In the smallest bedroom of number four, Privet Drive, a boy of no more than ten, sat on his stool and surveyed his latest piece. Vivid blues, golds, oranges, and reds formed into the abstract of a flower, pouring out a vibrancy that clashed with the dull, gloomy image of its maker. Pale skinned, lanky, and dressed in dingy over-sized clothing, the only hint the boy held any sense of beauty lay in his vibrant green eyes, which flashed between his painting and his pallet in contemplation. With slow deliberateness, he dipped his brush into the black acrylic and set it to canvas. With a continuous, spindly line he completed his latest work with a single name.
Heinrich.
"Heinrich! Lunch!" a shrill call rang up from the kitchen.
Quickly, he set about collecting his supplies. Small tubes of acrylic paint, brushes, a spatula, and his pallet. He took them to a large bucket of water and began to clean them carefully and thoroughly. It would not due to be lectured on proper respect for his relative's gifts. Especially, since they were the only gifts he received from them. One look around the stark, gloomy bedroom was testament to that. A creaky bed, small table and chair, and a wardrobe (that couldn't decide if it was white or the color of rotten wood) were all the furniture supplied (in other words, already happened to be there when he first arrived three years ago). There were no photographs, posters, toys, or books. The only sign of personality were the few watercolor pictures he had painted himself, each with their own glaring flaw that made them unsaleable, and cheap enough to make so that his relatives didn't destroy them because of his intentional waste of their gifts.
He left his stuffy bedroom, stopping briefly in the bathroom to wash his hands and a smudge of paint from his nose. Barefoot he reached the bottom of the stairs, and barely saved his toes from being crushed when Dudley, his whale of a cousin, nearly stomped them as he rushed into kitchen first.
"Watch it, 'sauerkraut'," the larger boy sneered, not even stopping.
'Heinrich' scowled at the back of his head. He could hear the television still on in the living room, blaring out a noisy, ridiculous dialogue of some cartoon super hero. Had Dudley been waiting for him to come down just to pick on him? Probably. Which meant his cousin was in one of his moods.
He entered the kitchen, making it a point to stay out of his cousin's reach and intending to make it the trend for the rest of the day. His Aunt Petunia was just finishing up with lunch. She set a large slice of roast beef, carrots, and potatoes in front of Dudley, cooing at her 'Duddykins' like the fat baby he was, before turning to him. Her scowl made her horse like face look even longer, as she picked up what he assumed was his plate.
"Picture?" she asked.
'Heinrich' tilted his head, as if trying to understand her, then lifted his hand and made a gesture for 'tiny'. She scowled and put her free hand on her boney hip.
"How long?"
Ah, now he was having a conundrum. If he told her it was done, then he would get to eat, but he might also be sent outside to garden, making him fair game for Dudley's cruel, infantile jokes. If he told her it would take too many hours she might send him up to his room without eating, scolding him for being lazy. After considering for a moment, he held up two fingers. Her scowl didn't ease up, but she handed him his plate. It was only carrots and potatoes.
"It better be done by then, or you can forget about dinner."
"Danke, Aunt Petunia," he said, sitting down. He pushed his chair as far from the table as he could manage to avoid his cousin kicking him, and ate in a sullen silence. Petunia joined them a moment later, nibbling at pieces of carrots as she flipped idly through a beauty magazine. Despite 'Heinrich's' smaller portion, Dudley finished scarfing down his meal first and elbowed him sharply on his way back to the living room, abandoning his dishes on the table. When he finished, he gathered up both of their dishes, and washed them, along with his aunt's, and all of her cooking utensils.
Finally, he made his way back up the stairs to his room. He hesitated when he reached the top of the stairs. Hadn't he closed his door when he came down? With a sudden feeling of dread, he opened the door the rest of the way.
Dudley sat, a parody of deep thought, flipping through a sketch book. 'Heinrich' froze, a cold, heavy sensation settling in his gut. That was not his 'project' sketchbook. That one was large and spiraled at the top. That one looked more like small text book, with plain black binding. That one was his 'private' sketchbook.
"Hhhmmm," Dudley said, looking at one picture with particular interest. "This'un isn't half bad." The fat boy turned to his cousin, tilting the colored pencil picture so he could see it. A woman in a sun dress and hat stood under a flowering tree, her hair a brilliant red and verdant eyes that mirrored 'Heinrich's' own. She was smiling, a cross between sly and coy that had boggled him even back when he had attended primary school. Mom.
"Real looker," his cousin said, turning the picture back towards himself. "Kinda of slutty looking, but hey... You know what a slut is, sauerkraut?"
The coldness in his gut suddenly turned hard, and the hardness spread into his chest, and moved into his shoulders, before finally reaching his hands that clenched so hard he might have shattered stones in them. Dudley leered at him.
"So they taught you that much at least, huh, stupid?" Abruptly, he ripped the picture from its binding. A corner was torn off, coming dangerously close to decapitating the beautiful woman. 'Heinrich' stepped forward quickly. Dudley took the remains of the picture in two hands, looking at his smaller cousin with sadistic glee. 'Heinrich' stopped. "Mind if I take this? Daddy won't buy me girly mags yet, but this will due for a while.."
If possible, his insides hardened further, seeping into his head, crushing all thoughts except rage and horror. His vision was turning red, like the blood that was now seeping out between his clenched fingers. Dudley, stupid and arrogant, saw only the usual impotent rage, heedless of the danger and laughed. In a final act of cruelty, he stuck out his tiny pink tongue, and gave the image a lascivious lick.
What happened next, Dudley would relive in nightmares for the rest of his life. Though therapy and endless repetitions of 'it was a bad dream' would stave off the fear in his waking hours, sleep would bring the terror and incredulity of that memory back in all the vividness of the event itself. 'Heinrich' would remember it as his first conscious act of magic. It began as he stepped completely into the little bedroom. His cousin's porcine laughter was abruptly silenced as the door slammed shut without being touched. For a moment, Dudley seemed merely surprised. The completed painting near the window suddenly bursting into flames quickly turned his confusion into blatant fear. He shot off the bed, dropping the notebook and the picture. He made a run for the door and 'Heinrich' was certain he would have been knocked to the other side of the room, if the thin sheets on his bed hadn't suddenly seized the fat boy.
Dudley let an ear splitting shriek, shattering the stone-like power that had been crushing 'Heinrich's' fear and surprise. His thoughts and feelings suddenly scattered into so many directions, leaving him weak and suddenly terrified of what was happening. On his bed was the rather hoaky idea of a ghost, a dingy grey sheet draped over some unseen person. Only there was nothing hoaky about this. Parts of the sheet had twisted themselves into tight spirals, forming skeletal hands that clutched and clawed at their fat prisoner, who beat at them uselessly. No matter how hard Dudley struggled the sheet wraith refused to relinquish its hold, intent, it seemed, on dragging him to the bed itself.
'Heinrich' floundered uselessly for a bit. A part of him wasn't sure if he could help his cousin, and certainly not without becoming the... thing's next victim. If that happened he certainly wasn't going to get any help from his cousin. Another part whispered that the disgusting little Stück Abfall deserved this. That he had wanted this to happen. That he had made it happen.
Oh God, he had made it happen.
He didn't know how, but he was certain of it. He was bloody Carrie! Luke Skywalker! That girl in Firestarter.
A FREAK!
A new fear arose, almost as terrifying as his cousin being smothered to death in front him by the linens. A fear of his Uncle when he found his son smothered to death in the FREAK's room. As if to taunt him, he could suddenly hear footsteps hurrying up the stairs.
"Dudders? Baby? What going on?" came his aunt's voice.
"MUMMY! HELP ME!"
A moment later, the handle to the door was jiggling. But whatever power had slammed it shut was still holding it shut. Petunia let out a desperate yell, resorting to kicking and throwing her stick-like body at the door. Panicked almost as much as his relatives, for entirely different reasons, 'Heinrich' forced himself to move.
He ran around Dudley, snatching up his private notebook and the picture of his mother, leaping back quickly incase the sheet wraith attacked him as well. He went, ignored, to his opened bedroom window, careful to avoid the charred remains of the painting, and barefoot he made the jump he had longed to make for the last three years.
Behind him he heard the door finally give way to his aunt. He had no time to wonder what she would do. The ground came up to meet him, and he barely remembered to unbrace his legs and roll as he landed beside the shrubs. He laid there stunned by the impact, stunned by what he was doing, before stiffly climbing to his feet. His feet hurt from the landing, but nothing was broken or sprained. As quickly as he could, he hobbled away from number four, Privet Drive and prayed it was forever.
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Mr. Dursley had never been so angry in his life. He was a man very prone to anger so that was saying something. He had been in the middle of yelling at some nitwit at work, when a call had come in from his wife. She had been frantic and stuttering, crying about 'Dudders' and about something that wretched nephew of hers had done to him. Nothing she had said made much sense to him, but he could tell it involved some of that Potter weirdness.
As he drove home from work, taking the day off and threatening to fire an entire department if even one person dallied while he was gone, his thoughts ran in a continuous angry circle. He knew, he knew, he should never have allowed that boy into their home. He knew that expenses had been a little tight, especially as Dudley was growing into more expensive tastes in toys and games, but the government stipend for his care and the boy's rather impressive trust fund could not have been near enough to cover the mere inconvenience of housing the ungrateful wretch.
For one, he couldn't speak a whit of English. His British parents didn't have the bloody decency to teach their son the proper Queen's English! They could shout and lecture him all day and he would just tip his head at them and look confused. Or worse, he'd start talking in that funny German way, and he knew it wasn't anything good. No matter how patiently Petunia tried to teach him, just wouldn't learn. Sending him to a proper English school was out of the question. They wouldn't tolerate the sheer embarrassment it would cause them.