H.P:the Difference Between Brothers?

A full two days after being tossed in the cupboard, Harry had mostly recovered. He was still bruised from head to toe, but otherwise fine. So that night, he let himself out, long after the Dursley's had gone to sleep, to raid Dudley's second room. On the shelf, there were dozens of books he never read and wouldn't notice missing. He grabbed some food no one would notice missing, and filled up a few water bottles, and grabbed some tea.

And he'd stayed there with only his snakes for company for weeks on end.

Until aunt Petunia rapped loudly on his cupboard door.

"Up! Get up! Now!" came her shrill voice, which was almost loud enough to drown out the lock clicking open.

Startled, Harry say up.

"Hide," he ordered the snakes in a whisper.

"Evil woman. You should let me bite her," Morgan said as they slithered into the darkness at the foot of his cot matress.

Harry suppressed a laugh. Morgan was a black adder, and viscous in her protection for him. She hated his family more than him, and had been asking for years to unleash her venom on them.

"Up!" Aunt Petunia screeched again.

Harry pulled his worn and taped shoes on, and crawled out of the cupboard. Even though he was shorter than every kid in his year at school, he still had to duck through the short door.

Aunt Petunia stood in the hall in her dressing gown with a threadbare towel and one of his three sets of clothes in her hands. She shoved the pile at him.

"Shower," she ordered. "Then clean your cupboard. It stinks."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry said softly.

"When you're done, clean the kitchen and get breakfast ready."

When Harry didn't move or talk, she snapped. "Go, now boy! You have fifteen minutes".

He scurried up the dark stairs. The only light on was the downstairs hall, it seemed. The white tiled bathroom gleamed blindingly when the light came blaring to life. Harry had grown used to the dim light of his magic spheres, and it took longer than it should have for his eyes to adjust.

Squinting, he dug behind the towels for his toiletries. Aunt Petunia wouldn't allow him to use the good products she bought for the rest of the family. Twice a year, she gave him five pounds to buy anything he might need, which she then made him keep out of sight.

Fifteen minutes later, which was the longest he'd ever been allowed to bathe, Harry made his way back downstairs to start on his chore.

"Want to go outside?" he asked the snakes as he stripped the thin sheets and holet blanket from his cots.

"Yes. It is warm outside, Master-Speaker," Morgan said.

She darted out of the darkness and wrapped herself around his legs. Hiss and Corra followed swiftly after her.

Master-Speaker was Morgan's name for him, and even two years after he found her, Harry still didn't understan exactly what it meant.

They stayed wrapped around his legs until he pulled the thin mattress outside to hose it down and let it dry in the sun.

"Don't leave us too long," Morgan hissed at him as they slithered away into the hedges, all three of them invisible in the darkness. They would hunt for a few hours before coming back to find a place to nap until he could sneak them back into his cupboard.

His cupboard took thirty minutes to scrub clean. The kitchen was worse. It looked as though no one had so much as wiped a crumb off the counter in the month he'd been locked away. Harry doubted the rest of the house was any better, and dreaded what his day would look like.

Around his fifth birthday, about the time he started schoo, Aunt Petunia had increased his chores from just helping to him doing them entirely. She had, without him noticing, stopped cleaning at all, instead choosing to make him do everything. If it wasn't up to her standards, she'd hit him and make him do it again until it was. Every failure was met with a palm to the face or a twist of the arm. When dinner had burnt for the fourth night in a row, at six years old, she'd hit him with her frying pan. Every time she had to hit him, when Uncle Vernon came home, he'd get beaten bloody. Then he'd be locked in the cupboard while they ate the dinner he'd prepared.

Harry scrubbed until his wrists hurt and the skin on his fingers cracked. The dishes were done, and the smell of cleaner burned his nose. He'd been preparing a bucket to scrub the baseboards when he heard the sounds of movement above him. He hadn't even noticed the sun rising though the window.

It would be better to wait, he decided. Both Dudley and Uncle Vernon were messy eaters, and he'd have to clean the floors a second time. Instead, he started on breakfast.

Harry shoved a bite into his mouth and put the plates of egg and bacon on the table just as Uncle Vernon came through the door, demanding his morning coffee. He liked his with more milk and sugar than Aunt Petunia liked in her tea, which was entirely too sweet.

A moment later, Dudley followed Aunt Petunia into the room, complaining.

"But it's summer!" he whined. During the summer, Dudley routinely slept until one in the afternoon.

Dudley and Uncle Vernon looked a lot alike. They both had large, pink faces and very little neck. Their eyes were watery blue and small. Uncle Vernon was beginning to bald and had a thick moustace, but Dudley had blond hair that sat neatly on his fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel – Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.

They sat down and began eating as Aunt Petunia explained to him that they had an appointment in London to get his uniform for school at nine. It was already seven, and Dudley whined some more, until Aunt Petunia told him they'd go out for a treat afterwards.

Once they had finished, and everyone was bustling out the door, Aunt Petunia fixed her eyes on him.