The Necromancer

Chapter 1

Harry cradled his arm against his chest, biting back tears, as he sat on the thin mattress in the cupboard under the stairs, surrounded by darkness. The house was quiet, his family asleep, but Harry's arm hurt so badly that Harry couldn't even lie down properly.

Uncle Vernon had yanked so hard on Harry's arm when he'd caught Harry sneaking food from the rubbish bin after dinner that Harry had felt something pop on the inside. The Dursleys had enjoyed a lovely dinner of roast potatoes, pork chops and green beans, but Harry had been denied food for he second day in a row because Dudley had knocked over a vase of flowers and blamed it on Harry that afternoon.

And since Dudley refused to eat anything green and thus his green beans had ended up in the bin, Harry had tried to grab a quick handful for himself, just to have something in his aching stomach. But Uncle Vernon had gotten to him before Harry could eat even one little bean and now his arm hurt like it had never hurt before and Harry couldn't sleep.

How Harry wanted to leave the Dursleys. They were his family, the only family he had, but Harry was already four years old and he knew that how his family treated him wasn't right. Look at how they treated Dudley, and then compare that to Harry's lot in life.

No, Harry was still very young, but he wasn't stupid.

So he'd hatched a plan. A brilliant plan, if he did say so himself, to get him away from the Dursleys once and for all.

You see, Dudley's birthday had been a month ago and one of the many presents his cousin had received had been a cassette player with a whole pile of cassette tapes, all filled with wonderful stories told by some very friendly sounding adults. Dudley had managed to break the cassette player within a week, but during that week he'd played all the stories loud enough that even Harry in his cupboard could hear them.

And one of those stories held the secret to Harry's escape, he was sure of it.

The story of a boy names Aladdin who found a dusty old lamp which turned out to house a genie who granted him three wishes.

Harry wasn't sure what a genie even was, but that hardly mattered when it could give you whatever you wanted.

And Harry really, really wanted to leave the Dursleys. He wasn't actually sure where he wanted to go instead but he figured that anywhere would be better than a house where he wasn't fed, where his aunt and uncle regularly hurt him and where he had to spend most of his time in a tiny, dark closet under the staircase.

And so ever since hearing the wonderfully inspiring story of Aladdin and the genie, Harry had taken to collecting any piece of rubbish he could find and that his family wouldn't miss, just so he could rub it in the privacy of his cupboard to see if it housed a genie.

So far Harry had tried various rocks from the garden, and empty snail shell, some twigs, a small coin he found on the bathroom floor, and empty chewing gum wrapper, a rusty thimble and shiny piece of glass. None of those had worked, much to Harry's disappointment, but today Harry had found something he thought might very well work.

And old key he found on the floor of the shed, half hidden behind the lawnmower. Uncle Vernon had made Harry put away some of his tools he'd used on the car and Harry had snatched the key up and quickly tucked it in his pocket before Uncle Vernon had noticed anything. He'd barely had time to examine it, but it looked old and worn, just like Aladdin's lamp had.