Fanfic #75 Grey Space by noaacat(HP)
This fanfic is an au where children go to hogwarts at an older age with Harry as the mc. This fanfic basically follows Harry as he grows up in the muggle world for those extra years and doesn't really involve the magical world at all, although there is some magic. There is a sequel being written by the author, but it's been a couple of months since they said anything about it. Although you can really just read it in it's own, I really like seing the effects that those extra years have on Harry in this story.
Synopsis: In 1991, Harry Potter begins his time at Stonewall High, unaware that he is anything more than a boy prone to freakish accidents. When he turns fourteen, he will receive a letter that will change his life. He will learn he is Harry Potter, and be invited into a world where belonging is his birthright. Until then, he stumbles on, two steps forward and one step back, out of the cupboard and into the life he was never meant to have.
Rated: M
words: 60k
https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/12424344/chapters/28275021
Here's the first chapter:
On Harry Potter's first day at Stonewall High, he did not get his head shoved in a toilet, mostly because he kept his head down, his eyes on the older boys, and his body as far from any potential watery vortexes as he could manage.
In the oversized sweater Aunt Petunia had dyed grey and the plastic glasses held together at the bridge with sellotape, Harry did not look eleven years old, or even ten. He was the second-youngest in his year, with his July birthday, but it was more his stature that was the problem. He was skinny and boney, and had black hair that stuck out at odd angles, and didn't speak up in class at all, and all this together might have made him a prime target for bullying.
But Harry Potter had plenty of experience in pretending that he did not exist. And after careful years of study, he realized that there was a point at which the lines between pretend and real began to blur. Harry (who Uncle Vernon had always said had a poor grasp on reality) walked always in that grey space, where no one else seemed to follow, and so a good half of the time, he managed to well and truly not exist.
The boys carrying on the fine tradition of shoving heads in toilets? Well, you can't shove a head if you don't know it's there.
-
At the end of his third day at Stonewall High, Ms Morris, Harry's form tutor and English teacher, pulled him aside. Given that she was in charge of the register, and so it was her job to know whether he was or was not there, he hadn't yet figured out how to make her overlook him.
"Give this to your guardians, Mr Potter," she said, thrusting an envelope into his hands. "I expect you in a proper uniform no later than next week."
Harry winced. "My Aunt said—"
"Your Aunt lives on Privet Drive, and can afford to send her son to Smeltings Academy," she said. "There is no excuse for you not to have proper clothing."
-
Dear Mr and Mrs Dursley, the letter read.
It has come to the attention of the faculty here at Stonewall High that your nephew, Harry Potter, is not in possession of a proper school uniform. Although a scholarship is available for families with demonstrated need, our records show that you do not qualify. If our records are in error and you wish to petition for a scholarship, please call or visit the Stonewall High front office from 8:00 - 17:00 daily.
As detailed in the informational packet mailed to all households before the school year started, the Stonewall High uniform is as follows:
Trousers, grey (Mr Potter's are in unacceptable condition, and several sizes too large)
White polo shirt with Stonewall logo (Mr Potter's is several sizes too large, and generic)
Grey pullover with Stonewall logo (Mr Potter's is unacceptable in every manner)
Grey blazer with Stonewall logo (Mr Potter has expressed that he does not have a blazer or jacket of any sort)
Black leather shoes, polished (trainers are expressly forbidden outside of Physical Education)
Black or grey socks
Black leather belt
Grey backpack with Stonewall logo, with student's initials embroidered (Mr Potter appears to be using his bag from primary school).
In addition, for Physical Education classes, students require:
Stonewall High t-shirt
Black or grey shorts
Black or grey sweatpants
Trainers (Mr Potter's are in deplorable condition, and will need to be replaced for safety purposes).
Mr Potter will be expected to acquire the proper uniform by no later than next Friday, 13 September. Stonewall High considers adhering to the uniform guidelines essential to maintaining a proper educational environment.
Sincerely,
Joyce H. White, Assistant Principal
-
Aunt Petunia was not pleased.
She was caught, as ever, between two difficult choices. On the one hand, she was loathe to provide her nephew with anything that would provide even an instant of happiness. On the other, the Dursley family creed was, first and foremost, to never appear anything less than normal. Even Petunia, looking down at her nephew shifting from foot to foot as she read the letter, had to admit that in Dudley's re-purposed clothing he looked more like an alley cat with more fur than fat than he did a normal boy.
"Get in the car," she snapped, and she turned, steeling herself to explain to Vernon.
-
On Harry Potter's sixth day at Stonewall High, the second Monday of the year, he found a comb in the things Dudley had left behind and tried to make his hair lie flat. When it got stuck in the curls, he shoved his head under the faucet, and for a while the water seemed to work well enough to hold it down, but as it dried it grew twice as large as before. Hopeless.
Maybe it was the scar, he thought as he caught sight of himself in a car he passed as he walked to school. Maybe he really had been struck by lightning, and all the energy had gotten stuck in that mark on his head, and so his hair was going to be full of static electricity forever.
Better not think that thought too loud, though, in case Vernon smelled it on him. He looked around, as though his uncle might come charging out around the corner (You weren't hit by lightning! You were in a car accident, you hear me? A car accident! ) and, finding nothing out of the ordinary, tried with one more pat to press the hair back down towards his scalp.
Defiant to the last, it stood taller instead.
Ms Morris wondered, but Harry was in the proper uniform, at least, and she celebrated that victory.
Even with his hair askew, for the first time in memory Harry was wearing clothes that were all his own. The trousers did not need the belt to keep from falling from his hips, and the sleeves—well, he kept tugging at them, used to keeping his hands warm inside, but they were close to the right length. Without the extra fabric he felt small, but when he caught sight of his reflection the fitted clothing made him appear much larger.
The newness of it all was exciting. For once, he might not need to hide, because he would blend right in with the other kids, not a freak at all. A boy.
Such thoughts were dangerous.
It was four year ten boys who pulled him into the loo—the one no one used because it had a weird smell and a reputation.
"Are you really going to…?" Harry asked. His heart was racing, or fluttering, a morbid fascination at being caught in this ritual for normal boys worming its way in with the panic rising at being grabbed.
"You're the only one we haven't yet," said one of the boys.
"Funny, that." This one was reaching out and poking at the bird's nest of black hair. "You'd think we'd have noticed all this, before. Were you even here last week?"
"Yes, but—"
"Well, go on." Another of the boys, the one standing watch from the door with his arms crossed. "We haven't got all day."
It was a peculiar thing that happened. The moment Harry's hair touched the water spinning in the toilet bowl—well, the simplest explanation is that the room exploded. The four bullies screamed, water blasting into their faces, even the one by the door where a toilet explosion shouldn't have reached. When they finally stopped shrieking, the tiny first year was gone.
Harry, for his part, blinked and found himself in the loo at the other end of the hall, staring into another toilet, where the water wasn't moving and there was no one pushing him down.
After a moment, he stood and made his way to class. New uniform or no, it was much better to keep hiding. He knew how to stick to the fringes of people's thoughts, how to skirt their attention; he had plenty of practice. Uncle Vernon made sure of it.
-
On Harry's twenty-fifth day at Stonewall High, his history teacher, Mr Harvey, went down his list of students, calling out questions in a pop quiz.
Harry enjoyed History. He knew the material as well as he could, having recently discovered the library on the way home from school. Sometimes Petunia sent him there herself, so she would not have to see his face, and he wandered the shelves and pulled random books off the shelves. History was a favorite subject, and a safe one if Uncle Vernon someday asked. Harry did not, however, enjoy pop quizzes, and had never once volunteered to answer a question in class. For the most part, the teachers overlooked him—even Ms Morris, who continued to fuss over his hair, often forgot Harry was there at all. If he turned his pencil three times and kept the strange coin he'd found at the museum on a field trip (an American 'quarter', according to a book in the library) in his left palm, their eyes wouldn't find him at all. He only did that after the teacher checked the register, though, after one incident that left him terribly embarrassed.
But Mr Harvey was going down the list. No matter how far Harry shrunk into his chair, it wouldn't stop the man from reading his name.
Please don't call on me, Harry pleaded, turning his pencil over and over again in his hands, and digging a circle in his palm with the coin. He could feel his heart pounding against his chest, and clenched his fingers into fists, hidden by the sleeves of his pullover.
Mr Harvey kept calling names, undeterred by Harry's mental chanting. Just forget I'm here, Harry thought as the teacher reached Sean Nichols, who came before him on the list. He didn't hear the question or the answer, but turned his eyes to the list in Mr Harvey's hands, as though staring could make his name disappear. He couldn't say what made him think he could do it, but he hoped, he really did, that for once his queerness would be useful, that he could direct it...
Just go on to the next name… don't call on me…
Sean's voice cut off, and Mr Harvey cleared his throat, glancing back down at the page in his hand. "Mr—"
Don't read my name!
"Sorry, Miss Pullman," Mr Harvey corrected himself. "What year did the Normans invade England?"
-
On Harry's forty-fourth day at Stonewall High, which was the last day of October and a Thursday, Harry came home to find Aunt Petunia sitting at the table alone, two cups of tea set out before her, both untouched. She looked up at him as he went to his cupboard to stow his bag, and Harry felt his stomach twist, thinking that meant trouble.
"I have considered things," she said. It was a beginning unfamiliar to Harry, and so he floundered, unsure of how to prepare himself. "I have considered things and, while Dudley is away at school, it has come to my attention that he does not need his second bedroom."
This was definitely not a conversation within their usual framework. Harry waited, wondering where she could be going with this—did she plan on converting it to a sewing room? He had heard her discuss that with Mrs Polkiss on the phone, but Aunt Petunia did not sew.
"I have considered things and… that is... you are getting too large for the cupboard," Petunia went on. "And so… this weekend… you will be cleaning and painting the second bedroom, and then you will be sleeping there, while Dudley is away."
There had been many moments in Harry's life where he believed things that couldn't possibly be true. Like when he had been running away from Dudley and then appeared on the roof of his primary school—he couldn't have done that; that was impossible. Or his dream about the flying motorbike; Uncle Vernon had hated that one. But all those things, Harry had never had trouble accepting as reality. Aunt Petunia offering him Dudley's second bedroom, on the other hand… he must be imagining things.
Aunt Petunia scowled. "Don't look at me like that, you ungrateful boy," she snapped, standing. "And clean this up, and get started peeling potatoes for dinner."
"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry repeated, but Petunia was already gone.
He took off his blazer and pullover and shirt and folded them into his neat little stack of school clothes, and put on one of the ratty t-shirts instead. He might have changed his trousers, too, but the shirt was a dress on him, and he had to fight to keep Dudley's old trousers up around his waist. Besides, it was getting difficult to change in the cupboard. It wasn't worth the trouble.
But that weekend… starting that weekend he would have a whole room to himself. He thought his Aunt meant for him to go back into the cupboard when Dudley came home from school, but that was still three-quarters of the year that Harry would have a room to call his own. A room with a window and a light that worked, and a door that didn't lock from either side, and even a bed, far better than a dingy mattress on the floor.
He could hardly his excitement, but he knew he shouldn't push his good luck. Aunt Petunia had given him this hope, and she could just as easily take it away, and—he got the feeling she hadn't talked to Uncle Vernon about this yet. 'I have considered things' was too… if she'd talked to him, wouldn't she have said, 'We have decided'? And wouldn't Uncle Vernon be there to berate Harry about how little he was worth, you waste of goodwill and hard-earned space ?
When he returned to the table to collect the teacups, determined to prove his worth, he had to pause. Aunt Petunia was very particular about matters of interior design. Harry, having washed every piece of dishware in the house, was certain that the second cup had never been there before. It was deep, royal blue, with what looked like a star map painted in gold on the surface. Harry could have sworn a few of the dots representing star were winking at him—it must have been a trick of the light.
"Aunt Petunia?" he called, coming out kitchen into the hall and very narrowly avoiding colliding with his aunt coming down the stairs. She had her purse over one arm, and looked horribly offended at being stopped.
"Well? What is it?" she demanded.
"The… there's a teacup someone must have left. What should I…?"
Petunia's scowl lifted over his head as she glared towards the kitchen. "Get rid of that rubbage," she declared, and she pushed past him, snatched a coat off the hatstand, and stormed out. The house shook as the door slammed shut behind her.
Harry frowned, returning to the kitchen to stare at it. It was such a pretty thing, he thought, and it wouldn't do anyone any good in the bin. And she hadn't specified to throw it away, just to get rid of it, so he couldn't see the harm in him keeping it…
Making up his mind, Harry gingerly picked up the cup—and yelped, splashing tea across hand and floor. Despite sitting out on the table for who knows how long, the tea inside was still as hot as if it had been just poured. He eyed it, but he couldn't see anything else strange about the cup… Perhaps Aunt Petunia had just poured it, and meant it for him?
He wasn't sure which thought was stranger—a cup keeping tea hot or his Aunt making it for him. Both seemed equally impossible. He dumped the steaming tea down the drain.
-
On Harry's seventy-fifth day at Stonewall High, he avoided coming home as long as he could. Petunia had ordered it. Dudley was coming home for the winter holiday, after all, and she would not have Harry ruining his holiday.
Unlike the rest of the Stonewall students, Harry was glad they still had a week left. That meant a week he didn't have to spend trying to hide from Dudley, and a week he could dawdle on the way home until the shows Dudley liked came on, and then slip into the house and up to his room unnoticed.
But Harry's seventy-fifth day at Stonewall was a Friday, and that meant he'd be stuck with Dudley for the whole weekend. It was raining, too, and he didn't have an umbrella, so when the library closed at eight he couldn't dawdle on the way home unless he wanted to ruin his one good set of clothes. Even Dudley, he thought, wasn't worth that.
He heard his cousin before he saw him, as he slipped open the door, taking off his shoes and socks before he stepped inside, careful not to track puddles on Petunia's precious floor, shutting it behind him as gently as he could manage. The Dursleys were arguing. Or, rather, Dudley was making a fuss and his parents were simpering. By the end of the day, he'd have some new toy promised, no doubt. As if Christmas wasn't right around the corner. Maybe a gameboy to replace the one he'd broken last year—not that they were allowed to bring gameboys to Smeltings.
He crept up the stairs, skipping the ones he knew creaked, and padded to the bathroom, where he hung up his blazer on the towel rail to dry, then changed his mind, because if Dudley was in a mood and he saw it, Harry wouldn't put it beyond his cousin to destroy the jacket, and Aunt Petunia would blame Harry, and even Ms Morris wouldn't be able to get her to admit otherwise. Instead he hung it up over the radiator in his bedroom, and shucked out of the rest of his uniform and into his hand-me-downs.
"BUT IT'S MY ROOM!" Dudley shouted, his voice permeating the floorboards, reaching decibels never before achieved. Even when he'd been forced to tolerate Harry coming to the zoo with them for his birthday, he hadn't been so loud. Maybe shouting was a course they taught at Smeltings. "IT'S MINE AND HE'S STEALING IT!"
Harry sighed and looked around the room, wondering if there was anything he needed to hide, in case Aunt Petunia ordered him back into the cupboard for the holiday and Dudley came in and smashed everything out of spite. The teacup was already tucked under the loose floorboard under the bed, along with some granola bars he'd bought for 50p with coins he'd found on the way to school. Otherwise, the room was bare; his clothes were hung in the wardrobe, and his school things were still in his bag, on the chair by the desk. Harry had put Dudley's broken toys into a box and shoved it under the bed. There was nothing else to distinguish the room as belonging to anyone at all.
The shouting went on for some time, though Harry couldn't make out any more specific words. He thought about going down to try and snag some leftovers for dinner, but he still had an apple he'd taken from the dinner hall, so he had that instead. The telly turned on and up, and soon he could hear the studio laughter and Dudley's high-pitched guffaws.
Safe, for now.
Or as safe as he was going to be, in any case. Harry got out his book for English, a copy of Prince and the Pauper he'd got from the library so he didn't have to ask Petunia for money to buy it, and put some papers on his bed so it didn't look like he was just lazing about reading (never mind that the reading was his homework), and curled up against the pillows to pretend.
-
The morning Dudley was to return to Smeltings, which was a Sunday, the boy came and stood in Harry's door. He was so large, even at eleven, that he filled up the whole doorway width-wise, though Harry thought maybe he could do a sort of running vault and get out over his head if he needed to.
"At Smeltings," said Dudley, doing his best to look menacing. "When someone goes and steals something, we all get revenge."
Harry raised an eyebrow, and maneuvered so that his homework was between him and the wall, but his textbook was firmly in hand.
"We'll put spiders in their shoes, or hide rotten fruit in their closet, or dump ice on their heads," Dudley went on.
"Very creative," said Harry. "I'm sure they all deserve it, too."
"Just you watch yourself, Potter," Dudley said darkly. "One of these days…"
He gave Harry one last look which was probably supposed to be threatening before disappearing out of the doorway, and Harry waited until he heard the stomping footsteps go back down the stairs and the telly switched on in the dining room before he got up and padded over to nudge the door shut again.
Then he returned to his homework. When you grew up with a cousin like Dudley, you got used to that sort of thing, and usually it was less threatening and more doing, to be honest. Anyways, Dudley was going back to Smeltings. There wasn't anything he really could do, at this point.
-
On Harry's one hundred third day at Stonewall High, he returned to Privet Drive with another envelope from Ms Morris. This time, he did not give it to Petunia.
Instead, he tucked it under his pillow and went down to help make dinner. He was falling back into routine by now. Dudley's presence over the holiday had been a disruptor, but he'd gone back to Smeltings, and it was getting deceptively easy to live with his Aunt and Uncle. He woke up just early enough to get to school on time, went downstairs just late enough for Vernon to leave so he could make some toast and run out the door. If he got home early, he helped with dinner and took a plate up to his room to eat while doing his homework at the desk until Petunia called him to do the dishes. Then he hurried upstairs to take a shower before the nightly news ended, and if he was lucky didn't run into his Uncle for the rest of the evening. If he was unlucky, he'd be put to doing some unnecessary task—there was no sense in weeding at night in winter, but Vernon wouldn't hear a word of it—but mostly, if he focused hard enough on trying to make his relatives forget he was there, he was safe behind the closed door.
That night, as he swirled his chicken around his plate trying to soak it in as much gravy as possible, Harry toyed with the envelope. He didn't know what it held, but no matter: it would irritate Aunt Petunia. Harry didn't think that he'd called attention to himself recently, unless some of the teachers had noticed how he failed to participate, but wouldn't they speak with him if that were the case? Otherwise—he'd been doing his best, and since Dudley wasn't there to be compared to or sabotage his work, and since he spent so many afternoons in the library and so many evenings with nothing better to do than homework, his marks were the best they'd ever been. And it couldn't be for parent conferences or a fundraiser or that sort of thing, because then there would have been envelopes for all the students, and the teacher had only given one to him. So it was a personal matter—but what? His hair—was that worth writing about? He couldn't do anything about that, and even Petunia with her scissors and her brushes couldn't tame the mess it made…
At last he slid his finger under the flap of the envelope. If it was something his Aunt and Uncle needed to see, he could say he lost it and get another. But he doubted that, and his eager, curious eyes ate up the message.
The letter read as follows:
Dear Mr and Mrs Dursley,
It has come to the attention of the faculty here at Stonewall High that your nephew, Harry Potter, is an exceptionally bright student. As you have already seen his term marks, this should not come as a surprise. While here at Stonewall we strive to provide quality education to all our students, his teachers have all agreed that Mr Potter is quite simply not going to be challenged by the materials we teach his year level.
Because of this, we believe it would be beneficial for Mr Potter to consider attending a different school to complete his secondary education. There are many schools, both in the area and with accommodations for boarding, at which he could thrive, and several of those provide scholarships for students of exceptional scholastic potential.
If attending a different school is not an option, it may be necessary to advance Mr Potter by a year in order to ensure he is being properly challenged. If you would like to learn more, our staff would be happy to assist you in making a choice. Please do not hesitate to contact or visit our office during open hours, from 8:00 - 17:00 daily, to set up a meeting with one of our guidance counselors.
Sincerely,
Joyce H. White, Assistant Principal
Harry read it again, and then a third time, unsure of what to make of it. Exceptionally bright—him? Well, he had got good marks—but imagine telling Vernon that. He'd have a laugh. And… while the thought of shipping off to some boarding school sounded like a dream,without Dudley around Privet Drive wasn't so bad. Not bad enough to tempt fate asking his Aunt and Uncle for anything. Let alone something expensive. And suggesting he move up a year… that was just asking for trouble. Harry was already half a head shorter than most of his classmates, and one of the youngest students in the whole school. He'd worked hard to keep from being noticed by any of the likely bullies. Moving up a year would draw attention he very much did not want.
Harry folded up the letter and went to his door, listening until he was certain it was only him upstairs, and went over to pry up the loose floorboard under his bed, and tucked the letter in with the dusty teacup and granola bars and bottle of water he had stored there, and replaced the board just in time to hear Petunia shouting at him to come clean the dishes.
The letter said 'if'—'If you would like to learn more.' Aunt Petunia would not like to. If they called the house there was nothing Harry could do about it, but Harry would just have to do his best to stay under the radar and hope that the teachers would forget.
In the meantime? He'd start lowering his marks. If he could work his way back down to average, they'd have no grounds to call attention to his performance. He'd do it slowly, and he wouldn't go too low… just enough that his first term looked like a fluke. It had to be easier to do worse than better, right?
-
On Harry's one hundred fiftieth day at Stonewall, however, he became concerned the matter would not be so easy to drop.
It was the first of May, a Thursday, and this time Harry had a note he couldn't 'forget' or 'lose.' This time everyone had received one: a note for parent-teacher conferences. It wasn't in an envelope like the other ones had been, so he knew right away that his was scheduled for the following Thursday. One of the earlier slots, despite his name. Perhaps it was based on 'Dursley' instead of 'Potter'.
He swallowed and came through the door, taking off his shoes as he usually did before stepping inside. But this time he carried them with him into the kitchen, where Petunia was leaned on the counter, watching Neighbors on the telly from across the room. She gave him a sharp look. She didn't like anyone making noise over her soaps, in case she missed any of the dialogue.
Harry waited until the commercial before holding the note out to her. "What's this?" she asked, peering down her nose at it.
"Parent-Teacher conferences," Harry mumbled.
"We're not your parents."
Harry shrugged. "Maybe you can phone and cancel?"
Petunia sniffed, turning around to the calendar hanging on the fridge, flipping it over from April to May and penciling in the appointment. "I had better not hear about any freakishness, boy."
Harry didn't know what to say to that. To his relatives, his very existence was 'freakishness'. No matter what his teachers told her, Harry was certain that nothing good would come of it.
-
On Harry's one hundred fifty-third day at Stonewall, Petunia's conference was right after school got out, so Ms Morris made Harry sit out in the hall while they spoke. She was smiling as she led the way to the administrative wing, directing Harry to sit in one of the chairs normally reserved for students in serious trouble, since it was in the hall with the principal's and the three assistant principals' offices. Harry didn't think she would be smiling for long. Petunia was already inside, standing stiffly with a blond woman Harry did not recognize. Ms Morris entered, closing the door behind her, and the brass name-card on it rattled. Joyce H. White, Assistant Principal.
Harry swallowed, and looked down at his hands, gripping tightly at his knees, knocking them together because that attracted less attention than bouncing his leg, not that there was anyone else in the hall to see it. He didn't think most conferences were held in the assistant principals' offices.
He listened, but the walls were thick, and he wasn't sure he wanted to hear. There wasn't any shouting, so that was good—there'd been shouting when the teachers tried to tell Petunia that Dudley was behind in maths, and that no matter how many times he stole Harry's worksheets it was never going to convince anyone. Harry got thrown in the cupboard for telling tales after that—but there was no shouting this time. There wasn't much of anything, just a looming door and Harry's shaking knees.
When Petunia came out of the office, her face flushed and her lips pinched, she spotted him and sneered, made a jerking motion with her head, and strode away with the haught of a strutting crow. Harry caught sight of Ms Morris through the gap in the door, hissing something to the assistant principal, but it swung shut before any of the words got through. Not sure what else to do, Harry chased after his aunt, keeping out of sight and reach a few good paces back.
She didn't speak to him until they came to an intersection several minutes later. They'd just missed the crossing light. Harry, wondering if they should cross the other way while the light was green, looked up to see what his Aunt was doing, and jumped at the sudden eye contact.
"You—" she started, but her voice died as she stared down at him with that sort of disgusted bewilderment on her face she might show if someone came up to her to beg for money on the street— why does it expect anything from me? And yet—that tiny glimmer of human decency left in her withering heart—
"Yes?" asked Harry.
Her mouth shut with an audible click, and she tore her gaze away from him, looking up and gesturing with one hand to the Tesco across the street. "Go and find something for Vernon for dessert," she ordered, digging in her purse for her wallet. "He's had a big sales opportunity at work. A notable achievement." She thumbed through the bills, paused, thumbed them again, and turned her eyes warily toward Harry, grinding her teeth as she brought out a £20 note. "Make sure it is something decent. And bring me a receipt!" she snapped as she thrust it towards him.
Harry wasn't sure why she didn't just go herself, but he managed to bite his tongue on that. He turned away, shoving the bill in his pocket, and ran across the street before the light changed, skidding to a halt when the door didn't register him, and jumped up and down until the sensor finally responded. The cashier eyed Harry as the bell on the door went off. It was the older sister of Dudley's friend Gordon, a tenth- or eleventh-year at Stonewall; their mum was the owner or manager or something like that. Harry ducked his head and hurried back into the aisles.
He was quick to locate the shelves of desserts and pastries with their alarmingly distant sell-by dates. Harry didn't have sweets very often himself, since it was better to buy something more filling and stable if he had the money, but he'd had to fetch this sort of thing for Dudley loads of times. Now, he eyed the boxes, unsure of how to judge what wasn't garbage, not that Vernon had the taste to tell the difference—and that was when he spotted it. There, at the end of the aisle, was a little yellow tag sticking off the shelf.
Buy one, get one free.
He glanced around, almost half-expecting to see Petunia watching, but there was only a woman with a baby on her hip trying to fit a loaf of bread into an overloaded basket. Gingerly he pulled one off the shelf, so he could see inside the clear top. It was roughly the size of a shoebox cut in half, small enough to fit inside his bag without getting too squished, and inside was a chocolate cake layered with a weird, lumpy sort of frosting. German Chocolate, the label said. There was a sticker with the sell-by date on the top: 8 May. That was tomorrow… well, he could peel off the sticker so Petunia didn't know he'd bought something on sale.
"Two cakes, Potter?" the girl at the cash register said, raising an eyebrow as she waved the first box in front of the scanner. "Isn't your cousin—come on, bloody useless thing—isn't your cousin off at some fancy school?"
"It's for my uncle," Harry said. He couldn't remember her name. "And it's buy one, get one, so… might as well."
She ignored him, scowling at the computer. She grabbed the other box and tried that as well, angling it this way and that. When it finally beeped, she brightened up, but it faded fast. The little display now read 'ITEM NOT ON FILE.'
"Oh, what the hell," she muttered. "The tag said, what, ten fifty?"
"And buy one—"
"Get one, yeah, you said. You gonna pay, or what?"
Harry waited until he was across the street and down a block before ducking into a gap in the bushes and stuffing the second cake into his backpack. It didn't quite fit without squashing the corners of the box in, but it would taste the same. Then he pried off the tag off the other box. It tore the top layer of the cardboard with it, leaving a rough spot, but he doubted Petunia would notice.
When he returned to Privet Drive, he used his toes to pry off his shoes and dropped his bag by the stairs before carrying the cake into the kitchen. Petunia watched as he put the box down on the counter, and he dug in his pocket for the change and crinkled receipt. She made a point of studying every detail.
"'Miscellaneous item'?"
"It was on special."
She sniffed, and counted out the coins, then turned her beady glare back to him. "Well? What are you standing around for? Go wash up. And get started on dinner!"
-
Harry waited until he was absolutely certain the Dursleys were asleep before he dared open the closet to retrieve the second cake from under the pile of dirty laundry, so it was technically his one hundred fifty-fourth day at Stonewall before he sat cross-legged on his bed and opened the lid. He tentatively reached down to swipe his finger into the frosting, wondering at the shaggy texture, and lifted it to his lips for a tentative lick.
It was sweet—exceptionally so, and not the sort of sweet from the overripe fruit Petunia sometimes gave him rather than let go to waste. It was sweet in the way the little cakes they had in the lunchrooms on Fridays were sweet, an unnatural, even chemical sweetness, almost to the point where it stopped tasting like sugar and started tasting the way alcohol smelled. And it was rich too, the sort of chocolate flavor that's good for the first bite, amazing for the second, and then somewhat sickening on the third.
Harry didn't stop after the third. He didn't stop at all, from first bite to last, so caught up in his terror that Petunia was going to come in and find out what he had done that he ate and ate and ate, and even when his stomach rolled he kept on eating to the last crumb.
By the time box was empty, Harry's hands were shaking in violent jerks and there was a mad pounding in his temple that made his vision flash with spots of darkness. He folded up the box as flat as he could and tucked it under the floorboard, and stood on shaky legs, peering out the door and tiptoeing out into the hall—breaking into a sprint as he was nearly overcome with nausea. He had the presence of mind to run to the loo downstairs, where Aunt Petunia might not hear him as he retched into the toilet, horrible chunks of barely-digested brown matter filling the bowl like oral diarrhea. He heaved and heaved, and between heaves noticed that his hands were sticky with frosting and leaving marks on the ceramic, and feverishly stood to try and fetch a paper towel to wipe away the evidence of his crime, and in doing so nearly missed as the next burst of it came spewing up from his throat.
After what felt like hours Harry's stomach was pushing up only bile, and he fell back against the wall, panting, heart racing like he'd been running several miles. He wasn't sure how long he stayed like that, expecting Petunia to come racing down the stairs after him at any moment, resigned to his fate, but no one came. He grabbed the sink and pulled himself up. He was desperately thirsty. He turned the faucet just enough to let out a trickle of water, and cupped his hands under it, only they were still sticky with frosting or vomit and he ended up scrubbing them instead, then looking up and catching his face in the mirror, chalky-skinned and wild-eyed with dark smears around his mouth, and scrubbed that too, and then flushed the toilet twice and scrubbed that and the sink before he remembered he needed water.
By the time he mustered the strength to pull himself back up the stairs to his room, the edges of the sky were beginning to lighten, and some overzealous bird was singing outside. It's calls echoed in Harry's head as he fell across the blankets, and chased him into sleep, and he dreamed of a feast, massive tables laden with foods beyond imagination, children laughing as they ate all the candy and desserts they wanted, and was sickened by it all.