Harry Potter, aka The Boy Who Lived, was currently having one hell of a miserable summer, to put it lightly. Currently he was sprawled on his bed, the sheets tossed around his ankles as he panted from over-heating, his body covered in a layer of sweat. His heart was racing a mile a minute and his head was spinning, despite his body being completely still. He had just awoken from a rather traumatizing dream, one of many that summer, of the last task of the tri-wizard tournament. Of course, this involved the death of Cedric Diggory, Hogwarts’ proper champion (since Harry’s name was added against the rules) and the resurrection of Voldemort. So not only had he woken up, barely able to stifle a scream (there would be hell to pay for waking up his relatives at 3am), but it seemed that he had managed to come down with a fever as well.

He groaned nearly silently and closed his eyes, willing the room to stop spinning as he tried to sooth his stomach by sheer will power. Of course, his stomach kept turning for several more minutes to spite him before settling down. He let out a deep breath and tried to force himself back to sleep. Of course, it was never that easy and he certainly didn’t want to risk dreaming THAT again tonight. So instead, he laid still and drifted in and out of consciousness for the rest of the night until his aunt’s screeching voice yelled up to up, “GET UP BOY! YOU NEED TO MAKE BREAKFAST BEFORE VERNON GETS UP!”

Harry shuddered softly as a chill ran through his body and he forced himself out of bed, quickly collapsing to his knees as the room spun wildly and his stomach lurched again. He swallowed hard and after a moment of steadying himself, he stood on shaky legs, making his way out of his room and into the kitchen. While he held little fear of his relatives nowadays, that was not always so. When he was younger, mainly before his first year a Hogwarts (though for quite a while after), his uncle would be quite brutal in his punishments if Harry “misbehaved”. Of course, that could include breathing too loudly. Not to mention Dudley’s games of using Harry as a punching bag and his aunt’s constant verbal abuse. Now he did his chores simply to keep the peace and to keep himself busy.

“About time! Make eggs and toast, we don’t have time for anything else, and don‘t burn anything! Vernon will give you a list of chores for today before he leaves,” Petunia ordered and slid past him out of the kitchen to rouse her husband and son. Harry nodded briefly as he pulled out a pan and plugged in the toaster. He quickly got out the bread and eggs, pausing only when he got dizzy again and had to lean against the counter to stay upright. He put the toast on to cook and cracked several eggs, making a large batch of scrambled eggs within a matter of minutes.

Due to feeling awful and concentrating on not burning the food, he didn’t notice his cousin enter the kitchen behind him. Dudley got a malicious grin, seeing that his cousin didn’t have his “freaky stick”. He waddled up behind him, peering over the shorter boy’s shoulder at the pan before he grabbed Harry by the back of the neck and his shoulders. He quickly shoved him forward, using brute strength as usual and shoved the boy’s right forearm straight into the pan of cooking eggs.

Harry shrieked instinctively out of pain and surprise before he fought to pull his arm from the scalding pan and escape his cousin’s grip. The larger boy outweighed him by a good two hundred pounds, however, and despite appearing like a large baby whale, quite a bit of it was muscle now due to boxing. He held Harry’s arm in the pan for several moments before Harry kicked back and landed his heel in Dudley’s crotch. Dudley howled in pain, releasing Harry as he backed up and cupped himself, barely keeping from collapsing to his knees.

Harry was hyperventilating by that point, gripping his wrist just above the very large and angry looking burn that covered the entire tender underside of his forearm. His head spun dangerously as he backed away from his cousin, the full reality of the situation hitting him like a ton of bricks. He had kicked Dudley in the family jewels, something he had never dared to do before, and for good reason. He started shaking as he felt his cheeks heat up even more, silent tears now coursing down his face from panic and pain as he looked around the room, realizing finally that he had to get out of there. He turned to bolt out the door, even as Dudley continued to howl and carry on, probably waking up the entire neighborhood in the process, and proceeded to run straight into the formidable figure that was his Uncle Vernon.

Harry landed on the floor, his burned arm smacking the linoleum as he did, causing him to cry out briefly as he looked up at his uncle. Vernon took in the scene; the now burning eggs, his son crumpled over holding his crotch, and the panicked Harry who was undoubtedly trying to escape. “Boy…if you have done what I think you have, you are going to pay dearly. Dudley, son, what did the freak do to you?”

Dudley couldn’t, or wouldn’t, answer and Harry knew that his cousin had signed his proverbial death sentence. Though perhaps not so proverbial if the glint in his uncle’s eyes were anything to go by. “Get…to your room. Now. And don’t even think about leaving or contacting your freaky friends. I’ll not have you terrorizing my son in my own home!” He roared, gaining volume as he went and his face went from red to nearly plum in color. Harry shuddered and backed away, standing shakily as the room spun once more.

He quickly dashed from the room, considering quickly doing exactly what Vernon had said not to do. However, most of his school things were locked away in his old cupboard and only a handful of objects were in the floorboard under his bed, his wand not included. His uncle had made sure that THAT particular object was in his trunk before locking it away. Thankfully, he had left Hedwig with Hermione, so he didn’t have to worry about her safety. He was debating what he was going to do, when he heard his uncle on the phone, claiming to have a flat tire to explain that he would be late for work. Harry paled at that. His uncle usually left him to stew until after he got off work, and usually the worst of what he got was due to him drinking before coming home. But Vernon was sober, and pissed. Harry clutched the headboard of his bed tightly as nausea ran through him again. He closed his eyes and willed his stomach to behave, though it certainly seemed to have a mind of its own.

By the time he realized that the voice downstairs had quieted and that he was wasting time trying to not fall over, his uncle entered the room, kicking the door out of the way with a harsh bang. Harry glanced out the window, seeing that Petunia and Dudley were in the car, pulling out of the driveway. He paled further, knowing that it wasn’t a good sign. When he looked back to his uncle, however, he immediately saw stars and found himself on his knees after his uncle raised the belt in his hand that Harry hadn’t noticed before, and brought it hard and fast across Harry’s face, buckle first. Harry hissed in pain and surprise, raising both hands to grip the sides of his head gently, hoping to stop the room from spinning as he looked up at his uncle, whose face was still a dangerous shade of purple.

“You have put my family in danger for far too long, boy, and now I’m going to do to you what I shouldn’t have stopped doing all those years ago. Obviously not getting the snot beaten out of you has made you stupid. So allow me to refresh your memory!” He ranted at Harry, bringing down his belt with every other word on the last sentence. Harry fought with himself to keep from crying out. A few tears managed to leak out of his eyes, but he managed to stay nearly soundless except for the occasional gasp and hiss of pain.

“You know what my kind will do to you when they find out you did this to me,” Harry spat back, more bravely than he felt. “He deserved what he got!” The expression on his uncle’s face and the degree to which the vein was popping out of his forehead would have been comical if the situation hadn’t been so serious. Oh well, he’s going to beat the crap out of me anyway, might as well make it worth it, he thought to himself.

A very demented grin slowly filled his uncle’s face and Harry felt his insides do a flip that had nothing to do with the illness he was fighting, “And you are going to get what you deserve, you worthless freak. You‘re going to beg me to send you to meet your worthless, filthy parents before I‘m done with you.” He picked Harry up by the neck, throwing him onto the bed and proceeded to beat Harry for a good 15 minutes with the sharp end of the belt, causing bright splotches of red to blossom all over Harry’s hand-me-down shirt that was a good four sizes too big for him.
When he stopped, Harry was whimpering and curled into a tight ball on the bed, hoping that his uncle had tired and was finished. Of course, luck just wasn’t on his side that day. His uncle turned around and rooted around the room before finding what he was looking for, an aluminum bat from when he had tried to get Dudley to play that ruddy American sport. He then turned on Harry like a man possessed and proceeded to beat Harry with all his strength with the bat, not satisfied until he heard no less than 5 satisfying cracks, one bone in his arm protruding from the burned part of his arm, causing blood to run down over his abused skin and the boy was unconscious. Tossing the bat away, he stood and contemplated doing what he had done to the boy years ago to instill fear, but knew it wouldn’t be nearly as fun if the boy wasn’t conscious and begging him to stop.

He felt a shudder of excitement run up his spine at the thought of having such control over the boy again and he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist such a treat for long. But he could wait. He straightened up his clothing and turned to leave, shutting and locking the door behind him as the boy who lived curled up on the bed gripped in a fever and the nightmare that was his mind.