Godric's Hollow was a small, quaint village in the west countryside of England, and to most every one of its inhabitants, it was a lovely place to live. Tudor houses lined the streets, standing tall, chock-full of character, and providing the village's many families with warm, cosy places to sleep. Children sang and played in the parks from dawn till dusk, swinging on the swings, hanging upside down from the trees. Their laughter brought joy to anyone lucky enough to hear it.

This is what people saw when they looked at Godric's Hollow; a picturesque village in which everyone knew everyone. But there was one family that no one knew. They didn't go out and walk the streets, waving to people as they went – no, this family was the definition of a shut-in; staying in their house all day, every day. Unheard of behaviour in such a close-knit village, but there was good reason; they were hiding, and had gone to extreme methods to do so. They had invoked a force thought to be legend — nothing but stories – impossible in every sense of the word, all to keep themselves hidden. Magic. What could force them to go so far? A monster. Evil given human form that wasn't going to rest until it found them, and despite their best efforts, it finally had.

"IT'S HIM! GO, LILY! I'LL HOLD HIM OFF! TAKE HARRY AND RUN!"

"JAMES!"

A flash of green light illuminated the stairwell behind them, creeping up the walls from the ground floor. It lasted for barely a second before fading away, but long enough to silence James's shouts. A baby boy, cradled in his mother's arms, mourned that moment as the last time he'd hear his father's voice.

"No… Oh god, please no…," cried Lily, clutching her baby – little Harry Potter – closer to her chest.

 They reached the top of the stairs, coming out into a hallway lined with doors. Harry looked away from his mother's distraught face and tried to lift one of his little hands towards the farthest door, as if to say go there. Lily didn't notice, or he hadn't managed to point at all, because she took them both into the nearest room – the nursery – slamming the door shut behind them.

"S-Shh, it's o-ok. Don't c-cry, Harry. Everything's going to be f-fine … W-We're going to fine…" Despite the words she spoke, Lily's tearful emerald eyes – the same emerald as Harry's own – betrayed her true fear.

A light shone from behind the closed nursery door, bleeding through the cracks. Harry wasn't surprised when a second later, a deafening bang rung out and the door was blown off its hinges, littering the carpet with splinters of wood. Lily reacted in an instant, placing Harry in his crib and spinning to face the frightful figure gliding into the room. She put herself between it and Harry, turning herself into a makeshift shield.

Cloaked head-to-toe in the blackest robes, the figure hovered in the centre of the nursery, looking every bit like a grim reaper. Harry could see none of its body except for a single hand the colour of ash, and held in its bone-like fingers was a long, white object of some kind. It had to be a weapon, the same weapon that had just been used to murder his father. Looking higher, the hood shrouding the figure's head seemed to be made of shadows, but even that could not hide the glowing, blood-red eyes that stared down at Harry. They didn't blink, nor did they look away, not even when the figure addressed Lily with its chilling, dangerous voice.

"Move aside, Lily Potter. You may yet live this night."

Doing the opposite to what she was commanded – for it was a command, not a suggestion – Lily threw herself at the figure's feet. "No! Not Harry! Please take me instead! Kill me! Anything but him!" Lily begged and begged without a single thought or concern for her own life. Only then did the robed figure look away from young Harry.

"Stupid woman, I only want the boy. Get out of my way!"

But Lily did no such thing, staying resolute where she was, between this monster and her son, even though she was shaking, clearly terrified right down to her bones. Looking back over her shoulder, Lily showed Harry a tearful smile, full of longing and regret, but most importantly, love.

"N-No…" she tried; her voice raw. Lily turned back around, having gathered what strength she could from seeing her son, and glared up defiantly at those red eyes. "No."

A low growl came from beneath the figure's hood. Its next words dripped with disdain and disgust. "Then you have chosen to die, for nothing."

Harry could do nothing but watch as the weapon raised. He wanted to shout – to scream for his mother to save herself, but no sound came out. A flash of green light momentarily blinded Harry, and when it cleared, he saw his mother slumped to the floor, unmoving. Although he couldn't see from where he was, Harry just knew that her eyes – normally so full of warmth, were now cold and empty.

Anger like no other consumed him. Harry forced his gaze away from his mother's body to glower at the monster that had stolen her from him. He watched – hatred blazing – as it stepped over her as if she was nothing but a doormat, deserving of only the dirt off its feet, but then it just stood there in front of the crib. Eyes meeting, Harry stared back with as much hate as he could muster. It had no effect – the figure continued to just stand there – thinking about what, Harry didn't want to know. Then a quiet laughter broke out, growing louder and more insane until it was hurting Harry's ears.

"This! This is what is supposed to defeat me?!" The figure raised its weapon again, this time at Harry – its true target. "Ridiculous… I cannot be killed – I am immortal. Avada Kedavra!"

The tip glowed a very familiar green, then a beam of light streamed towards Harry. It struck him on the forehead, knocking him dizzy as if he'd been punched, but there was no pain. The same couldn't be said for his attacker, who suddenly screamed in anguish. Harry couldn't see what had caused it, his vision flooded in green light from the attack. He blinked desperately, willing his eyes to return to normal, but instead of the nursery coming back into focus, everything started to fade to black.

No! He needed to see what happened! He needed to see what had become of the monster that had taken everything from him. But Harry could do nothing except rage as everything faded away, and the world shifted.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

"Up! Wake up! Now!"

Harry's eyes snapped open and he shot up, breathing in heavy, deep pants, and covered in sweat. Holding himself up on one arm, he used the other to press against his forehead scar, which was burning like someone had lit a fire behind it.

"Are you up yet!"—BANG! BANG!—"Hurry up!"

"Stop banging! I'm awake!" Harry snapped towards his cupboard door.

"Don't take that tone with me! You don't want me to go get Vernon, do you?"

Harry wasn't at all scared by his aunt's threat, but he was already sick of hearing her shrill shouts, so he mumbled an apology, hoping that she'd leave. Petunia must have known that he was being far from sincere, but she chose to let it go.

"One minute! That's all you get – one minute! If you're not cooking breakfast by then, then I really will get Vernon. I won't have you ruining Duddy's special day with your laziness!"

With that said, Petunia disappeared into the kitchen. Harry could hear her moving things around on the dining table, fretting over every detail to make sure her little Diddykins's birthday was perfect. Harry had completely forgotten that it was Dudley's birthday – actually, that was a lie - he had remembered, he just didn't care about it, not one little bit. All it meant for Harry was that today was going to be more annoying than usual. He'd still have to cook breakfast – which he wouldn't be allowed to eat any of, except then his aunt and uncle would force him to stick around and watch Dudley rip open his presents. Dudley enjoyed rubbing everything in Harry's face almost as much as receiving the presents themselves, and Vernon and Petunia, they got some sick pleasure in forcing Harry to see all the things that they'd never buy for him. By now, Harry thought they'd see how little it bothered him, but the Dursleys were hardly what he would call smart.

Flopping backwards onto his small, mouldy mattress, he stared up at the bottom of the stairs. Some dust chose that moment to fall, landing on his nose, nearly making him sneeze. Inevitably, his mind drifted back to the nightmare he'd been woken from, causing his blood to boil anew. Calling it a nightmare or a dream wasn't technically correct, it was more than that; it was a memory – his worst memory.

Harry was very young when he first realised how different he was to other children. He was smarter, learning to walk and talk quickly – moving onto numbers which was a concept he grasped immediately. Whilst other kids played ring-around-the-Rosie, he taught himself how to read and understand the things the adults were saying. It was strange – and scary – the day he learned that it wasn't normal to remember every second of his life. Harry cried himself to sleep that night, wishing he was normal like the other children, because maybe then his relatives wouldn't hate him, and he too would be loved in the same way Dudley was. It took him a while to get over that, to not think of himself as a freak, like his relatives called him, and see that being unique was good – better even.

Since then, he'd uncovered more unique aspects of himself, and gotten way smarter, learning as much as he could, including many of the harsh truths about his life. One of these being that no matter what he did, the Dursleys would always hate him. Good, because he'd always hate them too; family should never treat each other the way they treated him, always putting him down, lying to him at every chance they got, especially when it came to his parents. 'Died in a car crash, both of them, drunkards and drug fuelled wastes of life that didn't love you' – that's all Harry would know about his parents if he didn't have his own memories to refute it. Thankfully, he knew that his parents loved him enough to sacrifice their own lives to keep him safe.

Harry was quick to wipe his eyes before the tears gathering in them could escape. It was always painful to think about his parents, so he tried not to, because whenever he did, it always took him back to that terrible night. If he strained his ears, he could still hear that monster's insane laughter, and its voice… that haunted even his days.

BANG! BANG!

"What's taking so long?!" shouted Petunia.

Without saying a word, Harry climbed out of his cupboard and went into the kitchen to begin cooking. There was a towering pile of colourfully wrapped presents on the table that he saw in the corner of his eye, but he didn't turn his head, refusing to give his aunt the satisfaction of snidely reminding him that none were for him. If she did that right now, with how he was feeling – Harry couldn't promise that something bad wouldn't happen.

It was as the sausages sizzled that he remembered something, coming to him like a light in the darkness that was his current mood. Weren't his aunt and uncle taking Dudley to the zoo today? Yes, they were, and they'd never think of taking Harry with them. That meant he might have a Dursley free day! He'll probably be dumped at Mrs Figg's house, listening to her endless cat stories, but anything was better than being around his so-called family.

"What are you smiling at?" demanded Petunia.

"Nothing," replied Harry, flipping the bacon with more enthusiasm, thinking that the day might not be so bad after all.

{ ϟ }

Harry had made a rookie mistake; he'd dared to think that something in his life might go the way he wanted it to go for once, only for the universe to knock him back down to reality.

After watching Dudley open his presents, Harry was eagerly awaiting his relative's departure, but then the phone rang. He could tell that something was wrong from the way Petunia's face twisted, and he didn't have to wait long to find out what had caused it. Mrs Figg, their elderly neighbour who Harry was dumped on whenever the Dursleys didn't want him for a while, had broken her leg during the night, tripping over one of her many cats. She was in the hospital, and despite Petunias efforts - even offering to drop Harry off at the hospital - she couldn't take him for the day like had been planned.

"I … don't … want … him … t-t-to come!" Dudley wailed, though no tears - not even crocodile ones - left his eyes. This was in response to Petunia saying that they might have to take Harry to the zoo with them. That made Harry want to cry, and not the fake kind of crying like Dudley was doing. Petunia tried her best, but there was no one that could take Harry, and Vernon was adamant that he couldn't be left home alone, in fear that they wouldn't have a home to return to if they did.

Harry sat through a very uncomfortable drive to the zoo, squashed against the window by Dudley and his friend, Piers Polkiss. Both of them made their displeasure of his attendance known by jabbing him in the side as often as they could. It was a relief when they finally pulled into the zoo. Dudley and Piers jumped out of the car, rushing to an information board that told them what animals could be seen inside. Petunia rushed after them, but Vernon waited, pulling Harry aside.

"I'm warning you, boy," started Vernon, pressing one of his fat fingers into Harry's chest, pushing the much smaller boy back against the family car. "Any funny business, anything at all – and you'll be in that cupboard, without food, from now until Christmas. You got that?"

"Yes, uncle," drawled Harry.

If they hadn't been in public, Harry was sure that Vernon would've strangled him then and there. Instead, his uncle could only shoot him one last glare before stomping over to where the rest were waiting. Petunia greeted her husband with hug, sending Harry her own nasty look. Dudley and Piers were busy deciding which animal they wanted to see first, eventually agreeing on the lions over the gorillas. Harry wondered if it was too much to ask that one of the lions escape and eat the Dursleys.

When they started walking, the Dursleys returned to their default of pretending that Harry didn't exist. Harry was all too happy to let this happen, going so far as to help them by staying at least a dozen metres away at all times. Close enough for Vernon to check that he wasn't doing anything abnormal, yet far enough away that he was out of Dudley's range.

As was decided, they visited the lions first, followed by the gorillas. Dudley seemed to be only interested in the animals that were nearly as large as him; anything less was too boring. Harry thought he was searching for long lost family members. He might've found some in the gorillas, who started making a right racket when they saw Vernon and Dudley, so much so that one of the staff had to ask Harry's cousin and uncle to move on to a different part of the zoo Except for this amusing event, Harry didn't find any of the animals interesting, certainly not enough to stand there and gawk at like he was some simple-minded fool.

Humans though, that was an entirely different case. Harry found himself watching people in much the same ways that they watched the animals. They were much more entertaining in his opinion, but they were also disappointing. They could be so impressive, building the highest skyscrapers, some of which Harry could see from the zoo, in London's skyline, yet at the same time, they could be so uncaring. Suffering occurred everywhere and in so many forms, but people were quick to ignore it, treating it like a disease, afraid that it would infect their own lives if they got too close. Harry needed only to look around to see the proof of this.

From the moment he'd stepped foot in the zoo, Harry had looked nothing more than a lost, homeless child – dressed in filthy, torn clothes seven sizes too big for him. Had anyone spent more than a second looking his way? No. If they happened to glance in his direction, then they would look away, not wanting to risk meeting his eyes, because then they might feel bad for blatantly ignoring a child that might be in need. As he thought before, humans could be so disappointing.

"Look, mummy! Look!"

"That's great, sweetheart."

Harry turned to the voices. A little girl, not much younger than himself, was trying to get the attention of her mother, pointing excitedly at the giraffes. The woman hadn't even looked up from her magazine, pointlessly engrossed in whatever fashion was the trend in France. She failed to realise how her inattention caused her daughter's happy face to fall. The entire situation made Harry growl. How stupid of him to hope that people would care for someone they don't know when they couldn't even be bothered to care about their own family.

Lunchtime arrived, by which point Harry had managed to calm himself down. Sitting in the zoo's restaurant, Vernon surprised him by dropping a pound coin on his table. A reward for not causing trouble, Harry supposed; Vernon walked away before he could confirm this. His uncle went and bought Dudley and Piers large combo meals each. Harry's single coin wasn't enough to buy one of those, not that he would've been able to eat one, not after being unfortunate enough to see how Dudley disgustingly devoured his own. By the time Harry had finished his basic cheese sandwich — the first bit of food he'd had all day — they were already stepping out into the midday sun.

"It's too hot!" whined Dudley. For once, Harry agreed with his cousin. The clouds had parted whilst they were inside eating, and now the sun was shining down on the zoo without mercy. Shade was sparse, and any that existed was already taken by other people.

"We can buy you an umbrella from the gift shop. How does that sound, Dudders?" asked Petunia.

"NO! I don't wanna carry an umbrella! It's not even raining!"

Harry rolled his eyes. He resisted the urge to point out to his cousin that the umbrella was for shade, not rain. Honestly, how could he be related to someone so stupid. Petunia turned to Vernon, but her husband was waiting for an answer just as much as Dudley was, sweat leaking through his shirt. Looking around, Petunia searched for a solution, spotting a building they hadn't gone in, a massive sign naming it the reptile house.

"How about we go in there? It'll be nice and cool inside."

Petunia needn't say more. The ground quaked, Vernon and Dudley waddled as fast as they could towards the reptile house. One misstep and they would've been rolling the rest of the way, like two massive bowling balls. Harry chuckled to himself, but due to this momentary distraction, he failed to notice the man rushing in his direction. Crashing to ground, Harry managed to fling his hands out, catching himself with a hiss as they scraped along the ground. There was a groan beside him, belonging to the man that had collided with him.

"Hey, watch where you're going! You stupid…"

Suddenly trailing off, the man had looked up, seeing that it was not an adult he ran into, but a child. He must've really been in a rush not to realise that immediately, but it wasn't this shock that made him freeze. That was solely down to the sharp, wolf-like stare coming from Harry, daring him to continue. Harry's eyes promised immense pain, and should never have been found on such a young child.

"S-Sorry!" The man leapt to his feet and sprinted away. Some people turned as he ran past, questioning what could've scared him so much.

Harry stared until he couldn't see the guy anymore, then looked down at his hands, expecting to see deep grazes from his harsh landing, but there was nothing, not even a scratch. The only evidence of what happened were the two new holes in his trousers near his knees, and the anger that he felt, piling up on what was already there. He did his best to push it down, getting up and walking to the reptile house, wanting the day to end soon.

By the time he made it inside the nicely cooled building, Dudley was already making his boredom known. He was banging on the glass of an exhibit in much the same way Petunia had banged on Harry's cupboard that morning, shouting at whatever was kept inside.

"Move! Move! Daddy, make it move!"

Vernon reached past Dudley and Piers to rap his knuckles on the glass. "Hey, wake up! Move!"

Harry left them to it, feeling sorry for the animal they were undoubtedly annoying. The building's interior was lush with plants, some reaching up to the ceiling, and a damp mist constantly rolled along the floor, making it feel more like a rain forest. It was a nice aesthetic, but the focus was clearly on all the slimy, scaly creatures dotted about the walls, locked within brightly lit boxes. 

"Get your ssstupid face away from my window!"

"SSStop tapping! I sssaid ssstop! I want to bite you ssso much!"

"Is that a sssnakeskin bag?! Have you no ssshame?!"

One of the snake enclosures did indeed have a woman in front of it flaunting an expensive snakeskin bag, and the python within was snapping at the glass trying to get at her. The further along Harry walked, the more snakes he heard shouting some very not nice things towards the crowd. A few of them were quite creative with it too. He would bet that none of them thought there was someone here that could understand them – yet here he was. How could he understand snakes? No idea. It was on the list of things he had discovered about himself, but had no explanation for; a list that was frustratingly long.

When he was seven years old, he'd been out weeding the garden when a small voice came from the hedge. Upon further investigation, he discovered it was coming from a small garden snake who introduced himself as Asmodeus. He was quite fun to talk to – much more than anyone else in Harry's life. Harry quickly came to consider the little guy to be his very first friend, and often went into the garden to speak to him, that is, until the day Vernon bashed his head in with a shovel. After that harrowing event, Harry made sure to warn any snakes he found to stay away from the Dursley's garden.

Coming out of that sad memory, Harry found himself at the exhibit he'd seen the Dursley's at when he first entered. The reason was obvious; asleep on a flat rock was the largest snake in the entire reptile house, also the largest snake Harry had ever seen. A brown patterned boa constrictor, whose species – according to the sign next to the glass – came all the way from Brazil, but this one had been bred in the zoo.

"Beautiful…" He must've slipped into snake language because the boa's eyes opened, and its head raised to look at him.

"A ssspeaker," it hissed. All snakes called him that.

"Yeah," said Harry. "I'm sorry for waking you up."

"Do not worry. I wasssn't sssleeping."

That made Harry grin. "Faking it then, were you?"

The boa bobbed its head up and down. "It getsss ssso boring in here. Gotsss to find entertainment sssomewhere."

Harry could understand that, thinking back to all the time he'd spent locked in his cupboard, unable to do anything except count the seconds in the day. At least he could sneak out at night – the boa didn't have such a luxury. Neither did Harry have people tapping at his cupboard most of the day like the snake had people tapping at its glass.

"I'm sorry," said Harry, feeling the need to apologise for the boa's entrapment. "People don't understand how awful it is to live life in a cage. Even if they did, I doubt anything would change. I wish I could get you – get all of you – out of here somehow. I actually tend to like your species a lot more than mine. Those of you that I've met have definitely been smarter, and much more enjoyable to talk to."

The boa let out an unusual hissing sound, one that didn't translate into much of anything. That's when Harry realised what it was; the snake was laughing.

"Thanksss. It'sss nice to ssspeak with sssomeone for a change."

Harry smiled sadly, understanding the boa's loneliness as well. In the brief time he'd spent talking with the snake, he'd felt more comradeship with it than he'd ever felt with another human. It didn't feel right to just abandon it here to be pointed at for the rest of its days, but what could he do about it?

Before Harry could begin planning the great snake heist of 1991, he received a violent shove and was sent sprawling to the ground – for the second time that day, he might add, but he doubted it was caused by the same man as before. Propping himself up, Harry looked back and saw exactly what he was expecting to see – Dudley and Piers, standing at the spot he'd been occupying.

"Look at the snake! It's moving! Look at it!" shouted Dudley. Both him and Piers pressed their faces firmly up against the glass, captivated by the boa, especially now that it was hissing right at them. Harry watched them gawk at the snake, and something inside him snapped.

Everything from this horrid day had built up – from last night's nightmare to being dragged to the zoo, and then getting carelessly knocked down twice! He couldn't take it anymore; the anger he'd been trying to hold back burst forth like water breaking free of a dam.

A cracking sound pierced the air, then the glass separating Dudley and Piers from the boa shattered into a million pieces. Piers managed to leap back, but Dudley was neither as light or agile; his hulking weight was trying to drag him forward into the exhibit, yet by some undeserving miracle, it looked like Dudley was about to regain his balance. Harry wasn't going to let that happen.

'No!' he shouted internally, wanting Dudley to fall. The strangest sensation then overcame him. From meters away where he sat on the ground, Harry could feel the fabric of Dudley's shirt, but not like he was touching it with his fingers. It felt like Harry could feel it in his mind. There was a tickle at the back of his skull, but there was no time to think about it; Dudley had almost pulled himself back.

With mighty, anger fuelled focus, Harry pushed against the feeling in his mind. The result was immediate, and exactly what Harry wanted. Dudley catapulted forward, as if an invisible person had given him the biggest shove from behind as they could. He toppled right through the broken window, landing with a splash in the miniature pond within the boa's enclosure. As Dudley hurried to wipe the water from his chubby face, the boa uncoiled itself with remarkable speed, bringing its head right into front of the boy's face.

Dudley finished wiping the water out of his eyes, and then he froze, face turning ghost pale as he stared straight ahead at the boa. He sucked in his breath, overcome with fear and unable to move. The boa smiled.

"Boo!"

"AAARRRGGGHHHHHHH! AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!"

If the glass breaking hadn't already attracted everyone's attention, then Dudley's girlish screams surely did. Zoo staff tried to race over, but before they could get close, the air filled with a symphony of cracking sounds. All at once, the windows of every other exhibit shattered, and panic descended upon the reptile house.

"HAHAHA! Run, bitch! Run! If I catch you, I'm going to turn you into a pair of ssshoes! HAHAHA!"

The same python from earlier was having the time of its life chasing after the woman with the snakeskin bag, snapping at her ankles. The other snakes followed suit, snapping at anyone they could reach – though not with the same crazed enthusiasm as the python. They were near impossible to see, slithering beneath the thin veil of mist that covered the floor, popping up to strike before disappearing again. Piers, who had left Dudley to his fate, backed against a wall, failing to notice the snake coming down from the canopy above. It landed around Piers's shoulders, making him faint.

To Harry, it was like watching a comedy show on the television. He sat there laughing his ass off, forgetting all about how terrible the day had been up to that point. To his left, the boa climbed out of its enclosure, finished with terrorising Dudley, and slithered over to Harry. "Thanksss amigo … Freedom, here I come! Now … How do I get to Brazil?"

Harry smiled broadly as the boa hurried out of the reptile house. Seeing this, the other snakes and creatures decided to do the same, causing further screams outside. Some staff rushed inside the building to see what had happened, but Harry was happy to see that none of them were holding any of the escaped reptiles.

Police and paramedics arrived at the zoo not long after that. No one had been seriously hurt by the broken glass, even Dudley – unfortunately – but more than a few people were getting treated for snake bites. The zoo assured that the snakes had been defanged, but they had no answers whatsoever when everyone demanded to know how this could've happened in the first place. Petunia was on a war path, screaming in the zoo director's face for hours.

"This is ridiculous! How could you let this happen! You ruined my Dudder's birthday! Ruined!"

The director was visibly sweating. "I-I'm t-terribly sorry, Mrs D-Dursley. I promise, a f-full investigation will take place, and those r-responsible will be found. O-Of course, you will also be c-compensated. How about free zoo admission for an e-entire year? No! Two years! Three…?"

Petunia erupted. "WE ARE NEVER SETTING FOOT IN THIS HORRIFIC EXCUSE FOR A ZOO EVER AGAIN! YOU'LL BE HEARING FROM OUR LAWYERS! JUST LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO MY SON! HE'S TRAUMATISED!"

Dudley had been given dry clothes from the gift shop, but was wrapped in three thick blankets nonetheless for the shock. His face had yet to regain any colour, and he was mumbling the same thing over and over again.

"P-P-Pushed… P-Pushed…"

Witnesses placed Harry too far away to be the pusher, thankfully. Piers on the other hand, had been seen standing right next to Dudley. Police were waiting for him to wake up so that they could question him, and Harry was completely fine with that. It was about time someone else got blamed for something he did, rather than the other way around.

"I just don't understand. It shouldn't have been possible." Nearby, the staff leader of the reptile house was being questioned by a short policewoman, who was writing everything down in her little black handbook. "The glass was laminated. It shouldn't have been able to shatter like that, and all at the same time?! It's almost like it was magic!"

Oh, now they've done it; they've mentioned the dreaded M-word. If Harry had learned anything over the years, it was to never mention the strange and impossible around Vernon Dursley. 

Vernon had been on the phone with the family lawyer, but the conversation was forgotten in an instant. Face turning an even darker shade of purple, his gaze locked onto Harry, who had been making no effort to hide how amused he was by everything.

"You…" Vernon snarled.

When they finally left the zoo, Vernon shoved Harry especially hard into the car, and kept glaring back at him in the rear-view mirror during the drive. Piers had been picked up by his own parents, so it was a straight journey home, no detours. Harry couldn't stop smiling, staring out of the car window to the soundtrack of Dudley's traumatised mumbling. There was only one thought dancing around Harry's head – who knew that the zoo could be so much fun?

{ ϟ }

Much later that evening, Harry lay in his cupboard, curled up into a ball and nursing a slew of fresh bruises, welts, and cuts. Vernon had been vicious – chucking him into the kitchen as soon as they entered the house, leaving Petunia to care for Dudley. Vernon took off his thick belt, swinging it at Harry with all his might, and not an ounce of mercy.

"It was all that freak's fault, Petunia! It had to have been him – we both know it!"

Despite the stinging pain wracking his body, Harry still rolled his eyes at his uncle's shouts. He'd been forced to listen to them throughout the beating, but now Vernon repeated them to Petunia, as if she hadn't already been able to hear everything echoing through the house.

"We never should've taken him in!" Vernon continued. "Problems! That's all he's ever caused us – problems! I should've listened to Marge and left him at an orphanage – or better yet, out on the streets!"

"We couldn't … You know why we had to take—" said Petunia, but she was interrupted by another angry shout.

"DO I?! Where did we find him, huh?! That's right, out on that blasted doorstep! A baby, at the beginning of November! They didn't care if he'd have frozen to death that night! Would've done us all a favour if he had!"

The Dursleys barely ever spoke about the day Harry arrived in their care, except to remind him that it was the worst day of their lives. He recalled the moment he first opened his eyes at number four, Privet Drive – seeing his aunt and uncle arguing loudly about what to do with him. Neither wanted to keep him, but that's what ended up happening; someone forced them to, but Harry never discovered who. Petunia had noticed that he was awake, their eyes meeting for no longer than a second before her face scrunched up. That lead to the first time – but certainly not the last time – that he was shoved into the small cupboard under the stairs.

By the time Harry was taken out again to be fed, Vernon and Petunia had made a pact never to speak of the mystery person or people ever again. Around the time Harry turned six, he considered asking about it, having been able to look back at the memory with enough knowledge to understand what everything had meant. He decided better of it in the end, learning by then that it would've just made his aunt and uncle mad.

"I've had it, do you hear me?! I won't put up with the freak's … freakishness anymore! He's a danger to us all – just look at what he did to Dudley! He tried to kill him!"

"W-We don't know that," said Petunia. Harry must've been hit harder than he first thought, because he was sure that his aunt had just tried to defend him. The reason soon presented itself; she was just trying to calm Vernon down, divert his attention away from things that would rile him up. She hadn't inexplicably begun to care about Harry; he didn't think anything could make that happen.

"Do you think we could ship him off to St Brutus's early? Do you think they would take him?" asked Vernon.

St Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys was a correctional institute on the other side of London, for boys that society had given up on, but had no idea what to do with. Harry read the pamphlet, he was nothing like the boys sentenced to that place, nevertheless, his relatives were dead set on sending him there, and had been for years. 'If we can't beat the freak out of you, then they will' his uncle liked to say.

"We can send them a letter," said Petunia, ushering Vernon into the living room; the house shook as he collapsed onto his armchair. She continued to try and distract him, mentioning one of his favourite things after abusing Harry – alcohol. "I think we have some of your brandy in the kitchen. How about I go get you a glass?"

Vernon gave a pig-like snort. "Better bring the bottle, Petunia."

Half an hour later, Petunia was helping her drunk husband stumble up the stairs to bed. Harry listened until the only sounds he could hear were Vernon's snores, and the tick of the living room clock, before he pushed himself up. He had no idea what time it was - seconds could have easily stretched into hours whilst he waited. Reaching into the darkness, he pulled the hanging cord that would turn on the light — the cupboard's singular lightbulb lit up, but it was so old that it kept flickering, neither was it as bright as it used to be. It was enough for Harry though, who in the dim light pulled off his shirt and shoved down his pants, laying eyes upon the aftermath of Vernon's brutal beating.

"Fuck…" he gasped. Was his uncle actually trying to kill him this time?

Bruises covered his entire body. There was more purple and black skin than not, with darker patches showing where the belt had struck him most often. Reaching to his back, Harry hissed, running fingers gently across the multitude of cuts. His back received the worst of the punishment because he'd curled into a ball, trying to protect himself. If anything, it made Vernon hit him harder. The beating might've still been going on if Petunia hadn't returned from upstairs, seeing her kitchen covered in blood, and made Vernon stop.

Ignoring the pain it caused, Harry sat with his back against the wall, resting his eyes for brief moments, but all the aches removed any chance of him falling asleep. His stomach would also rumble on occasion, but not even hunger could motivate him to move.

Meanwhile, slowly – but at the same time impossibly fast – his bruises became lighter and lighter. The stinging across his back lessened to a mere itch, uncomfortable, but no longer painful. By this rate, his injuries would be gone by morning – healed as if they'd never been there. This wasn't the first time, but it was definitely getting faster. Injuries that used to take Harry weeks to heal now took days at most, hours at the earliest.

Harry didn't know whether to be relieved, or frustrated. He knew that his miraculous healing was the only reason he was alive and healthy, despite everything his relatives had done to try and change this. But it was also the reason why no one ever believed that he was being abused. When he'd tried telling teachers at school, they'd examined his body, looking for signs of the abuse he told them about, and found nothing but flawless skin.

"Don't lie about such things, young man," said Mrs Woodhall, the school headmistress. Police were there too, as well as his aunt and uncle, who were doing their best to act shocked at his wild claims. "The consequences are very severe, and we don't appreciate liars here at St. Grogory's Primary School."

Harry's school life never recovered from that event; the other children didn't want to talk to the kid that cried abuse, not that Dudley and his gang allowed them to before then anyway. The beating that night had been a bad one too. After that, Petunia made sure that he was kept locked inside until any evidence of the beatings had healed, making sure he had nothing to show if he tried telling people again. She needn't have bothered; his trust in authority of any kind had died an ugly death. If he wanted to escape the hell he lived in, then he'd have to do it alone.

That brought Harry back to the present, and what happened at the zoo hours earlier. If he was ever going to escape from the Dursleys, then he needed every resource he could get, and whatever that was back in the reptile house might well become one of his most valuable.

Staring down at his hands, Harry tried to figure out how he pushed Dudley – how he'd felt the soft fabric of his cousin's shirt, without physically touching it. Had he imagined it? But then how would Dudley have gone tumbling so forcefully? Harry also recalled the tickle in the back of his head, unlike anything he'd experienced before. No, he'd definitely been the one to push Dudley, and somehow break all that glass. But how?

Relying on his memory, thinking hard about it, Harry remembered just one time where he encountered something similar to this, but in a comic book of all places. Having been kicked out of the house into a rainstorm, Harry took refuge in the local library; the place least likely to kick him out, but he couldn't be bothered doing any of his usual studying. Soaked head-to-toe, he picked up the first thing he found, a tattered comic book with the title X-Men plastered across the front. Not really Harry's thing, but it helped waste time as he waited for the storm to pass.

A woman in the comic had a power she called telekinesis – the power to move things with her mind. She was called Jean Grey, and by thinking it, she could move an object, or a person, from a distance. That sounded very familiar indeed. She could also do other things like read people's minds, something that Harry couldn't do – not yet, at least. Who knows what the future had in store for him.

Anyway, focusing on the telekinesis. It was impossible, a thing of fiction, but it was the closest thing he'd heard of to what he'd done. Nothing scientific he'd read supported the existence of such powers. The only thing left to do was see if he could do it again.

On a web in the farthest corner of the cupboard, there was a small spider sat unaware that it was about to become a test subject. The cupboard was full of the little critters, they were basically Harry's roommates. He didn't hate them, but he'd have preferred snakes if he had the choice. Shifting to a cross-legged position facing the web, he concentrated hard, thinking about the spider floating up off it. Nothing happened. A second attempt, this time raising his hand towards the spider, like the woman in the comic sometimes did towards whatever she was picking up.

"Come on… Lift up…" he grunted.

Still nothing. Harry's frustrated, tired eyes glared at the spider, who he imagined was laughing up at him. Why won't it work?! He recalled the rest of the comic, but there was no explanation for what he was doing wrong. About to curse the author's name for being so vague, Harry paused. What did the author actually know about this? Could he move objects with his mind, or had he made it all up to fill his story?

Groaning loudly, Harry let himself fall backwards. The stench of his mattress — that of old, sweaty socks — began to make his eyes water, but that also might've been exhaustion catching up to him. Maybe it would be better to get some sleep and try again in the morning, when he was rested. With a yawn. Harry turned onto his side, resting his head on his arm, but he didn't yet turn off the light.

Perhaps he needed a bigger target; after all, there was quite a difference in size between his cousin and the spider. If that was the case, then he didn't have anything quite that big right now to test with. But what about weight, did that have something to do it? Dudley sure had a lot of that. Harry ran a hand through his hair, giving his head a scratch on the way through, hoping it would stimulate his mind enough to figure out the answer. He kept asking himself – what's so different now than before?

There was one thing, Harry suddenly realised. He had been angry – so very angry that he'd lost control. It had fuelled his focus, his everything, into wanting Dudley to fall into the snake enclosure. Sitting in his quiet cupboard, Harry felt no such emotion, and maybe that was the problem.

Getting back into position, gaze narrowed at the spider, he tried once more. This time, he imagined what it would look like floating in the air, replaying it over and over again in his mind. Then came the hard part. Harry tried to recreate the anger he'd experienced before, remembering everything that had caused it to build up. His body started to grow warm, but he wasn't feeling nearly angry enough. The things that had gotten him so mad earlier in the day didn't have as big of an effect now, not like they had at the time they happened. This wasn't going to work!

In the face of a third failure, new, fresh anger burned inside Harry, born of his frustration. He forgot all about trying to reignite the earlier inferno, allowing this new fire to burn and grow. At some point, he'd closed his eyes, looking inwards rather than out, concentrating on the imagined scene of the spider floating up that was in his mind. At last, there was a slight tickle in the back of his mind, the same as before, but barely noticeable this time. Harry grasped it firmly, not letting it slip away, memorising what it felt like. Steadily, it grew and grew until a new feeling joined it; it felt like something was squirming in his grip.

Emerald orbs reopened to the world, and a foot in front of them, the spider was floating in the air, kicking its eight hairy legs out in all directions. No strings held it up, or anything of the like – the small critter was flying.

"I did it… I … I DID IT! YES!"

Harry's cheers echoed throughout the house, but in that moment, he didn't care if he woke the Dursleys. Let them storm down here, he thought; there was nothing they could do to put a damper on his unbridled joy. With another thought, the spider began to rotate, suddenly doing its best impression of a spinning top.

Unleashing what could only be described as the laughter of a madman, Harry stared in awe and disbelief at the spider he was holding up with his mind. The spider didn't find it nearly as amusing, continuing to kick its legs out in a desperate attempt to find anything to latch onto. Harry wondered what thoughts must be going through its head – what being controlled like this might feel like.

This ability was going to change everything. The possibilities were endless – plans after plans were already forming inside Harry's head. This was the power he needed to finally free himself of the Dursleys! Thinking about them made his thoughts turn darker.

What was the rush? He could bide his time – continue to show the facade of the battered little boy that his relatives were used to, when in reality, he could turn their lives into a living hell. Didn't they deserve it? For everything that they'd done to him, without so much as an ounce of mercy or remorse. The Dursleys should experience a fraction of suffering that they'd been eager to inflict upon him! It was only fair! And they could do nothing about it!

Harry's control slipped, the itch in his head disappeared and the spider fell to the cupboard floor, but it didn't scamper away; it wouldn't scamper anywhere ever again. Lost in an angered haze, his telekinesis had reacted, crushing the spider to death before it even knew what was happening. At least it was quick, Harry thought, thanking the spider for its sacrifice in helping him uncover the mystery of his new ability, and importantly, how easy it was to lose control of it if he wasn't careful.

Training would be needed before he moved forwards with any of his plans; Harry couldn't risk breaking or killing whatever he tried to control. A good thing then that he'd just been sent on a long vacation to his cupboard, giving him plenty of time to just that. He'll learn everything he can about his telekinesis, no matter how hard it is, or how long it takes. The next time the Dursleys let him out of this small cupboard, they'll have no idea what they are unleashing unto themselves, or the world.