Chapter Text
It was about the time Harry turned six that he noticed it, and he immediately panicked.
Aunt Petunia had tried shaving his head one too many times in an attempt to tame his wild locks and just mentioning 'blue wig' was enough to earn him cupboard time, so any indication that his hair was not the plain dark brown it'd always been was alarming enough to think she'd come after him again. There weren't exactly a lot of red heads in suburban Surrey so at the time, Harry had no clue that the deep red strands of hair coming in at the roots of his head were actually very natural and not another "freakish" thing happening to him that he couldn't control, but would get punished for anyway.
He had also never seen a picture of his mother and was not quite old enough to wrap his head around the idea of genetics in any case, so the moment he realized his hair was no longer growing in dark brown-ish black, he did his absolute best to hide it. He found a black bandanna in his school's lost and found and wore it whenever he left the cupboard, wrapped around his forehead to cover his scar and the back tip tucked into the knot to hide all his hair from view. The Dursleys already saw him as a maid so it fit in their minds while at home, and when out and about it only made it easier to call him a delinquent, plus Petunia hated his wild hair so him taking to hiding itandgiving her more gossip fuel was a good thing. He wasn't reprimanded for wearing it at home and teachers already did their best to ignore him because of the Dursley's slander so he was never told not to wear it at school despite there being a 'no hats' rule most years. Petunia never attempted to cut his hair again since he was taking the initiative to hide it himself so he often took chunks of it with kitchen scissors--outside so no one would see the fine threads as realize someone near the Dursley household was walking around with 'freakish' red hair.
By the time he turned nine though… he had a sudden change of heart.
It was looking in the mirror after school one day, having gone to the bathroom and taken off his bandanna to fix it up before going back to the Dursleys for the night, that he just… looked at himself. His green eyes seemed a lot brighter than they'd ever been before, the red no longer just traces but a flood of scarlet that seemed to shine even under the poor florescent school ceiling lights and bring out the sea foam in his typically darker eyes. He hadn't really taken the time tosee itsince he'd noticed his dark locks going red, just quickly hiding it any time he caught a piece of red peeking into his field of vision, and even when he cut it he did it almost blindly and by feel when he was sure no one was looking, not caring how it really looked, just caring that it was short enough to hide beneath his cover. As a result it was cut horribly, wild pieces short enough to stick up in all directions and some longer ones left tangled and askew by him removing the bandanna so roughly, chunks of it matted into solid masses beyond saving.
And yet… even with all of that, he suddenly found himself thinking helikedhis freakish red hair. It wasn't orange like a carrot or pink like a strawberry blonde or fake cherry red like those dyed 'freaks' Petunia and Vernon crossed the street to avoid, but a deep red so vibrant it was like curls of blood, the exact shade of a red delicious apple with highlights a fascinating golden-red that reminded him of gleaming mermaid scales in a book he once read when no one was looking in the school library. It was a majestic color like a vibrant sunset, the darkest feathers on a pretty cardinal, the deep sweet promise of a ripe fresh tomato on a heavy summer day, or the refined red velvet of Christmas-season ribbons. It reminded him of every good memory he had, and he had so preciously few of those that it kind of took him off guard to be overwhelmed with this feeling all at once, and so out of the blue.
He was too afraid to go around with hair like this out in the open, shuddering to think what his 'family' would do if they ever found out, but he suddenly wasn't gut-wrenchingly ashamed of weird hair like this. In fact, he liked it, quite a bit. Just like he liked his scar that he hid away; despite the fact he had to hide it he liked that it made him different and unique--and maybe important, in a world where he knew he was not important to anyone.
No one had hair like this and it was way more interesting than some silly old scar. Some small part of himwantedto be seen and some small part of himwantedto make friends and if he were able to walk around with pretty hair like this then maybe someone would look twice at him. Not just glance at him and quickly avoid eye contact when they realized who he was—that delinquent, that quiet freak not one wanted to associate with—but may stop and see him for who he actually was because he was vibrant enough to warrant looking twice. Because this was part ofhimand maybe he was proud of it. And maybe he felt… sad, that he himself had reduced such pretty locks to this utter mess just because he feared others knowing about it.
No, because he feared his so-called relatives knowing about it.
Helikedhis hair. As hard as that was to openly admit, even to himself, he suddenly knew it was true. He liked his hair, and he was proud of it.
But, reality being what it was, he combed it down a bit--slightly less roughly than usual-- and re-did his bandanna quickly before anyone came into the bathroom he was dawdling in. He did make a silent promise to himself though, to be kinder to his poor, pretty hair. Just because the Dursleys would hate it didn't mean he had to hate his own self just as much-- hecouldtake pride in his appearance even if no one else would ever give him a second glance. He only had one ally in this world after all: himself.Just because he had no one didn't mean he had to abandon himself too.
In another life he wouldn’t care about his appearance, and it would snowball into caring less about his life as a whole: rash decisions that put his well-being at risk, resigning himself to those who treated him poorly, a dangerous over-eagerness to please anyone who gave him even a slight bit of positive attention...
No more. He wouldn’t be that person anymore, he swore as he watched himself in the mirror fix the bandanna back in place. He wasn’t stupid, he still had to hide it or else face Aunt Petunia’s wrath, but he no longer believed as she undoubtedly would that his hair would label him as even more of a freak. Like the clouds clearing he decided that his worth was not based on what anyone else said—from here on out only he could make himself feel worthless. No one else had that right, not when he knew what now he knew.
No one cared about him after all, no one bothered to look twice. It was in this moment Harry decided that he would care about himself, and that he would look twice and think maybe he wasn’t worthless. If he only had one ally in this world, he wasn’t going to betray himself any longer.
And so, he tried to keep better care of himself than before, starting with his hair but spilling over into other aspects of his life. He found a comb that Petunia had thrown out and kept it hidden in his cupboard, combing through his hair carefully each night and morning to make sure it wasn't going to end up a rat's nest again, and he let it grow this time. He checked the lost and found of both the school and the local library as often as he could before he found precisely what he was looking for: a thin, soft gray beanie that wasn't too thick to look like a crazy person even if he wore it in the summer (okay, he still looked like a crazy person, but he could go back to his bandana if he had to do yardwork outside when it was super-hot and it was perfect for every other occasion). The best part was that the beanie was designed to be baggy at the back which meant there was plenty of room for his hair to grow out a bit and no one realize what he had going on under the hat, which left him free to grow his hair out as long as he wanted and then work on cutting it more normally instead of the crazy hap-hazard thing he'd been doing up until that point.
It was this way that he noticed that his red hair wasmuchsofter than his old brown hair had been; he wasn't sure how this was possible or if he'd just never noticed, but when he was alone in his cupboard he found himself running fingers through it while combing it and just being in awe of how silky and soft it was. This did not, however, stop the wildness that Petunia so hated from dying down, at least not until months later when the piece of hair atop his forehead was long enough that he could stretch it just below his chin if he pulled it down to stop it's wild, semi-curly, randomly stuck up thing it had going on to lie straight for a second. By the time it was about two inches longer than even that, it was falling around his face and head in a wild, chaotic cloud around him and just barely brushing the middle of his neck--the wildness it had, never lying down when he kept it short, was used up by keeping most of its length caught up in the semi-curl and crazy directions it popped up in. Just out of the shower and sopping wet, it brushed the tops of his shoulders-- dry and flying around in its natural way, it simply framed is face in a longer-ish style that he actually quite liked.
It was also just long enough to pull back in a ponytail (girls left those things lyingeverywhereso he had quite the collection of ties) or a tiny plop on top of his head, which made it easier to hide beneath his beanie. He also quite enjoyed the feeling of letting it all puff out after a long day of pinning it up this way—the term 'letting your hair down' finally making sense and it was a simple pleasure in his life. Like taking a hot shower after a cold day, it was somehow relaxing, combined with his then-routine of combing it out slowly and carefully and just enjoying his minime time.Harry had never had—nor everconceived of— 'me time' before, but he liked it.
Such care into one aspect of his appearance he never even showed anyone spilled over until he was trying to take care of himself in other ways. For example Vernon and Petunia never once forced Dudley to brush his teeth if he didn't want to but Harry took it up religiously--twice a day in the morning and at night (he used tiny portions of Petunia and Vernon's toothpaste so they wouldn't notice; if Dudley's suddenlyran out they'd know something was up and he'd get in trouble for using something of his cousin's even if the loaf wasn't using it). He also took to washing his face more and carefully stealing sunscreen from the medicine cabinet and hiding it outside beneath bushes or even underground, in preparation of days Petunia forced him outside to do yardwork all day. He also took to carefully gluing his glasses back together rather than roughly with tape, and even managing to paint the rims with some dark green paint he'd nicked from art class—it was small and subtle enough that the Dursley's didn't notice it or ever bring it up if they did, not that they'd care much, but it was a small form of rebellion with his appearance that Harry was very proud to have gotten away with.
He used the school library to look up what good food was, and what you needed to eat to be healthy and tall and strong--absolutely none of which the Dursleys had anywhere near their house which was his first problem. It was actually remarkably easy to fix though, as he plucked up the courage to ask his aunt to be able to do the grocery shopping, and to cook dinner as well as breakfast for them all. He knew they wouldn't do it if they thought helikedthose chores, but he'd phrased it in that he desperately did not want to be in his cupboardallevening and would do anything to get out more--even more choreslike shopping and cooking dinner.Petunia, for all her desire to be a 'normal' and a Norman Rockwell-esque housewife, did not like cooking and was actually rather bad at it; it was just that her husband and son were whales who'd eat a whole pig before noticing it was still alive. Her desire not to do it and his clever first deception meant he was then in charge of meals and grocery shopping.
Petunia was no budget master and so had a standard amount of money for food shopping that she gave to him for the trips that she'd always spent in her poorly-informed shopping sprees, and with just a few attempts to familiarize himself with what was available and what he could get on sale or cheaper for less brand-name but just-as-good options, he quickly figured out how to get everything she required him to cookand what he could stash to cook himself in his more, health-friendly diet. It wasn't like he ever ate with the rest of them anyway, and they didn't consider salad food at all (a 'precursor to food' Vernon had once called it, rather poetically) so even if they did see him setting aside some leafy greens or other vegetables, so long as his chicken or beef or other 'main entree' helping was sufficiently tiny to their standards of what he 'deserved', they were fine.
Given that he was then cooking not only the two meals they ate together but also packing all their lunches, he had free reign of the fridge and could hide most of his own stuff very easily. Put it on a lower shelf and maybe towards the back a bit and Vernon and Dudley, who often came in hunt of snacks and would neverbend downto actually search the whole fridge, would never see it. And on that note, Harry took to whipping up puddings and other terrible treats to put directly in eye-sight when someone opened the fridge for a late night snack to even further distract from the vegetables and other healthier things he was buying himself; not that he thought Vernon in particular would glance twice at a head of lettuce but if he did wonder who was buying (and then more importantlyeating)all these vegetables, he might realize it was in fact not his wife and that he was actually spending money on his despicable nephew and throw a fit. Harry took extra care to hide even more suspicious things, like tofu--if Vernon ever plucked up the desire to bend down and see the back corner of his own fridge Harry might actually die from the lashing he'd get from having brought that 'hippy nonsense' in the house.
So, when he was actually eating enough to feel satisfiedandhealthy enough to start feeling much better than he ever had before, he turned to the last part of his 'new leaf', which was exercise. He got quite a bit running from Dudley and other bullies and just went with it: he ran to and from school and found several longer routes to stretch out the routine. And the second Dudley’s gang started looking sketchy he took off too—he used that as an excuse to take longer and longer runs and Petunia never commented if he was gone for two hours or more. She was probably content in her assumed knowledge he was too scared to go near her precious Duddikins and took no issue so long as she continued to exist under the impression the ‘freak’ was not gaining anything from the arrangement.
He attempted a couple exercises that he could do from his cupboard, mostly sit-ups, but found them a lot less enjoyable than running. Still, he got a fair amount done out of sheer boredom that plagued him during long cupboard stays.
The longer this new pattern went on, the more Harry realized his relatives were rather thick. After a full six months of hiding food in the Dursley’s own fridge and getting his way by cleverly phrasing his requests, he realized that his “family’s” hatred of him blinded them to pretty much everything else about him aside from his existence. He got a lot of good practice putting on masks and acting quiet and humble, all the while plotting and figuring out the best way to get what he wanted.
The key to being successful was threefold: first, a lack of fear—the longer he got away with it the more confidence he had that he wouldn’t get caught. Not that he ever lowered his guard, but he wasn’t all around terrified that the Dursleys would somehow know if he did anything wrong like he once was, they simply weren’t smart enough for that. The second was careful planning, and having a back up plan just in case—fortunately (or more like unfortunately) he got a lot of quiet time in his cupboard to simply lie there and plot and so it only took him a couple weeks to get very, very good at this. Even if he thought up a plan and a back-up, doing nothing for hours on end inevitably had his mind circling over his plots again and again, almost always coming up with something else he hadn’t thought of to prepare for, the result being very effective plans when combined with his budding acting skills.
The third and final key though, was low expectations. It sounded bad but Harry wasn’t here scheming to be spoiled like Dudley, he just wanted to ensure he’d have dinner that night, and breakfast the following morning, and so on. As his plans got more elaborate, he still wasn’t plotting to take over the world, he just wanted to be able to not fail out of primary school and eventually get a job away from this place as his own person. He didn’t care what the job was in any way, but he wanted to be free.
Getting tiny little tastes of freedom when a plan was successful and he managed to get away with something he wanted was highly addicting, and it made long nights locked in a cupboard even worse. In fact, by the time he turned ten his stomach would flip every time he caught sight of the thing, and when he was being ordered to climb back into it he felt like his whole body was rejecting the sheer thought of getting into the tiny space he’d once considered his safe place, his semi-home in this house which would never be home.
He didn’t regret learning to value himself more than others seemed to, but it made lowering himself to be locked in a cupboard about 100 times worse than it’d ever been before. He used to not care, since it was dark and quiet and away from his relatives, but now he cared. He cared a lot.
He tried very, very hard not to outright hate the cupboard as he knew there was no escaping it until he was physically too big to fit into it anymore, and even then he could only imagine what the Dursleys would do. Probably just kick him into the un-air-conditioned, un-heated shed out back, and he knew older-him would not enjoy that either so just tried to keep breathing steadily and deal with the cupboard while he had it. He couldn’t hate it or he’d go insane, but controlling his emotions this way was turning out to be quite the learning experience; he was not an inherently patient person but he knew he had to be. He had to pick and choose his battles wisely and the cupboard was not one he knew he could ever win, so he just kept his jaw shut and focused on the rest of his life the best he was able to.
His lack of complaints or sass now that he learned to school his expressions and his willingness to be a good little cook and maid seemed to inspire his aunt and uncle in a terrible way and they we happy to pile on more chores than they ever had before. With his growing uneasiness at the cupboard, Harry couldn’t even deny it was better than being cooped up in that dark corner, and he soon found himself with a daily maid-like list of chores tending to the Dursley household, including cooking their three meals, doing the laundry, vacuuming, dusting, and wiping down every excessively shiny surface in “Petunia’s” kitchen, on top of gardening constantly and mowing and tending the outside panels and windows. It certainly kept him busy, and he wondered what the heck his Aunt did in a day given she was a ‘housewife’ by profession and yet he was doing literally every chore in the household.
Still, he did not complain as eventually he found he liked pretty much having free reign of the kitchen, it easily becoming his safe place even from his relatives. Apparently, he was a good cook and two of the three loved to eat, so while their verbal abuse and the whacks on the back of his head were frequent and harsh, they kept him relatively uninjured so that he could keep working in the kitchen. If that was in any way related to his quickly growing skills at whipping up horrible concoctions of fried, greasy, calorie-filled, nightmare-like meals that Vernon and Dudley devoured with unprecedented glee, Harry didn’t give those thoughts a voice. If he did it in he wild hope his uncle and cousin would get so fat they’d abruptly pop one day, then it was also a tightly held day-dream he made sure no one was aware he had.
Still, given the arrangement he knew his ‘job’ was safe for the moment and it gave him a level of power he’d never had before, and that he desperately liked. If he wanted to survive this place, he needed even a small sliver of power to hold his place in this house, and not cast aside like unwanted garbage.
Harry knew it was working when his food budget went up a little bit over time, and though he didn’t outwardly grin as he just took the envelope of money and left for the grocery store with an otherwise black and resigned expression, he certainly wanted to. He rewarded his uncle’s thinking by investing in even more sweets and spent every last pound of this particular donation on a big turkey, with everything you’d need for a wonderful Normal Rockwell painting. He had vegetables for the week after all, so he didn’t need to nick any off the top.
That night for dinner he laid out a Thanksgiving feast any American would drool over, setting the table immaculately and scrubbing the kitchen spotless. He whipped up deserts and filled a basket with sweets in the place he knew Dudley looked first. When his aunt and uncle got home, Vernon praised Petunia and she took all the credit as Harry knew she would—he remained in the pantry organizing his stores and mentally cataloging for future meals and entirely out of sight while they enjoyed what he’d done, him already having eaten his fill as it was made and in much healthier quantities. They ate themselves into a food coma and then retired to the living room to watch TV and talk about nothing; Harry cleaned up every dish and packed the rest in neat lunch boxes for tomorrow, though they’d eaten most of horrifyingly enough so he had new sandwiches and chips to toss in too.
While he never put that much effort in again, unless ordered too because they had a guest coming over or something, the trick had been done and Vernon Dursley now subconsciously kept adding to the food budget he handed to his nephew each week. Every time it increased an amount of note, Harry carefully rewarded him with his favorite meal or desert, or an all-out glutton-fest of some sort that was easily enough procured. His favorite method he’d heard about from one of he programs they watched once, while he was in his cupboard—he withheld something, like steak or a certain type of sweet or a certain flavor, for weeks on end. When his “reward” was something simple like a blueberry pie or a simple, nicely cooked steak, the same reaction was received. It was as if he was satisfying a craving that he himself created, and he got very, very good at that.
What he did with the extra pocket money Vernon was unaware he was willingly giving away? Well, Harry carefully saved it and only bought what he could sneak in without anyone noticing, and that he could then hide in his cupboard entirely. Again, going with his ‘low expectations’ mantra, he stuck to things he needed and could get at either the grocery store where he shopped or the drug store he passed on his way home: new underwear, new socks, tiny bottles of nicer shampoo and conditioner, a sewing kit to try and fix some of his hand-me-down clothes just a little bit with his unskilled hands, band-aides, new shoelaces, hair ties of prettier colors, soap, notebooks, pens, crossword puzzles for his long cupboard-times, a decent flashlight for said cupboard, a reading light for a book, and the list went on. Tiny things the Dursleys wouldn’t notice, but things to make his life just a little more bearable.
He also took a risk and bought some make-up—a concealer tube he thought matched his skin tone and went up to his aunt saying he found it on the street and could he please use it to hide his scar?
Aunt Petunia took a great deal of pleasure in calling him a girl and even more of a freak from then on, but she’d allowed it most likely because it’d give her even more reason to ridicule him and hide yet another freakish thing about him so she was all for it. Harry took the insults with no more response than a ‘poorly concealed mask of hurt and embarrassment’ face, however he didn’t care. He’d already known this would be her reaction when he bought he make up and made this plan, and it had all gone according to his expectation so he just let the insults hit home and went about his day—careful to not let her know that he wasn’t actually affected by her taunting, keeping a mask of discomfort and embarrassment on to fuel her fire and keep her content for now.
He’d debated about hiding his scar, but decided for it in the end. He used to like it because it made him feel unique, but it served no purpose when he was trying to keep under the Dursley’s radar and he had his hair if he ever wanted to stand out some day. His hair was part of who he was and he took more pride in it than a funny looking scar he got from the car crash that killed his parents. It wasn’t the only thing that made him special anymore, since he decided that he himself was special and he should stop treating himself so terribly, and really should only remind him of his parents’ deaths, and not something he should like about himself. He didn’t explicitly care that he had a scar on his face, but with his new pride in his appearance it did not really fit into his aesthetic and therefore decided make up was the best route.
It took a little practice, but he got good at covering it, buying a few other products over time from the drug store to help hide it entirely, and then it became part of his daily routine without much thought on his part. Since he stopped complaining and acted very willing to be their chef, the Dursleys stopped locking him in at night so that he could get up and make them lusciously large breakfasts so (with a tiny, quiet alarm clock he’d also bought for himself) now had almost as much time as he wanted to get ready in the morning so long as he was neck-deep in cooking by the time his Aunt woke, got ready, and made it downstairs. He took his time to brush his hair, brush his teeth, wash his face, fix his hat, cover his scar, and adjust whatever hand me downs he was wearing at the time to be semi-presentable without causing the Dursley’s any suspicion. Since he was doing the laundry his clothes were always clean now and slightly more his size thanks to his rudimentary sewing skills and long nights in the cupboard.
He also learned to get up earlier even so that he could do the homework he undoubtedly never had time for the night before, and so went from totally failing to just-behind-Dudley kind of failing. At least he was learning and knew he was likely an average, if not above-average student on his own, and the fact he wasn’t actually stupid was reassuring despite the fact his grades would not lead you to believe that. He had decided that getting into trouble over his grades being higher than Dudley’s wasn’t worth it in the grand scheme of things—he planned to learn as much as he could without letting that show in his grades, and knew he wouldn’t be going to the same secondary school as his cousin. Once they were in different schools he’d resolved to do a lot better but find a way to hide it… without being in Dudley’s classes there had to be a way, even if he had to resort to giving his teachers the wrong home address and phone number—he could probably beg Ms. Figg to pretend to be his aunt twice a year when report cards came in; she didn’t seem like she was overly fond of Aunt Petunia in the first place and was kind to him, if not very weird with the cats and the cake thing. For parent teacher nights he doubted his aunt and uncle would even go in the first place, so there was less of a concern there.
And even if they found out… well, he’d cross that bridge when he got there, but he knew his future was important. While he was still ten, quickly approaching being eleven, this tenuous peace he’d set up for himself was more important. When he was older and only a couple years from graduating and taking tests that would determine his future, he knew peace was not a suitable excuse for harming his potential chances at a life-after-the-Dursleys. He’d likely not be able to hide his better grades indefinitely and had already resigned himself to spending a couple years as a fifteen or sixteen-year-old either back in the cupboard, or in the shed for good this time. Locked in and hungry.
He was already not thrilled with the prospect and would do anything to hide it as long as he could, but he’d thought it out and knew two hungry years was worth it for a better future away from this place, and these terrible relatives of his.
It was this grim acceptance and this decision made that had him sneaking books from the library into his cupboard as well as his other goodies. If he was going to submit to go hungry and be reduced back to the Dursley’s pet “freak”, and he already knew he would have to endure it, he might as well make it all the more worth it in the end and study up as much as he could. He wasn’t a brilliant student but he had plenty of hours alone in a dark cupboard to read and get caught up, or even get ahead with his curriculum.
All in all, life continued. Harry got the hang of how to navigate it without too much issue, as his insane workload became routine and he became an expert at avoiding most forms of trouble by keeping his mouth shut and slyly sidestepping minefields of potential trouble. He kept his true thoughts, personality, dreams, hopes, ambitions—all of it he locked up tight behind a politely blank mask that nodded in a submissive, obedient manner any time his relatives commanded something of his and looked properly cowed or defeated at their scathing insults despite their words having stopped meaning a thing years ago.
Any biting response or surge of injustice, unfairness and humiliation he felt was swallowed and he just continued on the best he could, and planned. One day this act would be worth it, and he’d be free, and that was what he kept telling himself—five dozen times a day, it seemed.
One day. He promised himself. One day, I will be free. Survive until then.
It was a very uneventful day in the life and times of Harry Potter, as he continued on in this manner and just kept living the best he was able to, when a letter with green handwriting on the front dropped through the mail slot. He was commanded to get the mail and he did without a word, letting the bacon sizzle for a moment to go collect it and deliver it to his uncle’s hand.
It was pure chance the top letter was facing upwards, and he caught sight of his own name as he picked the pile up, and blinked rapidly down at the heavy, ominous thing of thick parchment that looked very un-ordinary amongst a pile of otherwise very ordinary mail.
He wasn’t quite aware of it at that one particular moment, but his stable world had just shattered.
