Author's note.

Hey guys, so I know that I haven't really posted for my other story in like, forever, but I've been really busy post-High school, looking for jobs and going in for interviews and the like. But, I've had this really big hit of inspiration, and I just couldn't seem to stop writing once I started. I hope you guys like it – I've tried to put what I wanted into proper sentences, but I'm unsure whether I properly grasped the right concept.

So, it's a little bit messed up. But please, if you haven't read my other story and come to realize that this is how I write, don't judge me for my horrible writing skills in this fic. Just read and.. try to go with the flow.

It's a little bit fast paced and crudely done, but just give it a shot – I mean, I did.

Anyway, enjoy!

-oOo-

Chapter One.
Dementors, Dementors Everywhere!

Feet hastily skittering to a halt from its thundering pace, Harry was finally able to see what Dudley had shrieked just after they'd rounded the corner. It was a dead end. They were literally stuck in a dark, dank alley with no chance of ducking back out – the Dementors were too close on their tails. Harry could already feel the deadening effect of their presence in the back of his mind – hear his Mother's screams in his ears. He was shaking violently.

"Do something, Potter!" Dudley squealed, craning his fat head over his shoulder to stare wide-eyed at the mouth of the alley, where the approaching darkness loomed like an ominous curtain. "Quick! Something's coming! I – I can feel it, it's right down there –!"

"Shut up!" Harry snapped, pacing restlessly at the alley wall's edge and thumbing his wand, thinking furiously. "I can't hear myselfthink when you're shrieking like that. Just calm down and don't do anything stupid –"

"THEY'RE COMING!" Dudley screamed, scrambling back against the crumbling brick wall behind, quivering furiously as the chilled air began to seep closer, turning the water lodged in the cracks of the walls and the dirty puddles pooled on the alley floor into a shrieking ice that creaked wherever they stepped. He was paler than Harry had ever seen him – as white as a sheet, and his shuddering blubbery body stood out from the wall he was trying so desperately to sink into.

That won't do any good against Dementors, Harry thought viciously. You've just literally backed yourself up into a corner, you stupid prat! Although.. I seem to have, too. Bloody buggering hell.

Harry shook himself forcefully, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw blood as his frantic mind raced in circles to come up for solutions. He only came up with only two viable options; stand by and let Dudley and himself be given the Kiss, or risk breaking the Statute of Secrecy and the Underage laws by casting a Patronus. And he rather fancied not becoming a vegetable.

"HARRY!" Dudley screamed in a strangled voice, pressing himself further into the wall as if to blend in more. His piggish blue eyes were staring at the blurred forms of the Dementors, a desolate dullness beginning to seep into his watery line like a budding flower. Harry knew that he couldn't properly see them – no Muggle can, but their magic affected absolutely everyone in the same way - magical heritage or not. It was only too bad for the Muggles that they had no protection against them.

Harry shook himself again. No time for pitiful wonderings, Potter! Pay attention!

The deathly rattling gasps of the Dementors came closer and closer, becoming louder with each meter they floated forwards, and Harry finally made out the shapes of two very large cloaked skeletal figures, what could be considered once robes ratty and decayed as they drifted in the frozen wind of their own magic. The hoods of the figures were up, but Harry could feel the soulless hungry eyes staring at him like hot pokers burning into his skin. The air was almost frozen solid by then, their hot frantic breaths forming their own brief clouds before the Dementors rasps and cold magic drew the warmth like water down a drain. Depression was sinking in, and a helplessness and hopelessness began to burrow under their skin and hook into their very bones. Harry vaguely heard Dudley begin to sob.

"No! Not Harry! Please, not Harry!"

"Get away, you stupid Mudblood girl."

"NO!"

"HARRY –!"

A rotting breath collapsed around his face, and that was the only warning Harry had, before a rigid, skeletal hand snapped around his throat like a steel band, and he was jerked off his feet and slammed hard into the wall behind. He gasped for breath, despite the air smelling foul, heart pounding relentlessly in his throat as darkness clouded his vision and the space around him began to get littler and littler, until he was almost in his cupboard –

"GET AWAY FROM ME! LET ME GO, LET ME GO!" Dudley shrieked in the darkness, so close by yet seeming so far away. "HARRY, HELP ME!"

"Stupid girl. AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Harry screamed out his anguish, long and loud, arching his back away from the harsh, cutting wall as a blinding green light exploded behind his eyelids and another of his Mother's broken screams hammered at his ears. The hand at his throat struggled to keep a hold of its purchase, and Harry thought he felt himself being drained away – could feel something inside of him being grasped and pulled loose. He struggled violently then, continuing to scream and wrench himself in the choking hold as the Dementor rasped right in his face, so close Harry thought he could feel the cold, rotting skin of the creature's face, brushing against his cheekbones and nose. If he were thinking at all, he would've been disgusted with the sensation.

Suddenly, as if struck by lightning, the wand he'd forgotten in his hand heated up, and he could finally see the brightly colored sparks in the darkness. He forced his heavy eyelids open then, absently wondering when he'd shut them, and grunted as the Dementor paused in its Kiss and pulled him away from the wall, before smashing him brutally back into it, the back of his head bouncing painfully off a jagged brick, and the pointed crumbling rocks digging into his spine mercilessly. He cried out, and hastily raised his wand arm, pointing the very bright tip in the Dementor's face. The Dementor paid no heed to its threatening display of flashing colors, which almost blinded Harry himself, and continued sucking in the deep, rattling breaths, that something important inside of himso close to being thoroughly wrenched out. He panicked.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" He roared, putting all his might into the spell as the Dementor forced itself even closer, its mouth illuminated by the light as an ugly gaping hole with chipped and blackened teeth spread sparingly around. That infinitely important string inside of him seemed to slip away from the Dementors grasp, just as Prongs burst from the tip of his wand and plowed head first into the chest of the Dementor.

Harry haltingly caught himself on the wall before he could fully drop to the dirty ground, forcing himself to ignore the sharp sting of pain as his hands were cut by the bricks, and the darkness was sucked away as the light of his Stag Patronus filled the alley completely like an overly bright torch. The Dementor that had attacked him propelled itself backwards even further, wailing and flailing about as Prongs reared his proud head and charged the figure with a powerful burst of speed, and Harry watched with a sickening detachedness as it flew away in a flurry of tattered black robes, fleeing the scene with nary a glance back in his direction, but a pained scream announcing its departure.

Harry was distracted from checking over his own physical condition by an agonized whimper sounding near him, and he hastily pointed his wand in the direction, the Stag obediently following its point, as he finally remembered his stupid, annoying, fat oaf of a cousin, Dudley.

The smaller Dementor leeching from Dudley screamed its anguish, feeling the pure happiness of the Patronus just before they collided. Dudley fell from its grasp with a gut-wrenching groan, his eyes rolling around in his head as he pushed to right himself. He was shuddering uncontrollably, his breath still hot in the frozen alley and his eyes wild. He looked every bit the deranged Azkaban resident, but Harry couldn't focus on his health just yet. There was still the matter of the Dementor, and his rapidly paling Patronus.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Harry yelled, reinforcing the spell with as much power as he could manage while still so drained, as he clambered to his feet, feeling sick to the bottom of his stomach as that numb feeling in his chest expanded. He just wanted everything to be over now, he didn't even care for wondering why Dementors would be in Surrey of all places, attacking him and his cousin.

Prongs seemed to solidify for one long moment, and collided with the Dementor with a clash of bones and antlers, the sound sickening in the long alley as Prongs's antlers impaled the shadowed figure. Torn fabric drifted to the cement floor like ashen snow, a cloud-like darkness exploded out from the Dementor as if an over-filled balloon had burst, and Prongs lit up like a supernova as Harry put an extra burst behind the spell, feeling almost as if he was flexing a muscle gone long unused.

And then the alley in which he'd thought they'd die in was empty of Dementors, and Prongs was calmly walking towards him, head held high and seeming hugely satisfied. As he should be, for taking down two Dementors all by himself.

But it seemed that Harry was not to have any relief – there was a sickly moment of dark surprise when he thought he saw a face peering at him from the end of the alley, just behind Prongs's bulky left shoulder, but as he blinked away the last of the fuzzy darkness, it was gone. It had vanished in thin air, as if it had never been. And thinking about the effects of long exposure to Dementors, perhaps it never had been. But, if someone had seen them..

He shuddered to think about what the Ministry might do if he'd broken the Statute of Secrecy any more than he already had. Especially after the way things had ended at the Triwizard Tournament, with Voldemort's return, they wouldn't be very happy with another bad situation that he'd caused. But, then again, living in a vegetable state was worse than having his wand snapped.

And hereally hated Dementors.

"H – Harry?" Dudley warbled weakly from his right, eyes squeezed shut painfully tight and still shaking violently. His teeth were chattering very loudly in the deafening silence. "Wh – where are they?"

"They're gone," Harry told him, shivering in the cold draft that remained in the Dementors wake. He sucked in a deep breath, nose wrinkling slightly at the foul smell, and allowed Prongs to dissipate. He smiled weakly at the Stag as he gave a last proud toss of his antlered head, and pawed at the ground with pride. Almost immediately, the deadened air seemed to crush them as the pureness of Prongs the Stag faded away from sight.

Harry didn't dare to put his wand away yet.

"H–how?" Dudley asked shakily, sounding very close to tears.

"Never you mind how," Harry said lowly, carefully and slowly making his way on stilted legs to the great lump still leaning pathetically into the wall. He was a bit weak at the knees by the time he stopped by the blond, not that he didn't try to hide it. "Are you alright to move yet?" He asked tiredly. "We need to go."

Dudley cracked open an eye, and peered around them suspiciously, eyeing the shadowy corners fearfully. He gave a great shudder of relief that wobbled all of his fat as he saw nothing out of the ordinary. And then he looked up at Harry and seemed to register that something bad hadreallyhappened. That he hadn't imagined anything – which Harry was almost sure he'd been working up to thinking.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph..." Dudley choked out, shuddering violently and flinching into the wall, and then wincing and looking as if he'd just jarred his shoulder painfully. "W – What the hell happened to you?!" He asked, shocked.

Harry looked at him strangely, feeling just a little anxious. "I know that you might have a bit of confusion as to what just happened," he began cautiously, glancing warily and obviously at the opening of the alley. "But explanations really need to wait until we're indoors. We need to get back to Privet Drive, before they decide to come back to finish us off, and if you ask me, I don't know if I can protect us both next time."

"But your – your hair!" Dudley squeaked, not altogether there yet to realize that they were still very much in danger. He looked decidedly ill in the weak light.

Harry scowled darkly at the blond, really wanting some chocolate before he went to bed for the next few years. He already knew that his hair was a complete mess, he could feel that the thick strands were sticking up at all odd angles, but he really couldn't care any less about it at the minute. They'd just been attacked by Dementors, and all he wanted to do was sleep for the next century.

Dudley seemed to gawk at him, then – or more specifically, his hair.

"I don't care about what my hair looks like right now!" Harry snapped at him impatiently. "You really need to get up, 'cause we have to go before they come back! I'll leave you here to fend for yourself if I bloody well have to, regardless of what Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon have to say about it!"

Dudley squeaked again, and struggled to his feet, using the wall behind him as leverage to stand. It seemed to take him years to even get a good grip on the chipped bricks, and Harry was very steadily running out of patience as the blond kept staggering in his efforts, only to have to start over. It was only when Dudley towered over him again that he felt that numbness expand in his chest again, and he felt world weary and tired.

Dudley peered down at Harry warily when he stumbled away from the wall, exhausted and incredibly pale. "I feel like absolute shit," he stated, grimacing as he poked and prodded his thick, bruising neck tenderly. "Why do I feel like I could drop off a cliff and not give a damn? What was that thing? Will they come back?" He asked.

"Later," Harry grunted. "Can you walk by yourself?"

Dudley took a few testing steps forward, stumbling and almost falling over on each one, as if there was slippery slime all over the floor and not grime and stones on the cement. He was quite green around the gills by the end of it, and looked very close to dissolving into a quivering mess. He looked at Harry, pained. "I – I can't," he whispered.

Harry closed his eyes. "You'll have to lean on me, then," he said reluctantly.

"No! I don't want you to touch me! You're the reason those bloody things attacked me!" Dudley grumbled, glaring weakly at him. "It's all your bloody fault."

Harry opened his eyes to glower up at the brute, severely agitated as the blond once again gawked at the top of his head as if his hair had done a belly flop. "We wouldn't even be here if it weren't for you, Big D," he sneered mockingly. "It's your bloody fault for pushing me out of the house, away from protective wards that were put there for me, by the way, to attract their attention in the first place! Bloody hell, the least you could do is help us both get back to your Mum before theycome back for us!"

Dudley grumbled nastily under his breath, and Harry had no doubt that it was about him, as he swung a tired arm around Dudley's protruding waist and tugged a thick, shaking arm over his shoulders. They set off at a slow stumbling walk, but they made it to the mouth of the alley pretty quickly all things considered.

"Don't you dare tell my friends about this, Potter, or else I'll get Dad to teach you another lesson," Dudley hissed pathetically, head lolling down to rest on his chest.

"Why would I ever talk to those bloody pillocks, anyway?" Harry grunted, sweating heavily under Dudley's exhausting weight. "They'reyour stupid, little gang buddies."

Dudley only gave a pained groan in reply, and Harry felt a foreboding nudge in his stomach. He stopped them both in their tracks and sighed out an annoyed groan. "Go ahead, I'll hold back your long, pretty gold locks so you don't get any sick up in it," he said sarcastically, mood dampening considerably.

Dudley protested the insult weakly, before he let out a painful sounding heave, and a dribble of orange liquid spilled past his twisted lips. Harry grimaced at the acidic smell that wafted his way, but dutifully patted his cousin's back as he heaved and let out torrents of what was once sweets and snacks, prepared lovingly by his Mum.

Harry was almost close to throwing all caution to the wind and Stupefying his cousin, just so he could be spared the torture of listening to Dudley sick up and he could levitate him to Privet Drive, but the foreboding threat of what awaited him back at Privet Drive stopped all whims in their tracks. He knew that the Ministry would have cracked onto what had happened, as they did at all the badly timed moments, and he just knew what was coming his way. It left a foul taste in his mouth as his mind kept replaying the threat of expulsion and possibly an arrest for exposing a Muggle to magic, and for breaking the law as an Underage wizard performing magic outside school.

Just let them come and break my wand, Harry thought nastily, as he pounded Dudley's back when his cousin's stomach rebelled against all its contents. They'll be sorely regretful when they find out that it's the only thing that can protect them from Voldemort now that he's risen again. Just let them come.

-oOo-

Harry almost kicked the front door down in his haste to get inside, and Dudley to a sick bucket, and was seriously unsurprised when Aunt Petunia came racing out from the kitchen at the noise, a metal spoon in hand that was still smothered in vanilla ice cream. The spoon slipped from her fingers and fell with a clatter as she caught sight of Dudley.

"Oh, Diddykins!" Aunt Petunia cried, shocked and not a little teary eyed as Dudley slumped into a handy armchair; sweating, pale, bruised, looking like he needed to have a good old cry, and desperately in need of a sick bucket. He was almost immediately cradled within her thin arms – which were certainly no match for his large frame, especially when it was still shivering from the encounter. She fussed over him as he whimpered and cried, not noticing a similarly affected Harry slowly backing away from Dudley, his shaking, tired arms falling to his sides from supporting his mountain of a cousin. "What's happened, pumpkin? You look positively peaked and –YOU!"

Harry found himself bracing his sore back against his old cupboard door as Aunt Petunia released her quivering son from her hold and stalked towards him, eyes blown wide and nostrils flared as she took in the sight of him. He decided not to take offence to her upturned nose.

"What have you done to my poor son?!" Aunt Petunia shrieked, looking murderous, if not a bit fearful. "What did you do?! He leaves the house this morning with a smile on his sweet little face, and then he comes back looking like death warmed over withyou trailing at his feet like some – some littlerat. What freakishness have you done, boy?!"

"I've done nothing but help him," Harry said, working his jaw angrily, and noticing Dudley's familiar bug eyed expression from her elbow as she turned around to check on him one last time. That really didn't help them. "We were attacked," he snapped at her, baring his teeth viciously as she gasped in horror and turned back to him. "By Dementors, they guard the wizard prison Azkaban and suck out all the happiness and hope in the world. Along with souls. I did what I had to, to protect us both. And even then we both nearly died."

Aunt Petunia almost choked on her gasp, a hand flying up to clasp at the pearl necklace hung delicately around her thin, stretched throat. "Dementors!" She cried, stricken. "Dementors attacked my poor Dudley! In daylight, as well? Are you sure?" She asked fearfully. Harry was only slightly surprised that she believed him so quickly – but then, what person would beat up on Dudley when he was the neighborhood giant?

Harry nodded tiredly, beginning to slump into the hard wood at his aching back. The adrenaline in his body was flagging fast, and his eyes seemed to want to close all by their own. "You'll want to give him chocolate – lots, and lots of chocolate, and a nice warm blanket," he instructed her, exhaling loudly through his nose as he slumped down further. "Best to get him showered and a sick bucket, too. He'll be a bit shaken up for a few days – Dementors make you re-live the worst moments in your life, they magnify the emotions in the memory to make you feel worse than you did then," he explained wearily, when she looked at him blankly. She nodded timidly.

"I'd expect Uncle Vernon not to be told that something like a Dementor attacked Dudley today, too. Won't want to draw this out any longer than it needs to be."

"But what about you?" Aunt Petunia asked, not exactly caring about the answer – that much was obvious.

Harry could accurately count the times his aunt had cared about him on one hand, and each time he'd been almost close to dying. It had been mostly when he was younger and in desperate need of medical attention, like the time Uncle Vernon had broken his arm in two places and he'd needed a trip to the hospital and a cast. Or when he'd been ordered to work outside in the pouring rain and storm, and had come down with a terrible fever that'd had him stuck in his cupboard for days, wrapped up or stripped down to suit his feverish body temperature. She'd handed him flu tablets and a bottle of water and told him to get over it.

That was it.

Harry looked at her for a long moment, silent. "I'll be fine," he finally muttered, ducking his head. "I'm used to these kinds of things happening to me."

"And I suppose the Dementors, er..change the wizard in some odd ways when they come into contact with them?" Aunt Petunia asked cautiously, as if she was talking to an injured wild animal and not her nephew. "They do sound positively dreadful, especially for my poor Dudders to see. But as Dudley doesn't have any magical blood in him, well.. is he going to be alright? Will he change like you?" She asked worriedly.

Harry frowned up at Aunt Petunia, his body giving one last pump of adrenaline to stay awake. "Change like me?" He questioned bemusedly.

"Your hair," Aunt Petunia murmured. "It's gone white."

"White," Harry said slowly, uncomprehendingly. "My hair.. has gone white."

"Yes," Aunt Petunia said, nodding her head fractionally. "White."

"It changes colors when he's moody," Dudley stated, scowling at Harry's hair as if it offended him. "I don't like it, and neither will Dad. You'll have to do what the girls do and color your hair permanently before he gets home," he sneered, smirking, despite the dismal situation.

So much for being grateful, Harry thought bitterly.

"I'm not dyeing my hair," Harry said swiftly. "If it's white or changes color like you both say it does, it's that way because of the Dementors!"

"And?" Aunt Petunia dared to ask, annoyed.

Harry glowered at her, surprising a wary step back from his aunt, and a bug eyed look from the both of them that was directed at his hair. He decisively ignored that. "And if this is a reaction to their magic, then no amount of Muggle product will be able to change it," he snapped. "I'll have to make do with it the way it is. And so will you three."

"You won't have that abominably colored hair in my house!" Aunt Petunia said shrilly, shaking her head. "No! You're dyeing it to something normal, and quickly, before your uncle comes home from work and sees it. I won't have it looking like that, and neither shall he!"

"I've got no choice in this!" Harry yelled, looking at her dubiously. "It's not like Iwant my hair like this!"

"Then work some of your Hocus-y Pocus magic to change it back!" Aunt Petunia snapped, face turning an unbecoming red that looked better suited to a tomato. "You did it to that teacher in elementary school, you can do it now."

Harry groaned in exasperation, rolling his head back on the stairs with a thunk. Pain radiated from the bump there, but he could hardly summon any energy to pay attention to the aches and pains in his body at the minute. "Ican't," he said through his teeth.

"Then you'll not be coming out of your room until you have to leave," Aunt Petunia said scornfully, tilting her nose up at him distastefully. "I can't have the neighbors suspecting we have a freak under our roof. That's preposterous! When we took you in, you at least looked normal, but now? You look every bit the freak as we always knew you were. So now, you'll not show hide nor hair out of that room unless you want to be locked up in that cupboard again. Do you understand me, boy?" She sneered.

"You can't just lock me up," Harry growled angrily. "People will wonder where I've gone."

Aunt Petunia raised a thin, arched brow. "And who says that they care about you?" She sneered. "Which of our neighbors will ask after you when you disappear from their sight? None of them, that's what. Who cares about the psychopathic little liar that lives in Number Four when they have such lovely little lives of their own to worry about?"

"My Godfather will hunt you down if he doesn't hear from me," Harry sneered back at her. "Makes you wonder what a killer of thirteen people would do to the people who hurt his Godson, doesn't it?"

"Oh, Harry," Aunt Petunia said, smiling. It was not a nice smile. "If you'd meant to leave us here, you would have told him already – years ago, even. And since you seem so reluctant to tell him about your little lessons, Vernon will have time to squash any of that disgusting freakishness out of you. He really won't like what he finds when he comes home."

Harry squeezed his eyes shut. "I saved your son," he ground out. "The very least you could do is keep Vernon away from me."

"You may have helped my son," said Aunt Petunia softly. "But you're still a freak, and freaks need to be punished. Get off the stairs and go to your room, unless you want to go back into that cupboard."

Harry opened his eyes and glared darkly at the both of them, even as he forced his pained body up off the cupboard door and made his way up the stairs. His eyes zeroed in on Dudley's smug face, and he glared even darker yet. "When the time comes where you need my help again," he began softly, looking between the two smugly satisfied Dursleys with the beginnings of a cold smile. "I'll remember this very day, and just leave you all to rot, and it won't even weigh in on my thoughts when I hear you all screaming the last scream you'll ever make."

The smile drained away from Aunt Petunia's face. "Just go to your room!" She hissed. "I don't want to see your face again! Vernon will handle all of your punishments and food rations, and if I hear one more word out of you over the next week, I'll have Vernon render you mute!"

Harry merely smirked at her, even with the feeling of absolute dread slowly clenching his gut in tight knots. He stalked up the stairs without so much as another word in her direction, and readied himself for the torturous days ahead.