Summer Snaps by Aqua666

In the summer of 1985 many things happened. The hole in the ozone layer was discovered, the famous Route 66 was closed, and Back to the Future opened in theatres. For little Harry, it was the summer he made a friend.

Mrs. Figg had gone on vacation for two of the hottest week of the year and Dudley had thrown several tantrums because he wasn't allowed to go swimming. So, Aunt Tunia had given in and taken both of the boys to the swimming pool.

Having never been given any decent clothes, Harry had to swim in the enormous shorts that were bound around his waist with a tin string. He didn't care though, not even when Dudley was laughing at him. He was at the pool and he was going to have fun.

Splashing around in the kiddie pool, Harry was enjoying himself immensely when he was suddenly joined by little girl around his own age. They started a water-fight and little Harry had the best time ever. He laughed so much, he was actually starting to get a bit of a tummy-ache. But he didn't care, he'd finally made a friend.

But not long after they met, Dudley showed up. And like every time Harry had something, Dudley took it away. He kicked and hit the little girl. Said mean things and pulled her hair. At first Harry tried to get the girl away from his mean cousin, but Dudley just followed them. Then the girl started crying and her mummy came to comfort her.

Dudley vanished as soon as the woman arrived but Harry stayed, concerned over his new friend. But when the woman had quieted her child and told her to go find daddy, she turned to Harry with a stern look. The girl's mother hadn't seen Dudley. She'd only seen Harry pulling on her little girl's arm.

Harry didn't try to convince her that he’d only meant to get her away from Duddy. He knew how this would go. Even if the woman believed him now, she would still take him to see Aunt Tunia. His aunt would apologize to the woman for Harry's behaviour and then, when they where away from all the people, she would yell and punish Harry. If the woman told his aunt that Harry had incriminated Dudley, the punishment would be ten times worse.

So Harry bit his lip and looked down at his bare feet while the woman took him to his aunt. She told Aunt Tunia what she had seen and scolded her for not paying more attention to her son. Harry wanted to cry when he heard that, his aunt would not like being told off. Harry would pay for the comment, he just knew it.

They left the swimming pool immediately after the woman returned to her family, with Dudley screaming out his disagreement. In the car, Harry huddled against the door, trying to tune out his aunt's screeching while avoiding Dudley's fists.

When they finally returned home, Aunt Tunia pushed him into the cupboard. Harry sat down with a sigh and started preparing himself for the days of loneliness that would follow. Already resigned to going without food, he could only hope someone would remember to let him go to the bathroom.

~*~ HP ~*~

The summer of Harry's sixth birthday was another terrible summer for Harry. At the start of the summer, aunt Petunia had finally allowed him to cook all on his own. Something Harry had been looking forward to. He was allowed to do the cleaning and gardening by himself, but he didn't like those chores as much as he liked cooking. Finally being able to cook without his aunt yelling at him the whole time seemed like an adventure, something fun all for himself.

But Harry was still very small, making it incredibly hard for him to look into the pots and pans. He'd managed to cook the eggs perfectly but the bacon turned out to be too hard. Unable to see the meat while it was on the fire, Harry was left to guess when it would be done. He guessed wrong. Smelling a faint burned smell, Harry tried to take the pan of the fire. The handle was still a bit hot and Harry let the pan tip sideways. The bacon slipped out and fell directly onto the fire.

Not knowing what to do, Harry yelled for his aunt. He knew he shouldn't, but what else was a child supposed to do? There was a fire and he wasn't big enough to stop it. His aunt came running into the kitchen and started yelling right away. She doused the fire quickly and turned to Harry furiously. Grabbing his arm, she pulled the child to the hallway and threw him into the cupboard.

They left him in the cupboard without food for over a week. After which, they allowed him to have a single slice of bread each day. He was given the right to use the bathroom twice a day but he wasn't allowed out of his cupboard for any other reason for the rest of the summer.

~*~ HP ~*~

The summer of 1987 was much better than any Harry could remember. During the school year, Harry and his classmates had been taken to the library ones every two weeks. Parents had been encouraged to give their children a library card so they could lend books, something that the Dursleys obviously refused to do for Harry. That hadn't stopped Harry from enjoying the time there though. Every other week he had an hour to sit in a secluded part of the library, between the history and philosophy sections, and read one of the many books.

His progress through the stack of books he wanted to read was slow going, since he only had access to the books during a very short interval. But Harry had resolved to go more often during his vacations, and he had been doing so since Christmas. His aunt and uncle forbade him to go anywhere but home after school, but they were always lacks during the breaks. Harry figured it was probably because they hated him so much. They didn't want him inside their house for long periods of time, lest he contaminate their precious space with his freakiness.

Harry wasn't bothered with the insults any longer. He had well and truly given up on his relatives. He didn't know why, but he knew they hated him. They would never care for him, no matter what he did, and so Harry had stopped caring. Living with them was still hard though. The constant chores his aunt gave him, the screaming lectures from his uncle, and the punches from his cousin made sure of that. But Harry noticed that it was a lot easier to deal with it all if he just stayed away as much as possible.

And so, during the summer vacation, Harry took to spending almost all of his time at the library. He still had to do the chores of course, but he had learned to finish them all before lunch. After he'd made the sandwiches for Dudley, he could sneak out the house while his aunt was too busy with her precious little boy to give Harry any more chores.

Harry had started with easy books, silly tales meant for little children, but he'd continued on to more advanced material pretty quickly. He had particularly liked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, though he had been disappointed with the sequel. A flying lift, as if.

He didn't really like any of the books with magic, they were just too fantastical. His aunt and uncle always said that magic wasn't real, and Harry had no time for things that weren't real. Reading about magical lands would only make him wish that he could have been born there. Then maybe he could use some kind of spell to make his little cupboard larger, or better yet, bring his parents back.

But none of that was possible and so, Harry didn't dream. Instead, he stuck to the more sensible books. Like Sherlock Holmes, which seemed a lot more sensible to Harry. After all, the man was all about logic and nothing was more real than that.

~*~ HP ~*~

The summer of Harry's eight birthday was once again a terrible one. For almost two years, Harry had been able to hide his regular trips to the library from his relatives. They hadn't cared and Harry had liked it that way. But then Dudley had to go and ruin it.

During one of the hottest days yet, Harry been weeding the garden when Dudley and his gang had showed up. They had pestered him continually, making Harry's work all the harder. It had taken him two hours longer than normal to finish his work for the day, and his aunt was already cleaning up lunch when he finally came inside.

He'd tried to sneak past his aunt but was caught when the door creaked. Pulling him by his shirt, his aunt glared at him and asked why he was inside when he was supposed to be taking care of the garden. Harry had answered that he was already done and so, his aunt had given him more work to do. Little Harry had finished as quickly as he could but by the time he was done, it was already time for dinner.

The next day, harry had ones again finished weeding before lunch. Dudley and his gang had gone to bully some other kids and Harry had been able to do his job without constant interruptions. But when he went inside to clean his hands, his aunt was waiting for him with a glare. She gave him enough extra chores to keep him busy until the evening. Leaving Harry no choice but to resign himself to another day without the books he had come to love.

This happened for several say in a row. Until one day, Harry was able to sneak out before his aunt noticed he was done with what was now his first set of chores for the day. He'd gone to the library and spend a wonderful afternoon reading some kind of mythology book. It wasn't a book about magic, just about the things people used to believe. It was just enough to keep him from panicking at the thought of being found out. Reading a book he might be able to explain. Reading about magic would get him locked up in the cupboard for at least a week.

When he returned home however, his aunt was furious that he hadn't been there to do his second set of chores. All through dinner she had yelled at him, while he just sat there looking forlornly at the empty plate in front of him. If only he was allowed to eat something, maybe her screams wouldn't hurt so much.

For the following week, his aunt kept a close eye on him. With no chance to escape, Harry just did his chores as asked before he went to his cupboard in the hopes to be left alone. Sadly enough, his aunt came to assign him more work if he was in there for more than 10 minutes.

Eventually though, his aunt lapsed when she planned a shopping trip. Most days, she would go to the store shortly after breakfast and be back before Harry had finished the garden. But that morning Dudley had thrown a fit over a toy he had broken, and Harry's aunt had been unable to leave her little Duddikins in such a state. She'd left much later than usually and Harry had sneaked out as soon as he could.

He'd gone to the library again and had been quite happy for several hours. He was still reading from the mythology section and had just settled in with something about the Norse gods when his aunt stormed in. She'd dragged him out of there and towards the house without a word. She didn't speak as she opened the door, nor did she say a word when she pushed him in his cupboard and locked the door.

Harry had been confused as to how she had found him for a while, wondering if maybe she had seen him go inside somehow. But he couldn't fathom why she would have waited several hours before getting him. Not long after he'd been locked in, Dudley came to stand in front of the door. Chuckling maliciously he told him how he'd followed Harry when he'd snuck out. Harry wasn't surprised really, Dudley loved getting him into trouble. Closing his eyes, Harry ignored Dudley's taunts and tried to sleep. Hoping against hope that he would be allowed to leave by the time he woke again.