Chapter Text
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They had a perfectly normal house which matched every other one on Privet Drive. Mr. Vernon Dursley was a perfectly normal, if rather large, man who worked for a firm called Grunnings, which sold drills. Mrs. Petunia Dursley was a perfectly normal, if rather nosy, housewife who spent most of her days observing her neighbors. They had a perfectly normal son, Dudley Dursley, who did perfectly normal things for a young boy.
Their house was decorated with perfectly normal pictures of them; on vacation at the zoo, at the fair, at the beach; all perfectly normal family outings for their perfectly normal family.
Yes, the Dursleys had everything a perfectly normal family could ever want, but there was just one little thing they had they wished they didn’t have.
That ever so small problem was the existence of one Harry Potter, the son of Petunia’s sister. Harry Potter was decidedly not normal. He was remarkably small and thin for his age, quite unlike his rather massive cousin. He had an unruly mop of jet-black hair atop his head, again unlike Dudley’s neatly combed blond locks. He had, according to Petunia, a horrendous lightning-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, the only gift his drug-addicted parents had given him before dying in a car crash.
These signs of non-normalness the Dursleys might have been able to get by, if it were not for the tendency for extraordinary things to happen around Harry Potter. Dreadful hand-me-down clothes of Dudley’s somehow always seemed to be too small to fit Harry, flowers seemed to sprout around him when he walked through grassy fields, his hair always seemed to regrow quickly when it was hacked cruelly off.
Harry initially didn’t quite know what to make of these incidents, other than the fact they made the Dursleys extremely angry with him. And when the Dursleys got angry, Harry got hurt. Whether it was enduring a thrown pan by his aunt, or a more hands on approach by his uncle, Harry never escaped unscathed. He’d had a number of broken bones, and too many bruises and cuts to count. Following a beating, he was always confined to his “room.” Of course, his room was nothing more than a broom cupboard under the stairs. The Dursleys didn’t even call it his room, taking great pleasure in ordering him to his cupboard.
Of course, Harry eventually realized what he was doing. Anyone sharp enough would eventually catch on, and one incident in particular sealed Harry’s belief. Aunt Petunia’s prized China dishes had been her grandmother’s. Harry had the misfortune of accidently knocking one of them to the floor. He had frozen in shock and fear, knowing for sure he was a dead man and wishing more than anything he could repair the broken dish.
As if listening to his thoughts, the shattered pieces on the floor moved towards each other, molding themselves back into the ornately-patterned-dish. Unfortunately for Harry, Petunia, being alerted by the sound of breaking China, arrived in time to see the dish reform.
The incident had earned Harry his harshest beating yet, followed by a week straight in the cupboard. Not that Harry minded that part. He knew what he’d seen. He wanted the dish to fix itself, and it had responded. The Dursleys were right, he was not normal, he was special. The only question was could he do it again.
In the privacy of his cupboard, he could try to his heart’s content without being punished by the Dursleys. Looking around, Harry searched for something to try and fix, a harder task than one would expect. Harry had exceedingly few belongings, none of which were currently broken, and none of which he was willing to break intentionally without the promise of them being fixed.
Finally, he decided on an old sock that had once been Uncle Vernon’s. Gripping the sock tightly, he tore it apart, threads dangling as the fabric was razed by his small hands.
Throwing the destroyed sock on the bed, Harry wished it would fix itself. The sock though, seemingly had other plans. It laid there, completely unmoving. Harry growled with anger, why wouldn’t the stupid sock fix itself like the plate?
Harry thought back to the plate. What had he been feeling when he looked at the plate? He’d been scared, scared Aunt Petunia was going to kill him and angry that it would over something as trivial as a plate.
Perhaps his emotions played a role in fixing things? Closing his eyes, he drew upon his emotions. It wasn’t hard. He scarcely went a day without being scared of a beating from his aunt or uncle. And the anger, where should he start? His parents had ridden their addiction to the grave, leaving him here with his only living relatives. He hated it here, he hated his aunt, his uncle, his cousin, and every detail of their lives.
He wished the stupid sock would just fix itself, so he could at least have something that would let him stand against the Dursleys. Something he could look to that would make living worth it. He pictured the sock in his mind, it would be so easy for it to just fix itself, and Harry felt a warm feeling in his chest. Slowly, he raised a hand towards the sock, and felt the warm feeling flow through his hand and into the sock.
Opening his eyes, Harry was thrilled to see the sock lying whole on his bed. His trick had worked again. It was no fluke, he was special. And for the first time in his life, Harry Potter thought it might be possible for him to survive in his uncle’s house.