Searching for Wellness by DesertPlanet

Privet Drive was known for two things: perfect lawns and utterly average families. Every yard was manicured to perfection, every hedge trained and trimmed into perfect shapes, every garden blooming with flowers of every color during the spring and early summer. The men worked their perfectly average office jobs, the vast majority of the women were house-wives, and all of the children went to the various private secondary schools in the area.

All of the families and all of the children were normal except one.

The Dursleys tried very hard to be normal, to fit in, to not draw attention to themselves. All of that had shattered though when they had taken in their nephew. For years, they had shouldered on, determined he wouldn’t be a drug addict like his parents. Petunia made sure he was fed and dressed, and Vernon made sure he was well disciplined.

But around the time the young Potter boy turned nine, he started to struggle. It wasn’t obvious at first, but eventually the neighbors began to get worried.

He had always been much smaller than his cousin, Dudley. Now Dudley, that was a fine young lad. While he was massively overweight, he was routinely seen out with his friends riding their bikes and playing with his cousin. The Potter boy was always finding himself in some sort of trouble and Dudley was always there to help him out. The Potter boy obviously looked up to his cousin greatly, even going so far as to refuse to wear clothing that fit him in favor of wearing his cousin’s cast-offs, which unfortunately for him made him look so much smaller.

When he started to become ill, these clothes helped to cover it quite well. As his cheeks began to become sunk in, that’s when it became apparent the child was not as well as he appeared.

While he had previously been able to complete much of the yard work on his own in one day, he was noted to have to sit down frequently while doing tasks. He was often seen wobbling on his feet while walking to the porch to sit. He started to have to come out later and later in the day to avoid the heat, yet would still be found gasping for breath and sweating with even the simplest activity.

As he began to go outside less and less frequently, his skin began to lose its golden tan. His eyes also began to lose their luster, the emerald color which enthralled the women of the neighborhood dimmed and dulled into a murky and dull grey-green.

By the time the Potter boy was around ten, he was hardly ever seen outside. He was never seen doing any chores, but would occasionally be seen sitting on the front step at odd hours of the night.

Then one night, the neighborhood was awoken to the sounds of ambulance sirens. The Potter boy was being taken away on a stretcher with Petunia riding pursed-lipped in the back of the ambulance as well.

Agnes Tuttle, the neighbor in Number 2, had stopped by the next day to “check on things” and found that the Potter boy had indeed had to be admitted for multiple tests. He had apparently been found barely breathing, having passed out on the floor by the cupboard under the stairs. He had almost no blood in his body when they poked him to get access.

“It’s probably cancer,” Agnes could be heard telling Margaret of number 5 over tea. “Poor boy was trying so hard to make his aunt and uncle proud of him, he kept pushing himself to work even if he wasn’t feeling well.”

After word of the Potter boy’s ‘cancer’ spread, the neighborhood banded together in their pity and support and would periodically bring over food or various baked goods. This was especially the case when the Potter boy finally came home from hospital.

He still did not look well, but his cheeks were certainly more rosy, and that alone was enough to give hope to the neighborhood that he would pull through. And pull through he did, though he would periodically have to go to hospital for infusions and eventually was seen with a tube in his nose.

“It’s for feeding,” Petunia had explained when questioned at book club. “If he can’t keep food down, he may have to get one put in through his stomach.”

And when the tube finally did disappear from the boy’s nose, it was obvious to the keen observer that was exactly what had happened.

‘Poor boy’ was a common phrase heard around the neighborhood for months following the revelation he was unable to eat.

The Dursleys were saints for all they put up with with that boy.

“I HAVE HAD IT WITH YOU BOY!” Uncle Vernon roared, ripping open the cupboard under the stairs and looking at his bleary-eyed nephew.

Harry struggled to sit up, gingerly rubbing where his GJ-tube sat. Thankfully it hadn’t leaked last night. It did that sometimes, leaving bile colored stains on his clothing and bedding.

“Wazz-it?” Harry mumbled, trying to stop his head from spinning.

“YOU LAZY FREAK!” Uncle Vernon continued to yell as he snatched Harry out from the cupboard. “YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ALMOST DID?! YOU ALMOST LOST ME MY JOB!”

Harry blinked in confusion trying to track the conversation. Being rudely awakened and screamed at was not something he was physically or mentally able to track. The doctor had said he may have some difficulties with comprehension when his haemoglobin levels were low, but he hadn’t been to a followup appointment in months and had no idea how low they were now.

“Vernon, what has the boy done now?” Petunia said, looking at her rather limp nephew in disgust.

“There was a specially ordered drill which was made incorrectly. The only reason it could have been made so badly was if someone had interfered with it!” Vernon continued, shaking Harry until Harry started to turn rather green from the dizziness.

“Wha-?” Harry tried to ask, swallowing the acrid bile that rose in his throat. “What happened?”

“You did something freaky, didn’t you boy?!” Vernon growled, picking Harry up and slamming him into the cupboard door.

Harry weakly shook his head. He was still extremely unsure as to what was happening.

“Who knows what he’s been plotting,” Petunia sneered. “He’s been awfully quiet today.”

Harry just shook his head mutely. He hadn’t done anything ‘freaky’ for years, not since he started to get sick. That didn’t stop his aunt and uncle from blaming any mishap on him. In fact, it was almost like they expected him to do something ‘freakish’ at any given moment.

“This is the last straw, Pet. I can’t risk him ruining my career,” Vernon said, opening the cupboard door and throwing Harry back inside not caring when Harry’s head made contact with the underside of one of the stairs. “Sod being watched by the freaks.”

“He’ll be turning eleven in July and we’ll be rid of him by September. We can wait…” Petunia started before Vernon cut her off.

“Now. I want him gone NOW!” he roared, before stomping into the kitchen. “Now where is my bloody whiskey?”

Petunia just scowled at the door to the cupboard before following her husband into the kitchen. If it hadn’t been for all the attention and affection the neighbors had given them since the boy had first gotten ill, they would have gotten rid of him long ago.

Quickly, she penned a brief missive to the school of the freaks, what was it called again? Warthogs? Oh yes, Hogwarts. She was certain Albus Dumbledore would want her freaky sister’s son back.

Angrily, she folded the letter and shoved it in an envelope. Now to find a way to mail it to the man. Finding an owl was never an easy task.