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Harry and Evelyn Potter's lives truly started when that first set of parchment envelopes appered through the post box of Number 4 Privet Drive. Of course, it had actually taken them a while to get to that point, but every single bit of abuse they had dealt with from the Dursleys paid off when their sleep was disrupted on the night of their eleventh birthday.
Neither really knew how they came to live with Vernon, Petunia and Dudley Dursley; all they really knew was that their parents were dead, they only had each other and were being sent to living with their mother's sister, who seemed to despise Lily more than she hated her sister-in-law's dog slobbering over her flowery carpets.
And that hate transfered onto her niece and nephew, who not only Petunia but the entirety off her family acted as if they never existed, and when they did acknowledge them it was only in the cruelest of fashions.
Evie's first memory was of her and Harry sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs - their was nothing special about the memory other than that she hit her head particularly hard when sitting up. They would stay in that cupboard for years to come.
Then, more memories of the utter misery they believed to be normal flooded in; being pushed into puddles by their cousin when they could only just walk, clothed in cheap, second or third-hand waterproof coats which were soaked through, learning to cook meals and complete household chores when they were barely even taller than the fence that lined the edges of their Aunt's neat front garden.
Harry and Evie used to think it was normal, to be bullied by their cousin, forced to do all the chores and be told off for things that they couldn't control. They thought it was normal, to not be loved by the family they lived with.
Until they attended school, and could understand what was going on around them. The few friends that they would make for all of a day or two, would tell them tales of their homes, where they had all the up-to date toys or gadgets, who were tucked in at night by a bed time story, and not have their only food option to be the greasy leftovers of whatever Vernon, Petunia and Dudley hadn't eaten. Then those friends wouldn't speak to them, the overgrow toddler that was Dudley Dursley causing that.
They thought it was normal for one of them to have a brusie the size of a tennis ball on their leg because their cousin pushed them down the stairs, or scratches all up their arms because Dudley lured a cat to them, or forced them to fall into brushes.
Thought it was normal to be utterly despised by their family, to be called freaks by their aunt and live under the stairs, or for Evie to be particularly hated when her hair grew out into long locks of ginger hair, hazel eyes glinting back.
But it wasn't normal. It wasn't normal to be covered in injuries caused by your cousin, or be so underweight that the clothes they were given hung off of them like they were stick people.
