The Blood At Dusk (HP AU)

Chapter 1: Routine

1995 30th July 1:36pm.

A normal neighbourhood, you wouldn't expect anything to be out of place. identical, smart looking gardens. Light laughter of children running down the paths to the park. Mothers smiling and chuckling at their children's antics. 

Cries and screams are the last thing you want to hear during that time of the day. Luckily there is none. For now.

A lanky, skinny boy stares blankly at the dishes he is scrubbing at as he cringes at the sound of praises coming from the living room. Dudley had got a 63% in his french exam at school, you would expect your parents to scold you to revise or reassure you lightly and tell you to try your best and think of it as a positive thing. But no, these particular parents were smothering their child in kisses for getting 5% better than last term. Complete and utter bullshit if you asked the family's 'slave'.

The 'freak' that inhabited the home was a lanky 5'5 at 14 years old. He had no fat on his bones, only some muscles that had grown over the years. Bruises littering every unseeable part of his body. A few fractured and broken bones here and there. Dead green eyes. A lightning bolt shaped scar that ran from his forehead to over his right eye, little branches of bolts across his right cheek and over his nose and left eye. A bloody back. And cracked round glasses that framed his sunken yet handsome face.

His name was Harry James Potter. He was no ordinary boy, he could do things that other couldn't. He was a wizard.

Once he had finished scrubbing and drying the dishes, he began putting away the ceramic dishes into the neatly organised cupboards. As soon as he had finished that, he made his way into the back garden, gazing across the dried out weeds and sighed as he made his way to the side of the garden. Halfway through the weeding and replanting, he heard a hiss from the bushes and tried to ignore the voice as he knew exactly what it was. Parseltongue. 

'No, no more freakiness otherwise I might not make it to my birthday' Harry thought, shivering at the thought of the belt reopening wounds that had recently healed. He stopped his trail of thinking and carried on with the grueling torture out in the scorching 29 degrees celsius (84.2 degrees in fahrenheit). Once again he heard the small hissing voice from the bush and stopped in frustration and looked behind him to make sure no one was watching him. He crawled over to the bush and saw a beautiful purple snake staring back at him. And again he looked behind him, a force of habit. The snake, sensing his worry and assuming the situation, quickly slithered up his arm to hide being seen and resting on his upper arm, poking it's head out a little. 

Harry quickly crawled back to the patch of unplucked weeds and carried on weeding for another hour and cut the grass with the lawnmower in precisely 7 minutes and 23 seconds. You see, Harry had become quite intelligent in guessing the time and knowing how long he had been doing something. Of course, the talent was not told to anyone because of the reason it had been learned. You might be able to guess why. The constant worry of if he was late for starting another chore or if it was too early to start a chore that was in the slightest bit loud was the reason behind it. 

See, not many people would like to know that.

It was now 3:20pm and now he was dusting the living room, sadly having to listen to the harsh words that would emerge from the Dursleys' mouth every once in a while. 'your taking too long boy' or 'so incompetent, unable to dust one room properly' and so on. 

3:35pm. Time for Dudley's second lunch, or preparation anyway. Harry quickly made a batch of chinese stir fry for him. It was all routine to Harry. Get up early. Don't dodge otherwise you'll get hit harder. Don't speak. Finish your chores on time. No matter how much the punishments hurt, don't scream.

Make the sauce, add prawns to it, put to the side, heat up the cooker, put oil in the wok, add unnoticeable vegetables like small pieces of onion into the ready made noodles since Dudley is so impatient he can't wait 5 minutes, stir in wok, add prawns and sauce in and stir again, and serve on a large plate. Only takes about 15 minutes, quick recipe, easy to make. Few burns but nothing worse than the agitated wounds on his back.

3:50pm. A horse like woman enters the living room to inspect the food being laid out on the table by her nephew. Petunia Dursley, her figure is thin and averagely tall, has a flowery pink apron around her waist for whatever reason. She looked him in his empty, broken eyes and carelessly handed a piece of bread to him. 

"Eat quickly, then carry on with your chores you useless freak" Petunia said harshly and turned around to call in the walrus in and the fat pig. 

3:55pm. Harry did what he was told and made his way up to the bathroom. After silently using the toilet, he got to work cleaning the whole room. He washed the bath, cleaned the toilet, scrubbed the tiled floors, wiped the mirrors, wincing as he saw his scratched and bruised face. Finally finishing off with reorganising the toiletries in the room. Petty but apparently necessary.

4:05pm. Harry was asked, well, ordered to clean up the kitchen and dining room. So he did it, silently and keeping his head down. A few minutes at a time one of the three spastics would go up to him and hit him on the back of the head, even punching him in the side almost making him drop the plates he was carrying. Luckily that didn't happen.

After all the plates and glasses had been taken to the kitchen counter to be cleaned, he made his way over to the table and ran a damp cloth over it to clean up the random noodles and prawns he could've eaten but resisted. 

4:25pm. Everything in the kitchen and dining room were cleaned to perfection. The walrus, Vernon came into inspect the rooms and glared at Harry as he stared at the floor quietly. 

"Right freak, get in your room before I do something I might regret" Lies. Vernon wouldn't regret anything, he wouldn't regret beating his nephew to death or strangling him to death or doing anything else he has already tried to do in the past.

Harry quickly scampered up the stairs, the stairs not even squeaking once due to his weight decreasing each day. Oh, how he would one day like to kill them, even torture them. He didn't care if that put him on the same level as them, at least Harry had a reason to do so. Maybe one day that could be a reality. But sadly, dreams don't come true. Not in reality anyway.