Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any thing.
Harry Potter sat on the swing set feeling secure and away from danger—not because he was in a particularly safe place, considering Duddly's gang, but because it was raining, and all civilized—or supposedly civilized—people were indoors. Harry, however, was not inside. He was purposefully letting himself get drenched, lacking the desire necessary to worry about his own well being. He'd far rather drown in the rain than be stuck inside the house with the Dursley's all hours of the day and night. At least then when he had one of the nightmares that plagued his nights he would not be reprimanded for screaming himself awake.
The rain started to fall more heavily; lightening struck off in the distance, but the strikes were rapidly coming closer to the park. Wind blew against Harry's wet face. Despite the warm summer air, he shivered as a chill ran through his scrawny frame. The sky was growing darker, but that did not worry Harry at all.
"Harry!" he heard his Aunt Petunia call from the distant Number Four Privat Drive. "Harry! If you aren't in within the next five minutes you can stay out there all night! We're not going to wait up for you any longer than that."
How Harry could possibly hear her his aunt all way out there was beyond him, but it hardly mattered to him. He knew his aunt would hold good on her threat. Indeed, he counted on it so he would not lose his nerve later. Said simply, Harry had no intention of going in that night. He did not want to get yelled at for having dreams about the graveyard again. He would rather get soaked to death in the rain then punished for something that he had no control over.
He sat there and continued to try not to think well past sunset. Around midnight—well really that was only a guess; he had no way of knowing for sure—the rain slackened off to a drizzle. A short while later, the rain stopped all together. Harry sat on the swing, soaked to the bone, as the world around him slowly got colder now that the sun had sunk far below the horizon. Harry shivered involuntarily as a cold breeze blew over him, and he wrapped his arms around himself protectively.
After a while, he began to feel the strange prickling on the back of his neck that indicated he was being watched. After a quick glance around, he saw a small, rather scrawny alley cat watching him. At that Harry lost his patience. "What?" he demanded of the poor cat. It scattered as if a dog were after it.
As Harry turned back around, fuming because his concentration was broken, and undesired images of what had happened the night of the third task were put to the forefront of his thoughts, he did in fact see a dog pounding across the park. "What is this?" Harry growled to himself. "I can't even scare a bloody alley cat?"
At about that moment he recognized the dog and he immediately started cursing. "Goddamnit! What the hell does he want now? Can't I have ten minutes of peace?" He watched as the giant black dog came closer. "Ugh! Sirius, piss off!" The dog, however did not halt in its pursuit. In fact, it may have sped up. Without stopping to think harry turned around and split across the park towards the alley where the cat had disappeared.
It didn't occur to Harry until a few moments later that it would be rather impossible to out run Sirius while the latter was in his dog form.
After only about thirty seconds of running Harry felt two large paws slam painfully into his side. Almost as soon as he was pinned to the ground the dog turned into Sirius. "Harry James Potter! What are the bloody hell are you doing out here? It's two o'clock in the morning!"
"What does it matter what time it is? Get off me, Sirius," Harry mumbled angrily.
"You should be in bed sleeping! In fact, it only just stopped raining! You shouldn't be outside at all! You're soaked straight through! And you're aunt said that you refused to come inside at all today. She said you skipped out of the house first thing in the morning before anyone else got up then you wouldn't come in at all. What's up with that?"
"What's the point in being inside if all they're going to do is yell at me, huh? Get off of me Sirius." Harry attempted in vain to push his godfather off of him, and he cringed as his he somehow managed to twist his wrist painfully against him.
"What's wrong? Bloody—what the hell happened to your arm, Harry?" All of Sirius's former anger drained away and he was the epitome of concern.
"I twisted my wrist," Harry answered, suddenly becoming unwilling to speak.
"How?" Sirius demanded, unconvinced by Harry's nonchalant tone.
"…I don't know. It's not a big deal Sirius. It's just a little sore…" Harry muttered unhappily.
Sirius got up and sat back on his heels. Harry sat up and started rubbing his sore ribs. "Let me see it," Sirius offered gently.
Harry looked at him and seemed for a moment like he was not going to let Sirius see his wrist at all. Eventually, though, he did offer his arm to Sirius. "it's no big deal," Harry muttered again. "It's just a little sore."
Sirius looked at him doubtfully. "I'm pretty sure it's more than just sore," he reprimanded. He ran one finger down Harry's arm, barely touching the teenager. Harry winced badly the entire time and turned a little pale, though he did not try to yank his arm away from his godfather. Sirius did the same thing on the other side of Harry's arm with the same effect.
"How did this happen?" Sirius asked again. His voice was carefully calm, but it was also demanding. This time he was not going to tolerate his question being brushed off, and Harry knew it.
"I guess Duddly and I got in an argument about something or other and one of his friends twisted my arm behind my back a little more harshly than he intended to." Okay, Harry thought to himself, that's not entirely true…he definitely meant to twist that hard…and we weren't really arguing…well we were sort of arguing…
"One of Duddly's friends?" Sirius asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow.
"Well yeah…he's always hanging out with Aaron." And Jake, and Alex, and Ben… Harry added internally. He shrugged, having nothing more to add.
"Is your cousin so much of a coward that he lets other people fight his battles, then?"
Harry was starting to get annoyed by all this prying. "No." He's much worse of a coward than that.
"Oh, really? Then why was Aaron the one that twisted your arm?"
Good job, Sirius, Harry commended internally. No way to avoid that one, huh? "Because someone needed to stop me from running off so Duddly could get a proper chance to hit me in retaliation for…waking him up…" Great going, Potter. Did you really need to tell him that last part?
Sirius spluttered incoherently for a moment. "What?"
"I'm not going to repeat myself because of your inability to comprehend."
"Harry!" Sirius looked hurt.
Because that was so much better than repeating yourself, Harry berated himself internally. "Look, I don't want to talk about it."
There was a moment of silence between them. Finally, Sirius decided to change the subject. "Dumbledore sent me to check up on you. And he said that if there was anything wrong I was to take you home with me…" Sirius laughed when the boy's face lit up for a second before darkening again.
"What makes you think there's anything wrong?" Harry demanded.
"Besides your aunt's testimony that you won't eat, the physical evidence of your cousin beating you up without reprimand, and the fact that your arm's severely broken and you haven't been taken to a doctor?"
"Fine," Harry snapped, his temper flaring. He could bloody well take care of himself, thank you very much.
Sirius seemed a bit confused by Harry's reaction, but let the point drop regardless. He pulled Harry to his feet and began leading the boy back to Privat Drive. "Aunt Petunia said that I couldn't come in tonight."
Sirius seemed to lose track of himself for a moment before shrugging and saying, "I'd like to see her try to keep me out of the house."
Harry shrugged at that. "Whatever." He shivered, and Sirius dutifully wrapped his cloak around his godson, much to Harry's chagrin. "Oy! I'm fine, thank you very much."
Sirius shrugged. "I got to hot," he replied. As he had predicted, that stopped Harry from arguing about the cloak any more, and the boy started to warm up.
They reached the house, and with a simple flick of his wand, Sirius opened the door. Harry led Sirius up to his room, where the older man packed all of Harry's stuff away with another flick of his wand and a soft-spoken spell. Harry went to grab a few odds and ends the spell had missed while Sirius went to collect Hedwig—who was giving Harry a reproving look from inside her cage. Just as Harry closed his trunk, Sirius grabbed his shoulder, and with a half turn they disapparated with a loud bang that sounded like a car back-firing.