5,801Chapter 1: Hurt and Alone
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, any characters within, or the general world of J.K. Rowling (And/Or Warner Bros. Company, as applicable). Most of this world was created from those works.
England seems like a normal country. The village of Little Whinging, found southeast and within shopping of London seems like a normal quiet village. Privet Drive, a respectable block of houses with neat driveways and quiet summers, seems like an upstanding and fine place to grow.
Number 4 Privet Drive was hell.
Not all of that house was condemned to evil. There were two floors, both neat and clean. A fine looking living room, filled with tiny trinkets old people seem to enjoy and pictures of an overly large child. A kitchen, few bedrooms, all normal and fine. But the stairs...
Under the stairs, was hell.
Darkness was normally a comfort. Darkness means that danger was not here, that peace, even a hungry and lonely peace, had arrived. Young eyes normally cried here, in this darkness. But right now a young boy with piercing green eyes was unable to cry. He was trying, under these stairs, in this cupboard, in this hell, but the tears would not come. Too much pain. His arm was wrong, he could feel the burns and the stings, it was not right. The rest of his body was hurt as well, but normal cuts and bruises didn't concern him anymore.
No one would come, he knew this. People didn't help those without names, people didn't even feed things like him if they could help it. But he wished, he craved someone to take the pain. The darkness used to be an ally, but right now it just helped him feel alone and scared and hurt. He could not cry, so he stared in the dark, unable to see, and focused on the pain.
The locks on the outside of his cupboard left him little else to do, and he had been hungry for so long it no longer even registered in his mind at night. But this pain was not the same, it was immediate and unforgiving. So he focused, and tried to push the pain away, from his world, from the dark.
In the absolute dark, there was a light.
The boy almost made a noise. Light was new. Light was not normal. And this light seemed odd, although he supposed he should have expected this. A "freak" like him would have something like an odd light. It was dim, it was weak, it was so thin it looked like a hair, but it was there! Soft, green, and slowly reaching down his right arm.
He was almost scared to move. He felt that shifting, thinking, even the thought of thinking could stop this wonderful light. Tentatively he tried to push the pain again.
The light dimmed. In a sudden panic, he thought, prayed, and begged the pain away, forcing every part of him to wish and hope that pain would go. Suddenly the hair became a thread, and began moving much faster, and stretched down his arm toward the pain! He almost smiled, he could FEEL the light in his arm. It was warm, it was singing, it was like that time he used a blanket before someone saw him. And it seemed easier to push it now, seemed easier to thicken this thread till he could see it pulsing.
He could feel it pulsing like a second heart beat, and it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
His body couldn't move any more, but the thread could. His overly large shirt, covered in dirt and grime, seemed to be invisible for this green light. It shone bright and clear, and it was almost to his pain.
As the thread touched, he saw it shatter inside his arm. This thin thread became thousands of spider silk thin wisps, and he could see a bone being coated with them. Everywhere the light touched a warmth spread, so warm it was almost uncomfortable. As more and more of his bone was wrapped, he could see a darkness in the middle. A gap. His arm was broken. The last punch from the Loud Man had broken his arm. His face almost fell in sadness, but the warmth from his light was pushing everything bad away. But what now?
He needed help. A broken arm meant more beatings, he would not be able to cook meals, clean the house, weed the gardens, clean the car, pick up Dudley's trash, and that was just the morning! He could not handle more attacks right now, he needed time to heal, time to fix first. He needed his arm fixed.
The light seemed to pulse, and suddenly it was gone. No, he could still see the light, but all feeling was gone, like it was a show on the tv he was not allowed to watch. Even as his wonder grew, the warmth came back, and he could actually see the light wrapped around his bones shift firmly. Torn bits of bone made a loud snap!
His arm bone was now lined up, but moving it seemed to have broken small bits off. Thankfully the green light only let him feel warm, like it was being bathed in something soft. Tiny hair like threads wrapped around each fragment of bone, and seemed to absorb it. No, not just bone... black pools of what was probably blood or torn muscle was also being absorbed and vanished by the light. Small cracks in the bone were appearing as well, as the green thread seemed to be pulling and tugging at the bone, cleaning it.
Apparently his arm had been hurt from many older beatings, this one was just the final straw.
He was glad he couldn't move, but this was amazing to watch. Never before had he seen anything as fascinating, and no one could beat him for seeing this! No one even knew this was happening! And the warmth was so new, so soft, so amazing. Many nights on this stained mattress had been cold, and he had grown accustomed to having no covers, of using his layers of too-large clothing to stay alive during the frostiest nights. This warmth was so soothing it felt sinful.
His arm suddenly felt odd. The green light had separated the two now cracked and pitted pieces of bone several inches away from each other. He could almost feel the light pulsing, as if it was angry that this bone was so short. He knew he should probably have been bigger, he saw how Dudley had grown (In so many directions) from the food the "freak" cooked. Now the light seemed ready to try and solve it.
His skin felt tight, his muscles felt stretched, and then the warmth of the light almost gracefully touched them, reaching hair like strands from the bone pieces and caressing his arm from the inside. Suddenly the light pulsed hard and twisted! From the top of his right shoulder, another thread raced from his chest, down his right arm, and seemed to explode into a net of green heat! Each hair of this net twisted as it tightened around the bone, filling tiny cracks, holes, and pits and twisting tightly down the arm. Some green threads that had wrapped around the two bones began lashing across that black gap, filling it thicker as his eyes watched, shocked.
As the holes filled with more and more light, a few green strands jumped down his arm and then darkened back into muscles and ligaments that had been hurt or strained from trying to hold his broken self together. His bone seemed to be almost woven with light now, wrapped like a bandage. But the warmth was starting to cool, and he was feeling more and more tired. His center almost felt cool, like he had stepped outside to weed the garden before the snow had thawed.
He could care less. His face seem etched with a grin, his first actual smile that he could remember, and his arm was feeling better than it ever had even as that beloved warmth began to fade. As he felt the grip of sleep begin to take him, he was almost startled to realize that he was happy that the Loud Man had threatened to keep him here in the dark for days. Hopefully that would be enough time to feel that warmth again.
~~~Core Threads~~~
He awoke early. He knew the Loud Man would wake last, the question was if they would force him to cook or hope he would die. He honestly hope death was the choice, it would give him time to try and do the warmth again. He reached under the loose edge of his special floorboard, and pulled out the plastic bag he had hidden from the trash months ago. He store his punishment food in there, along with the three bottles of water he had carefully hidden over time. Now was the time to use these resources, so much could be gained if he could stay strong enough. That warmth was a need for him now.
As he bit into one of the scraps of crusts that Dudley always had cut off his sandwiches, he tried to feel the light again. His chest didn't feel chilled any more, and his arm had never felt this good before. He grinned again, as he held his arms out. One was obviously much longer now, and didn't have any odd bumps or slight twists any more. And if he could do it once, why not again?
He felt through his body, feeling for the worst of the pain. Apparently much of it was already healed. It had happened before, but he now suspected it was the threads, the green warmth. Well, if nothing was hurt, he could pretend. He had pretended to be fine, full, happy. Pretending to be in pain was easy by comparison. Closing his eyes, he tried to feel his left arm as if it had been as hurt, no, MORE hurt than last night.
It was sudden, and his eyes were startled open. Unlike last night, when it had been so hard to even keep that hair of light alive, his thread was already leaping down his left side. It felt like he had untwisted an arm, or straightened a leg that had fallen asleep. The thread felt so natural, yes warm, but normal! Compared to last night, he felt like someone trying to lift a car and finding out it was made of foam.
He grinned unconsciously as he watched his left arm... but he couldn't see the glow. He started to frown. Last night had been beautiful, why could he not see it now? Was it because it was too bright? He closed his eyes, and he could see a faint sheen, but not the glorious thread from last night. Why?
His pain. Last night, he had felt pain in his whole body, but now he did not. His headache was gone, even from the punch he got in his left eye. He moved the thread up his neck, feeling cricks and creaks and that heavenly warmth. It had to be that the green light had been healing his eyes. That must have been why he could see the thread. As the thread moved up his neck, he could feel it moving toward his brain.
White light shone everywhere, so bright he couldn't scream. The warmth was his body, no, this warmth was the WORLD!
He didn't feel his body collapse back on the mattress, and he wouldn't wake today when his torturers made loud noises as they lived their wretched lives.