Runaway Children

Summary: Under-fed, suffering from malnutrition and injuries, abused and unloved, Harry's had enough. When Vernon beats Harry once again, he runs away. By wishing and accidental magic, he apparates all the way to the streets London at the age of six. He ends up in the care of two young squibs, kicked out by their pureblood families. Later on some other Squibs and Muggleborns are added to the pack. Harry will not be anything like Dumbles had imagined when he dropped Harry at the Dursleys!

Warnings:
Abuse
Violence
Not-Growing-Up-with-the-Dursleys!Harry
Runaway!Harry fic
Independant!Harry
Grey/Darkish!Harry
Non-puppet!Harry
Metamorphmagus!Harry
Street!Harry - Manipulative-Dumbledore – AU

Rating: M for (future) language and violence. Some sexual content (later on). Nothing graphic, though.

Pairing: None yet. Future Pairing not yet decided on. Slash or Het not yet decided.

Beta: Still none. Anyway, if someone wants to beta, drop me a message. Otherwise I'll search for one soon.

Note: English is only my second language. I am certain I have made or will make some mistakes and stupid errors somewhere. Feel free to point them out so I can change them - just don't troll and/or flame, 'kay? I, like almost everyone, am fond of reviews. I prefer (constructive) critic though. While it is nice to hear someone loves the story, I'd still like to know what I can improve to make it better. While it's a bit less nice to hear someone hates my story, I still prefer to know why people hate it.

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor claim any kind of ownership on the original material, referenced in this work. I do not expect, nor will accept any payment or compensation for this work, as it is being done in the nature of fanfiction. Anything you recognize is bound to be Rowling's work or coincidence with fanfiction someone else wrote. I have, to my knowledge, not borrowed/'stolen' plotlines or characters from other fanfic authors. If I borrow something, I will place a note somewhere - either in the disclaimer or in an Author's Note.

AN: No, this does not mean I abandon Harry Potter's Revolution. Don't worry, whatever few readers I may have.

Prologue – Running Away from the Dursleys

In his drunkenness, Vernon stumbled through the hallway, crashing straight into the wall. It was at that moment that he saw the little brat that was his nephew, and decided in his drunken rage that he was to blame for everything – was that not what Pet always told him? The boy is a good-for-nothing freak, just like his parents. Oh yes, Petunia was quite fierce in the hate she felt for her late sister and 'that no-good husband of her', and the only feeling she had for the whole Magical World, was pure loathing. The brat was one of them, as Pet often said. Vernon had to agree. The freak had never been normal, now had he? He had always been different. And hadn't Petunia said that those… those freaks of nature, those thrice-damned witches and wizards were capable of just about everything. They just had no respect for normal people like them, now had they? And since the brat was one of them, it applied to him as well. So of course he was to blame for everything – he caused it, didn't he?

It didn't register with Vernon that the boy's strange behaviour was because of them, Pet and he himself. The boy sometimes stole food, but not out of nefarious purposes, like Petunia claimed, but because they truly fed him too little. The boy cowered, instead of standing proudly like Dudders, because he would be struck if he dared show any pride, any courage. The boy looked scrawny and small, because he underfed and lived in a cupboard under the stairs. The boy wasn't impolite, in fact he was much more polite than Dudley Dursley would ever be – a fact that never registered with the Dursleys. The boy was unnaturally quiet, because he had soon learned that speaking was of little use. Because he had learnt the consequences of speaking out of turn – and anything but 'yes, Uncle' or 'yes, Aunt' after they had ordered him to do anything, was out of turn. The toys were always broken by Dudley, not Harry – for how would Harry have been able to? He never was even allowed to touch them. But because Dudders was 'just like a little angel' and clearly The Perfect Boy, everything he did was the right thing, wasn't it? Everything he said had to be true, after all. No, Dudley was not to blame. Ever. Everything was to blame on Harry.

So when his company had lost over half a million pounds in a year, it could be no one's fault but Harry's – and so, when Vernon had come home late drunk and crashed into the wall, he decided in his drunken rage to punish the six-year-old boy for what he had done.

He dragged the boy from the cupboard that served as his 'room' and woke him up with a fierce blow to his shoulder. The boy had groaned as the pain hit him, which had prompted Vernon in punishing his nephew more thoroughly. Blow after blow landed on the small heap of human flesh that slightly resembled a small boy. Vernon screamed loudly at the boy and lifted him up with one hand. Petunia had woken up from the loud noise and yelled downstairs towards Vernon.

"Is everything okay there, Vernon? That… freak didn't give you problems again, did he?"

Vernon cursed softly and dropped the boy in his shock. He immediately replied. "No, nothing, Pet, just hurt my toe." He yelled back.

No matter how much she hated her nephew, she would not condone this. Yes, certainly, she had given that good-for-nothing brat a spank or smack sometimes, but she had never beaten him up like Vernon was doing right now.

Harry had immediately crept up and stumbled towards the door, despite the pain he was in and his obvious injuries. He knew that he had only one chance to get away.

It took a while – a few seconds, perhaps ten – before Vernon realized that the boy was gone. He immediately turned, just to see the boy reaching the door and pulling it open, with the greatest difficulty. Vernon cursed loudly and bellowed. "BOY! Where the hell do you think you're going?" The boy did not react but ran outside instead, stumbling on his way towards… well, towards wherever he would be free from the Dursleys.

The pain, which he had tried to ignore as much as possible to get away from his uncle, caught up with him and he staggered. 'I need to get away', he kept repeating in his head, even as he fell on the street. 'I need a place to get away from Uncle Vernon.' He crept up, with much difficulty and managed to walk three steps before falling down again. 'I wish…' he thought as he looked up to the stars in the sky, 'I wish I was free.' At the moment his head should have collided with the street, he felt a spinning feeling in his body, as if someone was turning him inside out and upside down, then spinning him a few turns before letting him go. He looked around and in his dizziness everything around him was spinning indeed. As he shut his eyes to reign in the feeling of nausea, he did not see that his surroundings faded and changed into something else. He did not hear the loud, popping noise, because all he heard was his heart, pumping blood through his body at a speed he feared his veins would burst. When his feet hit solid ground again, he staggered again, fell to the ground and lost his consciousness even before his body hit the ground.

The first thing he felt as he woke up was not pain, or fear, as one might have expected. No. The first thing Harry Potter, Saviour of the Wizarding World and Boy-Who-Lived – although he himself was unaware of these neat little facts – felt when he woke up was a sense of freedom he had never before experienced. No more Dursleys. Never.

Immediately after this, his hunger and pain caught up with him, causing a sense of fear, panic even, to flood over him. What good was freedom if he was dead? He tried to move his body, slowly, carefully. As far as he could feel, his head was fine – apparently it hadn't hit the ground too hard - or his neck, but when he tried to move his left arm, a sharp pain shot through him. Memories flooded over him, and he remembered how Vernon had been drunk again the day before – he assumed it was a new day, even though he was uncertain how much time had passed since he had fainted.

It was only at that moment that his eyes shot open and that he took in his surroundings. He was sure he had never been here before – it was not part of the neighbourhood he grew up in, because Harry knew every inch of that neighbourhood due to his cousin's favourite activity: Harry Hunting.

A new feeling of dizziness came over him, and he felt how his stomach asked for food. Loudly.

He tried to get back to his feet, but almost fell over on the first try. Only after he had crept towards the nearest wall, he managed to get back up. His body hurt from stiffness and more serious injuries. As he once again tried to move his left wrist, he felt another sharp pain going through him – enough to nearly fall down to the ground just again. 'Broken, probably', Harry thought bitterly. It wouldn't be the first time, either. He had broken his left ankle once when he fell from a tree his cousin and his friends had chased him into. One of the branches – unfortunately the one he had been sitting on – broke and fell down, and so did Harry. Falling down in an awkward position, he had his ankle bended in a direction normally impossible. It had taken three hours to convince his relatives that something was wrong, despite the clear physical evidence – and then another three hours before they could speak a doctor in the nearest hospital. The doctor told him to be more careful when playing around.

He had also broken his right wrist twice. Once when he had tried to protect a little girl in the neighbourhood from Dudley and his gang, and once when Vernon had been in a drunken rage not so different from the one that caused this broken wrist. That was the only time Harry had ever seen Petunia angry with Vernon. Of course they hadn't told the doctors how it had broken, or he wouldn't have been living with his relatives until yesterday. Despite all pain, Harry felt happier than he had ever before. He now was free from the Dursleys!