"So you finally scared him off, did you, freak?"
"Leave me alone Dudley."
He heard cruel snickering behind him.
"Did you hear that? The freak wants us to leave him alone."
"Poor little Harry Potter - aren't you going to run?"
"You should be more careful how you talk to us, freak. Stewart isn't here to protect you anymore."
"Stop it...please."
"Please, he says," Dudley mocked mercilessly, "Don't tell us what to do, freak!"
Harry was too tired to run away. He was too resigned to fight back. He was too hurt to care when the punches started flying.
This again.
He didn't make a noise, he didn't move as fists pounded on his face and his ribs, over, and over, and over again, each strike forcing a hoarse breath from his lungs. He didn't know when he ended up on the ground; when the punches turned into kicks. It hurt. It hurt so bad. But he was powerless to stop them, just as he always was. He couldn't do anything - he didn't want to do anything. He wished it would just end.
He wished he wouldn't have to wake up the next morning, friendless and covered in bruises. It wasn't worth it; he felt a wave of nausea wash over him with the nostalgic realization. It never got better, nothing ever got better. He coughed out a sob as another kick connected with his shoulder. If they kept this up long enough, would they kill him? Would they know when to stop? Maybe not.
And maybe it was better that way, he thought, even as intense fear gripped him. Perhaps Harry Potter was finally going to meet his end – perhaps he never belonged, perhaps he was never meant to be alive, and this was just fate. The thought was both terrifying and comforting at the same time, and if he was being entirely honest with himself, at that very moment it seemed to him that dying might not being so bad.
Maybe I deserve to die. Maybe I should never have been born.
But just as that thought crossed his mind, something changed. Something went very, very wrong.
A crippling pain erupted from his forehead, and as his body seized, he could not stop a horrifying shriek from ripping through his throat. He couldn't think, he couldn't move; he was drowning, his mind far away as screams clawed at his throat and blood dripped from his forehead onto the snow covered ground.
Then it stopped suddenly. Everything stopped. The pain in his head, the screams, the kicks – everything stopped.
And then Harry experienced something he'd never experienced before. Whilst Dudley and his friends stared on in shock, no doubt unsettled by his screams, he felt his body moving on its own, muscles straining as he slowly rose to his feet, despite the pain emanating from every joint, every muscle, and every tendon in his body.
He felt the pain and the cold, but it was not him who was doing the feeling; he was far away from his own skin. He was nothing more than a puppet. A bruised, bleeding puppet.
He was not prepared for what happened next; he laughed. The puppet master was obviously oblivious to the pain, not hesitating in the slightest as he he doubled over in laughter, his whole frame shaking with mirth. But it wasn't a happy laugh, it wasn't cheerful – it wasn't Harry's laugh. It was a cold, high, mocking sound, filled to the brim with malicious glee. Then it stopped, and all was silent again.
"You vile, filthy little muggles."
The voice was his - he'd heard it many times before - and yet it was not. There was something hard and icy in this voice, which was but a semblance of Harry's childish soprano, frozen and frigid in the most unpleasant of ways.
"You dare harm this child, this child in whose veins flows the most potent of magics? You – who are nothing more than insects – dare to even touch this child, whose blood is sacred, the purest elixir compared to the disgusting sludge that gives your pathetic forms life?"
He felt his body straighten, his stance proud and tall. "You have committed a crime against nature, and for that crime you must be punished."
Something shifted inside Harry, and something ugly twisted deep inside his chest, an evil feeling he'd never had before. Unbidden, cruel glee burst forth from inside him and he could do nothing but stare on in shock as Dudley and his three friends writhed on the ground, silent screams pouring forth from their lips, as he bilssfully soaked in the power pulsing in the air around him, prickling his skin like static. He felt pleasure. And he hated it.
He didn't know how long he watched his tormentors tormented, but after what seemed like hours, it all stopped, and the street, along with his mind, fell silent once again.
Harry was scared – he was terrified. He had never been more afraid. He was sure that were he in control of his body, he would be on the ground sobbing and struggling to breath. What was happening to him?
Pain seized him again as his body moved once more of its own accord, stepping over the prone and quivering form of Dudley Dursley and kneeling before him.
The last thing Harry heard was the word "Obliviate."
.....
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