It

It - like my Draco-story, 'Boy', this looks at the Pre-Hogwarts Harry Potter when he's six-years old and at home with those wonderful people we know as the Dursleys. Don't you just love family?

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"Mummy!" Even before he enters the kitchen, the small boy hears the cry. It is the whiny, wheedling cry that precedes a temper tantrum of kicking feet and pounding hands. "Make it go away!"

Pausing in the doorway, the smaller of the boys feels two pairs of uncaring eyes and one pair of malicious, piggy ones on him. Half-shielded by the door, he looks from face to face.

"Mummy! It’s staring at me!"

"Get back to your cupboard," A scrawny hand is imperiously waved in his direction. Dismissive. Green eyes blink behind a tangled fringe of black hair. The woman who is his aunt glares at him. "Now!"

The boy doesn’t move. He nibbles his lower lip and looks around again. The long sleeves of his shirt hang past his hands. He looks utterly forlorn.

He knows he should go, before something is thrown at him, but he...

He is afraid of the dark and it’s always so dark in his cupboard. The cupboard under the stairs. Full of dust, decay and spiders webs, covering his bed, his clothes and - more often than not - him.

"Please..." he begins.

"Who said you were allowed to speak, you little freak?"

Harry blinks hard, again. He knows he shouldn’t be treated this way. He can’t say how he knows, but something inside him tells him that not everyone is treated in the same way as him.

He deliberates for a long time before speaking.

Its hard to tell what kind of mood they are all in, but he knows he has to speak to them, point something out to them, plumb their shallow depths for any kind of pity and conscience.

"It-it’s dark..."

His aunt and uncle exchange looks. Then they smile at the boy. It isn’t a pleasant sight. "It’s dark, is it?" His uncle starts to rise, the sofa creaking beneath him. "And what about the air duct in the door? I suppose that isn’t light enough for you?"

"I-I-I-I..."

"Stop stuttering, you fool," A beefy hand grabs one of his ears, jerks him up onto his toes, forcing him to follow. He whimpers softly. It feels like his ear is going to be ripped from his head.

He is dragged into the hall, his cupboard door yanked open. A spider scuttles across his mattress on the floor.

"Looks fine to me," His ear is released, only for the huge hand to slap down against the back of his skull. Stars flash in front of his eyes. He staggers, a hard push between his shoulders sending him crashing into the cupboard.

Colliding with the wall, he cries out at his head hits brick. A kick to the back of his legs makes him jerk them towards his chest as he crumples on the mattress. Behind him, the door is slammed shut.

Tears brim painfully in his eyes. One hand rises to the bump he can feel forming on his brow. Light slats in through the tiny air duct and he sees small, cruel eyes staring in on him.

"Please," he whispers imploringly, shivering.

He hears that familiar derisive laugh, his eyes closing in despair. Enjoy it," a cold voice says, then the duct is slammed closed, plunging him into complete darkness.

Sitting up on the mattress, his eyes tightly closed, he edges towards the door and presses his ear to the wood. If he can hear them talk, he knows it’ll distract him from the dark around him.

"Is it back in its cupboard?" his Aunt asks.

"Stupid little idiot was afraid of a few shadows," his Uncle says. "If we weren’t its blood family, I would make it sleep in the garden."

They continue along this same vein and Harry, his ear and one hand pressed against the wood, feels oddly comforted to know that nothing has changed out there. Things are the same as ever.

"Mummy," He shudders, but doesn’t move from the door at that voice. "If it’s locked up for the night, can I have its dinner?"

"Of course you can my little Dudder wudders."

Drawing away from the door, Harry curls up into a tight ball in the middle of the mattress, pulling his thin blankets over him. He hears his stomach gurgle in a plea for food, but can only bunch his fists against it.

He goes hungry now and then.

He is used to it.

A tickle suggests a spider is running across his face and he brushes it off with a small hand. Spiders aren’t so bad, he knows. They’re the only friends he has in the dark little cupboard.

He freezes.

Something clicked further down the cupboard.

He jerks bolt upright, staring around wildly.

What is it?

There shouldn’t be anything in his cupboard!

Cringing back, he scrambles as far up the mattress as he can, bumping into the wall at the end of the small cupboard. It is the end of his small world and he knows that he can’t run further.

Click.

There it is again!

He stares around again, pulling his knees up against his chest. He can feel himself shaking hard. His eyes are burning. He wants to cry. He knows that if he does, it will only be worse.

There shouldn’t be anything making noises there.

There shouldn’t...

Hot tears splash down cheeks that are - unseen - white as chalk.

Hugging his knees, he rocks against the wall, trembling.

Click.

"Go away," he whispers.

Click.

"Please..." More plaintive.

Click.

"Pleasepleaseplease..."

Click.

Click.

Click.

He can stand it no longer.

"Let me out!"

Small fists pound wildly on the door of the cupboard, uncaring of the punishment that will wait on the other side. Skin bruises, but he continues to scream, beating his little hands on the hard wood.

"Please! Let me out! Let me out!"

He is breathing rapidly. His legs are trembling. One of his hands feels wet, but he doesn’t know how. It hurts too. He can hear movement from the other room and presses against the door desperately.

"Please...let me out...please...please...please..." he whispers. He flinches as the duct is yanked open, light flashing across his face.

"What the devil are you whining about?"

Green eyes stare at the piggy eyes on the other side in terror. "There’s a monster," he manages to whisper, tears caking the dust on his cheeks. "I-I-I-I heard a monster..."

"Don’t be bloody ridiculous," his uncle snorts. "And even if there is, maybe it’ll do the lot of us a bloody favour and eat you."

"No...please...please, let me out...I’ll behave...I’ll be quiet..."

The air duct clacks shut again. The darkness seems even deeper than it did moments before. He hears his uncle’s voice again, muffled by the door. "Another sound from you and I’ll thrash you so hard you wish there was a monster."

Footsteps recede and he hears them laughing.

Leaning against the door, he slides down to his knees, his right shoulder and side pressing against the wood. The bump on his right temple throbs agonisingly, but he is distracted by the quiet clicking around him.

There is something here...

Maybe if he ignores it, it’ll go away...

One of his shaking hands comes up to his mouth and he chews on the end of his thumb, his other hand curled defensively in against his chest. He can taste blood on his skin, but he doesn’t care.

All he cares is that he makes himself as small as possible, so whatever is in the cupboard can’t find him.

"Its a wimp, isn’t it?" He hears his cousin’s voice. "Imagine being afraid of the dark...it’s stupid..."

His lower lip trembling, Harry pulls himself into a tight ball and presses his eyes shut, still chewing on the tip of his thumb as he silently rocks back and forwards, tears pouring down his face.

He chokes on a quiet sob, his other hand rising to shield his head, the long sleeve of his shirt hiding his face from anything that may be lurking around him.

It isn’t the dark that scares him...not always...it's the things in the dark...

All he wants is a little bit of light.