-1Middle-of-the-Road, Scotland

By AthenaRhea

Harry stared at the window, the description quite apt as he wasn't staring at what lay beyond because quite truthfully, there was nothing there. An emptiness there that Harry felt quite acutely inside himself, and that in a strange grotesque way helped settle the demons that prowled in him during the rest of the day when he wasn't looking at that blank window.

His heart had a Sirius shaped hole there now, and something else. A monstrous, roiling black mass that seemed to be usurping the rest of his feelings, leaving a cold very dead expanse in its wake. A feeling not unlike the after-effects of shock. It wasn't just Sirius' death that held him there, but it was the knowledge that accompanied it. Harry understood now what sort of danger he was putting everyone he loved in, just by loving them.

His love was dangerous. It had led to his current decision to leave letters unanswered, and when Hermione eventually phoned he'd merely said he didn't feel like talking and hung up on her. It was quite unlucky on his part that the Dursley's hadn't spared him having to answer at all.

Now though, came the decision for something much bigger then ignoring his friends. To leave or not, as he knew from experience if his friends thought there was something wrong they'd be along to fetch him. The only problem now was the fact he didn't want to be fetched anymore.

And so, he was sitting staring at the blank window in the empty sitting room, his trunk packed and ready sitting beside him. Harry shifted and turned slightly, his eyes sliding over to stare at Hedwig, who was watching him passively.

'We're leaving for a while, girl,' he murmured, turning to look at her fully. 'Like a holiday of sorts...' Harry gave her a self-deprecating smile. 'minus the fun.'

Hedwig hooted softly, a note of attempted comfort in it. Harry smiled at her sadly and then stood, turning his back on the window that was so like him. Tying the owl's cage to the top of his trunk, he turned and slipped out the Dursley's front door and down the walk. In the early morning light, he snagged the Knight Bus telling them his name was Finch-Fletchley, knowing that the muggle-born probably didn't even know the Bus existed.

He then stated a destination for Somewhere In Scotland. Stan, of course, was quite dubious about this but Harry-as-Justin just smiled reassuringly and told him he'd know when to get off. Stan accepted this and thus the bumpy ride to Scotland was borne. Some while later, Harry stood from the sliding bed and indicated he wanted off at the next stop and the moment his feet his the pavement, as it where, the Bus was off like a shot, disappearing half-way around the next corner.

Harry's first thought was that it was much colder here then in Surrey. His next, was where the hell was he? And his third was wondering why there were so many post boxes. Stepping from the curb, Harry started down the street, his eyes passing over the houses in curiosity. They were given much more space then on Privet Drive, at least fifty feet between them really. They weren't overly nice houses, but they certainly weren't run down. It was the middle of the road village he'd dropped himself into. That was nice.

Harry made his way until he managed to find an Inn and he checked himself in, waving away the interest in Hedwig as a bird-of-prey obsession of his. He ended up in a deep conversation about why an owl was a better pet then, say, a peregrine falcon. After a while, he meandered his way to his room with a small smile on his face. This was turning out better then he thought it would.

Hedwig hooted dejectedly from her cage. Harry let her out the window, before setting about putting his clothes away. He planned on staying there until he couldn't afford it or he was done doing...whatever it was he was doing. The first couple of days weren't that bad, but it was the fifth day when he was wandering in about the village shops that he met someone...interesting.

It was a pale young man with thick, dark curly hair that reminded Harry of a cherub. He peered at Harry with piercing, sharp eyes that were as blue the sky on a clear day. 'Are you new here?' he'd asked, pursing his thin lips.

Harry smiled. 'I suppose,'

'Hm, not planning on living at the Inn then?' The other man quirked a half-smile, turning his gaze to continue pricing the books stacked on the desk. Harry ran his fingers over the old, grooved wood.

'Nah, just...visiting, I suppose.' Harry intoned, hoping to carry a note of carelessness into it. The man glanced at him with barely concealed amusement, that weirdly reminded Harry of Professor Snape.

'Permanently?' he asked innocently, pressing nimble fingers at a pricing sticker. Harry snorted loudly, and then flushed.

'I - no...I couldn't, even if I wanted to.' Harry shrugged, his thoughts travelling to places and times when perhaps he could live in the village forever. The young man turned a considering eye on him.

'Too young,' he murmured, and Harry narrowed his eyes.

'What's that supposed to mean?' All previous friendly feelings abandoned to being called a child, once again. The man shrugged.

'Merely pointing out the fact that you couldn't possibly live by yourself, not with the fact that you're obviously underage...couldn't rent anything without a parental signature. If you'd been anywhere but here you probably wouldn't have been able to even get a room at an Inn, much less any flat.' Harry's mouth dropped open at the bored, matter-of-fact voice. It was true, and that hurt something deep.

'Whatever,' snapped Harry, turning to leave the bookshop in favour of other shops, where the patrons only participated in the necessary polite-society parts of conversation which generally last five to ten seconds in Britain. Even though he did get his brief, polite questions Harry couldn't help but think about the curly haired young man at the bookshop. His thoughts returned again and again all day, and well into the night.

The next day found Harry standing nervously at the door, the curly head of hair barely visible behind a new stack of books. Harry wondered why there seemed to be new shipments of books every day even though he'd never seen a person enter the shop.

After a few minutes, the man noticed Harry shifting uncertainly in the doorway.

'Are you coming in?' he asked in a nice enough voice, and Harry gave him a brief, sick looking smile before slipping inside and picking up the nearest book. Harry flipped through it, his eyes not even attempting to make sense of the blur. 'You don't plan on buying it, you know.'

Harry hastily set the book down, looking up that those too-blue eyes. 'I'm Harry,' he managed to say, and the man smiled.

'I'm Jack,' the young man returned amiably, the skin around his eyes crinkling at Harry's relieved smile. 'It's nice to meet you,'

Harry nodded. 'Yeah,'

'I don't suppose you read,' Jack noted after a moment, more of a comment to himself then a question for Harry.

Harry blushed deeply. 'I can read!' Jack snorted.

'I know that, Harry, I was merely saying that you probably don't read for pleasure.' Jack eyed him in concealed humour.

'Oh,' Harry returned quietly enough, eyes searching any place other then Jack. 'I guess...well...I do, just...not stuff like that.' He gestured at the stack of obviously academic books that Jack was sorting.

Glancing at them as if he just noticed them, Jack made a cough that sounded like an aborted laugh. 'I suppose not, Advanced Theology doesn't seem like your idea of a smashing good time.' Harry and Jack shared a sort of secret, friend-like smile.

'No,' Harry agreed, and ended up staying the rest of that day. Sometimes talking with Jack, other times helping him sort through an amazing amount of books, and then wondering why no one else seemed to be working there, or entering the shop.

The next day, Harry didn't hesitate in the doorway. 'Who owns this place?' he asked right away, watching as Jack slowly raised his eyes to look at him appraisingly.

'I do,' he replied quietly, quirking that half-smile that reminded Harry of Snape before turning back to yet another new stack of books.

'Do...have you sold a book yet?' Harry asked, and blinked when Jack let loose a loud bark of laughter.

'How uncouth, Harry,' Jack murmured, though this time there was sadness in his smile that didn't remind Harry of Snape at all. That was all Jack. 'I have, indeed - you aren't seeing what you need to.'

Harry blanched, a wicked feeling of regret filling his chest, and on the heels of that was that thick dark thing. 'I didn't - I just...well, I never see people here.'

Jack's smile was stretched so very thin. 'And therein lies the problem, Harry. You aren't seeing them, if I didn't know any better,' Harry personally felt that he sounded like he perfectly better. 'I'd say you were hiding something.' Jack gave him a meaningful look before turning to pick up a trigonometry book and start to peruse it.

Harry bit his lip, if he didn't know any better, he'd say that Jack was a male version of Hermione. 'Of course not!' he quickly denied, but Jack was no longer paying attention, so engrossed he was in reading about extremely complicated triangles.

Harry stood there staring for a long while before he turned around and went back to the Inn, intent on discussing his problems with Hedwig. What had he gotten himself into? He came to the Middle-of-the-Road, Scotland to get away from people who meant something to him; friends. Then Jack was there, and Harry was starting to feel friendly towards him, despite the apparent age gap.

Hedwig hadn't much to say on the matter, but Harry was glad for her willingness to listen. The next day he didn't go to the book store, instead he went to the local grocers and bought some lined paper, then he spent the rest of the day writing and rewriting letters to everyone, letting them know he wasn't kidnapped and he was doing just fine. Mostly, that no one wanting to cause him harm - or anyone else for that matter - knew where he was, that he was surrounded by Muggles and even so he hadn't mentioned the 'Potter' part of his name.

Now though, more then a week after he left, that emptiness was starting to fill. Harry had an awful feeling that it was because of Jack, and not because of his self-imposed isolation. Sniffing, Harry sent the letters off with Hedwig before sitting back on his bed to think.

He thought the next day as well, waiting for the replies. The majority of it was an exuberant hallelujah to his apparent survival, and the rest of it was calm demands that he return to the safety of Privet Drive. Well, that was more Dumbledore then anyone...but that was something that stuck in Harry's mind when he went to see Jack the next day.

'So I haven't scared you off,' he'd commented when Harry stepped in the door. 'Mores the pity.' Jack gave his half-smile, and Harry managed a weak one in reply.

'Can I talk to you?' asked Harry, rather politely he thought. Jack paused half-way up the ladder, his hand extended with a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo in his hand. It was a bare moment before the curly haired man resumed.

'I know you can, but the question is may you?' Jack returned with a bit of a supercilious sniff. Harry rolled his eyes, feeling a little better.

'I'm taking that as a yes, then.' Jack didn't reply. 'Should you do something that feels right to you, or ignore that feeling for what other people think is the right thing?'

Jack nearly fell off the ladder in his haste to turn and stare at Harry incredulously. 'You weren't kidding,'

Harry tried to smile, but it was more of a grimace. He shrugged instead. A few minutes later and Jack was standing in front of him, his blue eyes clearly worried.

'Is this what you're hiding? Are you doing something you shouldn't be...' Jack trailed off what should have been a question as a strange expression blossomed over his face. 'Ah. I see, you wanted to get away from something at home, but your parents didn't agree and so you left anyway, am I right?'

'Uh...' Harry managed, blanching at Jack, who was staring at him with a particularly intent look.

'Of course I am!' Jack answered himself viciously. 'And here you are, and they - well...they must have sent a letter because you've been here for days, which makes no sense what with mobiles these days, but either way...you want to know if you should go back or stay until that - what did you say? feeling, that's it - until that goes away.'

Harry gaped at him. 'Yeah?' Somehow it came out as a drawn out, scared sounding question then any semblance of an answer. Jack took it as one though, he nodded to himself and turning his eyes elsewhere, for which Harry was grateful.

'I'm a believer in doing what you think is right,' he finally said after a moment, his voice soft and much less intent then moments before. 'Oftentimes what other people think is right for you, is more of their own opinion of what would have been right for them in your situation.'

Harry looked at Jack blankly. He rolled his eyes. 'I mean they aren't taking into account that you have your own set of brains and, god forbid, feelings.'

'Ah.' Harry nodded, that certainly sounded like Dumbledore. And Snape, really. The entire Wizarding World, actually...Harry shook his head, breaking that depressing line of thought.

'Do what you feel is right Harry, but you must make sure that your parents - '

'They're dead,' Harry inserted quickly, effectively cutting off Jack into a stuttering stop. Wide blue eyes stared at him.

'What are you doing here then?' he snapped, glaring at Harry who took a reflex step back in surprise. 'You should be attending their funeral - '

Harry held up his hand. 'They've been dead since I was one...it's not my parents that - well it's complicated.'

Jack raised an expressive eyebrow, it said 'you're bloody well right it is!'. 'Obviously.'

Harry smiled grimly. 'I'd tell you but then I'd have to kill you.'

Jack didn't laugh. 'I'd rather not think about whether or not you're serious.' Harry contemplated that thought, and shook his head with a rueful smile.

'The gist of it, is it's more safe for me to be back home with my aunt and uncle then here...but...well, I just can't take it! My Godfather just died and everyone I care about is in danger!'

Jack blinked. Then blinked again. 'In what kind of danger?'

Harry gave him a droll look. 'The dangerous kind.'

Jack looked rather put upon. 'Is it an 'in trouble with parents' danger or an 'imminent death' danger?'

'Er - the death danger.' Harry gave Jack a funny look, but Jack's face had paled to the point of looking quite sickly.

'What could you be doing that garners...death?' asked Jack, incredulous.

Harry rewarded him with a very sad smile. 'To hazard a guess, I'd say surviving with my limbs intact and relative sanity.' Jack narrowed suspicious eyes on him.

'Could you be less specific, perhaps? I think it would be helpful.' Jack mocked, turning away from him, setting the almost forgotten book clutched in his hands on the scratched desk that was overflowing with various bits of paper. 'I think perhaps that you should stop listening to what other people want from you, Harry, and that means...don't ask me what to do, because I'm not going to tell you. It's your choice.'

Harry paled considerably. 'What?' If Jack were wearing spectacles, he'd be looking at Harry over them. 'I don't have - I don't...' Harry fumbled, trying to form a sentence that would be recognisably English. 'I don't know what to do!'

Jack just shrugged at him. 'I can't tell you,' he merely said, sounding more as if he'd turned down a tourist asking for directions and turned away, climbing back up the ladder before noticing he hadn't brought any books to shelve and climbed back down.

'Then...I just - I can't - ' Harry despaired, throwing his arms in the air. Jack gave him a pointed look over his shoulder.

'Can't or won't, Harry?' With that Jack, for all intents and purposes, ignored Harry for the rest of the day. Even so, Harry didn't miss the worried look to man sent him as he left for the Inn that night.

Harry ignored Hedwig for the more important endeavour of figuring out what he wanted to do about his situation. He had never had the time, nor expressed the hope, to ponder on how he would do things. As such, he was having a problem deviating from the plans Dumbledore had laid down from day one, before Harry was even aware he was a wizard.

Point in fact, Harry was meant to either kill or be killed by Lord Voldemort. Now, Harry didn't particularly like the expected outcome of this eventual meeting - mostly because he was only sixteen years old and Voldemort was...well...he was old. In fact, Harry himself would much rather place himself outside of the situation entirely, perhaps even hold auditions for a new Harry Potter, Boy Saviour and change his name. Harry let himself go off on that tangent for a while before coming back to the important facts. It wouldn't happen.

Sighing deeply, and feeling that dark thing creeping up on him again, he tried to find out what he wanted to do. He wanted to be an Auror...or did he? Was that just expected of him, a non-verbal expectancy? Biting his lip harder, Harry tried to concentrate on what made him happy.

Flying.

It was a simple answer, really. He felt a sense of immense relief flood him; that's what he would do. He would fly, be free for the rest of his life...after he somehow figured out how to kill - could he even do that? - a wizard who was more knowledgeable and skilled then he. And much less queasy about killing.

After an hour of that Harry gave it up as a lost cause for the day and went to bed, where he had a fitful sleep. When he woke in the morning, he devoted a fair bit of time discussing the 'what ifs' of his sudden decision to be a Quidditch Player with Hedwig. She seemed quite affable to the whole thing really.

After breakfast and his rather one-sided conversation, Harry set out to the book store, only this time intent on reading up on...defensive things. Perhaps a muggle look on defending oneself will lend an idea or two. Jack had given him a brief smile and a polite 'alright?' before going back to his perpetual shelving.

Harry perused the books until he came across the Martial Arts section, where he bunkered down into one of the plush chairs located at the back and read most of the afternoon. Harry hadn't noticed how long he'd read until a cup of tea hovered in his peripheral vision. His first thought was that Jack was a wizard, until he looked up and noted the hand holding the cup. Jack gave his half-smile.

'Thought you might need a break.'

Harry accepted the steaming cup with a relieved smile, noticing that he was beginning to get a headache between his eyes. After a few moments of silence, Jack slipped into the adjacent chair.

'Find anything interesting?'

'Hm.' hummed Harry noncommittally. Truthfully, he'd found loads of interesting things, but how he was going to close enough to round-house kick Voldemort was anyone's guess. Jack raised an eyebrow.

'How fascinating,' remarked Jack dryly, and Harry fought the urge to stick his tongue out at the man.

He took a sip of tea before answering more in depth. 'Well, it is interesting I just don't...I'm not sure how I'm going to apply something like that. I think it's a bit too forward...' he murmured, more to himself then to Jack, and therefore he missed the prideful look that flitted across the blue-eyed man's face. 'Maybe something more - well - sneaky.'

'Sneaky?' Jack repeated dubiously, leaving all of his reservations unvoiced about what that word would entail. Harry looked up, a bit sheepish.

'Yeah, like...poisons, you know, that sort. Only, not - I mean, something that's not noticeable.'

Jack just stared at him. 'Poison?'

Harry gulped, setting his cup of tea down hastily before he spilled it. He then spread his hands in a gesture that was meant as a 'see, I'm harmless!' sort of thing. 'If I don't - don't kill - er - this guy, then he's going to finish the job on me.'

Jack narrowed his eyes at that, watching Harry with a strange look of calculation in his eyes. ''Finish' the job?' Harry bit his lip.

'Well, yeah - he's tried to kill me, oh...about four or five times now, I'd say.' Harry managed to say it as if he were commenting on a strange turn in the weather. Jack's mouth slackened, and his teacup tottered precariously until Harry saved it from a sudden meeting with the floor.

'Five times?'

'Yeah, about…'

'And all you want to do is poison the bastard?' Jack sounded furious, and Harry leaned back in his chair, wondering what sort of protection it would offer.

'Er - well, I can't do it any other way, he's better then I am...I have to find a loop-hole.' Harry shrugged, knowing that it wasn't his fault. Jack shook his head, turning his gaze to a nearby bookcase.

'Utter rubbish,' he muttered under his breath. 'Harry, I doubt that this man isn't going to be looking out for poisons.'

Harry sighed. 'Well, it was worth a try I suppose...'

'Are you sure you can't use that?' Jack gestured towards the forgotten Martial Arts book. Harry looked at it blankly before giving in to a dark chuckle.

'No, I won't get close enough - he'd cu - uh...' Harry bit off the rest of the word, terribly aware he almost broke Wizarding Law. Jack's bright, intelligent eyes were fixed on his for what Harry felt was entirely too long for politeness.

'Are you sure?' Jack inquired slowly, as if sounding out the words by syllable would someone induce Harry's brainwaves to come up with a plan-that-would-work.

'Fairly, I assume that - '

'Assuming makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me', Harry.' Jack cut in, raising both of his eyebrows at Harry who blinked.

'What?' Jack just glowered at him and Harry continued after a moment. 'I guess it's entirely plausible that I could get that close, I never tried the last couple times I was around. I was too busy trying to get as far away as possible. As you do.'

Jack managed a small smile at that. 'Understandably, but take into consideration that he won't be expecting a physical attack from, no offence, a scrawny thing like you.'

Harry translated that into Wizard-speak, and deduced that Voldemort just wouldn't expect him to not use his wand. Tapping his chin, he decided that Jack was probably right. Although, there was the problem of Voldemort being a Half-Blood...but somehow Harry felt that You-Know-Who wasn't likely to hold onto any of those delightful childhood memories of physical violence.

As a whole, he was finding his impromptu holiday more fun then he previously thought.

Under the Sun

Dry Cell

We measure our lives in years
But they don't mean much
Always fading away
The things we can't touch
I'm never seeing it through
I'm always walking away
Maybe I don't believe
That it's inside of me

We measure our lives in years
But they don't mean much
Always fading away
The things we can't touch
I can't believe that I'm lost
I don't know how to survive
I can't believe that I'm here
And that I'm still alive