AN: So sorry, guys. Seriously. I tried to finish up what I have for new TbS and RRR chapters but this is what came out, instead. I hope you enjoy it anyway :)

The first time I lay my eyes on him since he was the innocent babe they died to protect, he comes stomping out the door of four, Privet Drive in a rage so intense I can smell it from across the street. I follow him in the shadows of neatly trimmed bushes as he drags his school trunk down the pavement, wand clutched in a white-knuckled grip, and try to see him; to see, in this angry storm cloud of a teenage boy, the pink bundle of joy that once - it feels like a lifetime ago - made my heart swell with love so pure I thought it would burn right through my chest.

I notice he has James' hair. Many times, Ugly has tried to make me resent this boy for the sacrifices made in his name but something has always kept me from giving in to those thoughts even at my worst. Maybe that love I once felt wouldn't allow itself to be thus violated, maybe my self-preservation wouldn't let me destroy the one thing I still have to live for. Or maybe I am simply too sure it was all my fault. And yet, Ugly now doesn't hesitate to provide a running commentary in the back of my mind that can be summarised in an ominous: Just give me one good reason.

He stops under a streetlamp, flips the lid of the trunk open and bends down to rummage through the mess inside. I notice how skinny he is, how he's swimming in his clothes and if I wasn't starving already, just looking at him would make me hungry. My sensitive ears can still pick up the furious bellows and frantic shrieks coming from the home he left behind, and Ugly goes: So he knows how to throw a temper tantrum and make a dramatic exit. Who wouldn't want to die for him? It doesn't achieve its goal as I don't find myself suddenly hating the boy, though I do hate myself for not having shut it up. More than anything, I want to love this kid, after all.

Abruptly, he straightens up, looking around, as if he's sensed my eyes on him, but then he returns his attention to searching through his things. Mere seconds tick by before he tenses up again and slowly turns to look my way. It's then that I see it - the battle-ready posture, the sharp gaze scanning the night for threats, the silent resolve to meet whatever comes head-on, to survive no matter what; he's a fighter and I can only hope it comes from inborn instinct rather than experience. He casts a Lumos and raises the wand over his head.

Green eyes bore into mine and in this moment of clarity, I know I will do anything for him. Something inside me clicks into place, I can almost feel the rest of my mind shift to accommodate the change, and my world suddenly revolves around this boy, as it should.

He trips, falls on his arse, and Ugly finally capitulates.

Months later, when he throws himself at me in a fit of rage, I find myself holding back so that I wouldn't hurt him. When he has me at wand-point, glaring hatefully, I tell myself that if I die to give him some peace of mind, some closure, it will be worth it. I am partially to blame, after all. If he were a Legilimens, he would hear me loud and clear: Take whatever you need. He must read some of it in my eyes, because he lowers his wand and by the time Remus bursts into the room, he's studying my face in confusion. He listens to my explanation without interrupting, letting his bushy-haired friend ask all the questions and leaving the disbelieving and outraged exclamations in all the right places up to the redhead. Those intense green eyes never once look away and when he tells me not to kill the Rat, it doesn't even occur to me to argue.

Asking him to come live with me, I feel a bit like a love-sick puppy. When he agrees and I have to suppress the urge to transform and lick his face in joy, I think I might want to tone it down, just a little. Having failed not to overhear, his bushy-haired friend throws me a sympathetic look over Harry's shoulder and I'm not at all sure I want her to actually understand - I doubt that she does.

My lungs feel as if they have been filled with icy cold water, the freezing claws of despair grip my heart and the only message my brain manages to send through my lips before my legs give out from under me is a raspy: "No...please...no." I had nothing, they let me run, let me get a taste of what I could have, what I could lose and now, they are taking it away from me. I hate them. Slowly, they glide closer and closer and I've never seen so many of them together, moving as one.

And then Harry is there and relief floods my body like a warm tidal wave and I feel horrible for it, because this is the last place I should want him to be. Still, the stubbornness, the sheer will to live edged in Harry's features gives me more hope than I could ever muster on my own. He casts the Patronus Charm, trying, failing and trying over and over again. The girl makes a few halfhearted attempts, too, before collapsing. But Harry is a fighter and as long as he draws breath, he will never give up. I know that; the sky is blue, the grass is green and Harry will never stop fighting.

From where I'm lying in a pathetic, crumpled heap on the cold, cold ground, with the last vestiges of strength, I reach out to touch the boy's hand. Our eyes lock and for one timeless moment I trust him and he knows. "You can do it," I manage to croak out before the darkness swallows me whole.

I wake up to a splash of very real icy cold water right in the face. I sputter, cough and swear some, but sit up, in the end, and decide to retaliate later.

"Pettigrew's gone. You'll be kissed on sight if they find you. Here, take it and go," Harry says urgently, offering me the longer of the two wands he's holding.

I blink at him stupidly for precious seconds before my brain kicks in.

"Harry, the Trace... You are underage."

"Damn it," he curses and goes on without missing a beat. "Do you know a place? Somewhere you could get a wand at this hour? In Knockturn, maybe? They couldn't possibly track you if you're quick enough about it."

"I have no money on me," I hate to disappoint him again but find that I love to see his mind at work.

"Can you call things to you from far away?" his tone never changes; steady, if somewhat imperative.

"You can't Summon money. Goblin thing," I explain once I catch up with his reasoning.

"Can you Summon a broom?" he asks immediately. "Not mine, too suspicious," he adds. And this is me, taking comfort in the complete and utter unflappability of a thirteen-year-old boy. I'm ridiculous.

"Sure," I take the wand from him - it's not a perfect match, but I can work with it - and start Summoning the recent Nimbus models first, while Harry paces back and forth, muttering under his breath.

"Wand...wand...wand...Snape might still be unconscious... If he isn't and we Summon it, he'll go all sweet vengeance on us all over again...of age...of age...professors...Professor Lupin," Harry concludes triumphantly.

At this point, I'm already checking my new Comet 260 for Anti-Theft and Tracking Charms. Luckily, there are none. I try Summoning Remus' wand but nothing happens.

"Wizards sometimes ward their holsters against Summoning Charms. I wouldn't put it past Remus."

"Summon the holster?"

I do, with no apparent result.

"Here, could you Conjure or Transfigure something into a replica of the one you're holding?" he asks, handing me the second wand. "It doesn't have to work, just look like it," he adds when I open my mouth to protest.

This one likes me a bit more and with a quick flick and a soft murmur of Geminio I'm holding a passable copy of the longer wand - which Harry proceeds to snatch out of my hand and without preamble, snap in half.

"Once I get a new one, they might even stop monitoring the original, if we are lucky. Till then, you'll have at least something in case of emergency," he looks at me beseechingly and I know exactly what he wants to hear. "How long will the replica last?" he questions, taking back the shorter wand from me and grimacing, probably at the fit.

"I will save myself if I have to, by any means necessary," I assure him, touching his arm, and he beams up at me in relief, like a great weight has been lifted from his shoulders. "If the Trace comes back to bite us, you can always pretend you knew nothing about this. I'll leave the country and get me my own wand as soon as I can. The broken one should last about a week or so," I say and suddenly, I have an armful of teenage boy.

He sags against me bonelessly, as if now, with everything and everyone taken care of and a proper plan in place, he can finely let go of his tight control of the situation, of himself, and relax.

"Right, I'll go lie down and play dead. You get out of here. See you in the summer, you know where I live," he mumbles into my shoulder, hugging me loosely around the waist - and I can feel that he's as skinny as he looks.

"I'm going to miss you," I whisper and know it's true even though it doesn't make much sense. Then, I press a kiss into his hair and we go each our separate way.

As soon as I am safely out of the reach of the castle's wards and on my way south, my thoughts wander back to Harry and I realise with a start that I never once thanked the boy. He gets me out of a sticky situation, saves my soul, most likely my life, too, sends me on my merry way with his own bloody wand in my pocket and I don't even say thank you? It all seemed so natural, so matter-of-course that I didn't feel any thanks were needed, or even appropriate at the time. Not that I usually bother myself much with what is or isn't appropriate. It was more about what Harry would have appreciated.

I grow progressively more sickened with myself the more I think about it. I let the kid walk all over me, and what's worse, I enjoyed it. I let a thirteen-year-old boy take care of me when it most certainly should have been the other way around. We are both equally culpable, though, come to think of it; I started it by guilt-tripping myself into the whole kill me if that's what you need attitude, and Harry finished it by giving me his wand. Throughout the whole mess of a night, it had been reciprocity at its finest and I didn't even notice.

Or had it? And then it hits me with the force of a speeding Hogwarts Express and I know I'm in trouble because it's not Ugly, this time, and I have no idea what it might be. I haven't heard this one in years. And since I only started naming them in Azkaban, it might be something I lost there completely. Like Pride.

TBC