"No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow."

Alice Walker

Harry shifted slightly, trying to find a more comfortable position to sit in, so he could rest and hopefully relax enough to sleep. He hadn’t slept, not properly, in nearly a week. When awake, he sometimes saw things or heard things that he knew weren’t there and realised, in a lethargic, apathetic way, that he was slowly going mad.

The cupboard was far more cramped now than it had been when he was last locked in it. But then, when he was last locked in, he had been just shy of eleven years old, and his body had been painfully thin and short for his age. Now he was nearly sixteen and he had had another growth spurt in the past six months – he was certain he should still be undergoing the growth-spurt, but this past month was sure to have stunted it again, since what little food he had been allowed, was being conserved to keep him alive.

Shifting again in the near complete darkness, Harry tried to stretch out his legs, trying to will his muscles back to life after hours of inactivity. His arse had gone numb hours ago, his spine was aching and the muscles of his back and shoulders were twitching painfully, intermittently, letting him know his body didn’t like the treatment – especially after a few years of respite from the cupboard. Harry’s body was no longer used to the harsh treatment it had survived in his early years.

The boy sighed and leaned his head against the dusty wall, eyes taking in the little amount of light afforded by the crack under the door. It was slowly brightening, which meant he had spent another restless night, shifting and sighing, ruminating rather than sleeping. In little more than an hour, Petunia was going to bang on the door to wake him up and he would start a new day of House Elf duties. He absently wondered if she would feed him this time.

He didn’t think she would. Petunia had seemed even more ill tempered this summer and she had fed him only the barest minimum to keep him alive, allowing him a glass or two of water a day besides. It was a very hot summer this year and he was sure he would have burned out from dehydration by now if she hadn’t relented on that issue.

Harry shifted again, carefully shaking his legs and arms, attempting to stop the numbness, only to hiss sharply as they filled with pins-and-needles instead.

He supposed he ought to be more worried about the way his aunt and uncle were treating him this summer, but he couldn’t work up the energy to do so. All his energy seemed to have vanished along with Sirius, winking out of existence behind the veil like so much dry air. Nothing left of him but a dried out old husk, briefly animated by the sunlight to perform menial tasks, before being put away again come dusk, like the Golems he had read about in History Of Magic.

Harry’s eyes turned to the inverted stairs above him as he heard faint traces of movement upstairs. Petunia was up. Vernon would be about half an hour after her. Dudley would be woken up come lunchtime, by Petunia or even Harry, just in time to come down for the meal Harry would likely be cooking but not eating.

Reaching up with a limp hand, Harry slowly smoothed away the dust on the middle step and smiled to himself, as he wiped the cloying particles on the threadbare carpet beneath him.

‘Harry’s Room’

Those had been, if not ‘better’ days, then certainly simpler ones. His only dream then had been for someone to love him, or for his Aunt to show him some sort of affection. He hadn’t known true grief, then. He hadn’t known friendship, so didn’t know to miss it. He hadn’t known that he was different, or that he was famous. He had been simply ‘Harry,’ or ‘Boy,’ tirelessly working for his aunt, trudging to and from Primary school and sleeping on the cot in his tiny bedroom.

He turned his head away from the untidy scrawl on the stair and looked once again at the light coming in through the crack around the door. It was much brighter now; it was definitely morning and very soon he would be back to slaving his arse off for his relatives.

With a slight groan, he tried to stretch again, wincing slightly as bones and joints cracked sharply, the motion bringing a slight measure of relief to his cramped muscles. Mere moments later, he heard Petunia’s footfalls on the steps above him. He followed her movement with his eyes and didn’t even blink when she banged loudly on the door.

“Up!” The bolt slid open with a sharp ‘snick!’

Harry sighed and rubbed his eyes and then the bridge of his nose. With a slight start he ran his fingertips gently over his nose again. Either Vernon had broken his nose at some point without him realising, and it had healed wrong – or Harry’s nose was slightly different. With a blink into the darkness, Harry sluggishly decided he would investigate in the bathroom mirror later.

He put his glasses on and fumbled the door open. The morning sunlight hit his eyes and nearly blinded him, causing him to flinch and shrink back for a moment, trying to adjust. Petunia wouldn’t have that, though; she grabbed his upper arm and dragged him out, her bony fingers surprisingly claw-like as they gripped him, undoubtedly causing bruises.

She dumped him unceremoniously in the centre of the kitchen and folded her arms, “Vernon wants bacon and eggs, this morning, Boy. So hop to it!”

Harry stumbled to his feet and set to work, ignoring the slight hunger cramps as he did so.