Note: This is strictly AU. None of the characters are related unless specifically stated.
Warning: This is also slash. DracoxHarry with SiriusxJames undertones. Go ahead and flame though, it boosts my review stats.
Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, I wouldn't need this disclaimer now would I? ;)
The Dursleys kicked me out of their house.
Aunt Petunia waited with me at the bus stop, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel of her minivan and pretending I wasn't there. She was fed up with me, and I knew she was counting the minutes until I left.
"I'll get a job," I pleaded. "I'll make money and then you won't have to pay for my food."
"Where? People aren't going to hire you dressed like that," she snapped, barely glancing at me.
I shrunk into the car seat. What the heck was wrong with gym shorts? "Most jobs have uniforms," I reminded her. And it was summer. And I was going to sleep-away camp - everybody was probably going to be wearing gym shorts.
"You can get a job next summer," said Aunt Petunia coldly, "but I'm not going to help you fill out the paperwork."
Part of me wished the bus would hurry up and arrive, because my aunt was making me sick. A bus full of teenagers might not be a very safe place, but at least no one would be wrinkling their nose at me and acting like I didn't exist.
"Harry's going to rehab!" sang Dudley from the backseat. "And I get the Xbox allll summer."
"It's not rehab, Duddykins, it's summer camp," I said, even though he was right - it was rehab. Because the Dursleys didn't think I was normal, and my therapist had suggested I try something new, and apparently getting a job wasn't "new" enough. So Uncle Vernon found this all-summer sleepaway camp to help "troubled" teens, even though I tried to explain to them that I wasn't troubled anymore.
"Hopefully you'll cut this freak act once you realize what the real world is like," he had sneered, ignoring me.
Because a job wasn't real-world enough? And my friend Neville said he was going to get me a job at his dad's mechanics shop and everything, before my freakin' family ruined it. Honestly. None of my friends could believe my aunt and uncle were even allowed to have children.
"I think I see Ron's car," I said quickly, even though I didn't, and I fumbled with the minivan door. Aunt Petunia sniffed and shoved my backpack across the seat toward me as I hopped out, I and slung it over my shoulder without saying anything. I glanced around the Walgreens parking lot. No bus. No red Jeep with Ron's obnoxious music blasting out of it.
I walked away across the parking lot, pretending I had somewhere to go. It hurt to leave, even though I hated that minivan. It wasn't pleasant, but it was safe, and now I had to leave everything I'd ever known. For two months, I'd get no personal bedroom. No privacy.
I was so used to the obnoxious music that I didn't even notice Ron's Jeep until he pulled into a parking space a few spots away. "Oi! Harry!" he shouted out his window, turning down the radio to a socially acceptable level.
Relief settled on my shoulders as I jogged over to him. "Hey, Ron. My aunt just dropped me off."
"Yeah, my parents are at work," said Ron, jumping out of the car. "Charlie's taking this baby home. I'm gonna miss you, Jazz," he said, patting his Jeep.
Ron's older brother, Charlie, slid into the driver's seat with a goofy grin on his face. I guessed he was as excited about having the Jeep to himself as Dudley was about having the Xbox to himself. Ron dragged his backpack out and threw it over his shoulder. "My mom tried to get me to take a bunch of shit with me," he said, "but I told her more backpacks meant more ways to sneak coke in."
Ron was a partier, and when he partied, he partied hard. I remembered everything about the night he had overdosed: late April, babysitting Dudley, a phone call from Ron's parents asking where he was. I said I didn't know. Ron hadn't asked me to cover for him, so I figured he was just running late or something. Phone call a few minutes later, Ron's parents frantic, asking where Cedric Diggory's party was. Text from Ron's parents much later that night. Ron was in the ER getting his stomach pumped.
I was kind of mad at him. He could have died, and there were a lot of people who relied on him, like his little sister, and our whole basketball team, and me. He had beengrounded for the rest of the school year, which made me sad on the one hand - I couldn't hang out with him very much - but relieved on the other hand. At least he couldn't kill himself holed up in his bedroom.
"I still can't believe we have to do this," I said.
"Yeah, I feel ya," said Ron, waving as Charlie pulled away in the Jeep. "And you're a good kid. You've never even gotten a detention, have you?"
"Yeah, I have. Remember that time I was late and my aunt wouldn't call me in?"
Ron grimaced. "Ugh. Still. Sending you to juvie camp? I mean I get the whole divorce-counselor thing, but two months of boot camp? Your aunt and uncle realize we're probably going to have to do army drills, right?"
He was exaggerating again. "They think I'm still troubled about it," I said. "'Troubled.'"
It was a half-truth. I'd been visiting the counselor since middle school, a couple years before my aunt and uncle's divorce when I was fourteen. They'd been on-and-off since our seventh-grade family feud, but I only started using the term "divorce counseling" to explain my biweekly absences freshman year. That was my excuse for why they were sending me to Bedlam Boys' Camp - they thought I was still upset about the divorce.
I was, of course. But that wasn't why they were really sending me. I'd never tell anyone why they were sending me.
"Sucks, doesn't it?" Ron made a face. "This camp's going to be awful. It's a good thing I've been grounded for awhile, so I'm used to complete and utter boredom. Plus I don't have to go cold turkey with a bunch of medical freaks watching me."
At least he hadn't been smoking or drinking much at home. "Do you think there's gonna be serial killer kids and stuff? I mean like real criminals?"
Ron snorted with laughter. "Real criminals are in real juvie, Harry. This is just rehab camp."
I wanted to say "It's not rehab" but I kept my mouth shut. As long as Ron was going too, I could stand a couple months of rehab/juvie or whatever he wanted to call it. "Still. It's probably going to be full of weirdos."
"You can't really talk, you're a weirdo too."
That would have stung coming from my mother, but it just slid off my back coming from Ron. "So are you. You listen to Lady Gaga."
"No shame, bro."
I saw the top of the yellow bus over the cars. "Here we go," I said, hitching my bag higher on my shoulders.
"We got this, dude," Ron assured me.
The bus stopped on the other side of the parking lot, so Ron and I crossed between the rows of cars, backpacks thumping. I kept my eyes forward, daring to glance into the bus windows. No one stared back. The few boys I could see sat in the way, way back, eyes closed, headphones on, backs to me. This was not going to be easy.
The bus doors swung open like the jaws of doom (that's how it was in the video games, anyway). The bus driver, a hulking man, took our paperwork and told us to "sit down and stay down."
Ron and I took the farthest available seats in the back. Across the aisle, a couple of boys were huddled over a video game. I did my best not to stare at their spiky hair and the one boy's flashy earrings as I dropped my backpack on the floor.
I will never make friends here, I thought.
"At least the bros here will be chill," said Ron, after glancing around at the guys on the bus. "Hey, where're you two from?" he asked, leaning around me to address the kids across the aisle.
This was so easy for him.
The boy with the purple earrings looked up, eyes ringed all the way around with heavy, dark eyeliner. "Wha' school or wha' prison?" he asked.
"Damn!" his friend shouted, punching buttons on his video game. "I fucking lost to a fucking computer!"
Scooting as subtly as I could away from them, I tried a weak laugh. I should never have gotten out of my mother's car. This summer is going to be a disaster.
"What school," said Ron, grinning.
I'll be lucky if I survive with all my limbs.
"Eas'wood High," said the earrings boy. "M'name's Sirius Black."
"Fucking dammit," muttered his friend. "I can't believe I fucking lost."
"An' this's James," added Sirius, smiling affectionately. "Y'all won' b'lieve what he's comin' ta camp for," he added, lowering his voice and stifling a laugh.
"Hey!" said James, snapping his attention away from the video game. "You shut up!"
"Why'dja prison guards sen' y'all away?" asked , without bothering to tell us what he or James had done wrong, which I thought was a bit suspicious. Maybe he was just trying to get dirt on us so he could pick on us later.
But before I could warn Ron, he was already shooting his mouth off. "My parents thought I partied too much. And Harry here is in for divorce therapy." He smacked my shoulder, like there was some camaraderie about spilling my secrets to strangers.
"Ron!" I hissed, but the other boys were just nodding.
"M'paren's made me come, too," said Sirius. "T' was m'shrink's idea. Not like James - th' cops made him come."
"Sirius, shut your fat-ass mouth or I'll tell everyone about that time I caught you wearing a flowery apron," snapped James, eyes back on his game.
Sirius faked a gasp. "Now tha' would be truly horrible, mate."
James looked back up. "Just ignore Sirius, the little piece of shit," he growled. "I'm not a fucking criminal and that's fucking final, you hear me, dick?"
Sirius grinned, and when he stuck out his tongue to lick his lips, I caught the glimmerof a tongue piercing. "Yeah, yeah, wha'evah ya say, mate."
Ron just grinned at me and stuck an earbud in. "Wanna listen to some Lady Gaga?" he asked, only because he knew I'd say no.
I slugged his shoulder, but not too hard, which made me feel wimpy, especially with gangster Sirius and his cussing buddy watching me. "No thanks," I said, and one of the boys snorted, which made me feel girly. I dug my heels into the floor of the bus and prepared for a long, long bus ride.
A/N: Please review if you want this story to be continued. I won't update unless you guys want it :)
