Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/5219084. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Category: F/M, M/M Fandom: Harry_Potter_-_J._K._Rowling Relationship: Draco_Malfoy/Harry_Potter Character: Harry_Potter, Draco_Malfoy, Hermione_Granger, Ron_Weasley, Dudley Dursley, Petunia_Evans_Dursley, Vernon_Dursley, Albus_Dumbledore, Severus Snape, etc_-_Character Stats: Published: 2015-11-15 Updated: 2015-12-03 Chapters: 2/? Words: 3076 ****** Black Lion ****** by MlleFides Summary Before his fifth birthday, Harry Potter thought he was just a normal boy. After he turned five; he learned how fast things could change when you least expected. This is my first official attempt at a multi-chapter fic. Please bear with me as I learn. All Critiques Welcome. Mind Your Manners and I'll mind mine. It may become darker and more explicit as the story develops. Be Forewarned. ***** Black Eyes ***** Chapter Notes Dear Bibliophiles, This is my first official attempt at a multi-chapter fic. Please bear with me as I learn. All Critiques Welcome. Mind Your Manners and I'll mind mine. All works and products of Harry Potter are the property of J.K Rowling. I hold no authority and this story is a structure of my imagination; not an attempt of claiming any ownership at all. Much Love, MlleFides<3 Black Lion I do now own Harry Potter. This is a fictional adaptation of the characters. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… WHEN Harry was three years old, he loved to play outside. He and his cousin Dudley would run around the garden looking for bugs and hiding in the bushes when Aunt Petunia came to look for them. He always loved to see what new animals they could find and sometimes even left food from his supper for them to eat. Dudley, on the other hand, loved to pretend that he was a superhero; charged with saving the ordinary citizens-usually played by Harry- from harm. One day Dudley climbed the large, knotted tree they had in the backyard and leaped. He said he was learning how to fly to save the people. Harry was learning you were never too young to have a heart attack. Ever since then Dudley liked to climb higher and higher, leaping and landing on his feet at the last minute. Harry chose to stay on the ground and play with the creatures he found. There was a new family of snakes that never bit him but always snapped at Dudley. ----------------------------- When Harry was four, he had decided to keep the snakes a secret. Dudley had started to gain more and more weight, ‘…so I can be big and strong, like dad.’ He said. Harry thought that Dudley seemed to be a bit misinformed but he was happy to play with his snakes while his cousin pretended to be a daredevil. The snakes loved to see him and sometimes, he thought they were saying hello but Dudley would say he was weird and so he kept it to himself. It was soon after this that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon’s new friends brought over their son Piers. Harry had smiled and tried to share his favourite hiding spots and show his snake friends but Piers had sneered and called him a good for nothing orphan. Harry steered clear from Piers after that. But he never forgot how Dudley had laughed and started playing more with Piers because he was ‘cool’ and Harry was a ‘weirdo’.  ----------------------------- When Harry was five, his Aunt had given him a toy she said came from his parents. It was a black lion with eyes that sparkled like diamonds and sometimes Harry thought they changed colors. I was his most favourite gift ever and he never wanted to let it go. It meant his parents had wanted and loved him, even if Uncle Vernon said otherwise. It was one morning after Dudley had started to become too big to climb any higher up the tree that his new friend Piers had dared him to jump from halfway up. “I can’t do that, you’re crazy.” Said Dudley “Then you’re not a REAL superhero. You’re just a flabby, liar boy.” Piers laughed. Harry thought it sounded like one of those donkeys he’d seen on the television. Dudley puffed up his face, turning purple. He stomped up to the tree and began climbing until he was almost to the top. The tree was almost twice the size of Mount Uncle Vernon and Dudley was puffing and red-faced and out of breath when he stopped. “Don’t jump Dudley,” Harry yelled. He looked towards the house where both Dudley and Piers’ parent were; but they were all laughing and no one was paying attention. “Shut up! I AM A SUPERHERO!” Dudley screamed as he jumped. Piers screamed and Harry screwed his eyes shut. It was after they found Dudley floating in midair and heard his screams that the adults ran out and stared in shock.  ---------------------------- It took 2 hours to get Dudley down. It took thirty minutes after for them to move him from Dudley’s new toy room and into his cupboard. Where he could keep his unwelcome freakiness away from the normal people. Uncle Vernon had grabbed his new lion and thrown it away. Harry never saw Piers again. By the time he got to go outside to work in the garden, Dudley had told Aunt Petunia where the snakes were and she had Uncle Vernon chop down the bushes where they stayed. His lion showed up by his new bed the next morning with black eyes shining and its mouth in a roar. ***** Chapter One ***** Chapter Notes Dear Bibliophiles! I'm sorry for the late update!!! I wanted to take my time and get at least 2000 words before posting. And my Betas are in another country so it takes a bit for them to respond with their critiques. I look forward to hearing yours as well! This is my first foray into something this long and this intense so I'm building up my endurance but experienced readers always have the BEST advice. And while I adore Positive Comments. I appreciate a healthy unbiased critique!If you could, if you made it this far into my note, say something that you felt could have been improved upon (as well as something positive-keep my spirits up, lol!); I'd appreciate it. I may not use your advice but I will definitely take it into consideration. Much Love, MlleFides <3 ONE Monday, Harry woke up early. Earlier than his usual time to make breakfast for ‘The Dreadfuls’. His birthday was one week away and he couldn’t contain his excitement. He was finally going to be 11! The Dreadfuls had told him; he would get to go back to school again after his eleventh birthday. ---------------- They’d withdrawn him from school when he was seven years old because Dudley has come home crying one day about how unfair it was that his grades were ‘worser than the freak’s!’ Not that it was that hard, Harry thought, to get better grades than Dudley. The only reason that Dudley had been second in the class was because he and Piers kept bullying the other kids into doing their work for them. Harry, on the other hand, loved school. His favourite class was show and tell, when he could bring in his best toy and show it to the class. He’d even gotten a new friend; well, his only friend really, but still! He’d met this boy on the playground, after he’d seen him getting picked on by Dudley and Piers. His name was Neville and he had a pet toad he called Trevor. He was kind of strange and he was always getting in trouble with Dudley because he stuttered all the time and never spoke up during share time. He only really ever spoke to Trevor and Harry. He’d even had the same belt marks that Harry had, even though his bedroom wasn’t a closet like Harry’s and Neville’s marks were always gone the next day. At first Harry had thought that Neville was a superhero and he had super healing powers, like magic! But when he’d said so, Neville had gotten afraid and started crying, so he never mentioned it again. Anyways, playing with Neville was always fun. He was just as much of a freak like Harry was and, like Uncle Vernon kept saying, ‘Freaks should stick together.’ Harry had loved to have his own friend. Neville was the only one in the entire class that had believed him when he’d told him the story about saving Dudley. Everybody else believed the Dursley’s when they said that he was troubled and a criminal. Only Neville thought that he was sane and telling the truth. He’d even helped him name his lion one afternoon during playtime--- Obsidian. Except, one day Neville hadn’t shown up for school; and when Harry asked the teacher, Ms. Edlund, where he was during breakfast, she’d said that Neville’s grandmother had pulled him out of school. Harry had thought that he and Neville would have been best friends one day. Harry had been wrong and just like that, he’d lost his only friend. ---------------- It was that same day, later on in the afternoon, that Dudley and Piers had come to pick on him for being such a friendless freak that ‘even other freaks run away from you!’ that Harry had gotten so mad that, for the first time, he’d fought back. When Show and Tell time came around, just before school ended; Harry told the story of Dudley: The Superhero Failure. The class had laughed and pointed at Dudley and, for the first time, Harry had felt bad for picking on him but he was still angry so he didn’t care. He’d never seen Dudders’ face turn so purple so fast. Harry’s even grinned and giggled along himself when he’d seen Piers inch away from his seat beside Dudley. Mrs. Edlund, unfortunately, hadn’t thought his story was funny. She’d called his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and told them how Harry had been lying and making fun of Dudley in class and that as good a student as he was, making up stories wasn’t nice. As soon as Harry’d stepped foot inside the house after leaving school, Uncle Vernon had beat him until Harry didn’t think he’d be able to sit for a week after. They threw him into the closet with no dinner and Harry’d spent the night crying. It had only gotten worse when he’d found out that he couldn’t go back to school the next day. His only escape had been cut off from him. When he’s heard, Harry had screamed and screamed from the closet. He’d screamed until all the mirrors and glass in the house has shattered and he kept on screaming until his voice went away and his throat burned. The Dursely’s put two more padlocks on the door after that. But when Harry went to sleep that night, anger at the unfairness of the Dursely’s burned in his mind. Obsidian was posed in a roar. ---------------- But today was Monday. This morning was different. Harry had learned a new trick about Obsidian. It had been the day they’d with drawn him from school; when Uncle Vernon had tried, again, to throw Obsidian away. It had terrified Harry because Obsidian was the only friend he had left and he’d wished he could save him somehow. Then the lion’s eyes had turned icy blue and Harry watched as ice grew on Uncle Vernon’s hand until it was covered in ice and he dropped Obsidian as he screamed in pain. They’d had to rush him to the hospital as his hand turned purple and the ice kept travelling up to his shoulder. ---------------- They’d even forgotten to lock Harry’s closet door! Ice attacks happened to Aunt Petunia, Dudley and even Uncle Vernon’s sister; Aunt Marge. When she’d met him she’d seemed so nice, but Harry wasn’t sure if he could trust her. So he’d held on to Obsidian in his pocket and wished for a sign. After the lion had grown cold, Harry had stepped back just in time to miss her hand when she tried to slap him across the face. As he ran away to his room, he promised to always trust his lion. Obsidian grew cold like ice when he was around people Harry shouldn’t trust. All Harry had to do was hold onto the lion and ask about the person. ---------------- Excited and rarely happy, Harry jumped out of bed and got dressed. He took his time to open the door to the closet carefully before going to outside to play in the garden. The little hand was on the five, so he had at least until the hand was on the seven before he had to worry about making breakfast. He spent his time running around the garden and smiling like an idiot. He even climbed the tree and played with the bug and animals before he headed inside. Today he would finally get to go back to school. Going inside, Harry stated the stove and put the frying pan on before pulling out the bacon and putting it in the pan to fry, put the bread to toast and set up the orange juice and set about making the pancakes. He didn’t look up as the Dreadfuls wandered into the kitchen as the little hand reached the eight and sat around the table. They ignored him and just talked to themselves. The screech of a bird came out of nowhere, startling the Dreadfuls and Harry. Harry ran to the window and saw a tawny owl flying towards the postman that was walking towards the front door. The postman cursed and jumped away fanning at the bird. He saw the bird drop a brown looking letter into the postman’s bag before looking at Harry, and screeching as it flew away. When Uncle Vernon went to collect the mail, his face reddened in anger when he got the letter. Storming up to Harry, he backhanded him across the face. Harry’s face stung as his round, wire-rimmed glasses skid across the floor to the cupboard door. Holding his hand to his swelling face, Harry looked up to his uncle’s large form. “Think you’re special don’t you boy? Telling your freaks to send you mail?” Uncle Vernon raged as he stood over Harry. “There will be no freakiness in MY HOUSE!” Raising his foot, Vernon prepared to kick the freak, but Harry scrambled up from his position on the floor and ran for his cupboard, picking up his glasses as he went. Reaching inside, Harry grabbed his lion and held it out in front of him, after he slammed the door, while he cowered in the corner of the cupboard. Vernon stomped over and pulled the door open, paling as he saw the lion and backing away. Turning to see his wife and soon looking at him, he huffed and went to go to work, grabbing his hat and coat on the way. As the door slammed behind Vernon, Aunt Petunia came up and locked the cupboard door in front of Harry. “But what about breakfast?! What about school?!” Harry pleaded. Aunt Petunia sneered and crouched down so she could glare at him through the bars, “You don’t deserve any of our food. Threatening my husband. You didn’t think we were really going to send you back there to make fun of us did you? You’re just like your good for nothing parents and my foolish sister. They didn’t learn and now they’re dead. And you’ll be dead soon if you keep going on this way. Except you’ll be the last blemish we get rid of, won’t you? No one will cry for you, freak. We’ll make sure of it.” She slammed the door gate shut and he heard her walk away. Harry sat down on his bed and was playing with his lion when he heard the gate open again. He looked up as Dudley spit through the metal at him. Luckily, it missed and landed on the floor. Harry glared at him and he flew back to hit the wall and the gate slammed shut. ---------------- The rest of the week went the same way. On Tuesday morning, there were five letters addressed to Harry. After the postman handed them to his uncle and walked away, Vernon punched Harry before he had a chance to retreat to his cupboard. The punch was so strong that his tooth fell out and his mouth bled. On Wednesday morning, more letters came. So much that there were some in the garden, some were even in Uncle Vernon’s briefcase. The postman was starting to get upset with Uncle Vernon and started saying bad words. Afterwards, Harry almost got to the cupboard before Uncle Vernon could catch him; but he failed, twisted his ankle and didn’t get to keep the letter he’d grabbed. Thursday morning, the mailbox was fit to burst, the garden had letters everywhere and the front mail slot was stuffed and overflowing onto the hallway. The postman had taken to writing rude messages on the door. Harry got to the cupboard in record time. By the time Sunday came, Uncle Vernon was going a little loony around the edges. He was sitting in the couch and sipping his brown drink as he giggled to himself. Harry watched him tell Aunt Petunia that there couldn’t possibly be any post today. Then the rumbling came and, before anyone knew it, the house was completely filled with letters. Harry jumped and grinned as he grabbed a letter and ran to his cupboard. ‘The freak’s got a letter!’ Harry heard Dudley shout out before he looked behind him and saw Vernon running after him. ----------------   The ‘Vacation’ Uncle Vernon took them on was to a dark castle on top of a hill far away from home. It was wet, cold and Harry heard sounds from outside as they got ready to turn in. They had left as soon as his Uncle had gathered every letter in the house. His Uncle had thrown him into the trunk with a handful of raw vegetables Dudley hadn’t eaten. He’d grinned to himself and slammed the trunk shut. Luckily, Harry had Obsidian with him as they drove around for hours. They’d left with the little hand on the twelve and when they reached the little hand was on the ten. The castle rented rooms and was as far away as far could be to Harry. No-one could ever find him here. Now, as the rain fell outside, Harry was told to sleep under the window, shivering as he laid down on the makeshift straw bed the Dursley’s said was his. Looking over to the other side of the room, he saw the king-sized mattress surrounded by the torches and night tables that the Dursleys’ were sleeping on. The two small twin beds on either side having been pushed close together to be able to support Dudley as he snored. Harry was on the other side of the large room. Surrounded by hay and the beams and rafters artfully used to decorate this side of the room. There was some hay the manager had said was for the ‘pet’ the Durselys had told him they had. It served as his bed instead. Staring at the sleeping forms of his relatives, Harry only saw the memory of Uncle Vernon beating him after Dudley ripped the letter from his hands. The embers of the torches as the ashes of his letters fell on the floor in front of him. His uncle had gathered each one of the letters and made him watch as he burnt them all. He still felt the burn from the belt and the twinges of pain when he shifted. He tried not to move too much or he could start bleeding again. The marks on his back were too new; too sore. Moving his eyes from their shapes, Harry looked down to the dirt that surrounded his ‘bed’. With his inky black hair falling down to cover his eyes and the bolt shaped scar on his forehead, he slowly drew a cake with his finger with pale and shaking hands, and completed it with eleven candles and a ‘Happy Birthday’ in the middle of the cake. He took Obsidian and placed it beside the makeshift cake. Taking a breath to blow out his candles; Harry gazed at his cake with clouded eyes, paying no attention to his surroundings as tears fell silently from his bright green eyes. Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!