Author's Notes: Goes AU from Harry's early years living with the Dursleys. Also, this was written prior to DH, but because the fic is eventually so AU, it's actually only noticeable in relation to Snape and Lily's backstory. If you can suspend disbelief long enough to just go with the fact that Snape in no way liked Lily Evans here, we're all good.

PART ONE – The Absence of Thought

He knew a little of the world outside, but only a very little. Only what the others in the house whispered about when they were close enough to his door that he could hear them, even though they tried to make sure he couldn't. They didn't want to give him ideas. Harry may not have known much, but he knew that. They'd drilled the fact that ideas were very bad things into his head as soon as he was old enough to understand, and then they'd hidden him away so that he'd never really have to worry about ideas anyway. How many things were there in a cupboard under the stairs that one could actually have ideas about?

There was dust. Harry knew that word because Petunia – ma'am, as he'd been forced to call her whenever she allowed him to actually directly address her, but he'd heard the man, Vernon, or sir, say her real name a enough times to know it – fought a constant and very loud battle against dust. She spoke of it in the same tone of voice that she spoke of him. That boy. Dust. These were words that were spat out as if they left a horrid taste in the mouth. Harry didn't think that words actually left a taste, but he couldn't be certain. He didn't often speak, so perhaps he'd just never had opportunity to say such distasteful things.

There were spiders. He quite liked the spiders. He liked watching them move about, bobbing and weaving about the cupboard as if it was the largest space the little creatures could possibly want or imagine. Harry, who could barely move a foot away from his mattress in any direction before he ran into a wall, knew that he could never experience such freedom for himself. Watching the spiders would have to be enough, he decided. "Those creepy-crawly spiders," as Vernon had once laughed heartily outside his door, "are the only friends you'll ever have, boy. Get used to it." That was how he had known what to call his little companions, though it had taken him a while longer to realise what the word 'friends' could possibly mean.

Harry couldn't really get 'ideas' about dust or spiders, or any of the other constants in the cupboard where he'd spent his childhood. He didn't even know what half of it was, for he only ever knew those rudimentary things Petunia had taught him when he was quite young so that he would understand her orders, as well as a few other things he'd picked up from listening in on the others' conversations.

His life was only what Petunia allowed him. It was the same every day. A routine, of sorts, had been put into place so that he didn't get used to having the freedom of movement that might bring about the dreaded 'ideas'. Wake up. Wait at the back of the cupboard for the door to open. Allow Petunia to place a slice or two of bread on the floor and lock the door once more. Eat the bread, heedless of the layer of dust that often acted as an unwanted spread. Wait for the door to open. Use the bathroom, while Petunia watched with her beady sort of eyes that sometimes made it hard to do what was expected of him, when Harry made the mistake of thinking too hard about it before he reminded himself that he was not to think. Allow himself to be escorted back to his cupboard. Lie staring at the ceiling and the spiders. Wait for the door to open once more, at which point in time he would receive what Petunia called leftovers in that hateful tone, as if they were a bad thing; Harry couldn't quite figure out why they might be, since they were actually much better than the plain bread he got. Eat the leftovers. Be accompanied to the bathroom again, and drink water out of the tap. Shower, if it happened to be one of the days he was allowed to. Then back to the cupboard to sleep, and have vague dreams of the next day being better that he never allowed himself to remember when he next woke the next day to the same routine.

He never in his waking hours spared enough consideration to any one thought to have ideas about changing the way of things. He stared at the cupboard door for hours every day, trying to shut his mind off against the thoughts of out there and locks. He somehow knew that if he thought too hard about it – if a stray notion popped into his head, even without him meaning it to – he would come up with a plan. He would attempt to make his life better. And if that happened, Petunia would somehow find out before he could put the plan into action, and he would be punished.

Punishment was the only thing that got him out of his cupboard that wasn't actually part of the routine, though at times in the past he'd been punished so often that it might as well have been. There was a time that he'd thought it might be worth it, just to see the outside, the house, for a little longer than normal. The sheer pain he'd suffered as a result of his intentional trouble-making at that time was enough to put a quick stop to that. That had been the last plan he'd ever allowed himself to come up with and actually execute, though somehow they still cropped up into his consciousness every once in a while. He couldn't stop it, as much as he would have liked to.

At least his ideas had never led to 'freaky things' happening, as he'd once heard Petunia breathe a sigh of relief over. He didn't like to think of the level of punishment Vernon would have inflicted upon him had that been the case.