Chapter Text
Aunt Marge gives off a terrible aura, always has.
Harry walks into the house at Number Four Privet Drive with his trunk in toe and the second he walks through the front door he’s hit with a wave of dread.
That in itself isn’t exactly unusual. It’s normally the emotional response that settles deep into his soul upon his return from Hogwarts, but this time it feels more heavy than usual and he finds himself glancing around suspiciously to see what’s different or out of place.
No one else appears to be home, but as he scans the environment he does a double take on a pair of dog bowls sitting on the floor leading from the living room to the dining room and Harry groans out loud. He hasn’t the amount of composure it would take to hide this reaction and it earns him a wack on the side of the head for his disrespect, but he can’t even quite bring himself to care.
The realization that Aunt Marge is here far out weighs a measly smack. It hadn’t even been that hard anyway, more of a warning than anything else.
Still, he resigns himself to a very bad time for the next who knows how long.
“How long’s she going to be here for then?” He asks, too stubborn to stomp down the attitude that he knows will get in him trouble in the long run.
“Never you mind! Hurry up and put your freak stuff in the cupboard before they get back!”
Harry sighs heavily and goes to do just that, but unfortunately Uncle Vernon stands over his shoulder the entire time so he’s not able to salvage a single wizarding thing from his trunk. The only thing he’s able to con the other man into allowing him was some paper, ink, and a quill.
Uncle Vernon scoffs at the writing utensil, but doesn’t comment on it specifically. What he does do though is abruptly slam Harry backwards against the wall.
It’s sudden and unexpected and Harry yelps in surprise, his blood pumping at the unanticipated violence as his uncle grips the collar of his shirt harshly.
“You’d better be on your best behavior, boy. I’m warning you now and you won’t get a second one, you hear me!? I don’t have time for your miserable games and disgusting freak shite, so you’d do well to keep it under wraps. Or else!”
“Yes, sir.” Harry says, trying to hold back from gulping.
If there’s anything he wants to avoid it’s showing weakness and right now he feels a strange mixture of fear at being manhandled like this and anger at being treated this way. The clashing emotions always end up giving him a bit of a head rush that makes him want to run and fight in equal measure. It creates conflicting physical sensations that can sometimes feel overwhelming.
“And behave. No talking back to her- to any of us.”
“I’ll behave if she does.” He says, the fear temporarily giving way to justification.
Uncle Vernon pulls him forwards and Harry gasps at the motion as his shirt digs into the back of his neck unpleasantly. His face is contorted into an ugly mean thing that used to haunt Harry’s nightmares when he’d been really young and he still shivers internally when he has to see it.
Everything in his expression screams hatred and though Harry has built a sort of immunity to the sting of rejection- at least when it came to his family, he still can’t quite quell the fear and disgust that courses through him when this happens.
His large fat sweaty face, purplish red with a vein popping out and his lips barred open, showcasing his gums and disgusting teeth and his small beady eyes, glaring at him… it’s ironic that this face represents his disgust for his nephew when it makes him look absolutely grotesque.
Young Harry had been terrified of this face, and current Harry… Well, the horror still lingers in its own way. Like a dried up river leaving a scar on his heart to represent a danger that he’ll never not fear.
Still… current Harry is able to compartmentalize better.
“Every time you come back from that loony bin of yours, you get a bloody ego.” He hisses as he leans forwards, their noses nearly touching now. “You should be grateful that we even bothered keeping something as abnormal and inhuman as you around all these years when it would have only made our lives better to toss you in the trash where you belong. And you’d do well to get it through your thick head that no one cares about what you want.”
And then he pushes him back against the wall again, even harsher than last time, causing his lungs to stutter momentarily.
He doesn’t let go of the iron grip on his shirt and the two stare at each other, panting. Uncle Vernon from exertion and anger and Harry from feeling both afraid and aggrieved at the same time.
Uncle Vernon smirks then, his lips curling upward once again, revealing his teeth. His other hand strikes up and towards his face quickly. Harry flinches and squeezes his eyes shut, hopelessly trying to pull away from his grasp to escape the hit that he’s sure will sting against his face any second now, only it doesn’t land.
He chuckles mockingly and Harry squints his eyes open almost sheepishly, only for the hand he thought was about to hit him to tap condescendingly against his face twice.
“And you thought that school made you a big man, did you?”
Harry flushes and Uncle Vernon laughs at him more before finally releasing him and stepping away. He doesn’t even look back at Harry as he turns to go, just walks off with a pep in his step, like he feels quite clever for nonverbally pointing out that he can still make Harry squirm.
With Vernon fully out of sight he finds himself dropping his head back against the wall and shutting his eyes against the residual fear and humiliation, gasping quietly to slow his breathing.
He can tell already that this was going to be a horrible start to the summer, and if Harry has learned anything it’s that things with his uncle start small before they get worse and worse. The anxiety about what things are going to look like a month from now is enough to have his brain forcibly focusing on what he can control right now so he can avoid thinking about a future that he doesn’t have to deal with just yet.
Chores.
It’s the first thing that comes to his mind. He even starts moving his eyes to calculate what would make his relatives most happy… But then that angry inner advocate roars to life again.
If there’s one thing his stupid uncle has been right about in all of this, it’s that Hogwarts has helped him to learn that he doesn’t deserve to be treated so terribly and he doesn’t need to jump into his role as house elf.
In an act of self righteous esteem he heads up to his bedroom to spend every waking moment he can in a Dursley Induced Quarantine.
Fuck them and fuck their narcissistic bullshit, he thinks.
He only ends up being allowed a precious half hour of freedom, but in that short time he realizes that he’s lying to himself. That look on his uncles face and the words he uses hurt just as much as ever. He’s just learned how to shut it off until he’s safely alone without anyone having to notice, for if they noticed they’d use it against him. And if they knew what to hold over his head… well, it just showed that Harry had once again let himself show just how broken the Dursley’s made him feel.
‘Just Harry’ from the cupboard under the stairs and Harry Potter: the boy who lived were two vastly different people and sometimes it takes him a minute to transition from one to the other without people becoming curious.
It does hurt though, if he’s being truly honest with himself. It hurts that his family looks down on him more than Malfoy or Snape or any other Slytherin he’s ever met… He’s met forms of Voldemort on two separate occasions, and even though he wishes Harry dead… He sort of gets the sense that even he has some respect for Harry. That he wants Harry dead because he feels that he is capable of thwarting him some day when he’s older and smarter and doesn’t have to put up with being shoved around by muggles or family because he’s finally realized his own power.
But the Dursley’s? They view him as less than dirt and they’re the only family he’s ever known.
And of course that hurts. How could it not? He spends the little bit of solitude he has trying and failing to get out of his head and talk himself up.
It works until it doesn’t and then the whole process starts up again until Aunt Petunia is shouting for him to get his arse downstairs.
He jumps out of bed hastily before he hesitates for a bit knowing all the while that it’s out of spite… He’d hardly spent more than five minutes in the presence of one of his relatives and he’s already starting to revert back to that lonely insecure little boy. How long will it be before he forgets to try and fight back and does fall right into line like the good little house elf they’ve trained him to be?