It Meant Family

27th of June 1992

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself." - Harvey Fierstein

Privet Drive 4, Little Whinging, England

Harry grew to dislike his month with the Dursleys even more when he realised it meant he would get to see his family much less and the traumatic end of his first Hogwarts year didn't make the start of his summer any better.

He had nightmares whenever he was asleep, he dreamed of the formless wizard flying through his chest and his professor's body coming apart in his hands "Murderer", Voldemort's voice echoed in his mind. He wondered if he was right, if he was really no better than the man who stole his parents from him. Was that the reason Ron and Hermione hadn't written to him since the end of term?

The back door flew open and his aunt got up angrily to close it, he was pulled back to the present afraid his relatives would notice the wind was caused by his unsettling nerves. Dudley stole a piece of sausage from his plate, but he pretended not to see it, too preoccupied with his thoughts still half lingering on his friends.

"Devilish creature," Vernon spat as Hedwig hooted again "make it quiet boy."

"She would be quiet if you let me open her cage," Harry looked annoyed and defiant "she's an animal not a soft toy, you know?"

"How dare you speak to us in such an insubordinate manner?" Petunia slammed her hand on the table and stood up. "We take you in to protect you from that dreadful world your mother-"

"Don't you ever speak of my mother," Harry got up too, his blood boiling from anger "she's done more for me in a year then you'll ever do for this pathetic child of yours." Dudley looked up from his plate, offended and confused as to how he'd become involved in the conversation. "And let's not pretend for a second that you're doing this for me, I'm not stupid! The only people you're trying to protect are the troll you have for a husband and the bully you have for a son, you couldn't care less if I had dropped dead with my mother in that house."

Harry left the dining room in silence, ignoring his Uncle's screams in protest, and walked up to his room. Hedwig hooted desperately and he wished there was something he could do about it, but his uncle had hidden the key to her cage and if he used his wand in the middle of a fully muggle neighbourhood he would be caught.

Vernon and Petunia had him locked up in his room for the rest of the week, they'd bring him food sometimes, but there wasn't a pattern, some days he would get breakfast and two days later they'd give him lunch. More than a few times he looked out of the window and calculated what it would take for him to run away, then he remembered the sacrifice his parents had made, if he left and was found by Death Eaters it would all have been for nothing, so he stayed and watched the view instead.

He liked looking up to the sky, he found comfort in watching stars and constellations, Sirius, the brightest point in Canis Major and the Lupus constellation were his favourites, he felt lonely whenever he couldn't find them in the sky. Harry wished his godparents were there to provide him comfort and tell him he was loved, but he had to sit alone, trying not to let himself drown in the silence.

Privet Drive was a quiet street at night, looking out his bedroom window he noticed very few houses seemed to be awake. Sometimes, when he woke up in the middle of the night he could see a cat lurking around his house, he noticed it was the same one and wondered if it belonged to someone in the neighbourhood, but after spotting it in one particularly well illuminated night he was certain the feline was, in fact, his transfiguration professor, Minerva McGonagall.

He didn't know why she was watching him, maybe she didn't trust the Dursleys and she was right not to. He wished he could go out and talk to her, or let his relatives know she was there, waiting for an opportunity to come in and hex them all, but in reality, he didn't know that she was. His thoughts about the professor quickly interrupted when his eyes caught a glimpse of the full moon lingering in the sky.

He thought about Sirius and Remus in that dark room, the pain renny was forced to face every month and felt stupid, sitting in his well lit bedroom in the company of his owl and no agony to cut through his skin or break his bones. He couldn't shake the pit in his chest, the gut wrenching feeling that he couldn't remedy the suffering of someone he loved and the fluttering desire to do something even though there was nothing to be done.

Harry laid on his bed to the sound of his thoughts, his overwhelming doubts and insecurities hovering like a shadow over his head and running too fast for him to keep up. He begged his mind to quiet down so he could sleep, but they were persistent and determined to keep him up all night.

Finally he was able to block out the concerns of reality with a wall of dreams and imagination he had created in his head, a scenario built in his deepest desires. A perfect world with a happy family and great friends, one without the constant threat of Voldemort and Death Eaters, without the abuse of his disgusting Uncle, Aunt and cousin and without the hate of the world around him, forcing people to hide their rainbows and live in mundane shades of grey. He fell asleep to those images, pretending, only for that night, that they were his real life and that he wouldn't have to wake up in the next morning to the sound of his cousin's obnoxious friends.