19 June, 1989
"But uncle, where am I supposed to go?"
The large, fat man's face purpled at the child's plaintive question. "I don't care, you little freak! I just want you out of this house well before the Howards are due to arrive. The Bolson account is too important to risk even stuffing you into the cupboard. Now get out!"
The tiny boy flinched back from the oafish figure of his uncle before scurrying out the door. His uncle didn't hit him often but it was best not to take chances. The one-time to the emergency room for a broken arm was enough for both the boy and the man. The man didn't want too many questions about the source of the boy's injuries and the boy didn't want to talk about it. So now the man relied solely on emotional and verbal abuse coupled with subsistence level feeding.
In most ways, the physical pain was easier to tolerate.
....
The park was dark and abandoned when little Harry Potter sat swinging aimlessly. The sun had long since set and the moon was rising to bath the park in shades of grey. The park was completely quiet save for the metal screeching's of the swing as it moved slowly back and forth. In fact it was almost supernaturally quiet. No sounds of distant cars or voices. No bats or owls or other creatures of the night going about their business. Not even any wind. Just a still calmness and a lonely boy on a swing.
Harry was too wrapped up in his internal musings to consider the stillness around him.
He tried to be a good boy and get his aunt and uncle's acceptance and approval. Harry was called a 'cheat' when his grades were better than his cousin Dudley's. He was branded a 'hooligan' and 'bully' for the actions of his cousin and his cousin's little gang of friends. No one ever saw Harry do anything wrong but was more than willing to believe every lie spread about him by his relatives.
It would be many years before Harry learnt the cause of this acceptance was an unintentional side-effect of protections placed on him by his mother and sealed when he was sent to live with his aunt. This effect would last until his magical maturity at age 17.
The protections were meant to shield Harry from magical beings with harmful intent; especially the one that triggered the protections: The Dark Lord Voldemort. Lily Potter created the protections but it was the Killing Curse from the most powerful wizard in almost a millennium that activated them. The protections would repel the Dark Lord and his followers for as long as Harry Potter lived with his mother's blood. When he was at his aunt's house, the Voldemort and his Death Eaters could not even approach the house. Away from the house, the protections still gave him an edge; making his very touches deadly to the Dark Lord.
Unfortunately, the protections had an unintended side-effect. Lord Voldemort's deep hatred for his prophesized opponent infected the protections he'd unwittingly activated. It acted as something of a Confundus Charm or hypnotic suggestion on those magical weaker than the one to trigger the protections. Since Voldemort was impossibly strong, this meant everyone outside of Lily Potter's blood relations was impacted to some degree. Now this side-effect was neutral by itself. It was Petunia Dursley that made it a negative. By spreading maliciously rumours and lies about her nephew, Petunia created a magical predisposition to accept a negative view of the small boy on the flimsiest of evidence. Thus teachers, neighbours and doctors all ignored the obvious signs of abuse. Later this easy acceptance of negative information would influence the students of Hogwarts and the wider magical population during Harry's school years.
Only those with over-whelming positive emotions towards the boy would manage to overcome the Confundus-like effects. The stronger the positive emotion the weaker the protection's side-effects were. This would cause the wildly fluctuating public opinion during the boy's teen years.
But Harry wouldn't learn this for many years. For now he was just a small boy alone in the darkened park feeling sorry for himself.