Freak dreams in colour.

He dreams of red: red for her hair, like roses. Red like the blood on his knee. Red like the walls and the colour of his sweater. Red like the flowers in the living room and the paint on the ceiling, above where he slept. Blood like the monster's eyes as he glares down at him.

He dreams of yellow: yellow for tired hair and matching eyes. Yellow for his plastic knife and fork. Yellow for the flowers in the kitchen window, wilting but surviving in the darker months. Yellow for the tie the rat wore the last he visited with two legs.

He dreams of blue: blue for the sky. Blue like the rug he used to play on, that he was learning to walk on. Blue like the bruises he sees hidden under collared shirts. Blue for plasters with rabbits on them. Blue for his first and last birthday cake. Blue like the tears that trail down her cheeks as she whispers words he can't always hear.

He dreams of black: black for kind, laughing eyes. Black for course, thick fur. Black for a toy bear with a red ribbon that used to watch him dream. Black for the marks under their eyes that they try to hide. Black for the cloak of shadows that forced its way through into the warmth and the security. Black for searing pain that encompasses him, worse than anything his relatives have done to him.

And then he dreams of green: green like her eyes that shined back to him in the mirror and in photos. Green like the garden and the plants. Green for love and living. Green like -

Green like the light that stops her, that leaves her still.

Green like the light that cuts into him, that leaves him in a nightmare.

Freak dreams in colour and sometimes that hurts but…it's still better than the monochrome that he lives in, alone and in the dark that he is kept inside; like the colours are trapped inside of him.

Freak sleeps with spiders. One in particular visiting him in the shadows. He visits Freak every night and talks to him. It helps Freak practice talking as he will listen where people will not. Where other's ignore him, his spider does not.

It is worth the hours of sleep it costs him; sleep is hard to come by with an empty stomach or with a limb twisted the wrong way or when his Uncle has recoloured him purples and blues and yellows for every little thing.

Freak waits for his spider ever night, he waits until his Aunt cleans his room out along with his bucket after he got ill. She screams when she sees his rather large, fury friend and runs. When she returns with a broom Freak tries to stop her only he's as useless to do that as he is to stop the green light.

He gets thrown back into the hallway wall and when he wakes up again, his spider is gone and he is alone.

He is told from a very young age that he doesn't belong here and that he gets everything he deserves. He is told that his father was a good for nothing drunk and that his mother was a whore and that they had both died because they had run a red light.

His Aunt told him that was how he got his scar and to never forget.

He doesn't.

Oil spits and so does Dudley. Oil is hot and Dudley makes Freak's skin burn with fists and feet and teeth. Oil is what he uses to cook food he is not allowed to eat and Dudley is someone he can't be. Sometimes, Freak thinks he hates both. Sometimes he knows he does and then he wants to be better.

Sometimes he wants to have what Dudley has; the smiles and the hugs and the words.

Sometimes.

For the first day of school they reluctantly let him out of his room. Freak has already dressed into somebody else's clothes because he doesn't have anything of his own. Nothing that he can call his. It doesn't fit him properly and it's stiff from the dye but he's still excited.

He's leaving the house. He's going somewhere other than the Cat Lady's house. He'll get to see people and talk and read and -

He should have known better than to get his hopes up.

The teacher is calling names for registration and with every one Freak shrinks further into his seat. Meg, Thomas, Jane, Mark, Britney, Catherine, Hubert, Theo, Amelia…

Every name is so - wonderful.

Then there's "Freak".

Freak is awful. It's hits with a pan across the back of the head, it's Uncle drinking too much and dragging Freak in his room for punishments, it's cleaning while Dudley makes the mess, it's cooking and never eating.

When the teacher calls out for a "Harry" everything sort of stops. Because that was familiar, wasn't it? His mind whispers as the teacher then frowns, looks across the class and seems to count heads before asking for a "Harry" again.

Turns out that he wasn't a Freak, after all.

When he gets home his Uncle is purpling having been on the phone with the school who had some choice questions about why a boy would think he was called "Freak" and Harry knows, when he is smacked across the face before the door can even fully close that nothing has changed.

He understands as he is dragged up every step of the stairs for punishment, feeling every sharp edge thumping into his spine, that "Harry" wouldn't be any different.

People think he's weird, they think he's small and that he talks funny.

(They think he's weird.)

The teacher's like to call on him. He knows the answers, he knows because everything that's put in front of him he devours whether it's worksheets or textbooks or book-books and he knows and the teacher's like that.

But it's weird.

He's weird.

Dudley is always chasing people away. He's always hitting and lashing out like a bear with a thorn in its paw. He starts to look more and more like his Uncle and the more the resemblance takes hold, the more Harry starts to worry.

Really, Harry should have known better than to think he would have been allowed friends without his Aunt and Uncle around to stop him. Dudley, after all, is more than enough to get rid anyone that looks twice at Harry.

Harry is doing well at school until he's not. Every good grade that's his is mirrored in the reverse for Dudley who doesn't care for learning. There's always something else to be doing, to be distracted with. The word "apathy" is sort it for Dudley but…not quite.

Harry soon finds out that doing better than Dudley in school is nothing be proud of when he gives his Aunt his newest test result. He got everything right and Dudley had not. It marks the first time his Aunt lashed out with nothing but her hands and Harry understands as he clutches his face not to do it again.

Attention comes and goes and nearly all of it's bad. Harry thinks he'd prefer to be invisible because he can never do anything right so everyone is always angry at him. Not even his hair is right. Its too dark, his Aunt with her light blonde hair would sneer. Its too long, you look like a ruffian.

That's when the clippers come out. She scalps him, nicking him a few times as she does so. She keeps the fringe long to hide his scar and Harry can only stare at his reflection in the mirror for a second, before his Aunt is manhandling him off of his seat and forcing him back into his cupboard.

He curls up on his cot and thinks about every nasty word, every point and jeer he'll have to endure at school tomorrow as he bleeds into his pillow. He thinks about it; thinks about it until he can't anymore and he has fallen into a restless sleep about flying motorbikes and men that can change into animals.

When he wakes up, he shifts and instantly feels the weight of his hair, feels the long strands curl faithfully around his neck and he's instantly sat up. He hands runs over his head and his heart stalls when he feels its tresses softening against his skull. It silky and messy and there and he'll take any punishment for this. He doesn't care.

When his Aunt comes to let him out of his room it takes a second on seeing him for her to notice and when she does her face twists into something cold and ugly. Dimming with disgust, she grabs him by the hair and forces him into the kitchen where he starts breakfast.

(Every day after all school, his Aunt will cut it off twice as harshly as the day before and every time Harry's woken up after a night of worrying, it'll be back again. His Aunt will stop after a week and a half and it's the first time that Harry has felt like he's won.)

Harry Hunting has turned out to be a bit of a one sided sport but Harry is fast and Harry runs. He runs because the fight staying would cause isn't worth it. It's not that it was impossible to win if Harry chose to, it's that the one time Harry had thought to stand up for himself - the one time - Dudley had gotten a cut hand from falling onto the ground and when Harry had gotten home, what his Uncle did to him…

It wasn't worth it, Harry tells himself and runs. Honestly, neither are they.

Harry likes talking - or…he liked talking but no one was very interested in what he had to say. Animals always cared as he found with the neighbour's dog and Mrs Figg's cats, even that one runaway pet hamster was good company but if people hear…well, it was better for everyone if he just kept his mouth closed. It wasn't worth the hassle.

And Harry had more than enough scars for not keeping up appearances.

Harry is called into the Headmaster's office one day. The room is hot and stuffy and smells of burnt coffee and he instantly wants to leave and never return but his teacher pushes him in, until he has to take the seat on the opposite side the the desk.

He all but disappears behind it but he sits because he's been told to and waits because there's nothing more for him to do. It is silent as the Headmaster stares over his steepled fingers but his eyes aren't really seeing Harry. They aren't really looking at all.

He asks where his bruises came from but Harry has been through this before; he tries but he can't always cover up the punishments for his not-ever-being-enough, and the one time he told the truth doesn't bare thinking about.

I fell. I got into a fight. I didn't tie my shoelaces. I wasn't paying attention.

It's my fault.

Harry explains it all away until it fits like truths into his mouth. They taste bitter but there are worst things.

Maybe, he thinks as he is led back to class.

Maybe it is.

The day he got his Hogwarts letter is the day that he thinks everything will be different. He's not entirely right but he's not wrong either. Harry will, however, always resent the owl that carried his invite to him. Or the number of owls as was the case for Harry. And Hagrid - Hagrid…well, he will always be a source of conflict.

He often thinks back to that week of hide and seek with his relatives. With Dudley who was confused and bored and desperate to be normal with his television programmes and usual consumption of sweets. With his Uncle and the man's purple face and his white knuckled fists and then -

And then his Aunt who kept her eye on him like she was keeping him from being taken, like her sister turned out to have been.

Harry would have had some sympathy if she hadn't lied to him. If she hadn't called their deaths a car crash.

He knows as he looked at her then, in that dark broken cabin with Dudley sporting a pig's tail and his Uncle holding his pretzel of a short gun that he will never forgive her. And as his Aunt stares back, he knows she knows.

Harry gets his wand but it comes with a warning and "great but terrible things" echo in his ears past the calls of a famous person's name, till Hagrid tells him what really happened to his parents; to his family. His wand feels is a weight in his pocket he didn't know how to carry but it also feels right which just makes everything worse.

Harry keeps it even when part of him doesn't want to because though the story is grim, the wand is also his. Indisputably his and only his. It is the first thing he has ever owned and he couldn't bring himself to part with it and the connection it gave him, to this world.

The redhead asks to see Harry's scar and it's said like it's something wonderful. It's like he doesn't realise it was left behind from Harry's parent's killer; a failed attempt at Harry's own life, there on his face to make sure that he'd never forget. Harry lifts his fringe anyway and watches with dead eyes as the redhead's own light up.

When a girl with frizzy hair and bucked teeth enters their compartment later and asks for their names while looking for a toad of all things, Harry's not expecting her to tell him she knows everything about him. He resents that, a bit. Because she didn't know him and those books didn't know him. And the people of this world didn't know him.

The two of them deserve each other, Harry thinks, but they are also the first people to start a conversation with him in a while and that…well, they listen even if they don't always hear and that might have to be enough.

The Hat isn't sure where to put him. It circles and ponders and looks through Harry like no one ever has before because no one's ever cared to, but here and now Harry hates it because its intrusive and uninvited. Harry would have preferred to fight a troll. Just put me where people want me.

He knows he's famous now and it's loud and he doesn't know what to do with all the eyes attaching themselves to him. He doesn't like it but the Sorting is meant to mean something to these people and Harry doesn't want it to get louder. He doesn't care either way so whatever's easiest is best, really. He doesn't want another classification to be any more burdening than the other's he's already carrying.

He regrets that. The Hat says Harry will but Harry will end up regretting a lot of things and being a Gryffindor doesn't kill him. It would try but many things had.

The billowing roped-snake faced Potions professor hates him and Harry can't figure out why but then the twinkly-eyed, bearded headmaster likes him too much and he's not sure which one bothers him most. The strict cat with the tight hairdo is firm but fair and there's something about the Defence teacher that is…unsettling. But it's just another school, one half hates him - which is something Harry is used to - and the other thinks he's something he's not, which again is just another day in the life.

But there's magic and no relatives. Even the redhead and frizzy-hair grow on him even if its just through routine.

Nothing changes; he goes to classes, does homework, agrees to play magical chess between a mystery unraveling itself. (An obviously concocted mystery). Harry was young, he understood that but he wasn't stupid and the whole situation of a priceless, dangerous rock being left at a school was either due to incompetence or there was something else going on.

Either way, Harry was getting clues thrown at him left and right. He was still finding his feet but Harry did what someone obviously wanted from him and played detective.

It's when Harry sees the back of Quirrel's head that he understands that this is far more dangerous than he had initially given credence to. He thought he had been defending a stone but Harry's own life seemed to be at risk instead. Standing there, in too deep and with no rope to pull himself out with he wonders why this seems like a set up as he stares his parent's killer in the eye.

I remember you. He thinks but doesn't say because this being wouldn't care. I remember you; I remember you and how my mother begged for my life.

Harry isn't sure because happiness is a foreign thing to him so he's always in a dark place but as he stares into inhuman eyes, he thinks what festers in his heart is hatred. That scares him or, at least, he knows it should.

Learning he killed Quirrel and by proxy that thing doesn't - it doesn't bother Harry like it should and that scares him even more.

Turns out the redhead and frizzy-hair have already been told what occurred when Harry had gone on ahead of them and their reaction to the news Harry had killed defending himself and that stupid stone was strange. They had helped him though, followed him down that rabbit hole so Harry ignores it and tries to recover his strength.

He didn't fully understand what had happened with Quirrel but whatever it was, had drained Harry. It felt him boneless, without any sort of support. He'll learn it's magical strain and it eventually goes away, the cold it started does not.

The announcement of why Hogwarts would require a new Defence teacher happened while Harry was still in Pomfrey's care and his treatment afterwards is decidedly different through even more whispers and staring. The plump boy with the heart-shaped face who seemed forever forgetful, oddly seems affronted by this attitude and doesn't shy away from making a statement at breakfast and dinner by sitting himself next to Harry, even though he otherwise never said a said anything.

But actions spoke louder than words and Harry never asked anyone to speak for him.

When the forgetful boy joins Harry with the redhead and frizzy-hair in the compartment on the way back to the Dursley's, Harry's…glad? He like's the forgetful boy - Longbottom's - solid presence even when the guy's so nervous he can't look anyone in the eye and fidgets. Harry likes Longbottom in general, as he sits next to Harry, toad in his lap and quietly asks about Harry's plans while he's away.

Longbottom is sort of scared of everything so Harry understands that it probably took a lot for someone like him to come uninvited into a compartment, let alone talk to people who didn't quite count as friends, one of which was responsible for him spending a night jinxed stiff like a statue in their Common Room.

So, Harry answers in kind and responds that chores will probably take up all his time as the redhead and frizzy-hair bicker about something in the background. His voice is telling enough and he phrases his answer deliberately while watching as Longbottom jolts from where he had been watching Trevor. His tawny eyes are wide and his mouth parts just a bit.

Harry likes even more that Longbottom understands and observes as something about his classmate hardens, steels itself before Longbottom is commenting on how is uncle - the one that had thrown him out of a window - was coming to visit.

Longbottom gets it, truly understands which is probably why Harry allows Longbottom to hesitantly squeeze his hand.

The Dursley's are not happy to see him but Harry probably would have died from shock if they had been. They sneer at him and snatch his trunk from his hands after having left him to heave tit indoors. His belongings - the only things that he can truly call his own - are locked up in his old cupboard. No freakiness here, boy is being said on repeat like once isn't enough as his Uncle pulls him up the stairs and into the room with everything abandoned and broken.

He heads towards the bed after he picks himself up from the floor after his Uncle had thrown him skidding into the room. He sits and waits.

He doesn't get any Owls though the redhead and frizzy-hair had promised to write. Harry wasn't really expecting anything though because he's used to being the freak with nothing and no one. It is, however, a surprise when one morning while he is looking through the mail that he spots an envelope with his name on it and one too many stamps.

Harry never makes the same mistake twice and uncaring if it rips for it would be ripped if it were found anyway, he stuffs it into his pocket and takes the rest back to the breakfast table for his Uncle to look over his more than plentiful amount of food.

He waits all day, through his chores and his stomaches grumbles for sustenance until night has fallen and he is locked inside the bedroom again. He quietly opens the envelope under the blankets to muffle the ruffling of paper, pauses for sound before pulling it out into the light of the moon.

"To,

Harry James Potter, Lord Potter of the Potter House.

Hello, Harry (may I call you Harry? I guess I've never asked but since we're godbrothers I) . Sorry for sending you another letter I suppose if you were ever going to answer you would have by now, I just thought that wanted to talk to you.

I haven't tried sending mail the Muggle way before so I'm not sure if it'll reach you and I don't want to write too much. This might be unwelcome since I forgot to ask on the train if it was alright with you and I guess after so long without any response I shouldn't bother you.

If you receive this and you want to talk then, um, respond but it doesn't matter if you don't want to. Now that I've met you, I think I understand why you've been so quiet.

Neville Longbottom

Heir Longbottom of the Longbottom House

PS. On the outside of this envelope is my address though you should already have it by now . You can send it the Muggle way if you want with a Postal Box. Grandmother wasn't happy amused but she didn't mind since the Longbottom's have been allied to the Potter's for so long."

Harry lowers the letter and feels truly confused. Longbottom had rewrote some things several times over but hadn't marked it off well enough so it was still readable. Unease flooded him even as he hid the letter under the floorboards with a collection of other things he had squirrelled away. He took out a scrap piece of paper and straightened it out on the floor. It was crumbled and just a bit dirty with one part dog-eared and another edge torn.

The only thing he had to write with up here were old crayons but it would have to do. All his writing equipment was locked into his cardboard and it wasn't worth the risk to try and "borrow" one of the Dursley's pens.

What he had would have to do.

Meeting Dobby had certainly been an experience and although Harry appreciated the apparent risk the House Elf was taking in warning him, he didn't care. One way or another he'd be at the risk of bodily harm. What was a bit of death thrown into the odds?

Dobby didn't understand Harry's flippancy and that was fine, Harry didn't understand Dobby's urgency. After all, what did it matter in the end?

Harry has just helped fly a car into a demented tree and is looking forward to getting some sleep when in the darkness, his bed curtain's begin to shift then open. Harry sleeps with his wand under his pillow and he's not hesitant to use it.

The tip of his wand is glowing red and lighting up Longbottom's face before either of them can take a second breath. Instantly, Longbottom's hands are up in surrender. Harry's eyes narrow but he lowers his weapon and allows the other into his bed and for the curtains to close around them. Longbottom had never gotten back to the letter Harry had managed to send but the boy had received it, supposedly.

Longbottom was there to talk: to answer everything that wasn't safe enough to send in a letter and Harry - well, he was very good at listening.

Neville was his godbrother and Harry was a lord which meant land and a home. All that gold made sense now. The questions of why he had been put with the Dursley's echoed louder in his mind because it was obvious he had family - real family - and not just relatives.

There was a lot that didn't make sense and things to sort out (like going to Gringotts and requesting his Lordship Ring) but it was nice, to allow a barrier to…relax. Neville, soft and shy, nervous and desperate for some acceptance, who had written letter after letter that Harry had never gotten was…he was easy to be gentle with.

Harry had never had anyone in his bed before but allowed himself to curl up with the other boy because they had been sorting things out for hours and he was tired. It took a second before Longbottom - Neville - shifted to properly lie down with him, all the time asking if it was alright.

A pattern was emerging in Hogwarts. Something want wrong and Harry was either expected to fix it or was blamed for it. Least, that's what Harry was slowly coming to realise. It could even be a small thing like someone tripping in his vicinity but it was the larger problems that was starting to get under Harry's skin like dirt getting trapped inside his nails after a long, weathered day in his Aunt's garden.

The snake-faced professor was really responsible for whispering that spell into the ferret's ear. Harry hadn't realised that in all the magical world - with all that they can do - that they would fear a language, one that Harry hadn't fully known he could speak.

(Duelling was a bad idea for Harry anyway. He had been subjected to too much Harry Hunting so his fight or flight instincts were skewed. His body burned with adrenaline, his legs tingled and his fists clenched. He was ready to run; to move but duelling commanded control he didn't want to be stupid enough to exercise. No one in a proper fight should stand still and wait. What sort of garbage were this moron's trying to teach them?)

(Really, it was lucky that Malfoy had gotten that spell off when he did. Harry had been seconds away from pouncing on the git. The ferret's father didn't intimidate Harry in the least and in this world there were no cupboards, no punishments that could stifle the fire burning in Harry.)

Neville explains when everyone else has gone to bed, asleep and snoring obnoxiously, why speaking to snakes is such a bad thing. Neville doesn't seem scared or put off of Harry though. He's anxious, like he nearly always is but the calm that Harry had started to instil is eating away at the nerves.

Neville doesn't look at him any differently, doesn't try to tell him that it was unnatural (like the redhead) or that he should talk to someone about it (like frizzy-hair). Harry finally asks Neville why he's so calm about all of this and the boy shrugs. Nothings really changed. You could speak before and you still can.

Acceptance, Harry starts to understands, looks like a boy huddled down beside him, rosy plump cheeks and tawny eyes with floppy dark curls.

Someone is Petrified and mob mentality acts like it usually does and Harry is suddenly the Heir of Slytherin: Slayer of Mudbloods. It's ridiculous. No one has a brain in the Wizarding World (sorry Neville). They ignore evidence like the time Harry had started a punch out (and boy, had that ferret been out) with the ferret after the punk had insulted Harry's parents and his halfblood status. They don't seem to remember that he keeps company with frizzy-hair and has never once tried to push for a pureblood agenda.

None of what or who Harry is seems to matter. Harry can talk to snakes. Harry's different so he's obviously "dark".

Well, Harry takes issue with that.

Pushing that sword through that snakes mouth is the least the snake deserves.

The redheaded girl survives, gets up just in time to see Harry dying from the stab of a tooth that had gone straight through his arm. Her cries for him are barely heard over the rush of his blood, the swirling dim of his sight and the nausea clogging his throat as he struggled to breathe through the fire.

Harry was on fire.

Burning. Set alit. Harry starts to think as his body numbs; feels like a stranger's, if this was worth it. Neville would be waiting - did that matter either? Neville had more potential than he realised. He'd be fine without Harry. Everything would be fine -

Then a phoenix appears.

Harry is alive, his arm healed with a scar more gruesome than the Dursley's had ever managed and he wonders if this is his lot in life. If this is what living meant. If this is what his parents had wanted for him.

The redhead's are glad their daughter's still breathing but they never really acknowledge what it took to keep her that way. No good deed goes unpunished, his Aunt had muttered once after getting shortchanged and Harry's standing in a corner, watching this family reunion with with a puckered, red welt the size of a philosopher's stone on his forearm and a sword in his other hand.

Neville is sitting so close to Harry on the train ride back to the Dursley's that his godbrother is all but in his lap. Harry's never keen on crowding; he needs space to gauge he's safe but he doesn't move.

Harry had left Neville behind, after all, out go the snake's way but alone and had gone off with the redhead to what he knew was to face a something of a monstrous size and strength. When Harry had gotten back from Pomfrey's and flopped into bed, it wasn't a second later before Neville had joined him with angry eyes and pursued lips. Harry had hurt him and yet, there wasn't an ounce of regret in him.

Harry was used to fighting, that was all he could do. Neville was better, kinder and shouldn't be involved with stuff like that.

Harry still has to go back to the Dursley's. Neither of them are happy about it but he hadn't any intentions of blowing up his Uncle's sister until she said what she did, those - words about his parents who had died protecting him. Who had loved him and wanted him and tried doing a good thing.

He didn't care about his Uncle's beatings anymore as they had stopped hurting long ago (and there were worse things the man had done to him) but that also didn't mean that he was going to allow it anymore, either. He'd already performed magic so what was a bit more?

Harry bursts out of the house, into the darkness, foreswearing them. He's cold and alone and sitting on the edge of the pavement when a black dog the size of a wolf approaches him.

The dog doesn't stay a dog for very long.

Con/textual Vomit: Please excuse this chapter, I'm not...that happy with it. It's a base for the next one. That, and I needed to try and mix some of Hibari's characteristics into Harry before they become more obvious with what happens next chapter. Neville is also important for the story introducing him the way I have isn't random :).

I didn't have any dialogue in this chapter because I feel like during these years of abuse, Harry would have been internalising a lot. That is also why Harry very rarely uses names, too. A certain dogfather will be helping with that next chapter

Oh, and a further apology for the formatting on Neville's letter. In A03 it allows be to strikethrough words so I had to compensate here with underlining instead.

(Originally Uploaded: 29/04/2017)

OZ