Dursleys would never find out.

Weeks after he had come back “home” from Hogwarts, the loss of Sirius was still a heavy weight on his shoulders and he felt like he could not breathe, as if the guilt he felt - misplaced as it was - was a real physical illness devouring him alive from the inside out.

His friends had told him and told him again and again that it had not been his fault, but he just knew that if had not gone berserk and stormed to the Ministry of Magic, Sirius – even reckless and deranged as he was or looked – would still be alive. Sirius Black had been killed because his beloved godson had put him in position to be.

So, the very simple truth was that Harry Potter – the Boy-Who-Lived, or really, the Boy-That-Refused-to-Die, it all well depended on allies or enemies – could not even stomach the idea of thinking about his Godfather.

Let alone speaking of his death.

But even if he had actually felt like talking to someone about it, he’d never discuss the matter with the Dursleys. Not ever.

The previous summer had been bad enough, as it was, but the fact that he had a godfather looking out for him somewhere in the world had at least given him some respite from his uncle’s more creative taunts, huge leather belt and punches.

Of course he had been starved, employed as a full time maid – never ever talk about house-elves with the Dursleys! -, slapped, mistreated and beaten by his cousin, but until the Dementors he had survived far better than he had expected, and he knew that it was the Dursleys’ fear of Sirius that had saved him from anything worse.

That is until Headmaster Albus Dumbledore - after taking no interest whatsoever in Harry's home life in the previous 14 years – decided to write a touching letter to Harry's relatives informing them of his godfather’s demise and asking them to please be even kinder than usual to their grieving nephew.

The letter had arrived three days after the beginning of the holidays, just a couple of days after Moody and Lupin had encouraged his uncle, in a public place, to be kind to the boy. Dumbledore’s letter wreaked havoc: as if Moody’s warning had not been an affront enough!

They could not believe the freak dared tell them lies, how could he be so ungrateful after all they had done for him?

His aunt had not said more than ten words to him since then and her husband had been so deeply outraged by the idea that the resident house freak had dared complain to someone about his treatment at the Dursleys, that he had beaten Harry to a pulp each day and tripled his workload, while only giving him scraps of food (usually leftovers) once every couple of days.

Harry had desperately tried to tell them that he had not been complaining to anybody at all, that the Headmaster had only meant well, but his uncle had punctuated every word coming out of his mouth with a harder slap to his face and another swing of his belt and Harry had given up trying, simply accepting his fate.

He did not dare use his magic to defend himself. He did not want to risk being expelled again and, after all, deep inside, somewhere in his bleeding heart, Harry simply knew that he deserved it. He deserved being punished for killing Sirius, and even for unknowingly leading Cedric Diggory to his death. He had not killed them with his hands, but he was a murderer nonetheless.

He would have gladly taken his own life, but that would not be enough, would it? It would be too easy. He deserved to suffer more than that.

‘And you would not be allowed to die before defeating Voldemort, anyway’ the little voice of wisdom spoke into his pain addled brain.

It had to be so, because it was the only way that Harry was able to accept the way his life was like. There had to be, there had to be a reason for him being orphaned and abused all his life long, he must be deserving it, his uncle must be right.

In the end Harry allowed himself to thank whichever deity was watching over him that his cousin was away with some school friends and not at home with his parents.