|
Runaway
by Setcheti
Disclaimer: Don’t own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does; I
am just borrowing him temporarily. I don’t own the BTVS series this
is crossed over with either, same conditions apply. This story is still in progress,
but it was updated on 21 June 2009.
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.
~*~*~*~*~HP~*~*~*~*~
Harry approached his third construction site that
morning, knowing that morning was fast slipping away and with it another
day’s chance to find work; it was his fourth day in this part of Canada,
and he really didn’t want to sleep under another bridge tonight. He
resisted the urge to check his glamour again, knowing it was still in place
and he still looked old enough to work rather than young enough to have
been in school. And he knew he was strong enough; after all, he’d
been working ever since he could walk. But this was the third site
he’d tried, and so far no one had even given him a chance.
He walked up to the nearest worker who wasn’t working, a
bulky man bending over a water spigot, and cleared his throat.
“Excuse me,” he said politely. “But could you please tell me if your
boss is on site? I’m looking for a job…”
The man stood up and turned around, and Harry’s eyes
widened; it wasn’t a man. Whatever it was had blue skin and three
small horns protruding from underneath the hardhat that shaded its round
yellow eyes. It swiped away stray water from its mouth with the back
of its hand and nodded, sizing him up. “We could sure use another
pair of hands, yeah,” it said in a distinctly Toronto accent. It
jerked one of two thumbs in the direction of a small trailer on the other
side of the site, where a man in a blue hardhat was talking with two other
workers over some plans. “Hey! Harris!” the…person Harry had
been talking to yelled out, waving his arm. “Got a guy here wants to
work!”
“Always good to hear! If it’s true!” the man
called back. “Send him on over!”
Harry collected himself enough to thank the helpful
worker politely, and on a second’s consideration offered a slight bow as
well before hurrying away toward the person he hoped was going to hire
him. He did not see the worker’s third eye open wide with surprise at
the respectful gesture.
The man in the blue hardhat, Harry was relieved to see,
was just a man. He was slightly under six feet tall, with dark hair
and one dark eye showing, the other eye being covered by a plain black
patch. He sized Harry up much the same way the horned blue worker
had, but with more intensity. “You looking for work, kid? Ever
done any before?”
Harry drew himself up a little straighter and tried not
to let frustration get the better of him. “I’ve been doing hard work
most of my life. I’m a good worker, and I learn fast.”
“Again, things I like to hear.” He looked to the
other workers with him, both of whom were red-skinned and had curved
claws. “I notice you’re not having much of a problem with the idea of
working with demons.”
“That’s what they are?” Harry blurted out, and then
winced. “I am sorry,” he apologized to the red demons, and repeated
his earlier bow. “That was rude of me. I meant no offence.”
“None taken,” one of the demons grunted, and the other
nodded agreement. It returned its attention to its boss. “Wanna
go over the plans some more after lunch? We’ve got enough to go with
for now.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Harris agreed, and started rolling
up the plans he was holding. “You two get back to it, then.
C’mon, kid, you’re with me.”
Harry followed him back to the trailer and once inside
he took the chair the older man waved him to and sat on the edge of
it. Demons. He desperately wanted to ask about the demons…but
he was more desperate not to be jobless and sleeping under a bridge any
longer. Harris looked human, if he was working with the demons it must
be okay.
The man had taken his own seat behind a cluttered desk
and was giving Harry a speculative look. “You haven’t been in town
long, have you?” he asked.
“Um…no.” Harry sat a little straighter. “I
was working on a cargo ship, as a deckhand. When we docked here I
decided to have a look around, and I thought I‘d see about finding
work.” He scooted forward and held out his hand. “I’m Harry
Smith.”
The other man accepted his hand without
hesitation. “Xander Harris,” he returned. He still had a
speculative look about him, though, as he sat back in his chair.
“You’d never seen a demon before today.” It wasn’t a question, but
Harry shook his head anyway. “You were polite, that was good,” Harris
told him. “It’s always best to be polite until you know you should be
otherwise, but I’m guessing you already knew that. And I’m not going
to hold it against you for giving me a phony last name; been there, done
that. Now tell me why I need to hire a runaway underage British magic
user to work construction in the middle of a demon enclave?”
Harry started. What was a demon enclave? And
how had this man known about his name, or that he had run away, or that he
knew…he collected himself with an effort. “I don’t know what you
mean.”
“I’m sure you do.” Was that a gleam of sympathy in
Harris’ eye? It was gone too fast for Harry to be sure. “Except
about the demon enclave, you obviously didn’t know about that. Kudos
for striking the right note with my crew and not running screaming off down
the road, though. How many days have you been sleeping out since your
boat docked?”
“A few. Three.” Was this man reading his
mind? Harry wished with everything in him that he’d been able to
master the Occlumency. If this man, or the demons, could read his
mind or sense his magic…
“I can’t read your mind,” Harris interrupted his
panicking internal monologue. “I’m just very…perceptive, you might
say. It’s a gift. And some demons might be able to see through
the spell you’re using, but not all of them. I’m not trying to scare
you, but I think you need help and you’re not going to get that if we play
games with each other. So I’ll just lay it out and you tell me if I’m
wrong.” The man’s brown eye was kind, his voice gentle. “You’re
a good kid, always try to do the right thing, you know how to use magic and
you’re pretty good at it. And it’ll be at least five years before
you’re actually the age everyone else thinks you are, but you act like
you’ve been grown up for a long time. Which tells me that whatever
you’re running from must be pretty damned bad, and has more magic than you,
because someone like you doesn’t run unless they’ve got no other options.”
Harry looked at him for a moment, trying to decide if he
wanted to try to bluff the situation out…and then he sighed. “I’m
fifteen, almost sixteen,” he corrected the older man. “I’m just small
for my age. And I was running for my life.”
“I kind of figured.” Harris was nodding.
“Okay Harry, here’s how we’re gonna play this. You’ve got the job,
but no more sleeping out. You’re coming home with me, and my place is
where you’re going to live from now until you’re legal, got it? You
and I, we’re gonna to be honest with each other, and by the end of tonight
we’ll both know everything there is to know about anything or anyone who
might be coming after either one of us. You’re going to listen to me,
you’re going to let me teach you, and in return I’m not gonna treat you
like some little kid who doesn’t know anything. Deal?”
Harry thought about it, then nodded and took the offered
hand. His instincts were telling him that this one-eyed man who’d
seen through his glamour was a safe person to be with, and he was
definitely going to listen to them. They hadn’t steered him wrong so
far.
This story has not been completed.
|