Grieve

"Wake up, boy, or I'll take my belt to you! Get in here and make us some breakfast."

The harsh, unforgiving sounds of the world outside the cupboard filtered through his consiousness. Harry got up and pushed open the door, wincing at the pain in his spine and his backside. Dudley had broken one of Petunia's pot plants yesterday and so Vernon had been more violent in his beating than usual, as well as doing that other thing that didn't happen very often, but hurt so very much when it did.

The kitchen was bright, brighter than the hall and much, much brighter than the cupboard. The four-year-old squinted in the light, rubbing his eyes and looking up at the figures of Vernon and Petunia sitting at the kitchen table. There was a muffled sound coming from upstairs so the Harry assumed Dudley was still watching the TV in his bedroom. Cartoons or something, whatever normal four year olds watched. Harry wouldn't know.

Harry went about the kitchen, making breakfast. He could only make toast and eggs because the cereal was on a cupboard out of his reach, even if he stood on a chair. If his uncle and aunt wanted cereal, they put it out on the worktop, so he ignored the cereal and went for toast instead. By some miracle he managed to get back to his cupboard with only one slap upside the head from Vernon, who had been angry that Harry had burnt his toast. Petunia had given him a spiteful look when he put her tea next to her, but had said nothing. Harry knew how she liked her tea now. He had learnt quickly after being allowed to touch the kettle how she liked her tea. It saved pain.

The day, like most days, was a blur to him. It was late september and Harry was dreading when the leaves started falling, but right now there were no sweeping, raking or digging jobs for him to do in the garden. The only housework he was old enough to do yet was some of the cooking and cleaning indoors, but he was still shorter than the vacuum cleaner and so couldn't hoover the carpets. Somehow Petunia still managed to find tidying and dusting jobs that kept him busy and mindlessly numb all day.

Vernon got back late, angry and irritable. He snapped at Petunia when she asked him when he was going to take her car to get fixed. He ignored Dudley when he whined about a new toy he wanted. Harry trod on eggshells the whole evening, terrified that one wrong move would mean an explosion. It was only once Petunia and Dudley had gone to bed and Harry was lying in his cupboard, praying that Vernon would go to sleep so that Harry's heart could stop racing, that the inevitable happened.

He was dragged out of the cupboard by Vernon's big meaty hands, and into the back garden. The night wind was cool on Harry's bare chest and he blinked up at the stars, ignoring what was going on further down his body and the pain in his back where the cuts from Vernon's belt had not healed. This pain was soon replaced by a much larger pain, impossible to ignore, and Harry began to cry, keeping his mouth shut and whimpering through clenched teeth as he tried not to make any sound.

When Vernon was done he left Harry there on the lawn, going back inside the house and shutting but not locking the back door behind him. Harry lay on the grass, looking up at the moon and the stars.

How could they be so bright? Why weren't there any clouds at all? The moon was big, white and just the right level of brightness to not hurt his eyes. It was cut in half at the moment, like half of a silver coin. How could it shine and be so beautiful? It was unfair that it should be so lovely when he was so dirty, so broken.

After a while Harry got up. He looked at the house, the light turned off in the master bedroom meaning Petunia and Vernon were asleep. It looked big and dark. He did not want to go back into the house just yet.

Instead he pulled his t-shirt back over his head and his trousers up, ignoring the sticky mess between his thighs. It would wait. He went through the gate at the back of the garden, down the pathway to the edge of the small wood that nestled against a nearby field. It was big, dark and quiet, like the house, but somehow the wood was not scary like the house was. It felt welcoming, and Harry slipped into it.

He had been walking for ten minutes or so when he heard the noise, a faint thump and rustling sound coming closer and closer. As it approached it sounded louder, crashing through the leaves and branches. Feeling very scared and suddenly wondering why he had come into the wood anyway, Harry hid behind a tree.

Into the clearing came a dog. It was big, bigger than he was, although that was no feat since Harry was very small. It had golden brown fur that might have shone, had it not been muddy, messy and full of twigs and bits of leaf. The look in its eyes was wild, panicked and hungry, and Harry kept very, very still as he watched it.

But to no avail. Without him making the slightest noise the dog sniffed then turned to look at the tree he was behind. Harry felt terrified as the dog circled the tree, catching sight of him. Harry slowly backed away, hands up in an unthreatening pose. Unfortunately, the dog didn't seem to get it and leapt at him.

Being so much bigger than Harry made it reach him very quickly, and it reared up pushing him onto his back on the floor. Its muzzle opened and stinking breath washed over him, making Harry gag. There was a lot of red and black in his vision as the dog snarled, then it lowered its head in a swift strike as it went for his throat. At the very last second Harry twisted away and instead of his throat the teeth sunk into his shoulder.

Harry yelled, the first truly loud sound he'd made in a long, long time. Kicking upwards he felt his feet thump into the chest or stomach of the animal above him and something went crack. The dog was pushed away, the force of Harry's kick surprisingly large, and it slid to thump against the base of a tree, and lay still.

For a second all Harry could hear were his own breaths, and all he could feel was the bite on his neck. It felt strange, the night air causing it to tingle and Harry was sure that it ought to be hurting more than it was.

Suddenly a spasm ripped down and Harry thought Oh yes, this is more what I expected.

Then all thoughts left his mind as pain sliced through his body from his shoulder. He arched on the grass, one tiny hand clenched around his shoulder which was pulsing and throbbing, blood spurting from between his fingers. It spattered the grass and had Harry been able to turn and look, rather than writhing and whimpering, he would have been terrified to see that the blood was dark, nearly black. As it was he just concentrated on making as little sound as possible. Experience had taught him that staying silent got you hurt less than yelling.

Gradually, the pain subsided a little to the point where Harry felt he could sit up without tearing out his spine. He did so, cringing at the spasms of agony that still jerked sobs from his throat. He staggered to his feet and leant against the nearest tree, catching his breath. His legs seemed reluctant to move, but apparently they would cooperate with extreme willpower.

Harry limped back through the forest, the way he had come, away from the dead body of the big dog and the clearing. His body shook, he could hold his hand in front of his eyes and see the shivering, shaking skin. Tiny breaths and whimpers escaped from his throat, even as he tried so hard to keep them from being released. As he approached the house it loomed in front of him, huge and terrifying, like Vernon.

For a few seconds he seriously considered running back into the woods and far away, never coming back to the house again. Surely that would be better? The woods were a little scary, but they had nothing on Vernon Dursley.

Then he remembered the dog.

No. He had to deal with it. At least Vernon never tried to kill him. And as long as Harry was alive, there was some hope that one day he would be able to get out, get away. Once he started school he would be allowed out of the house for most of the day, surely that wouldn't be so bad?

He would just have to deal with it.

In trepidation, Harry slipped through the gate at the back of the garden and tiptoed up to the porch door. It made no sound as he swung it open, though the movement caused another twinge of agony to shoot through him from his shoulder, making him cry out a little.

He stilled, listening for any grunts or heavy footsteps. But there were none. After a few seconds, he closed the door quietly and hobbled to the cupboard, entering his prison. The door to the cupboard squeaked but Harry knew from the past that the sound wasn't loud enough to carry up to the master bedroom.

He was, for the moment, safe.

Lying down on the thin mattress and pulling the blankets over himself, he shifted so that no weight was put on his shoulder. In the back of his mind a little voice was yelling at him, telling him that he would bleed on the sheets and would doubtless spend the next three or four days washing them to get the blood out, as per Petunia's orders. He ignored it.

LINE BREAK LINE BREAK

Harry collapsed, shivering and crying, onto the tiny thin mattress. His shoulders looked like someone had taken a cheesegrater to them and there were bloody red lines down his back and over his bottom. Huge dark handprints encircled his hips, which ached, but which were nothing when compared to the searing, slicing pain in his backside.

The wound on his neck itched and stung, stinking and black. It oozed, and Harry had gotten marks on three of his shirts until he had taken it into his head to cover it. It was an awkward place to clean though, and the plasters Harry had stolen from Petunia's supply hadn't held it in.

It was four days since he had returned from the forest, and they had been the most terrifying, pain filled days that he could remember from his short life. The details were blurry, he had been hit upside the head pretty hard the morning after waking up and everything surrounding then was rather confusing and unsure. He remembered the pain though. Pain everywhere, unending. He had been in constant pain for the entire four days, the levels rose and dipped according to Vernon's mood but nevertheless it was there. He felt a numbness in his head now, a space where something should have been, and the space was growing.

He had to get out.

Coming back had been a mistake, there was no telling how long this would continue and Harry had decided, even through he was only four, that anything was better than staying in this house with all the pain and confusion. The woods might be dangerous, but this house was much more so.

But how to get out of the cupboard? Vernon locked it up every night, how would he manage to be outside when Vernon went to bed. The last time that had happened had been...

When he had been taken outside for the pain. Harry swallowed, whimpering at the way his sore throat muscles had to work around the saliva. The only way he could be outside the cupboard at night was if Vernon left him somewhere, broken, before going to bed. Frantic, Harry pushed his mind to see if there were any other options, but he could find none. He wondered, vaguely, if his cloudy mind was affecting his concentration loss at all. Probably. But right now, there was nothing he could do about. it.

The next evening Harry was careful not to upset Vernon too much. He had long ago figured out what irritated the man, and stepped carefully around the traps Petunia laid for him with her words and actions. In the evening Vernon sat in front of the TV, watching some police drama and drinking beer. Petunia and Dudley went to bed, and Harry crouched in the cupboard, arms wrapped around himself, shaking so much that a headache grew in the space behind his eyes.

After lying like that for what felt like hours, Harry raised his head and tentatively pushed open the door of his cupboard. He tiptoed to the door of the living room and saw Vernon passed out on the sofa, his mouth gaping like a dead thing and a beer can oozing below his limp hand. The only sign that he was not in fact dead was the grunting, choking snores that came from him. Harry shivered and brushed his hair away from his eyes, where the terrified sweat had stuck it.

He was safe. For now, that was. Going to his cupboard, he took out his sole posession in all the world. It was a book, with torn pages and no cover. It had once belonged to Dudley but he had destroyed it one day in a tantrum. Harry couldnt read, so the little black marks along the bottom of the pictures meant nothing to him, but he understood the story well enough anyway. A little bird, living in a family of other, different birds. The other birds were mean to him, so he ran away, and got lost in the woods. But other birds, ones like him, came to find him, and then... he was happy.

Harry smiled sadly at the little book. He was like the little bird, only when he ran away to the woods, there would be nobody coming to find him. He would be alone.

Putting the book into the pockets of his much-too-large jeans, Harry slipped through the house like a shadow and opened the door. It was very cold outside and the wind blew like a gale into the house, causing the kitchen door to blow closed with a slam.

Harry heard a grunt from the living room and yelped, shutting the door quickly and racing down the garden. He was just through the gate when he heard the roar behind him, muffled by the walls of the house but still loud enough to discern the anger in it.

But Harry was gone.

He ran and ran, and didn't stop running until he reached the woods, where he slowed to a quick walk. He didn't really care where he was going, so long as it was away from the house. He didn't care when his glasses slipped off and got left behind, the only thing he cared about was escaping. The book was a comforting weight in his pocket.

After a while, he emerged into the clearing from before. It was cloudy, so there was no light from the stars, and the trunks of the trees were looming and scary. Something smelt bad, and as Harry stepped back towards one of the trees his leg bumped something soft and he turned.

Just visible in the very faint light was the corpse of the dog he had killed. Harry put his hand over his nose as the smell hit him. It was awful, putrid and stinking, and Harry could feel his body wanting to throw up. He pushed down the bile though, and moved to the other side of the clearing, so that the body of the dog was too indistinct to see anymore.

Sitting at the base of one of the huge trees and ignoring the roughness of the bark behind him, he wrapped him arms around himself once more and closed his eyes, smothering his face in his arms to lessen the stench, retreating into his mind as he waited for morning.

A/N : Hope you enjoyed ch1! More coming...already written. Please review!