Always » Severitus

☆ 03 | Hagrid ☆

Dear Mumma

I know I haven't written for months, but I have been busy with chores and unusual things happening around me. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon took us to visit the zoo on Dudley's 11th birthday. I was excited and looked around at various animals, watching them roam around the zoo's grounds. It was all fine until Dudley got bored with the snake he was trying to wake it up, although it didn't even stir. However, when I casually started talking to him, he answered back, saying he misses home.

I really wanted to help him, and the next thing I knew that the glass of the cage had disappeared, and the snake had escaped while, unfortunately, Dudley got locked up into the snake's enclosure when he fell into the pond, and the glass reappeared. Uncle Vernon blamed it all on me. I received a brutal beating when we got home. Uncle called me a 'good for nothing freak, like my parents' and locked me in my cupboard for a week without food.

Today is my birthday. The past two days have been eventful: the mail arrived as the Dursley family ate breakfast, so I was told to get the letters from the post box, in which one was addressed to me. However, as soon as Uncle Vernon saw it, he burned it, throwing it straight into the fireplace. More and more letters arrived as the day went by, and Uncle Vernon was determined to burn every letter that had my name on it. Yesterday was Sunday, and uncle Vernon, being more than happy to note that it was a no mail day, sat down to eat breakfast. Soon after, when he was sitting on the sofa watching tv, thousands of letters burst out of the fireplace and into the living room. I didn't get a hold of even one of them before Uncle Vernon burned them all, throwing them into the fireplace yet again.

After he was satisfied that all the letters had been destroyed, he told us to pack and informed us that we were moving house before taking us to a shabby hut in the middle of a sea. I was busy drawing a birthday cake on the floor as the clock struck twelve, wishing myself happy birthday when the door flew back with a loud thud. Startled, I looked up and saw a man as big as a giant, carrying an umbrella and a cake. He gave me the cake and wished me for my birthday, even giving Dudley a pigtail when he tried to steal my cake. It was so funny!

Although, he also told me that I was a wizard and I can do magic like you and dad. He told me some evil wizard killed you, and you died trying to protect me, but not in a car accident like Aunt Petunia told me. I will try my best to make you proud when I go to Hogwarts. I hope you are happy up there because I am thrilled today. I just wish you were here with me to celebrate my birthday and give me gifts. Hagrid gave me my first birthday cake ever. I hope to make lots of friends without Dudley chasing away anyone who tries to talk to me. He bullied me a lot, and I know I have never told you this, but I can't bear it anymore. You know, he kicked me around the garden the other day when he found out about my accident. I just hope I can control my bed-wetting before my classmates at the school of magic find out and consider me a freak as well.

Lots of love, Harry.

*****

Severus couldn't control his anger after reading that. He gripped the arms of his armchair tightly until his knuckles turned white. How could Petunia be so cruel, telling lies about his parents, about Lily? He felt guilty for what he had done to the boy, the boy who was his own son. Now he thought of it, he has ignored the boy on his birthday and haven't even given him a gift or even wished him for that matter.

It was partly due to hatred towards James and then his own fear of being rejected by the boy he had bullied - his own son - to the extent of making him wet himself on one occasion.

Severus shook his head to clear out his thoughts and made a note to apologize to the boy as soon as he finished the diary. He needed to know to what extent his son hated him.

He had found the diary under Harry's pillow this morning, and his curiosity took the better of him. After reading the first entries, he couldn't get himself to stop: he had to know how much damage had been done before he explained anything to the boy. He knew what he did was irreversible, and there was no excuse for it, but he hoped the boy would give him a chance.