Harry sat on his cot in the cupboard under the stairs. He was wondering if having a roof over his head and eating scraps was worth all the pain and suffering that came with it. He looked at his arm which was bent at an odd angle and the bruises and cuts that came with it. His left eye was swollen shut, lips had a deep cut that was bleeding and refusing to stop. One of his legs was swollen at the knee so badly he could not move it. He had spent the last seven hours sitting in the same spot and had not moved. Normally when he was put through the grinder like this by his uncle and his cousin he would go to sleep and the next morning the inflicted wounds would disappear. He spent months figuring out how this worked and had figured out that he had some kind of energy inside himself that healed him. He found out that that energy was what made him more durable than your average 5 year old. So he knew that the beatings from his family would have killed him had he been an ordinary child.
Learning to control the energy was not difficult for him. He found he could manipulate it to pretty much do whatever he wanted. Even getting him food. He also figured out that allowing it to heal him left no evidence of what had been done to him by his uncle making him look like a liar. That was why he had held back from healing himself. Over time he had tried telling people about the way he was treated at home, but even the times that he managed to show evidence of the mistreatment somehow the person who believed him disappeared and the investigation forgotten. The punishments afterwards always left him unconscious for days locked up in his cupboard.
His relatives didn't care. They knew that the evidence would be gone within a day or two and no-one would be the wiser. The only places they hurt him enough to scar were the ones which were easily hidden. He waited for his aunt to begin her usual screeching expecting him to make breakfast and get the house tidied up. They were going to have a visit from social services that morning. He would have to clear out his cupboard and pretend his room was the guest room upstairs.
His aunt would put up childish action figure posters and Dudley's toys all over the floor to make it look like a child lived in the room. They had done this before several times whenever someone questioned the way Harry dressed and his small stature that made him look so much younger than he was and he always ended up with the short end of the stick. Well he was not going to play anymore. Either way he was going to get a beating. Damned if you do damned if you don't. He wanted to know if this person would disappear too like the rest. It was a window albeit a small window to get out of the Dursley household. If this didn't work then he would know that either no-one could help him or wanted to help him.
When his aunt started screeching at him to get out and get started on his chores, Harry stayed where he was. He was now lying on his back dried blood all over him cuts and bruises turning black and blue all over, he didn't even flinch when his aunt pulled the door open to see what was taking him so long. He had had worse beatings and was u and about the next morning so this one should be the same.
However the sight that met her was one she was not expecting. The boy's injuries looked worse than they had the night before. She saw his arm twisted at an angle that should not be possible. She stood there for a minute questioning herself. What was she going to do? Why didn't the freak just fix himself like he usually did? He had to pick now to stop using his freakishness to heal himself? He must have done this on purpose. She would not be able to get everything done before social services came. She still had to put up the fake family items that had the freak in them and then clear the cupboard of all the blood as well as make sure that both her son and the freak looked presentable.
Vernon would be home soon she had sent him to buy a set of clothes for the freak so that there would be no questions about the way he was dressed. The social worker would want to see the boy and she couldn't let him be seen like this. She leaned in and took a hold of the boy to pull him out and clean him up. She would just to tell the social worker that the brat got in a fight at school and that the injuries were superficial. However when she tried to get the boy out she couldn't. It was as of he was stuck there. She pulled and pulled but nothing she did helped. She ended up shouting at the boy, "Boy get out of there and get cleaned up now."
Harry didn't even look at her. He just lay there and didn't move. She noticed how swollen his leg was and knew there would be no way he would be able to walk on it anyway. Moving out of the cupboard Petunia shut the door and locked it. She decided she would have to get the social worker to come another time by telling her that the boy had refused to listen when she told him he could not visit one of his friends and was out the door before she could stop him.
Vernon got back from the shops and handed his wife the clothes he had bought. "I don't like having to spend money on that boy Petunia. This means that he will be cleaning out the garden as well as the garage now on top of his chores." Petunia then told him she could not get him out of the cupboard and that breakfast had not been made. Vernon opened the door of the cupboard and noticed the same thing his wife did.
The boy's injuries were still there and because of his size Vernon was unable to get in and try to pull the boy out. He looked unconscious anyway so he could distract the social worker to come back later to see the boy while they contacted the old man who usually fixed him up after one of the worse punishments. He helped Petunia set up the house and waited for the social worker. Harry heard the doorbell and then the voices of his aunt uncle greeting someone at the door. He could hear a woman's voice asking about him after the initial greetings and then his aunt's lie about his whereabouts. He knew the door was locked and began to knock while shouting "Let me out, please let me out."