An End And A Beginning

13: Removing Fantasy Disguises

Draco looked around him as Harry held his hand and they sat side by side on the bench. The park they were sitting in was very uninspiring, it was more like a field or pitch with some swings and a slide in the corner. 'What is this place? Where are we? Why did you bring me here?'

Harry glanced briefly at the swings. 'This is near where I grew up. I used to come here when I needed to escape or think. But I also thought we wouldn't get recognised here. No one paid me any attention as a kid—'

'But weren't you famous?'

'You forget I was bought up by my Muggle relatives. They didn't know anything about the Magical World and nor did they want to. And they certainly didn't indulge my presence amongst them. They didn't exactly want me around in the first place. I became used to being inconspicuous around people and trying not to draw attention to myself.'

'I understand if you don't want to but will you tell me about them and the abuse?'

Harry sighed heavily and yet another mist of breath hovered around them momentarily. 'It wasn't a great time. My aunt is my mother's sister but they are nothing alike, or so I understand. She's a bitter woman married to a bully of a man. She was always jealous of her sister for being "special", she justified that my mum was "a freak" and therefore I was too. Uncle Vernon was worse. He couldn't accept magic existed. He wanted to beat it out of me and liked to use his belt whenever I did accidental magic as a child. The rest of the time he'd simply lock me in the cupboard under the stairs or, later, in my bedroom for the slightest misdemeanour.'

'That's the second time you've mentioned the cupboard under the stairs.'

'It was my bedroom, if you can call it that. It was little more than a bare mattress squashed into the space. It was where I slept for as long as I can remember. I don't know what age I was when I was first kept in there but I imagine it was from the day I first arrived on their doorstep. My aunt treated me like a House-Elf, probably from the moment I could walk and understand basic instructions. I certainly don't remember anything different. Though the difference between me and a House-Elf was she would enact any physical punishment herself. My cousin copied his parents' behaviour and bullied me, mentally and physically, and scared any potential friends away. It was a very isolating time.'

'What do you mean, she would enact physical punishment?' Draco asked, horrified by what Harry had just revealed. No wonder it wasn't in Granger's book.

'Fairly similar to what any House-Elf would do. You know, hit me with stuff, slam fingers in doors, pull me around by my hair. She once hit me on the small of my back with a hot pan because I burnt the bacon I was cooking. Luckily, I was clothed but when I went down, I hit my head and bled out everywhere. I was quite badly concussed too. I think it was the first and only time I ever had any Muggle medical attention and I was about nine or ten then. I think Aunt Petunia was scared of the authorities after that so she changed her tactics and, as you observed, withheld food instead. Food was scarce anyway but if I was deemed to have done something wrong, well, I would frequently go a few days without food. And I was constantly deemed to have done something wrong.'

'Fuck!' exhaled Draco. 'No wonder you were very angry as a teenager.'

Harry smiled sadly, 'Yeah, chronic trust issues, especially in adults, that wasn't helped by Dumbledore's methods. It conflicts with how much I want to trust others and see the good in them. I also became very stubborn about accepting advise and learning about more of what I was capable of. I could have been far more prepared for what I was to face but circumstances played on acknowledging and shouldering what I was told by adults. I guess Snape didn't help with that, he bullied me so much in the beginning that I closed off to anything I could have learnt from him. It's a great regret, especially as I understand his motives now. But I didn't then and it was yet more evidence of adults abusing their position and their guardianship of me. As I said, we are both victims of circumstance. We either live in bitterness or take the positives.'