Runaway

by Setcheti

 

 

Disclaimer:  Don’t own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does; I am just borrowing him temporarily.  And this will be a truly neat crossover when I get more of it done.

 

It was, Harry reflected as he dug into the rich soil of the backyard, time to go.

 

He had made mistakes, he didn’t deny it.  He didn’t even expect anyone else to take their share of the blame; he was the Boy Who Lived, they had expected ‘great things’ from him and he’d let them all down.  All of them.  Even the Weasleys hadn’t communicated with him after what had happened at the Ministry, his teachers had spoken to him coldly and only when they had to, and Dumbledore…had sent him back to the Dursleys’ with strict orders for all involved that he wasn’t to be allowed to communicate with anyone unless it was a dire emergency.

 

Dumbledore had sent Harry back to his aunt and uncle’s house with those instructions, knowing full well what had been going on there and knowing full well what would most likely happen once the front door of the house on Privet Drive closed and the reluctantly guarding Order members lost sight of him.  Not that they would have interfered anyway, unless Death Eaters were involved; they weren’t allowed to, and Harry doubted that any of them would have wanted to anyway.  Sirius’ death wasn’t something they were going to forgive him for, probably not ever.

 

He finished the hole he was digging and smoothed the inside of it with his fingers, fishing out rocks and broken slivers of roots.  Then he sifted in the small heap of leaves and pulled grass he’d gathered from the immediate area, making a soft bed, and carefully laid the broken, bloody body of his once snow-white owl on top of it.  Harry fought back the sob that rose up in his throat, knowing he didn’t dare make a noise; he’d been ordered to take his pet’s body down to the bin at the alley in a plastic sack, but instead he’d slunk into the bushes and clawed out a grave for the remains of his only friend with his bare hands.  Quickly he covered the hole, packing down the dampish earth and then fixing the surface so that no trace of the grave could be seen; he wouldn’t put it past Dudley and his gang to dig up the owl’s remains, but they wouldn’t bother searching the little grave out if it wasn’t plainly visible.

 

Wiping his hands off on his filthy, oversized jeans, Harry crept down the line of bushes, making sure any rustles he made were in time with those created by the light evening breeze.  He had to go, and he had to go now.  If he were spotted, if he were caught and dragged back to the house, he was quite sure he wouldn’t survive the summer.  And surviving was what he had to do if the threat of Voldemort were ever to be banished from the wizarding world.  The prophecy was quite clear on that point.  If Harry stayed on Privet Drive and let his Uncle Vernon kill him the way the man had killed his beloved owl not an hour earlier, then the monster Tom Riddle had become would live forever.

 

He was past the border of the Dursleys’ property now, and into their neighbor’s wild tangle of honeysuckle that rimmed the alley for the length of their lot and spilled over into the next.  With luck and the falling dark, not to mention the rainstorm that was even now starting to spit cool droplets from the graying sky, Harry thought he should be able to make it off the Dursleys’ block and into the nearby park, from which point he would be able to escape the area entirely.  He reached back to pat the small padded pouch that hung inside his jeans, and then up to finger what looked like a chipped bone fang that hung on a worn leather thong around his neck.  He was ever so glad he’d followed his instincts and camouflaged his wand as well as shrinking his more precious belongings to pocket-size before getting off the Hogwarts Express in London, or else they’d have gone the way of his trunk as soon as he’d arrived at Privet Drive and he wouldn’t have them now.

 

Droplets became a soft curtain of water became a swift deluge, and Harry took advantage of it to get himself into and then through the park, making swift tracks through the neighborhood on the other side now that he didn’t have to be concerned with hiding from watchful eyes.  He looked like any other teenager caught out in the rain, hurrying toward home with his head down, and no one even gave him a second look.

 

Harry walked all that night, knowing that he didn’t dare stop anywhere close to Privet Drive for fear his absence had been noticed and people were out searching for him.  Even though if they were, they would doubtless be looking in the direction of London, expecting him to run back to Diagon Alley on the Knight Bus like he had once before.  They wouldn’t expect him to be heading away from everything and everyone he knew, disguised by a glamour that made him look nineteen and riding on a regular bus headed for the coast.

 

Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, prophesied savior of the wizarding world and a very upset but determined fifteen year-old, was running away.

 

This story has not been completed.