It was during one of the hottest nights of the year that Harry decided he couldn't take it anymore. The small cupboard under the stairs had turned from an uncomfortable cold to a stifling heat, a sheen of sweat covering Harry's body as he lay awake. His fingers lifted to slice through the humid air, hoping to provide himself some relief by wafting his hand, but soon his wrist began to ache. Everything felt too exhausting.
His foot knocked against the wall as he tried to stretch, a hiss of pain escaping his clenched teeth. The cupboard had stayed stubborn as Harry grew within it, his body learning to contort itself into a tight ball as he tried and failed to adjust to the limited space. Reaching out, he pressed his fingers against the wall to the left of him, elbow crooked as he seeped the cold from it. It bled away too easily, and Harry was left with nothing but the heat.
Opening the door would have given him some relief, but he knew it was dangerous to leave himself that vulnerable in the night. Dudley could race down before Harry had the chance to wake up, and slam the door on his hand, which would have no doubt dropped into the cold air during the night. The little space may not have had a latch to protect him, but he felt sheltered enough. Leaving the door open while he was asleep wasn't a risk he was willing to take.
Holding his breath, Harry's mind searched the house for signs of life. The floorboards in Dudley's room creaked and settled, a familiar tune of an old house. Snores filled the stagnant air, intercut with faint snorts, but it was a symphony of the sleeping. A few more seconds were wasted, Harry refusing to breathe, listening for any tricks. Vernon was a heavy sleeper, but Petunia could awaken with ferocious speed, descending on the house with hushed screams at being disturbed so late into the night. Everything was quiet. Everything was touched with a burning warmth.
Shifting to his side, Harry rested his hand on the handle of the door, and waited. The rise and fall of snores was still lifting the air, but there was nothing else. He pushed his door open, wincing at every delicate creak and groan, rickety and worn from age. Once it was open just enough to fit a body, he slipped from the small cupboard, breathing in the freshness of cooling air.
Fiddling with his shirt, stuck in parts to his skin, Harry knew he needed to be quick. The middle of the floor was the easiest part to walk on, used to taking the weight of a person, so it creaked far less whenever Harry escaped from the cupboard. Pausing in the doorway between the kitchen and the hallway, Harry listened again; the purity of silence filled his head with bliss.
The kitchen was the coolest part of the house. Even in the void-like darkness that had blanketed each room, every curtain squeezed shut to block out the prying eyes of the neighbours, Harry navigated it without trouble. Every step was taken with precision, avoiding any place that could make too much noise, any spot that would summon the wrath of the sleeping dragons upstairs.
He couldn't take much from the kitchen. A few biscuits, no more than four at any one time, would be a small enough ration that Vernon would silently accuse Petunia, and Petunia would worry about Vernon's health, but never speak a word on it. Some milk or juice could be taken if Dudley had some with his dinner. Water could always be taken, but the glass would have to be kept under the cupboard with him, until he could sneak it out to clean with the morning dishes. Anything else would cause suspicion.
Once a glass was filled, Harry placed it on the kitchen side. Water was cupped in his hands, the cool flow of it pooling in the dip, before he splashed it over his face. A satisfied murmur left him as the heat melted away. Droplets clung to his fingers, slipping over his wrist, as he turned off the tap. Another pause was spared to listen to the house. A whistle passed outside, the hiss of wind clipping against trees, before silence reigned.
Relief washed over Harry, the distance between the cupboard and the kitchen a daring adventure that he had mastered, as he picked up his glass and remade the journey. His steps had more confidence in them, for what was done once can be done again, a quick pause spared in the doorway before he continued.
It was then he noticed the gold glinting, a flash of light hitting the corner of his eye.
Turning his head, he saw the key was still in the door. It was not fondness or worry that caused Vernon to hide it each night, slipped away in the pocket of his dressing gown, but rather the intelligence to note that Harry running away would reflect badly on their family.
Harry had never even thought about running away. There had never been chance, never the opportunity. He'd never entertained the delusion that the Dursleys would someday be so unprepared. His eyes jumped around the hallway, checking the stairs, the top of the landing, for any watching eyes. It was surely a trick. Dudley's hyena laugh was a phantom memory that dragged its claw over his back, a shiver pulsing through him as he imagined how he'd be punished for even trying, for even considering. The door was a beacon of desire and despair, an escape and a trap, holding a world that would be no more pleasant than the life he endured.
Eyes trained on the glow of the door, highlighted by the moon into a shining white, Harry placed the half-empty glass on the floor. He felt around in the darkness of his pseudo-bedroom, the light having broken when he was fourteen. No one had bothered to replace it. Fingers caught on a blanket, barely even soft anymore from wear, bundling it up against his chest. He took nothing else, because there was nothing else to take.
The night air was stagnant, but Harry greeted it as an old friend, walking with more confidence that he felt. Curtains fluttered, capturing Harry's attention, but no faces appeared in any of the houses he passed. A rush of held breath passed his lips as he reached the end of the street, revelling in the freedom of his escape. If there were a time to turn back, it would have been there.
He patted the street sign with a fond merriness he had never felt for it before, fingers dragging over the inky black surface.
The streets became unfamiliar past the split at the end of the road, a tangled web of names and houses he had never explored, but he let his instincts carry him. A sudden left, a long road, a right, and a right again, houses turning into dirt paths, fields to the side of him, too dark to cut through, dirt paths turning into roads.
A sharp pain stung his heel, a low hiss passing his lips as he hopped from one foot to the other. Sitting on the ground, he inspected his foot, squinting in the darkness. His sight betrayed no difference, light falling away from him, suffocated in the night. It was only with his fingers that he realised he was bleeding, warm and sticky over his fingertips. He hadn't even taken shoes with him.
Pulling the blanket from the crook of his elbow, Harry tentatively dabbed at the blood pooling around the wound. It was only a small cut, less than the width of a fingernail, but the blood was plentiful. He tried clearing away the dirt that had stuck to his feet, but it was a stubborn beast, and he didn't want to ruin his blanket.
A rumble struck the ground, alerting the focused boy to the sudden change. Light had flooded his dark world, illuminating the cover of trees that he had shuffled under, a small boy with a blanket wrapped around his muddy feet, staring with wide eyes at the car. Breath gathered in his chest until his heart felt heavy, pounding furiously, as if it wanted to break free and escape. His fear only diminished marginally when he realised it wasn't the Dursleys' family car.
"Are you okay?" a voice called, muffled as if spoken through water, before a window was rolled down to reveal a face. It was one contorted into kindness, naturally angular in a way that still seemed soft. Locks fell around his shoulders in shivering curls, looking as a lion might with his glorious mane. "Are you okay?" he repeated, voice stricken with urgency, when Harry didn't respond.
"Yes, I was just…" As he mulled over his next words, because he wasn't sure 'escaping' or 'running away' would go down well, he unwrapped the blanket from his foot. The bleeding had stopped, but a few blotches of blood still mixed with the mud. "I was just going somewhere."
The stranger laid a tattooed arm against the open window, trying to peer closer at the boy's face. Harry lowered his head to avoid his gaze, listening to the lull of the forest behind him, encased in silence. He'd be quicker than the man, malnourished and maltreated, but younger and agile. A natural instinct to run.
"I used to run away all the time when I was little." Harry had met enough strangers to know that most took on a facade of pleasantness around others, remembering his aunt's lovely smile whenever a question was asked about her sons, who she politely corrected were a son and a nephew, actually. There was none of that coolness in the man's voice; it was all summer warmth, blending into the heat of the night, as if it had never known rain or winds.
"I'm not running away," Harry said, folding the blanket once, before doing it again. He tucked it under his arm, and stood to his feet. One laid flat on the floor, but the other was lifted so the wound wouldn't touch the ground. "I was just going somewhere."
"Well, where are you going?" It was not an accusation, a trick to trip him up. It was merely a question. Harry gave merely an answer.
"I don't know." It was more truthful that he would have liked to share. Even though he hadn't received the pampered education that he been spent on Dudley, he had still heard the tales of strangers. The wolf and the silly child who had trusted him. He stepped closer into the light that shone from the car, ducking his head to grant himself a better look at the man's face. The man greeted him with the same open curiosity.
"I don't know where I'm going, either. Would you like to come with me?" The stranger's friendless had been touched by something foreign, the sound of pity, for the child sat alone in the darkness, his clothes ratty and ridden with holes, his feet smeared with mud. He must have been homeless, or desperate, and the stranger felt an attachment to the hopeless strength in his eyes.
"I don't think that's a good idea," Harry murmured, but he stayed in the halo of light coming from the car. If he had been more perceptive, he'd note that the licence plates had been pried away from the vehicle, that there were slight scratches over the rear. "We don't know each other."
The stranger seemed to consider this, bobbing his head from one side to the other, before his face broke into a smile. "I'm Sirius."
"Harry," the child replied, thankful that he wasn't asked about a last name. Sirius shared in the same thankfulness. It was the unity of being runaways; nothing had to be given, no information had to be spared, the basics were exchanged, and that was enough. It was no longer stranger and child - it was Harry and Sirius, standing together in the light, considering each other's warm, desperate faces.
"Now we aren't strangers. It's nice to meet you, Harry." As Sirius spoke, his head bobbed along with his words. His cheeks seemed hollowed, skin a heavy sallow shade, his eyes dark. There was a dusting of fuzz covering his face, a shabby excuse for a beard, that would have made even the nicest of faces appear frightening - but Harry only noticed the smile on the man's lips, the gentle way he spoke. It felt nice to be regarded as human.
"It's nice to meet you, Sirius." And it truly was.
"I'm going to drive for as long as this car holds up, and you're welcome to join me. You can leave whenever you want, or you can stay with me. I wouldn't mind a bit of company. The radio doesn't work in this old thing." A pause hung in the air. The singing wind snatched at tree branches, an unearthly howl unleashed as it twisted through the air. "Or I could leave right now, and I won't tell anyone about the strange boy in the woods."
"You said I wasn't a stranger."
"Harry, you don't have to be a stranger to be strange. You just have to be out in the middle of the night without shoes on." The laughter that fell from Harry's lips was timid, unused to the way it made his chest bounce and his shoulders shake. His hands folded his blanket against his chest, eyeing the passenger seat. "So, will you be joining me?"
"Yes," Harry spoke, merely clarifying the foregone conclusion. He needed an escape that was bigger than Berkshire, to disappear into a shadow until he was consumed by it, a shade against the ground. He wanted to make sure that he was never found. There would be no clues to his disappearance, no trail left behind. Harry Potter would slip away into a stranger's car, and emerge into a different world.
"Come on, then. I don't think it's safe to have this car in one position for too long. It might collapse any second now."
Tentatively, Harry padded around the car, hand resting on the door handle. He half-expected the car to lurch forward in a flash, the rumbling sound of it to carry away, left alone after some cruel prank. He waited for it to happen, standing motionless for long enough to draw Sirius' worried gaze, before slipping into the seat. The cushion was worn, a hole flowering close to his thigh. Scraps of fabric stuck out in jagged patches from the hole, greying with age, but sitting down was a welcome relief. He had only just realised how much his legs ached.
As the car trembled to life, Harry rested his hand against the door, feeling the vibrations pass through the vehicle. The Dursleys' car was smoother, barely touched by potholes, purring as it slipped across the road, but he'd only ever been in it a few times. Special occasions, like dinners with the family, where they could preen over Dudley, and leave Harry to fade away quietly. The local bus was a more familiar companion, and the way the car dragged across the road reminded him of that. Hitting a bump might tear the entire thing to pieces.
Despite that, Harry felt safer than he had for a long time, engulfed in a ring of light while the world outside darkened.
His gaze flickered from the road, with only the first few feet visible because of the weak headlights, to Sirius' face. Apart from the Dursleys, Harry hadn't spent much time around other people. Half an hour was the most amount of time he'd spent in anyone else's company. It was never formally enforced that he couldn't spend longer, but Petunia's shifting eyes and pursed lips betrayed her worry. Harry could always say something; that was his power.
"Can I ask why you're not wearing shoes?" The amiable silence had allowed for Harry's eyes to explore, sating a curious nature that had been starved to the bone, but Sirius' voice forced him to focus on the dashboard. It felt wrong to have his attention wander while Sirius spoke, but he didn't want to observe the other while Sirius was doing the same.
"You can," Harry conceded. A stray string peeking from beneath his shirt caught his attention, his thumb dropping to stroke over it. Twisting his fingers, the string wrapped around his skin, tightening until the bone beneath was starkly visible. Sirius' laughter was a soft barking noise, caught in his throat, loud against the silent night. Pulling his fingers away from the loose string, Harry considered Sirius with a smile. His dark eyes were mapping out the roads. "I didn't think to take any."
"Didn't think you'd get this far, huh?" Sirius asked, tone light despite the conversation, delivered between a teenage runaway and an aged man. His body was hunched forward over the steering wheel, eyes swinging back and forth as he squinted, but his hands were lax, his voice inquisitive. Harry knew when he was being forced to answer a question, the Durlseys had made sure of that, but Sirius' voice was free from accusations.
"I didn't really think I'd get anywhere at all. But once you start walking away….it just seems like turning back isn't an option anymore." As he spoke, he turned to stare outside the side-window, watching the darkness blur past. The speed of the car picked up, and darkness whirled, broken only by the occasional flash of light reflecting from peeping eyes buried in the woods.
"Turning back is always an option. You just have to decide if the unknown is worth the chance," Sirius said. The boy was skeletal, each breath revealing the brush of clearly defined ribs outlined by his shirt, his eyes sunken, his hair an overgrown mess. For a boy like him, the unknown was the only safety. For a man like Sirius, the unknown was the only place to hide. "Do you want to open a window? That little knob down there, just turn it and the windows open."
Leaning down, the seatbelt catching around his neck on the first attempt, Harry wrapped his hand around the knob and twisted it in a circular motion. At first it jammed, the window lifting further into the roof, before Harry pushed it the other way. The window rolled down, exposing him to a blast of late spring pollen and cooling air.
"What are you running away from?" Though Harry hadn't be raised to understand the social clues of his peers, the little smiles and titters and wide-eyed glances that made up a child's language, he knew how to read adults. They were open books with crumpled pages, a little ruined, a little entertaining.
At the question, Sirius' lips pursed, his squinting eyes flickering to the back of Harry's head. His shoulder blades were sharp against the back of his shirt, his cheek resting on the door, head bobbing with the rhythm of the road. "The law," Sirius said, finally, and Harry could hear the grin without even looking at him. "I thought having a child in the car with me in the dead of night might make me look a little less suspicious to the authorities. What do you say?" A joke was being shared with him, not played on him, and the feeling in his chest was constricting, bright and white and suffocating.
"I think that you're a pretty bad criminal," Harry responded. Glancing over his shoulder, he spared a small smile on Sirius, and saw him return the gesture. It was barely more than a second of meeting each other's eyes, but the smile that pulled over Sirius' face made him look a little less ragged, a little less deranged. His skin pinkened with the twist of his mouth, his eyes turning from a beady black to a welcoming night.
"Oh, no, not me. I'm the best in the business. You can ask anyone." A steep turn rocked Harry's body, head lifting from the window. He slipped in his seat, waiting for the jagged movements to cease, before resting his head back in the familiar place. The car stunk of old smoke and fading oil, the dust of disuse falling in layers over the backseat, but it was a comfortable ride.
"Anyone in the car with us right now? Or do I just shout out the window into the night?" Sheepish with his comment, Harry half-expected a quick reprimand. He looked over his shoulder to gauge the other's reaction, relief surging through him at the sight of Sirius' lips still quirked into a grin.
"Now, if you go shouting into the night, you're going to attract a real criminal." Laughter hummed between them, trapped and swirling in the night air, and Harry's lungs felt over-used from the sound of it all. The ache was a pleasant feeling, a gift of happiness so bright that it physically manifested itself. "Would you like some advice, runaway to runaway, Harry?"
The way Sirius said his name made it sound special. It was caressed into companionship, not the strict tone he'd heard it in before, the clip one would use to reprimand a dog. He wanted to make Sirius say it over and over again, until Harry felt like a person. "I'd love some advice, thanks, criminal to criminal-in-training."
"The first rule of thumb is to never, ever get into cars with strangers." Cheek vibrating from the bounce of the car, Harry bit into his bottom lip to muffle his laughter, nodding solemnly along with Sirius' words. "Which is why it's important we're no longer strangers, otherwise you would have started by breaking the most cardinal rule. Which is never a good way to start anything."
"Or it's the best way," Harry interjected. Mulling on the matter, Sirius relented with a nod.
"Or it's the best way," Sirius mirrored, finger tapping a mysterious beat against the steering wheel. "But on the matter of trusting strangers, don't. Unless the strangers look very trustworthy."
"How would I tell a trustworthy stranger from an untrustworthy stranger?" Three fingers had joined Sirius' tapping, the beat slow and untimed, before a rhythm of middle-left-right was established.
"A trustworthy stranger is a friend." Another sharp turn was taken, rattling Harry from his comfortable place, the world fading from trees to houses. All were quiet, with the curtains pulled tightly closed, every light turned off. Street lamps marked out every few metres, flickering and buzzing, the dim yellow light washing the street in frail gold.
"Sirius, I think you should stick to crime, and stop giving out advice." Lifting his head slightly, Harry slipped his arm between the window and his cheek, the bumps less noticeable with the added protection. His blanket draped over his knees, parts slumping to the floor, but Harry's body felt too heavy to lift it up.
"I'll consider it. But I have to admit, that's some of the best advice I've probably ever given."
Eyes drooping, Harry forwent his response in favour of a yawn, jolting lightly as the car dipped into a pothole. He hadn't expected the exhaustion of running away to hit him in one smooth swoop, but the speed of it was quick and torturous. Feeling Sirius' hand touch his shoulder, squeezing lightly, Harry's eyes fell shut.
"You should go to sleep, I think I've bothered you enough for one night."
Harry wanted to reply that other wasn't bothering him, that the company was a reprieve from what could have been a lonely night, but the allure of sleep made him hazy. His mind found solace in the empty blankness of falling asleep, and Sirius was polite enough to forget about any of the frenzied, muffled murmurings that fell from Harry in his sleep. Quietly, Sirius flicked on the radio, filling the space with soothing music.
Night rolled around the car, a blissful movement of clouds and stars as Sirius surged forward, darkness blurring into the light grey of early morning. Roads were drained of life, the occasional passing of a slow-moving car with a sleepy-eyed driver, straggling to work at a time that was barely morning. The side of the road was littered with signs, advertising 'All You Can Eat Breakfasts' and 'Kids Eat Free' and 'Delicious Coffee', but each shop had its shutters firmly closed.
Weeds burst in dense clumps from cracks in the pavement, gathered together like gossiping ladies. A sharp curve in the road led to a petrol station, the only thing that seemed to be breathing in the deadland. The entrance was barren, cleared of any wildlife, except for an erect board listing off the prices of petrol, and a garbage can with its brood of rubbish sitting in neat rows at its feet. Dirt kicked and fluttered around the wheels as Sirius dragged his car near to one of the pumps, spluttering lamely at such a low speed.
The day was not yet made to be looked upon. Everything had a raw, naked feel about it in the dim break of sunlight.
Lifting his fingers, Sirius clicked off the radio, the little speakers making a whirring noise with their death. The silence in the car persisted as he placed his hand on Harry's shoulder, trying to tempt him awake with calls of his name. Feeling the other's shoulder, Sirius winced at the sparrow-bones arching against his hand, desperate to escape from a body that hadn't been treated right. Realising how harshly he was pressing against the other, he loosened his grip, scared Harry would snap from his touch.
Eyes flung open, a startled green that ran in quick succession over the car, from Sirius' hand to his face, before zipping over the landscape. His lips were parted slightly in a half-pant, and Sirius removed his hand, unable to stand the tenseness of the boy's body. There was no hazy honey-warm bliss of a relaxing sleep; everything about Harry seemed alarmed and alert as soon as he was touched, an ingrained fear seeping into him. It disappeared in a flash, his mind catching up with his body, but Sirius had seen it. He looked like a trapped animal who had never learned to bite.
"I'll fill up the tank, and then I need the toilet before I explode. Didn't think travel would make you this bloody eager for a working bathroom," Sirius laughed, but the noise sounded faded. His mind was still caught in replay, Harry's eyes falling in trepidation over his hand, a scream held in his gaze. "You mind going up to pay while I'm gone?"
Palm dug into Harry's eye, trying to shake the thin layer of sleep that had embraced him. The heat was less constricting, but the oppressive chokehold of it still attacked him. "I don't mind. But I might need the toilet before we go, too." Harry ran his tongue over his teeth, trying not to long for the purple toothbrush stuck in his pseudo-bedroom, with its bristles worn to the base, itchy and hard to handle.
"Gotcha, Harry." A twenty was pulled from Sirius' wallet, a walnut brown that looked darker against the man's paling skin. Fingers lifted in a dance of hesitation, before another twenty was plucked from the sparse bouquet of money. As Harry watched, he folded away his blanket, placing it on his seat. "Just in case they have any shoes in there."
"You think they'll have shoes in a petrol station?" Harry's palms remained flat in his lap until the money was more than halfway to him, Sirius having to press it into his open hand before Harry took it. A shock of worry overcame him at losing the money in his walk from the car to the station, the paper feeling flimsy in the curl of his fingers.
"Petrol stations have everything a traveller could need and then some." Voice was filled with a blind assurance, his smile loose and easy in the dull morning light. "Alright, maybe not shoes, but you could always get us something to eat. I bet they at least have something for breakfast. No, go on, shoo, I can't sit in this car a moment longer."
Both figures exited the car, Harry wincing as his bare feet scratched against the gravel of the floor, little rocks already embedding themselves in his skin. A hop-quick step was taken to the station, trying to gauge where the floor was smoother with his eyes, and being wrong more often than not. Phantom eyes watched him until he was pushing open the door, a curl of soft worry hidden by his mane as Sirius fitted the nozzle into the tank.
The station appeared shack-like from the outside, a jigsaw of faux-wood with the brown peeling away to reveal scraps of grey, but the inside was a blinding white. Everything had been scrubbed and pampered to the bone, the lights filling the room in a pure glow. The welcome mat greeting him was spotted with fine freckles of red and brown, smudges of green playing connect-the-dots between the stains. His toes wiggled, a lump of drying mud clumping onto the mat, and the small act of destruction filled him subdued glee.
"Young man," called the only creature not decorated in white. Pink nails tapped against her counter, a colour that seemed so entrapped in her being that he was certain even her blood would be tainted with the sickly hue. "This is a friendly establishment. Do you plan to buy anything, or just stand there all day?"
The way she said it made Harry feel distinctly unfriendly.
"Yes, sorry," Harry mumbled. His head hung, tracking the footprints he left on the floor, a trail to show his progression around the store. Ducking behind one of the shelves, he felt the cool glare of her beady eyes, the two black dots illuminated by the thin press of her lips and the scrunch of her nose. Her elbows stuck out at harsh angles, hands folded against her stomach, an air of reprimand clinging to her.
The shelves were bursting with snacks. Packets of crisps appeared fluffy and filled, pressing against the steel bars that covered the bottom halves of the shelves, primed for greedy hands to snatch at. Popcorn sat on the lower shelves, advertising a range of flavours, from sweet to salty to toffee to butter. Chocolate bars were neat and ordered to the left of him, a thousand choices he had never tried, their packaging purple and shiny and advertising the sweetest, smoothest, milkiest promises.
Sparing a glance to the delights, Harry walked around to the coolest part of the store, intensified by the woman's unwavering stare. It made the summer heat seem arctic.
Hand flattened against his stomach to quell the low rumbling, the ache that burned inside of him as he was hit with the fresh scent of bread and cheese, of prepared sandwiches, each one a buffet. Harry had no idea what kinds of food Sirius liked, his car devoid of any traces of life sans the driver, and he barely knew his own appetite; he ate whatever leftovers there were, or he didn't eat at all. The woman's eyes, a clawed grip over his shoulders, made his choice quick.
Reaching out with blind intent, he grabbed the sandwiches that were closest to him, bundling them up in his arms. Walking towards the counter, Harry looked out of the window to his right. The thin rectangles betrayed very little of the outside world, a view of the few pumps, one car stood alone in a pool of light. Grey clouds had taken their leave, replaced with swans of white, each one broken with streaming sunlight. The car looked even worse without its owner to complete the picture, as lonesome as if it had been abandoned for years.
"Well, will that be all?" The two sandwiches sat against the counter, next to the woman's twitching fingers, filed into fine curves. Her voice was pleasant and light, the murmuring tone of a warm grandmother, but her smile dimmed the light in her eyes. Her shoulders didn't move when she breathed, her body as rigid as wax.
"Yes," Harry replied, fiddling with the money between his fingers. "That, and the petrol, for the car. Just - just the one outside." Thumb jerked behind his ear to point at it, but her gaze remained on his thumb until he dropped it. The digit suddenly seemed dirty to him, offensive in some intangible way.
As she began to scan the items, Harry searched for anything to focus on. Her face was creased with hard lines, her eyes running over every inch of the packaging. She picked at the label, evening it out, sniffing her nose at the sandwiches. She was ill intent, and Harry couldn't face her. A newspaper caught his eye, half-folded, a stack sat carefully on the counter.
Letters were written in towering black ink, stark against the festering yellow of the paper, demanding attention. Escaped murderer, read the headline; two frightening words that crashed together to form a sentence riddled with torment, fear-mongering and prediction. Below the words, a picture stood, a mugshot of said monster. It had been reduced to black and white, pale skin that bled into the paper, darkness filling his hair and eyes, lips icy and thin.
The face, kept silent in ink, bulged and slithered across the page. His lips curled into a snarl, a threat hanging in his throat, his hands desperate to reach out and attack. The flecks of black that covered his hands, a trick of light and shading, appeared as sludgy blood. While a sense of familiarity bloomed at the picture, the grotesque distortion of the man's features made it impossible to compare to anyone until he read the name. Sirius Black.
A hand slammed down over the picture, a gasp falling from Harry's lips as he stepped back, unable to tear his eyes away The picture was broken by the fingers, revealing the slither of a dark eye, a crease of a smile; the dark pink of her nails was reimagined as blood, dark and fearsome, covering her and him and them all.
"If you're going to stare at the newspaper any longer, you're going to buy it." Clinical tone snapped the words at him, a bark of a voice. With her free hand, she pushed his items across the counter, only stopping when Harry reached for them. "That'll be £25.60, anyway." Her mouth barely moved when she spoke.
Sandwiches safe in the crook of his elbow, he held out the two notes. His mind felt heavy with a daze, a flurry of half-thoughts passing through. The money, of course she'd need the money - the money he had taken from Sirius Black. The sandwiches he had bought for Sirius Black. The car he had spent the night in, enjoying the freedom of summer air, with an escaped murderer. His name had turned sinister, etched with all the horrors it implied.
She returned his change, and then reset to the position she had taken when he entered. Fingers tapping, nose upturned, perpetual boredom twisting itself into bitterness. Even she looked friendlier than the car, still deserted, a hostile island filled with unknowns.
Wrapping both arms around his chest, Harry hurried from the shack, retracing the prints he had left on the clean floor. The door opened, and refreshing cold disappeared, leaving behind the heat of the day, stripped bare. A quick glance, then another, showed that Black hadn't returned to his car yet.
Harry, for the second time, honed a skill he had apparently gotten very good at; he ran away.
The front of the shack held nothing helpful for an escape. The land was rich with roads, small paths littered with sunlight, an open landscape made for prying eyes. Life had begun, the sleepy morning gradually waking itself up, and, cars were rolling along on the roads. Some of them paused by the opening to the petrol station, nosing gently into the stop, before continuing on after a brief thought. They could wait for food, or petrol, or the toilet.
Dense trees huddled to the back of the petrol station, the promise of hiding lingering in the fluttering leaves. A brisk pace was set, head tilted away from the window in the hopes that the woman wouldn't be able to remember his face. He was distinctly average, and that would be his advantage.
Faux-brick covered the sides of the store, the wood fading away, an amalgamation of falsehoods shrouding the building. The morning light couldn't conceal the ugliness of it. As he stood at the edge of the forest, the jagged line between the foliage and the dirt, Harry's eyes swept around the station. All he could see from his warped angle was the headlights of the car, peeking out from behind the store, watching him with its vicious glare. The allure of safety had passed.
Disappearing down the sleep incline of grass, Harry's feet caught on branches, the tangles of weeds, stray rocks cutting into his exposed skin. Bruises had bloomed in crisp purples and yellows, the tangy colour of infection rising over his ankle in a steady red, his skin browning with mud. His toenails were so entirely covered that the dirt could be mistaken for nail polish. The buzz of cars bled into the forest, causing Harry to walk a little faster into the safe hiding of bushes and trees. Without a map, he tried to navigate the unknown with something like common sense, but his movements were haphazard and desperate. He swerved and twisted throughout the thick underbrush, knowing little of the flowers around him, so he tried to avoid all of them. His feet were aching enough without being scratched and irritated by stinging nettles or thorns.
When the chorus of cars halted, Harry glanced around the forest. It was no place to make a home, but it was secretive enough that he could plot out some kind of plan. A few nights, without disturbance, could be wasted away in the forest. Surely, the trees would provide cover from the weather, and water and berries would have to be close. He had only make it so far with the aid of good luck, a deity that had never worked in his favour before, and he decided that relying on such was all he had.
The forest bristled around him as a smooth wind drifted through, bringing a gentle relief to his warm skin. A small clearing had been made around his feet, the short grass tickling at his toes. He raised his foot to itch it against his leg, but it spread dirt over his clothes, dotted with a few specks of drying blood. He should find new clothes. The ones he had were already full of holes, but the landscape would leave them muddied soon, and wrinkles were already deepening in the fabric. Water, food, shelter, clothes. Maybe he could fashion some out of leaves, he thought with dry enthusiasm, a wry smile shared between him and the trees.
Around his feet, spreading throughout the forest, was a bed of purple flowers. Some rose daintily from the fresh green, arching towards sunlight that couldn't squeeze through the tall trees, whereas others dropped with drowsiness, not yet awakened. All of them were beautiful and still. He spun slowly in place, and saw that they stretched for as far as he could see, a few patches flattened into paths by feet, but still stubbornly growing.
Dotted between the flowers laid trees. Most were a sickly brown, long and thin. Some of them had a few scraps of leaves sticking to the trunks, but most were barren, as if the vibrant flowers below had sucked all the life from them. Each of the trees strained towards the sky, straining for the barest hints of sunlight as they waited in their orderly rows. White patches mottled the light browns, as if the trees were hiding bones, the unblemished white struggling to free itself from the body of the trees.
In the middle of the birches, a grand oak rose proudly. Fanning around the stout tree were overgrown roots, stretching themselves in wide strokes around the forest. An arch of stern wood sprouted from a cove of leaves before burrowing itself below the dry mud, each twisted root interlacing with the next. Moss grew thick over the beastly trunk, spots of green blooming over the dark brown in patches that nestled together as if seeking company.
He neared the tree, a minefield of purple flowers falling prey to his bare feet. Their bowed heads touched the ground in an act of dying worship, with Harry paying them little attention as he reached out to touch the moss. Midair, his searching hand paused. A blurred grumble sounded from somewhere in the forest, the noise so faint that it could be mistaken for the congregation of animals, but it broke into the muffled sound of voices. Footsteps neared, the far-away shuffle becoming the heavy punctuation of boots sweeping aside leaves and flowers.
A few stumbled steps were taken away from the tree, head twisted from side to side so quickly that the forest blended into a single shape of browns and greens. Nearing the tree again, he placed his hands against the trunk to steady himself, the sound of talking dull beneath the heavy pants that left Harry's mouth.
It couldn't be Sirius. The voices held no distinct quality, merely a swarm of noise floating in from his left, but there was more than one; a conversation was taking place, which meant it couldn't possibly be Sirius - or, it couldn't be just Sirius. Harry stepped back from the tree, hands still clinging tightly to the wood, head straining towards the voices. The presence of them disturbed the forest, the still flowers rustling and swaying as they awoke.
Any escape from the circle of trees could make him too visible, exposing himself to the predators lurking in the open, but staying near the oak could prove dangerous if the strangers wandered into his safe haven. All his options were only half-solutions. Eyes closing, his head fell forward, forehead cooling against the moss of the tree. His breaths were still ragged, heart rattling in his chest. The buzzing of voices grew.
Forehead lifted, moisture forming a dripping patch against his skin, eyes turned upwards to face the skies. The lowest branches of the tree were in reach. Without any sunlight to grace them, they sagged close to the ground, a pale imitation of the grand architecture that stretched above. Harry reached out for the branch, his hand slipping as his fingers tried to dig into the wood. Lifting both hands, he tried again, twisting his wrists to a painful degree to get a firm grip. Dangling uselessly, Harry tried to swing his weight up, but it did little but make him out of breath.
His hand slipped from the wood, falling to his side, his weight held on one arm. He could hear the cracking of his shoulder, the threat of greater harm swelling in his body. With a breathless grunt, Harry placed both hands back on the branch, struggling until he managed to hook his elbow over it. The voices fell silent. Scrambling, Harry twisted and shimmied until his chest was laying against the branch, his arms aching, his palms stained red from the effort. Crunching sounds broke the quiet, followed by a string of jovial cusses, the bright laughter of voices.
Moving his body until he was at his knees, Harry continued his journey upwards. Each branch was as treacherous as the last, the tree unforgiving to his advances, until they turned into twig-like, narrow pieces of wood that couldn't take his weight. He rested on the sturdiest branch near the top, feeling it dip with his weight. The branches were so dense, the leaves so thick, that he couldn't see the ground as he stared down.
The voices, though, were far clearer. They weren't Sirius, but that didn't mean they weren't potential threats to Harry. One voice was deeper than the others, but it rushed out of him with excited fondness, pointing at this and that as if he'd never seen flowers before. Two other voices followed him, trailing from behind, lilting and happy. Though Harry was sure he wouldn't be heard from his hiding space, he took care to manage his breathing, exhaling only when a breeze touched the clearing.
Reaching out, Harry rested his hand against one of the spindly branches, leaning forward to hear the voices better. One seemed to call out a joke, and laughter followed, a loud 'congratulations' ringing into the space. Eyes falling closed, Harry leaned further forward, straining for even more clarity. He wanted a name, some scrap of information that he could pass off as safety.
The branch in his hand snapped, and Harry opened his eyes just in time to see a branch moving towards his face at an alarming quick rate as he plummeted to the ground, his perch broken into pieces. His ankle caught on a branch, his body twirling in the air, leaves clipped against his ear. His glasses lifted from his face, his hair catching in his eyes, and then the air parted to crash his body against the ground. The piece of branch was still kept tightly in his fist.
"Oh, bloody hell, where did he come from?" Three pairs of boots appeared in his vision, the black leather fuzzy around the edges. He needed his glasses. A groan crept from him as he tried to stand up, gave in, and then tried once more. At least, he would attest that he was trying. His body remained still against the ground.
"He must have been climbing," another voice said, and the boots revealed an ankle, and a scrap of trousers. "He hasn't gotten any shoes on!"
"Lad? Are you alright?" Harry's eyes fell closed.