Nobody Cared

Aug 31 thru Sept 1

Nobody Cared
by Jayne d'Arcy

Disclaimer: Snape and Harry belong to JK Rowling. I hope she doesn't mind if I borrow them a bit.

Summary: Harry misses the Hogwarts Express and it is Severus Snape who must go and escort the spoiled brat to school. What he finds is almost more than he can deal with.

31 Aug 1991 - Night

His family didn't care. Not about him. If he suffered that was just fine by the Dursleys. Curled up in his cupboard, with the tatty old quilt that he'd been wrapped in when he was a baby, Harry Potter shivered and tried to pretend that he wasn't crying softly.

Uncle Vernon had burned it. Everything. Every page of every book for the classes at what would have been his new school of Hogwarts, was gone. His new clothing, his robes, the wonderful, leather boots he'd found at the second hand store. Those were gone, too.

Oh god! And his wand! It had made him feel so very safe and for once, unafraid. Uncle Vernon had angrily broken it under his foot, grinding it into slivers of wood and a mangled phoenix feather. Harry now had those pieces clutched in his hand.

And Hedwig?

Harry's throat hitched and he gulped back the noise of his crying.

No. He hadn't lost the beautiful snowy owl, his very first gift ever, to his Uncle's impotent rage. Hedwig, such a smart bird that she was, had bitten Uncle Vernon's fingers as he'd tried to drag her from her cage. For a heart-sickening moment, when it seemed Uncle Vernon solidly held the angry owl, Harry was certain that would have been it for his familiar.

"No!" Harry fell to his knees. He knew pleading with his uncle was futile. It might even make him angrier. Still, as Hedwig fluttered frantically against the bars of her cage as Vernon tried to catch the blasted bird, Harry begged with all his might. "Don't hurt Hedwig!"

"What's the matter with you, Freak?" demanded Vernon. He kicked at the stupid boy kneeling at his feet. He let out a howl of terrible pain as the bloody owl bit his hand viciously.

Harry had watched in horror then triumph as Hedwig flew away as his Uncle Vernon growled angrily and in pain. Hedwig flew down the hall past Harry's Cupboard and out the front door just as Dudley came in from the outside. Dudley let out a screech and ducked away from the white bird that screeched at him as she flew away.

His uncle's fury had become worse, but Harry was so thankful that Hedwig had escaped, that he felt none of the blows from his uncle's fists.

Now, though, in the shadows of the small cupboard that had been his since he could remember, Harry's body throbbed in painful protest in various places. Tears dropped upon the baby crib mattress, but Harry did not give in to the desire to let out gulping, anguished sobs. As he bent nearly double over his arms wrapped over his belly, he kept the hurt and the pain to himself.

Hedwig? Are you all right? Where did you go? Only weeks had passed but for Harry the time had crawled by as his aunt and uncle took out their anger on all his freakiness. He fell asleep wondering, not for the first time, what he'd done to make his relatives hate him so.

1 Sept 1991 - Morning

Harry was sharply awakened the next morning by his Aunt Petunia who had kicked the door of the cupboard to jar him from a heavy, pain induced slumber. That was the closest she ever came to touching her nephew whom she looked upon as a piece of filth she was unable to scrape or scrub away. Unsympathetically, the thin, pinch-faced woman watched as Harry hobbled as quickly as he could to the downstairs bathroom. He was able to wash his face and to empty his bladder before his aunt's exasperated voice hurried him.