The First Case.

Harry winced in pain as he stood in front of the mirror, using his Power to heal his body as much as he could. Once he had realised Dudley and the gang had been knocked out, Harry had left as quickly as he could have gone and he had headed for the nearest public toilet he could find. His idea was he could use the Power to heal himself now he knew how to use it.

Well, easier said than done, but since this was a controlled experiment following an uncontrollable incident, it was unsurprising that there would be setbacks. Harry spent twenty minutes trying and failing to use the Power by using the same emotions he'd experienced earlier, but nothing happened.

In the end, he had spent a few minutes remembering the insults, the pain he had taken from living on Privet Drive.

He remembered all of those nights spent in the cupboard, sobbing silently as he tried his best to remain quiet, frightened the smallest sound would attract the attention of the Dursleys and it would happen all over again.

He remembered the way Petunia had screamed and shouted at him whenever something happened, be it a piece of ruined washing, burnt meals, damage to her precious kitchen which was actually down to Dudley, and he remembered all those nights where he wasn't given any food and he felt physically ill afterwards.

Harry also remembered the neighbours were not much better. While some of them were neutral towards him, none of them helped him, some of them seemingly too frightened of retribution since Vernon and Petunia were both respectable people in the so-called community, and they didn't want any of their relatives to pay since Vernon was an important figure in Grunnings which employed a large chunk of the people in Little Whinging. If they moaned or raised a stink, Vernon wouldn't have trouble sacking them. Still, Harry felt a few could offer help without the Dursleys knowing but all he remembered was the lack of help from the locals, from the so-called police, social services, and he remembered his disgust for them, like today when he had been clearly in pain after being pummelled by Dudley and his buddies.

Thinking about the gang made him sigh, feeling the pain of the latest day 'Harry-Hunting' although it was one of many such instances. He remembered the first time the gang had chased him, how they had caught him and pummelled him, and he remembered the lack of support or sympathy from the Dursleys. He remembered the many long weeks of this until he had changed his tactics.

He had begun slow jogging around the town, building his endurance and his stamina until he was faster than the gang. He remembered how long it had taken him to find the hiding places, from the most basic ones like behind cars to the more elaborate ones until Dudley and his friends were mystified. He also remembered how at school, under the biased eyes of that bitch of a Headmistress, who was a friend of Vernon's, he was pushed to the sidelines although one or two teachers were more sympathetic…

All of those memories swirled around his mind and then he opened his eyes and focused the emotion on his injuries, mentally willing his injuries to be repaired…

Harry winced again, though this time he did it more out of relief than out of any residual pain. Once it had faded a little bit he leaned back and nodded at his face with a smile of satisfaction. The injuries he'd taken were mostly gone now, all he was left with were a few dull aches. But he knew worse was to come.

His smile faded.

He had no idea if Dudley had regained consciousness by now, but he knew, either way, he was going to get a terrible beating; he had simply lost the track of time, and so he didn't know if Vernon was back at the house or not, but he knew the Dursleys were not the most forgiving bunch. When they discovered what had happened with their precious son and his buddies….

The Dursleys hated it whenever they or Dudley saw his "freakishness," and they always beat him for it. When others saw something happen…Harry shuddered as he remembered the last time it happened, and it had been an event he had never wanted to go through again.

When he had blasted the gang with the Power, Harry had been high. For once he had managed to deal a blow to the gang…and then it had been replaced with misery.

He knew that sooner or later the Dursleys would discover what had happened.

Harry sighed, cursing the fact he had no way out of this. He closed his eyes, sighed again, and he walked out of the gents. He had no idea just what the Dursleys would do now but he hoped that it wouldn't prove to be too fatal.

XXX

Harry backed up when he saw the look in Vernon's face. The fat man's face was purple in hue, darker than it had ever been in his memory, furious….Harry had once read a book about dogs foaming at the mouth with rage, and he could see the foam in Vernon's mouth.

"You….!" Vernon growled, pausing as he tried to push the words out of his mouth, but the man was too angry to form coherent sentences. "You dare HARM DUDLEY AND HIS FRIENDS WITH YOUR FREAKISHNESS?"

Harry didn't dare open his mouth. Arguing with the Dursleys never ended well. In any case, why would they listen to him now when they had never listened to him in the past?

He was silent for a moment as he thought about how he'd reached this moment. As he had thought, he was late back to the house (he didn't see the place as home, never had and never would since there were so many bad memories, and if he had his way, he would live long enough to find a nice legal and maybe illegal way of purchasing the land and evicting the whole neighbourhood and then turning it into a park or something) but he hadn't been too late. The moment he had arrived he had been pleased to see Vernon's car wasn't back yet, but Petunia was, and she had been furious since he hadn't been there to cook dinner. What, was the sucked dry bitch incapable of cooking or something?

When Vernon had returned, he had been in a towering rage.

Why?

Because one of Vernon's friends had found Dudley and the whole gang knocked out, although they had managed to come around again shortly after Vernon had arrived. Apparently Dudley had told him what had happened, or more likely what Vernon wanted him to say. Something Dudley and his chums had done instantly.

As soon as Vernon and Dudley had stormed into the house, they had given a quick summary of the situation to Petunia, and now she was looking at him with loathing. And fear. In fact, so was Vernon, although it was hidden by his anger, Harry had seen it once or twice to know it for what it was and it made him wonder just what it was about him that terrified and angered the Dursleys so much. But he never asked them; for one thing, the Dursleys hated it whenever he asked them anything, although why he had no idea, but he guessed it was a control thing for them. It was just sad it was sometimes so pathetic.

For another, why would they tell him? Again, it was simply a matter of control. But what he could not work out was why they thought it would last. Surely it occurred to the senior Dursleys he would find out, sooner or later, what the Power was.

Thinking about the Power…Harry decided how he was going to get through this. A part of him was just tempted to use the Power now, stop the Dursleys from attacking him, but he quickly decided against it. His control over the Power wasn't great. He still needed to practice. In any case, he knew if he showed he had the Power, it might make the Dursleys lash out even worse than before. That was the last thing Harry needed right now.

Make what happened with Dudley look like a fluke (fortunately, or unfortunately, the male Dursleys hadn't mentioned or brought up the injuries which had been healed, and he hoped it stayed that way although he was curious about why it hadn't been brought up; part of him guessed Dudley had either not noticed, or the entertainment he was going to get had made it slip his mind), and it would give him the time he needed to both heal himself, and to practice as much as he could without getting caught.

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry could see Dudley being held by his mother, who was muttering those stupid reassurances to Dudley as if he were still a toddler. The sight was both nauseating and pathetic.

Harry choked and gurgled when he felt something massive grip his shirt. Looking down he saw the purple skin of the meaty paw.

"I'm going to stop you being a freak once and for all, Boy!" Vernon growled, his hand tightening around his shirt, making it hard for him to breath. As he watched his uncle raise his other hand, which had already been clenched into a purple fist, Harry only hoped that this beating would not prove to be fatal….

XXX

Now he knew how to use his Power to heal himself, it was easier the second time for Harry to heal his body, but it was still painful and with every wince, as his brain was overwhelmed with the pain he was feeling, he was left cursing the Dursleys more and more.

The beating Vernon had given him had lasted for what seemed like an eternity, and it would have carried on if Petunia hadn't told her husband to stop; Harry had noticed that the most about his aunt, while the dried-up bitch hated him, she didn't want him dead whereas her neanderthal husband and son did.

Vernon….Harry closed his eyes while he focused his newfound Power on healing the worst of his injuries, trying hard to exorcise the image of the pig bastard, grinning face as he pummelled him. Harry knew Vernon enjoyed the beatings a little too much, and it always made him wonder just how far Vernon was willing to go…

Harry opened his eyes and focused on his body. Much of the damage had already been repaired, healed. But he knew he couldn't heal himself completely otherwise Vernon would notice, and go off on one of his rants and beatings which made him feel like such a big man. Harry had read but had glossed over a few psychology books, and he wondered if the beatings were meant to compensate for something in Vernon's minuscule mind.

At the same time, Harry had time to think.

The beating had been bad, but he had been through his fair share of them over the years, and this time Vernon had gone away, smug in the belief he had "finally beaten the freakishness out of the brat," and he had decided to starve Harry for the best part of three weeks.

Harry had no intention of letting the Dursleys think they could starve him, and he was sure once he had truly learnt how to make his Power work, it would be easy to find a way around the problem, and there was only one way he knew how to use the Power to get him the food.

Theft.

Harry wasn't bothered by theft; he had stolen his own fair share of money and food, either from the Dursleys although he had needed to be very careful since he knew if they Dursleys caught him or guessed what he had done, then he would be lucky to get out of the house on his feet. But truthfully, as long as he was careful, they wouldn't notice; the Dursleys had such an arrogant opinion of themselves, believing that he was too frightened and battered to even think of stealing off of them.

Stealing from Dudley was the easiest option. Dudley was a pig and his rooms looked like a sty since they were both filled with broken junk that Harry's obese cousin simply did not need. It was also simplicity in itself to find coins Dudley had carelessly thrown aside, and since Dudley never bothered to properly keep track of his things, it was easy for Harry to take small amounts; his ears still ached as he remembered the screeching from Petunia, who believed he had taken some of her son's things, only to be revealed to be wrong.

Once Harry was finished healing himself, he settled himself down and prepared himself for a long period of practice. He had a lot to do, and he wanted to see what he could do with his Power.

He sat in the Cupboard for three hours, paying only the smallest amount of attention to the sounds coming from the living room as the Dursleys watched television as if nothing had happened. In that time, he learnt how to move things with the Power, discovering he could move things from one corner of the Cupboard to the other, while summoning other things into his hand, and then sending them back again.

Once he had mastered that, Harry began multitasking to see what he could do at the same time. With his mind, he visualised himself moving one of the old cavalrymen figures to the left which had been left in the Cupboard a long time ago, while he twirled his finger and levitated another soldier figure and sent it orbiting above his head in a circle around and around his head. At the same time, Harry summoned another figure into his hand before he sent them back to where they had been before.

After he was finished with his experiment, Harry quickly began another experiment. He closed his eyes and focused on the backpack stuffed in the cupboard with him. With his mind, Harry opened it up, and he opened his eyes and smiled when he saw what he had done, and he focused on his English exercise book.

The book came out of the bag and laid itself neatly on the small shelf that acted as his 'desk.' Harry flicked his hand, mentally visualising how many pages were to be flicked through before he reached the right one. He smiled in satisfaction as he saw that he had found the right page. As he went along, he pulled more books out of the backpack, and he flicked through them all at the same time, and as he went along he gained some expertise with multitasking.

Harry found he could flick through the pages of one book while mentally visualising the pages of another, all without touching the pages of the others once he had worked on his concentration; sure, at first he'd made mistakes, flicking through them all so fast until he had reached the same number of pages in the books but he had worked out quickly how to get it right. His smile disappeared once he had finished mastering the skill, and he leaned back thoughtfully so he could think.

He knew how to use his Power. He knew he could summon and banish and levitate things with his mind alone, and he could heal himself and knock people out like he had done with Dudley's gang even though he didn't know what else he could do in that corner, but he didn't know what else he could do just yet. Everything was so new to him right now, in any case, he still had lots to do. So much to experiment with…only he didn't know what he could do.

Looking around the dark cupboard, at the junk which the Dursleys had stuffed into the place to make life as difficult for him as possible for him, Harry just found it impossible to find inspiration to develop his Power, and he thought of all the other instances his Power had spiked. And then he realised something important.

His Power was more versatile than just idly moving things with his mind. He could do a lot more. Harry lay down on his back and thought to himself, ignoring the size of the cot with practice, he had more to think about than worrying about some pathetic show of the Dursley's cruelty. He was trying, very very hard to think of how he could turn any object into something else. Well, he knew he would need to visualise, but still….

Harry quickly sat up, knowing that if he didn't try this right now, he would be nagged by it all night. He summoned the cavalryman figure into his hand, and turning on the light, he placed it on the 'desk' and stared at it for a second, trying to work out what he could turn it into. He looked around, hoping to find something simple to use for this test, and he spotted more figures. Harry didn't know their story, he didn't know if they had once been Dudley's old toys, although he doubted it since they'd been in the cupboard for as long as he could remember, it made little difference; he had found his inspiration.

Harry closed his eyes and focused his Power on the cavalryman figure on his horse, mentally he pictured the cavalryman off of his horse, standing next to it while holding onto the plastic animal with the reins. It wasn't the most imaginative picture, but it was simple, and if it went wrong, great. That meant he would be closer to perfection and help him get better.

When he opened his eyes, Harry chuckled with delight at what he had created.

"Now I've done that, I can move on," he said to himself before he looked around the cupboard, and smiled when he saw the door. "Oh yes. I will definitely move on."

XXX

Harry slowly opened the door and peeked out of his Cupboard. He relaxed when he heard the sounds of the Dursleys upstairs, and he slowly got out of the Cupboard.

He smirked. "They're all asleep. Great, this will be straight forward."

Harry walked to the front door, snorting quietly as he overheard a particularly loud snore coming from upstairs. "Pig, the lot of them are farm animals."

Waving his hand, Harry unlocked the front door and opened it and then he disappeared out in to the street.

Harry didn't have far to go. He merely went into the houses on the street. Well, the ones he knew did not have any dogs, using the Power to open the doors as silently as possible, and he went to the fridges. He didn't completely empty the fridges or cupboards, he only took a piece of fruit there, an apple, a banana, some grapes, or some ham, a few rolls, biscuits and a few pieces of chocolate, but not a lot so then no-one would notice.

When he got back to the cupboard, Harry ate what he could, making sure not to eat too fast even though he wanted to since the Dursleys had starved him quite badly, but he forced himself to eat slowly. As he chewed and swallowed, Harry felt his body regain its strength. As he ate he also reflected on something else.

"I will definitely do this again," he mused to himself, not really concerned that he needed to steal in order to feed himself. It was better than getting the scraps from the plates of the Dursleys. The only problem he had was there were limits to how much he could actually take, but he didn't think it was a problem. He wasn't a pig like Dudley, but he knew the temptation for more would be overwhelming.