Disclaimer. I'm only putting it in here once so everyone better pay attention. I do not now nor will I ever own anything to do with the Harry Potter books. The only reason I'm here right now is because of the remarkable improvement of my own writing since I've been doing this.
Author's note. This is a rewrite of my very popular story Troubled Times. This story is completely separate from my Eternus Liberi series though I confess it does share three basic parallels that you find in many other stories on the site. 1. Abuse by Vernon and Petunia 2. Harry, Hermione and Ron are very closely bonded because that's the way friendships are in my own stories. 3. Harry, Hermione and Ron are all very powerful. Those are the stories I like thus the stories I write. okay now that were all clear on the breakdown here. I'm going to stop talking
Chapter One
The Pitfalls of Hatred
Written by empathically chosen
"The evils of the body are, murder, theft, and adultery; of the tongue, lying, slander, abuse, and idle talk; of the mind, covetousness, hatred, and error." -- Buddha
Harry Potter was a boy with many secrets, indeed more secrets than a 15-year-old boy ought to have. Harry had harmless secrets, such as the fact that he, Harry Potter, was a wizard and that he attended a school where he could hone his magical abilities. These were the kinds of secrets he kept from the non-magical world. But most of his secrets, the secrets that Harry was most ashamed of, were dangerous or harmful. These secrets were the ones that he kept from the Wizarding world at large. Only three other people in the world knew these secrets: his two best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and the headmaster at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry Albus Dumbledore.
Dumbledore was diligent about keeping Harry's secrets. Harry trusted him immensely. But there was one secret, Harry's most closely guarded secret, he could not even tell Dumbledore. This was the secret Harry, Ron and Hermione had gone to great lengths to hide from the wise and incredibly perceptive headmaster. The secret Harry was most ashamed of, was the secret of what really happened behind the closed doors of number Four Privet Drive. The truth of the matter was that for as long as Harry could remember, he had been beaten and abused by his aunt and uncle. Harry's uncle, Vernon Dursley, often beat him because he was an alcoholic who was blinded by ignorance and an extreme hatred of anything outside his view of normalcy, which caused him to try and beat the abnormality out of his nephew. Harry's Aunt Petunia had a separate reason entirely. Aunt Petunia had a grudge against Harry's deceased mother, which she had transferred onto Harry. Petunia had always been jealous of her sister Lily, and hated that her younger sister often received all of the praise from their parents when they were children. This was the reason that Petunia Dursley thoroughly enjoyed coming after Harry with whatever was within reach whenever she felt punishment was justified, and even occasionally for no reason at all.
Harry could not bear it if anyone ever found out what was going on inside these four walls. He could only imagine what people would say if they found out that Harry Potter, the infamous hero of the wizarding world who once defeated the most evil dark wizard of all time, spent his summers being beaten within an inch of his life by a pair of Muggles. Harry constantly had nightmares that the whole world would find out about his secret. In his dreams, Uncle Vernon was beating Harry as usual when who should walk up behind both of them but a certain escaped prisoner. Harry calls out for help only to have Sirius push Harry almost exactly as Uncle Vernon might have done. In the nightmare Harry could see the face of his beloved godfather Sirius Black, all too clearly. His features were hardened, and he would be staring at Harry with an absolutely revolted look on his face.
"James would have never let this happen to him. You're weak, absolutely pathetic, and you disgust me!" dream Sirius told him each night.
Harry woke up in tears to find his whole body was shaking. James would never have let this happen to him. There was no doubt in Harry's mind that this was exactly what Sirius would say if he ever found out the truth of what Petunia and Vernon were doing to his godson. Harry knew that the only reason Sirius even put up with Harry in the first place was that he was a constant reminder of his deceased best friend. Harry couldn't blame him. Harry knew that he was only good for two things: defending the world from Lord Voldemort, and serving as a reminder of the great James Potter. That was why he only people whoever bothered thinking he was worth getting to know on his own merits and not just because he was The-Boy-who-lived were Hermione and Ron.
Most of the time it didn't bother Harry that his godfather didn't even want to get to know his own godchild. After all, how could Sirius love someone who couldn't even defend himself against a pair of Muggles? Harry didn't mind playing second fiddle to James' memory. He would rather have been second best in Sirius' eyes than to not be in Sirius' eyes at all. But the words in Harry's reoccurring nightmare cut into him like a knife. They kept repeating in his head over and over again; James would have never have let this happen to him. It was like someone put an enormous Dementor in Harry's room and it was sucking out his will to be recognized for who he really was. The words held the last of Harry's self-confidence in an ever-tightening hold until there was nothing left.
"No," Harry finally agreed aloud. "This wouldn't have happened to dad."
James was perfect. That was all Harry had ever heard about his father, how perfect James had been. With the exception the things that Harry's potions teacher and James's former rival Severus Snape said about the man. There was no way that Harry's saint of a father would be curled up in his bed, bloody and bruised, too weak to move. James would never have allowed himself to be locked in a room starving to death, while Petunia, Vernon and Dudley were off on a lavish vacation thousands of miles away.
But that was, in fact, the situation in which his imperfect son Harry Potter found himself. Harry had been locked in his bedroom for at least three straight days. It could have been more; to be honest Harry had lost count a long time ago. He kept passing out from lack of food, and Harry had no way of leaving his room. Even if his broken leg could carry him to the kitchen, Uncle Vernon had been clever enough to place dozens of very expensive locks on the other side of Harry's door and with no wand and a ban on underage magic Harry was more or less helpless to save his own life.
"What a humiliating way to die," Harry told Hedwig. "I just hope the Dursleys come back to dispose of my body before Dumbledore sends someone to get me. I can't let them find out about this. Sirius would be so ashamed of me."
Hedwig gave a sympathetic hoot in response, and Harry drifted off to sleep where another set of nightmares awaited him. Little did Harry know fate was well on its way to exposing Harry's most closely guarded secret. Harry woke up with a start when without warning Hedwig let out a loud screech, and tried so vigorously to get out of her cage that it toppled off the ravaged old desk that the Dursleys had been gracious enough to allow him to use. Privately Harry thought that graciousness had nothing to do with it. If Harry didn't have a writing desk it would be very difficult for uncle Vernon to force Harry to write convincing letters to his friends and Sirius telling them how fabulous life was at the Dursleys. Uncle Vernon didn't want a supposedly deranged mass murderer knocking on their front door demanding to see Harry. What would the neighbors say?
"What's the matter with you?" Harry asked as he struggled to make his way over to her, ignoring the intense bout of pain that consumed him with each step he took.
Harry bent down and picked up the cage with a loud groan. Even the minimal weight of the owl and her cage was almost too much for Harry to handle with his diminished strength. By the time Harry placed the cage back onto the rickety old desk he realized what had agitated Hedwig. There were footsteps and voices in the house, voices that didn't belong to any of the Dursleys. Harry strained his ears trying to listen. If his aunt and uncle ever found out what kind of conversation was currently going on in their otherwise perfectly normal home Aunt Petunia would've keeled over in shock.
Now ordinarily Harry was a relatively kind person even to his dreadful relatives but after everything they subjected him to this summer Harry had to admit the image would've been quite amusing. Indeed this summer were some of the most vicious attacks Harry ever received. He suspected he had the Weasley twins to thank for that. Last year Fred and George played a trick on Harry's cousin Dudley involving a trick sweet that made Dudley's tongue grow to be about four feet long.
"Bill, Tonks, for Merlin's sake will the two of you stop snogging long enough for us to retrieve the boy and get out of here," growled a deep slow voice Harry did not recognize.
Harry wasn't sure yet of what was going on, but he knew that the people who had arrived had to be wizards, a lot of them. Judging by the number of footsteps, Harry guessed that the number was somewhere around ten. Ten wizards who were either going to kill him or expose his precious secret and make his life even more of a living nightmare than it already was.
Harry's worst fears were confirmed when he heard the voice of Alastor Moody, "Well, where is the boy? He must have realized there are wizards in the house by now!"
Dumbledore had sent a group of wizards to fetch him.
"He's probably asleep Moody, and I don't want to hear one word about a lack of vigilance when I bring him back down here," said the warning voice of Remus Lupin.
"Voldemort isn't going to baby the boy, why should I?" retorted Mad-eye.
"I don't baby him. I just understand the meaning of compassion," came Remus's reply in a steely voice that was rather unlike him. "Besides, there's a fine line between vigilance and paranoia, which is something you've clearly forgotten."
Harry's heart sank to the floor. Under ordinary circumstances Harry would have been more than happy to hear the voice of his favorite teacher but not while he was in his current condition. Having Remus see him like this was just as bad, if not worse, than having Sirius find him this way. Remus was the best Defense against the Dark Arts teacher he had ever had. Remus was so proud of the way Harry was able to ward off certain dark creatures. Of course Harry was bound to lose that respect the moment Remus realized that yes, Harry was more than capable of causing almost one hundred Dementors to back down but he couldn't even keep his uncle from pummeling his face into a bloody pulp.
Harry looked down at his blood-soaked T-shirt and swore. If he wanted to fool Remus into thinking the Dursleys were harmless, he had to act quickly. Ignoring his injuries Harry dived across the room, and pulled out a roll of parchment that turned out to be his astronomy homework, along with a small satchel of lavender powder. The lavender powder was especially developed by Harry, Ron and Hermione in their second year to hide the injuries the Dursleys had given him and give him enough strength to last until Hermione and Ron could help heal him. Harry looked down into the pouch and noticed that there wasn't much left. Hopefully it would be enough to fool his clever professor and the other people he brought with him. After covering himself in the last of the powder Harry threw himself back onto his bed and unrolled the parchment to make it look like he had been absorbed in his homework as Remus' footsteps stopped outside the bedroom door.
Harry heard a gasp of sincere surprise, and a series of clicking noises as the locks were magically opened. Harry turned his head to see Remus completely stunned with shock to see the state in which Harry was living for the past several months. His eyes lingered on all of Dudley's junk that filled most of the room so that there was hardly room to move around, then traveled over to the lumpy bed where Harry was, and then up to the barred window. All of the sudden, Remus' nose wrinkled in disgust and his eyes flashed murderously. Harry cursed inwardly; the powder apparently did not erase the smell of dried blood from the room. At least not enough to hide the odor from the vigilant werewolf. But then again why would it? The three friends had developed the Glamour powder a year before they had met Remus, at a time when they had known very little about werewolves. As Harry racked his brains for a convincing lie, he made a mental note to revise the powder as soon as possible.
"Why is there blood all over this house and why in the name of Merlin is it strongest in this room? What in the world is going on here?" Remus demanded.
"This is not my room, technically. I just sleep here. Dudley enjoys hitting people and then he dumps his stuff in here, where I sometimes trip and smash my head on things. As for the bars and the locks it's not that bad, they just didn't want me roaming around the house while they were on holiday. I might break something you know." Harry said before Remus had a chance to speak again.
"I see, and just how long were you trapped here like this?" Remus asked sounding quite skeptical.
"Only a few days," Harry shrugged.
"Days? Without food," Remus repeated.
" Of course not! I have an entire floorboard full of food," Harry lied, standing up and walking across the room before Remus had a chance to say anything else. "Are you coming?"
Remus followed reluctantly. It was clear that he had wanted to investigate the room further, but Harry could not allow that to happen. Downstairs on the landing, Harry was greeted by over a half-dozen faces that were foreign to him. Once Remus regained his faculties he introduced each of them to Harry. One, Dedalus Diggle, Harry remembered having met in the Leaky Cauldron several years previous. He was then introduced to Hestia Jones, Elphias Doge, Emmeline Vance, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Nymphadora Tonks, who was BiIl's vivacious girlfriend who demanded Harry referred her only as Tonks and quite a few others as well.
"Enough niceties. I'd like to get a move on before the Death Eaters realize we've come for the boy," Moody snarled.
Wherever they were going, it was apparent that the so-called 'advance guard' thought the best way to get there was by flying. Normally, Harry wouldn't have minded, but in his current condition flying was extremely difficult and it was taking all the strength Harry's powder had given him just to stay on the broom. The longer they flew, the harder it was for him to hold on, until Harry couldn't hold on any more. He felt his grip slowly slipping away no matter how hard he tried to hang on. Much to his relief, however, just as Harry's fingers were about to completely let go of his broom, Remus was signaling for him to land.
They had arrived not a moment too soon. Harry stumbled off his broom and right into Remus. Harry closed his eyes in horror. He really needed Ron and Hermione before it was too late. When Harry opened his eyes, all he could see were Remus's bright amber eyes staring at him in deep concern. Harry looked away, and he was only half paying attention as Remus promptly seized Harry by the arm and led him into a house with a battered black front door adorned with a silver serpent-shaped doorknocker. Harry barely had time to register that this house was decorated with far too many snakelike objects than Harry was comfortable with (the last thing he wanted was to start talking in parseltongue in front of Remus,) before he was knocked to the floor by Tonks. Harry yelled out in pain as Tonks' weight fell on him.
Thankfully no one noticed because when the bodies had hit the floor with a loud crash, Harry had not been the only one screaming. Quite unexpectedly, the room was filled with a horrible, earsplitting, bloodcurdling screech. Horrified, Harry looked up just as a pair of moth-eaten black velvet curtains sprang apart, revealing a life-size, and extraordinarily realistic, portrait of a drooling woman with dark soulless eyes that looked like they were going to pop out of her head. The strange woman appeared out of her mind to Harry. Of course, it didn't help that she was bellowing at them as loudly as she could.
"FILTH! SCUM! BYPRODUCTS OF DIRT AND VILENESS! MUTANTS! HALF-BREEDS! FREAKS! BE GONE FROM THIS PLACE! HOW DARE YOU BEFOUL THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS?!"
From out of nowhere, Mrs. Weasley rushed into the hall glaring at Tonks before darting into action stunning an array of portraits that were now adding to the noise the woman was making as she ranted. Remus dived forward and tried to close the curtains around the old woman, but they refused to shut. He simply wasn't strong enough to overpower the portrait on his own. Harry had never seen any portrait as magically enhanced as this one. Fortunately for Remus, he didn't have to struggle with the portrait for long before a man with long, dark hair charged from the room opposite Harry looking utterly enraged.
"SHUT UP YOU HORRIBLE, UGLY OLD HAG!" he roared over the woman's screeching.
This didn't please the portrait one bit. At the man's words, the portrait of the woman became even more deranged. Her eyes were rolling around in her head so much that even old Mad-eye Moody was alarmed. The portrait was brandishing her yellow gnarled hands at the man before her as though she desired nothing more than to rip him to shreds and she screamed even louder, causing the glass in the chandelier to break and shower them all in pieces of broken glass.
"YOU! BLOOD TRAITOR, ABOMINATION, SHAME OF MY FLESH! YOU ARE NO LONGER MY SON! AWAY WITH YOU, AWAY I SAID! BE GONE FROM THIS PLACE AND NEVER DARKEN MY DOORSTEP AGAIN!"
"I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP MOTHER!" the man roared again, uttering the last word with complete disdain.
He joined Remus, and with an enormous amount of effort the two of them finally managed to seal the portrait behind the curtains and the noise died away. Panting slightly and sweeping the long, silky black hair from his face Harry's godfather turned to face his godson for the first time. Sirius's eyes met Harry's just as Tonks managed to help him to his feet and his smile faltered slightly.
"Merlin Harry, you look awful!" said Sirius loudly.
Harry froze unable to speak.
Author's Note: you may be wondering why Hermione and Ron know about the abuse. It's always bothered me when I read abuse stories where Ron and Hermione are oblivious to the things that go on in Little Whinging. I mean Ron Fred and George rescued Harry from a barred room in second year. Of course Ron for one isn't going to believe that everything's peachy crap. As for Fred and George I think that the two of them might have suspicions that they would be infinitely happier not knowing what's going on. Besides in my mind at least Ron wouldn't be above Black mailing the twins to keep them quiet. To preempt questions about why Harry, Hermione and Ron don't say anything let me explain that too. They all know that Professor Dumbledore put Harry for a reason, Thus the professor probably won't do anything to remove Harry from the situation deciding that threats would better suit the despicable Muggles. As will be explained later Vernon reacts most strongly when he thinks it's for the safety of his family and therefore he's most violent when threatened.
Now than to those of you who haven't read them already I encourage you to read the other stories I've written. Awakening Solace was the first followed by Reunion with Darkness but before reading Reunion you might want to take a look at the Princess of the Marauders two chapter story I wrote first. To those of you who are already reading those stories I want to announce the posting of a new one-shot to explain why Molly reacts to Ron the way she does in both Solace and Reunion the story title is Molly's dark day Newbies will want to read this two chapter story in between Solace and Reunion as well. DON'T LEAD TO SHORTER STORIES FIRST EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE FIRST AS FAR AS THE TIMELINE IS CONCERNED. YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THEM UNLESS YOU READ AWAKENING SOLACE BEFOREHAND!
next chapter: you find out another one of Harry's secrets and Sirius becomes suspicious
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