Quiet

Lies.

That’s all adults could understand apparently, or all they told him anyways. He was used to it but it didn’t hurt any less. In fact it hurt worse. This time they spewed from the adults he was supposed to trust. The good guys apparently lied more than the bad.

Harry wasn’t feeling good. Correction he felt really sick. He hadn’t had anything to eat for breakfast. Or maybe it was lunch time now. He wasn’t sure. His head felt sore, and his eyes just didn’t want to focus. He sat in the shed a moment to catch his breath and steal a drink from the hose. His knuckles were red with carpet burn. He had scrubbed and scrubbed at the carpet. It wasn’t clean yet, he would have to bleach it tomorrow.

His back ached from bending over the garden flowers. It had only been a couple weeks since he had left, how could so many dandelions be rooted already? Harry suspected that was Dudley’s fault.

“Bastard.”

Had it been yesterday that the sun had felt so good on his face, so soft and warm and light and so fucking pure? Today it felt nothing short of horrendous. It hurt to hit his tender skin, His freckles now hid beneath a deep burn, his back stuck to his shirt and dark marks show through the ratty white t-shirt. His hands were cracking from the drought along with ragged flower beds. Nothing grew besides the weeds which seemed to thrive. At this point he wondered why weed the garden at all; why not mow the damned thing down and start over? But that would defeat the purpose. This was punishment. Punishment for leaving, punishment for returning. Punishment for living.

That is what Harry existed for. To be punished. It was even more horrifying when he liked it, but that only happened when he punished himself.

Uncle Vernon wanted him to like it. To like it but not to like it, he wanted him to hate it. But like it. It confused Harry. His uncle would tug t him and punch him. He would kick and yell and Harry would squirm and scream. The pain would come and Harry would melt away. He could forget about it until Vernon tried to make it feel nice.

But Harry never responded. He stared, far off and away and glassy eyed. He was a pretty rag doll tossed around the room. Head hitting dressers and walls and he would crash back to reality when his uncle forgot the insult and remembered the restraints. Hard leather twisted around his wrists bringing Harry a point to focus on as it cut into the flesh and rubbed raw the skin, burning and stinging and feeling,

Vernon liked to scratch at the boys chest as he rammed in. Harry bit his lip and tried not to count the ins and outs or remember to count the number of times this had happened each year and add those up to find a total.

He could detach himself if he gave it a number. He gave it many. The number of others to go to the hospital for this a year, to jail. The number to die. The percent attacked by strangers, coerced by friends or brutalized by family. Harry felt better as a statistic, he never had to think about the press, or the moral implications. He didn’t have to think about the aftermath and the scrubbing and crying and nightmares.

Objectively Harry had to give his Uncle credit at least he had waited until he was no longer a little boy. Vernon could be called many things but not a pedophile.