Disclaimer: I am not JK Rowling and I don't make money on this
Warnings: violence, gore, icky stuff
Note: This will probably be a one shot unless I'm compelled to continue. Not this most original thing on the planet, I know, but my muse forced me at gun point. I'm sorry.
*For all of you following The Allurement, check my profile for info.
HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP
Moonlight cascaded through the open window - no, no that's not the right word, Harry thought. That's not the right word at all.
The moonlight did not, in fact, cascade through anything. Nor did it shine, glimmer, penetrate, or shimmer. Rather, the moonlight happened to glint off the broken black bars of the window in his small, Number 4, Privet Drive room and peter out on the floor. Peter out like the smothered flame of a kerosene lamp, and taper off just before it reached the post of his cot on the other side of the room.
Not that it really mattered at all. After all, Harry laid dying on the floor of his 'small, number 4, Privet Drive' bedroom.
But, in a way that was unusually morbid for him, Harry thought he would rather be dying looking at something else. Or at very least, with moonlight that was not so gray and petered out.
He convulsively swallowed, almost shuddering at the fat globs of blood that went down his throat.
Vernon had went too far this time. Much, much too far.
Harry supposed maybe his uncle had always gone too far - but this time, it was different. This was something else.
Vernon had beat him until his own meaty knuckles were raw and oozing, had beat him until his arms gave out and his face was saturated with plump beads of sweat and had breathed so hard the whole room smelt distinctly of rum. Had beat him for so long that the smell of rum hadn't disappeared for a few hours, even after he had staggered out of the door and slammed it shut.
And Harry? After the ordeal was over, Harry laid out on the floor, arms spread and damn near immobile except for an acute twitch that would run through his fingers every now and again. And he was in such pain he thought it accurate that Vernon's worst offense wasn't the beating, rather it was the crime of not beating him until he went unconscious.
No, Harry was painfully awake and aware, and contemplating what the last thing he should look at before he dies.
Certainly not the faint traces of light that just barely managed to illuminate the window and, by extension, the floorboards that creeped with redness.
He shifted his eyes; not the cot either, or the wardrobe or broken clock on the wall; not the dull green wallpaper that only looked gray at that time of night, nor even the unopened package of Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans hiding under his bed post.
Idiot, idiot - Harry thought - you should have gotten out while you had the chance.
He blinked his swollen eyes, sniffing, and it took him an immeasurable amount of time to open them again. But when he did, there was something distinctly different about the scene he looked at.
In the dead light of the moon, he caught the gleam of a hard edge that hadn't been there before. He tried to open his eyes wider as they skimmed across its surface.
It was a -
A picture frame.
In it, two figures with there hands clasped together spun wildly. One of them, a - a woman - smiled broadly, while the other appeared to be laughing.
The figures moved within the frame, stopping for a brief moment when the frame was over and starting all over again.
Mum - and Dad.
Mum and Dad.
His parents.
The picture was perfectly preserved and not punctured with glass - nor disposed of in the garbage bin - unlike how it had been just days before when his uncle had seen it on Harry's night stand.
But how -?
How could it have -?
Harry swallowed again, gagging.
He decided not to question it. Now he knew - this was going to be the last thing he would look at.
In another time, in another place, maybe he could have gotten to know them. Love them.
And maybe they would have loved him back.
Harry's eyes closed for the last time.
- Until they opened again in another time, and another place.