What Petunia was up to soon became apparent.

Before taking Harry into any furniture or paint shops, she ushered him into the video store, talking about getting Dudley “a little something to console him”.

She spent a long time looking at the newest, most expensive games, while Harry wandered the store waiting for her to make her mind up. After what felt like forever, she startled him from behind. “I’ve found the perfect one. Come on, Harry.”

Petunia dragged him to the checkout, and then they walked out of the shop.

Alarms suddenly blared, making Harry jump out of his skin. Petunia didn’t jump, but frowned. “What’s going on?”

As the store security closed in, the bottom dropped out of Harry’s stomach. He patted down his pockets.

Watch your pockets, Dudley had been going to say. He should know—he’d slipped things inside Harry’s pockets for fun too many times to count. Inside one of his jacket pockets was something hard, shaped like a disc case.

“Oh, great,” he muttered.

-

There was no looking at furniture or paints—it had all been a ruse to get him into the shops. Harry tried invoking Snape’s name on the way home, but only got a clip around the ear for his trouble.

I don’t understand, why doesn’t that work anymore?

After the hours spent at the police station, Harry had had to endure Petunia’s lecture in the car on the way home.

“Thought you’d finally learned your lesson … A common thief, in our family … Wait until your uncle hears about this …”

As if Vernon didn’t know about it already. He and Petunia had probably planned it together. What Harry didn’t understand was why on earth they thought they were going to get away with it.

Then again … they had so far. The moment Harry had realised what had happened, he felt like a little boy again, too scared to tell anyone he’d been set up. Planting things on Harry during shopping trips had been one of Dudley’s favourite games, and he’d always made it clear he’d break Harry’s legs if he ever tried to tell anyone it was him.

Besides, who would believe anyone would plant a video game on their own nephew just to get them into trouble?

Harry hadn’t ‘confessed’, the way he had as a child, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to defend himself either. After all the cautions he’d had, this time he faced an actual trial. The cops had assured him he wasn’t going to go to prison, most likely he would get a fine and/or community service.

I’ve got to tell Snape, Harry told himself sternly as they got out of the car. I’ve got to tell someone. I can’t keep letting the Dursleys walk all over me because it’s humiliating asking for help.

The moment he saw Snape on Monday, he resolved, he would tell him everything. He dreaded to think what Snape might do to Petunia, but he didn’t see he had any other option.

“Right,” Petunia said sharply once they were inside the hall. “Into the cupboard.”

Harry stared blankly at her. “What?”

“Into the cupboard now,” she snapped, shoving him towards the cupboard under the stairs.

“You’re not serious!”

“I am deadly serious,” she snapped. “Clearly neither working nor your freaky school is doing you any good, so we’re going back to old punishments. You’re going to be locked in your cupboard until further notice, and you can forget about the nice big meals you’ve been enjoying at our expense.”

“What about what Snape said?” Harry tried again.

She clipped him around the ear again, opened the cupboard door and kicked him towards it. “You let me handle Snape. If he tries to interfere in our household again he will seriously regret it.”

Petunia sounded completely confident in her statement, and a horrible gnawing feeling churned in Harry’s gut. What did she think she had up her sleeve? Was she delusional, or did she really have some way of making Snape back off?

“I told you to get inside.” Petunia kicked Harry until he scrambled in on his hands and knees. “Now, you can forget about dinner tonight; since you’ve been fattening yourself up on our food—”

“What?” Harry knew he had put on a couple of pounds thanks to Petunia’s cooking, but he was still barely a healthy weight—and even if he had got fat, it would be unbelievably rich of her to criticise, considering she had fed her own son until he was morbidly obese.

“—I think you can stand to go without any for a while. When your punishment’s over, and only when it’s over, we’re going to go back to the arrangement where you work off your debt to us. We’ll be adding food and clothing and so on to it as well.”

“You can’t do that! You never even bought me clothes! And—”

“I thought I told you to shut up,” Petunia said furiously, and slammed the cupboard door shut. He heard her lock it. “Every peep I hear out of you will add an extra day to your punishment.”

“But—”

“Be quiet!”

Harry fell silent, and she stalked away into the kitchen.

He hadn’t even seen inside his cupboard since he moved out five years ago. There were far more spiders inside now, and a lot more dust. He sneezed a couple of times, causing Petunia to yell at him again. There was no longer a bed inside, or blanket, or anything, and it felt far too cramped now he was much taller.

Being back in here now only made Harry feel more like the miserable, unloved, frightened little orphan he had been before Hogwarts. He curled up on the floor, starting to shiver, but not with cold. The walls seemed to be pressing in on him and he was having trouble breathing. The more time passed, the more distant Hogwarts and his friends and safety seemed.

“Harry?” someone whispered outside his cupboard door.

Harry sat bolt upright and almost cracked his head open on the ceiling. “Dudley?”

“I—I’m sorry. I tried to warn you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Mum’s hidden the key, so I can’t let you out. I tried to squash some bread so it would fit under the door,” Dudley said, “but I couldn’t get it flat enough.”

“That’s okay. I appreciate you trying. Um … why are you trying to help me?”

There was a long silence the other side. “You helped me last year,” Dudley finally said.

“Oh.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the door, and Harry heard footsteps. “Dudley?” It was Vernon. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing—”

“Get away from that freak! Can you imagine how much you’ll upset your mother if she finds you talking to him?”

Apparently Dudley didn’t like that thought, and obediently left the hall. He didn’t try talking to Harry again.

It was hours after the rest of the house had gone quiet that Harry finally dropped off to sleep.

-

“Eurrgh,” Harry muttered as his brain began working enough to notice how he felt.

He was shivering, and this time it wasn’t just the psychological effects of being back in his cupboard. But it wasn’t cold, either—or not just cold, for he felt boiling hot.

Harry’s head was pounding so hard he felt sick, and when he tried to lift his head the cupboard spun giddily. His whole body was sore, and his skin itched all over. His stomach ached particularly badly—in fact it was burning.

Oh no. I can’t be ill. Not now.

Harry had always hated getting ill at the Dursleys’. They never liked to go near him no matter what he had, and it was up to him to look after himself, and clear up after himself if he made any kind of mess.

Hic! He groaned. The hiccup had not just been painful, but sent his insides gurgling fiercely.

Harry opened his eyes, and they stung and watered. He found himself scratching his skin, and realised it was covered with unsightly blue rashes. Although he had been too weak to scratch hard, the ones he’d scratched had pinpricks of blood oozing out.

Slowly, he raised an arm and rapped on his cupboard door. Just that action drained him of energy.

“Hello?” he called hoarsely, choking as his throat felt like it was full of splinters. “Aunt Petunia? Anyone?”

“Shut up, boy,” he heard his uncle’s voice call back.

Hic! A stream of multi-coloured bubbles floated out of his mouth and popped on the ceiling.

“I’m ill,” Harry croaked. “I need a Healer.”

“I said shut up! That’s an extra day added to your punishment.”

He kept trying, and trying, until he finally got the message. Nothing he said made a blind bit of difference, not even telling them what he had might be fatal for all he knew. Harry realised they couldn’t actually hear him properly; all they heard was noise. He couldn’t shout any louder; his throat was in agony as it was.

So he stopped. He just had to make it through the weekend. Come Monday, they’d have to let him out to go to work, or Snape would come knocking on the door.

The hours passed slowly. Harry was exhausted and in pain and hungry, though he doubted he could have stomached anything if he had been allowed food. He couldn’t resist itching and kept making his poor skin bleed, and now it was swelling up as well. He longed for something soft to lie on and even those foul-tasting but wonderfully effective potions.

He longed for someone to look after him, like Molly or Madam Pomfrey, or even Snape. As much as he disliked Harry, Snape had seen to his needs, in fact beyond his needs. After a while, Harry started to imagine he was there, talking to him gently and smoothing his hair and tending to his symptoms. He knew it wasn’t real, firstly because Snape wasn’t that affectionate, and also because he kept hearing cuckoos and the ceiling looked like it was rotating.

The dreams (or deliriousness) continued. Strange shapes floated around above Harry’s head and he could hear a marching band somewhere. For a while his own mother was there, cradling him in her arms, but she disappeared. His senses were muddling up; he could taste sound and hear smells, primarily cheese. Colours started to make no sense. A miniature Gilderoy Lockhart floated above him and set a cage of Cornish pixies loose, which started dancing on his rashes and making them itch even more.

-

Severus checked his watch in irritation. Ten past nine.

“Come on, Potter, where are you?” he said impatiently.

Loath as he was to admit something good about Potter, the boy had been punctual every day. This wasn’t like him.

Maybe he was late trying to wrangle money out of the Dursleys, Severus thought suddenly. Yes, that made sense. His relatives were still trying to stall.

Well, he’d give Potter a bit longer.

Severus decided to make a start on his own, and began his own task. Although he didn’t mean to, he got absorbed in it, and only realised what the time was when the newly-fixed clock struck half past.

This was not like Potter. If he knew he would be significantly late, he would have called Mrs Figg and asked her to pass the message on. No … something was wrong.

Cursing himself for not going over there earlier, Severus Flooed to Mrs Figg’s and walked the now-very-familiar route to Number Four Privet Drive, and rang the doorbell.

Petunia opened it, looking disturbingly calm. “Hello, Snape.”

“Where’s the boy?” Severus said shortly.

“Oh, yes. I’m afraid he won’t be coming to work for you today.”

Severus frowned. “Why not? Is he ill or something?”

“He’s grounded.”

“For what?”

“Shoplifting,” Petunia said.

Severus stared at her. “Shoplifting?”

A few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have had trouble believing Potter could be a thief. But after seeing how hard the boy worked to be able to afford basic necessities, sacrificing his own health to do so, he now doubted very much the truth of this statement.

“Yes. So he won’t be working for you for a couple of weeks. Goodbye, Snape.”

“Hold on,” Snape growled, putting his foot in the door. “Why did he not tell me this himself?”

“I told you, he’s grounded.”

Warning bells rung in Severus’ ears. “You’ve locked him up again, haven’t you?” he burst out, barely able to contain his rage. “How dare you—”

“How dare you,” Petunia snapped, her calm demeanour vanishing. “You waltz in here and threaten us, when I know you’re no better than we are—in fact you’re much worse!”

“I would never lock up or starve a child in my care!” Severus exploded.

“Well those are some interesting priorities! You’re forgetting, Snape—I know all about you; I know you’ve done far worse!” Severus stared at her, stunned. “You do not hold the moral high ground here! So you cannot dictate or lecture or threaten us anymore, or I will ensure your deepest darkest secrets get you a one-way ticket to Azkaban.”

“What secrets?” Severus spluttered.

Petunia’s eyes glittered. “Back off my family,” she said, “or I will spill the beans on how you murdered your own father.”