Title: Hearts and Dreams Are Also Fragile Things
Author: vala (valinorean)
Rating: R
Summary: The Dursleys didn't hit Harry, or talk down to him, or criticize his parents. They didn't abuse him, lie to him, or anything of the like. In fact, they made sure he ate three meals a day, and was properly clothed. However, they never once spoke to him if they could help it, and they never EVER touched him. A retelling of the seven years in Hogwarts if things had been different for Harry.
Characters: Draco/Harry, Ron, Hermione
Word Count: ~15k total
Contains: AU, coarse language, mild sexual content
Beta: wendypops and bleedforyou
A/N: This was written for the first Draco Tops Harry Fest. The seven sections used in the fic are based on Neil Gaiman's The Endless.

Haphephobia is a rare specific phobia that involves the fear of touching or of being touched. It is an acute exaggeration of the normal tendencies to protect one's personal space, expressed as a fear of contamination or of the invasion, and extending even to people whom its sufferers know well.

Hearts and Dreams Are Also Fragile Things
by vala

Prologue
The Beginning

At the end of the First Wizarding War, a young boy named Harry Potter was left on the doorstep of number 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey. His parents had been killed by a Dark Lord named Voldemort, and in a twist of cruel irony, he in turn rid the world of the dark menace. For the time being.

The boy was destined to become a great many things, one of which was to become the youngest Seeker in Hogwarts in over a century. Another was to become a Triwizard Tournament Champion. And finally, as the only person known to survive the Killing Curse, he was to become the defeater of Voldemort once and for all. This, however, would have been achieved only through an act of cruelty and abuse of the young child by his last remaining relatives.

The Dursleys were a family of Muggles, or ordinary non-wizarding folk. They detested unnatural things and shied away from any talk of magic. They took pride in being a perfect and normal family, and thought that they would have achieved it if not for the boy left on their doorstep.

Now, Albus Dumbledore, the only person that Voldemort ever feared, knew of this predicament and how it might affect Harry while growing up. So he had taken it upon himself to caution the Dursleys against doing anything that could harm the only salvation of the wizarding world. The Dursleys, bless their little hearts, quietly agreed to raise the child in the most decent manner they could (for fear of being turned into toadstools, they thought, but they did not tell the old wizard that).

And so the Dursleys raised Harry like any decent folk would. They gave him a room of his own, clothes that fit and a decent meal three times each day. When Harry was old enough to ask about his parents, they did not lie to him or tell him they had died in an accident. They told him that he was a wizard and that no, they knew nothing about that wizard nonsense and could not answer any of his questions about it.

Now the Dursleys may have treated Harry decently as he was growing up, but it was still not as Dumbledore had hoped. The Dursleys never shouted at, hit, nor mistreated Harry in any way, but neither did they treat him with any love or kindness. In fact, they never spoke to him or looked at him if they could help it, and they never ever touched him.

This is the story of Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the child who would later become the Saviour of the Wizarding World. And on one fine summer day, he was invited back into the world of magic...