Chapter Text
Harry Potter had a secret.
He’d always collected secrets like some kids collect pokemon cards or interesting rocks, anything that would make his life more difficult if it got out.
Sometimes, when the days were long in his cupboard and he was bored of playing with Dudley’s broken toy soldier, he’d list his secrets one by one, shelving them in a different part of his brain until he almost forgot those secrets existed.
When Harry started school the Durselys made it clear that his cupboard, freakishness, Harry Hunting, and some of the Durselys more creative ways of “disciplining” him were to be kept strictly hush-hush with the promise of being locked away without food until he was a mere skeleton keeping him from saying anything.
So, Harry listed those as secret number one, two, three, and four.
When Harry was six years old, he had a teacher, Mrs Peachum, who Harry gave one - just one - of his secrets to.
Mrs Peachum was always kind to him, greeting him each morning with a big hug and worried eyes that swept over his too big clothes and messy hair, as if looking for something.
The first time Mrs Peachum found a bruise on his arm, she took him aside at recess and told him that she knew it wasn’t from falling out of a tree. She pointed out the finger marks and explained that it could only be from a hand - a large hand - and that she didn’t think it was an accident.
She promised she wouldn’t tell the Durselys anything he told her, and she promised to keep him safe.
She lied.
As Harry stuttered out the truth, just one secret - tiny in comparison to everything else he carried, Mrs Peachum listened intently with big, compassionate eyes and gave Harry a great warming hug. Pulling him back just far enough to look into his eyes she promised him that he would never have to go back to the Durselys ever again.
It was the happiest Harry had ever been.
He didn’t go to class for the rest of the day, instead talking to a nice lady who Mrs Peachum introduced as a friend. The nice lady asked lots of questions, about what he ate, where he slept, what a normal day was like at the Durselys, how he was disciplined, and so on.
She gave him his first taste of grape juice which he happily sipped as he kicked his legs on his too big chair.
Harry hated grape juice.
But all too soon, he was back with the Durselys, who smiled and groveled at the nice lady’s feet, and told stories about Harry’s big imagination. How he told stories to get out of trouble. Yes, the handprint was from Vernon, but only to prevent Harry from running into the street. Of course they would never dream of hurting their dear nephew!
They showed the nice lady Dudley’s first bedroom, which mysteriously now had a second bed, and assured her how well cared for their troubled nephew was.
They told her he was traumatized from the death of his parents. They said he would rip his up his clothes and destroy his toys. They showed her Dudley’s second bedroom, full of destroyed toys and ripped clothes.
They explained that as a “natural consequence”, they had resorted to giving Harry Dudley’s old clothes, with the opportunity to earn his normal wardrobe back with good behavior.
Evidence always outweighs hearsay.
For the next two weeks, Harry was struck down with a mysterious illness that gave him a black eye, fingers that didn’t look or move quite right, and welts on his back. Each morning in his cupboard, Aunt Petunia gave him a bottle of water, a sleeve of crackers, and a bucket to relieve himself in.
When Harry went back to school, instead of giving Harry his daily hug, Mrs Peachum asked about his pneumonia.
Harry never told another person his secrets.
As he got older, Harry continued his list of secrets. Instead of just four secrets, somedays it would climb up to twenty or higher.
Sometimes, when the secrets felt too big, Harry would whisper his list to the garden snake that hid under Aunt Petunia's hydrangeas when he worked on the yard.
Sir Hiss was a great listener, and sometimes, Harry would imagine the snake talking back to him, telling him about the mice it caught and about the neighbor's strange pond that didn’t have any fish.
Of course, Harry knew it was just pretend, Uncle Vernon made that clear enough.
But sometimes, he would whisper to the snake anyway.
What was one more secret, anyway?
…
When Harry turned eleven and a big, hairy man came to tell him about the wizarding world, Harry hoped that would be the end of his secrets.
But finding out he was a wizard only made his list longer.
And although Harry made a concerted effort to share his list with his two best friends, Ron and Hermione, every time he tried to talk about something more personal than a three headed dog or the pain in his scar, his throat went dry like all the water in the world was gone, and an ache settled in his stomach like he hadn’t eaten anything more than a sleeve of crackers.
It was humiliating to witness his throat dry up and the words to die in his throat, so after a while, Harry stopped trying.
He made up for it in other ways, though. He gave them every secret that didn’t dry up his throat. He let them know about the pain in his scar, the headaches after Defense Against the Dark Arts, Malfoy’s hatred of him. He took them with him to visit Hagrid, smuggle a Dragon out of Hogwarts, and finally through the tests that led to the sorcerers stone.
He shared everything with them.
Just not this.
Not his list.
And now, after a full year in the wizarding world, Harry had a new secret.
And although this secret didn’t dry up his throat, he knew he couldn’t share it without sharing everything else. So he held it close and hid it like he did everything else.
He was going to run away.
…
When Harry saw Hogwarts castle for the first time, feeling the hug of old magic surrounding him, the Durselys felt another world away.
When he lay in his very own bed with no lumps and a full belly, he wished he could stay forever.
On the train to Hogwarts, Harry had foregone the sweet cart and traded his galleons for muggle money from muggleborn first years wanting treats.
He wasn’t even thinking about leaving the Durselys, not yet, he was just imagining a summer where he could buy his own food from the grocery store and hide it in his bedroom's hidey hole.
By the time he got the invisibility cloak, he was planning his escape, deciding if it would be better to go home with his relatives and sneak away, hiding under the cloak in the meantime as needed, or if he could simply just stay at Hogwarts and not tell anyone.
Regardless, Harry knew that he’d need food, and with magic - anything was possible.
He spent a good portion of one Saturday in the library searching for ways to magically create food.
Prefect Percy found him after a few hours and after Harry looked at him, with his big green eyes asking for help in a soft voice, offered to teach him some preservation spells.
Soon after, Harry always made sure to tuck away leftovers from each meal into his pocket to spell with a preservation charm once he had some privacy.
Having a stockpile of food in Harry’s trunk and pockets helped to relieve that little ache in his chest he got when thinking about a dark cupboard and not enough food.
After the eye trick worked on Percy, he started asking other older years for help with various spells. Something that would help him survive on his own for a summer, with random things sprinkled in there to keep them off his trail.
Of course, Harry made sure to ask a different older year each time, Hufflepuffs were particularly helpful, with a different excuse behind the request. He didn’t want any rumors floating around about what the “Great Harry Potter” was planning.
By the end of the year, Harry was proficient in preservation spells, shrinking spells he could undo without magic, one basic disillusionament charm (that he learned before gaining the invisibility cloak), and a variety of lesser known but helpful spells like one that could pack his trunk for him.
He even tried his hand at wandless magic, until Hermione informed him in a haughty tone that the trace picked up his magic outside of magical places with or without a wand.
So Harry started considering running off to a far away wizarding community. One where they had never heard of Harry Potter.
Because of all of this extra practice, Harry’s practical grades improved a great deal. Not so much in written things. Harry’s hand never did heal quite right, and holding a quill made it ache. When he was able to complete an assignment, his handwriting was so poor that the professors typically gave him a Troll simply because they couldn’t read it.
But in practical exams, Harry excelled.
Flitwick was kind enough to allow him to take his exams verbally, and word went around to the other teachers until everyone, except Snape, allowed him to verbally explain his answers.
Even Quirrel patiently stuttered his way through the exam with Harry.
And then, Quirrel died.
(Harry killed him.)
Dumbledore said it wasn’t his fault, it was Voldemort who had truly killed him.
(Quirrell would never breathe again.)
So Harry really shouldn’t feel bad.
(Quirrel’s face, burning, melting under Harry’s hands)
It was Quirrel’s fault, really. Allowing Voldemort to take half of his skull.
(The grotesque snake-like parasite, Quirrel sobbing in an empty classroom).
But it got Harry thinking.
(Remembering the smell of burning flesh).
If Quirrel was able to die that easily,
(His agonizing shrieks of pain).
Who else would die?
(He didn’t even have a funeral).
His accidental magic never truly hurt Uncle Vernon, not really, but what if Uncle Vernon went too far?
(He remembered Dudley with a pigs tail. Hagrid’s threats to keep Uncle Vernon in line were now a year old).
What if his mum’s protection killed Uncle Vernon too?
(He remembered other things too. A dark cupboard, with no food or water, broken fingers).
He couldn’t go back to Privet Drive.
He would never go back.
Harry would rather starve first.