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A/N: This is something I wrote a while ago but couldn't decide on a clean cut ending. So I left it open, a brief oneshot into a new AU. I haven't been able to write anything cause of school but I just wanted to get something out here for yall. Thoughts and reviews are very much welcome :)
In the battle of Christmas shopping it was easy to lose a child. He had proof in the form of a wailing five year old to his left, he glimpsed towards her. Beginning to shovel through the bustle to try and give some much needed guidance to the bawling girl. Many people glanced towards her, others completely bypassed her. Harry was not one to let his own wellbeing or desires override when someone needed his help though. "Where do you think you're going?" a tight clasp on his bicep sparked a wince. Harry shuffled to glare at his horse-faced aunt, shooting a backwards glance to the disappearing girl.
Simultaneously, his aunt Petunia's only thought was on the many gifts she could bestow upon her duddikins, without unintentionally suffocating him. Harry, somewhere in his young bitter heart, hoped she would forget the latter. Then he winced, slightly disgusted with the turn of his thoughts. It was a regular one during the holidays but usually he held them at bay with delusional hope of gifts. Perhaps, he was finally becoming wiser?
He yanked his bicep from her bony grasp, scowling viciously. Just to irritate her with how little he cared about his cousins many extravagant presents. He had been carted to the bustling; loud London streets to lug his cousin's gifts from place to place while his uncle, Vernon – the bulging walrus he was – scourged for an nonexistent parking space. When his uncle came they would both check the presents to make certain Harry hadn't pinched any, as always, Harry would contemplate slashing the wheels of the car. His aunt Petunia pursed her thin lips, wrapped tightly in a thick beige furry monstrosity – which was allegedly in fashion for the wealthy; of course hers was a cheaper imitation. "Fine, if you are going to be difficult." She clattered through the crowd, dragging him by the bony shoulder and prodding him onto a bird-dropping infested bench. "I will be going into the stores, and you will wait here until I return. If I hear a word of any," she glimpsed around them scandalously and hissed, "freakishness. You will be severely punished, boy." With a satisfied nod, her thin frame vanished into the crowd.
Harry gripped his scraggly, threadbare jumper closer. He huddled into the corner of the bench, frigid metal jutted into his spine, and his ankles peeked beneath his ripped jeans. Maybe he could take shelter in one of the nearby stores, and rush back when he saw her coming? A whistling gust whipped his rags; Harry prodded his glasses up his nose. Afraid he would lose them and be left mostly blind for another month. Okay, he had a plan, that's what he would do. He flicked his gaze to the direction his aunt had left, and then the stores surrounding him. "You'll get a cold like that, you know?" Harry jumped, certain his intentions had been read.
Instead, an angular chinned boy garbed in what-had-to-be an expensive ebony cloak, was appraising him steadily. Did he read that right? Was the boy addressing him, he glimpsed around him certain there stood another stranger. To his surprise, there was not and his reaction garnered a soft snort. "I know. What would you have me do then, oh wise one?" he snapped, crossing his arms in rebelliousness and to preserver heat.
To his confusion, the boy mistook it as a compliment. "Wear your coat, maybe?" the boy sang, as if it were obvious. It honestly was in this weather, but Dudley had refused on principal to lend Harry his old coats. So Harry was left to freeze, while the practically new coats were coated with dust.
Harry scowled, rubbing his numb fingers over his biceps. "I haven't got a coat." He explained sourly. The boy observed him, as if he were a speck of something unknown on his boot.
"You're not homeless are you?" the boy was grimacing; the insinuation was probably disgusting to him, while Harry had seriously contemplated traveling that path rare a times. Harry shook his head with a scowl, he plowed forward, trying to bypass the boy so he could squander in a shop. They boy held onto his wrist, the grip was hot in reference to the frigid cold lashing on his sides and he hissed. The boy pouted. "If that's true than where is your coat?" he ventured, trying to trip Harry up.
Harry was not this rich prats play thing, so his scowl darkened. "My aunt doesn't deem me worthy of a coat." And with that he yanked his wrist from the loose grip and stalked towards the nearest store. Regretfully the boy had scampered up to him again blocking his road, his expression unreadable.
Finally the boy cringed, smoothing the flawless cloak. "My aunt's insane too, locked up in this prison and everything. My father always says she is insane, but then my mother makes the elves put garlic in his food as punishment." Harry blinked; reeling slightly with the knowledge the boy had taken his submissive words as proof of his aunt's insanity, then even more startled by the forthcoming nature in return. "He's allergic to garlic." The boy continued; worrying his lip until he pursed his lips in attempt to keep away wayward actions.
To his confusion the only thing he managed to utter in return was; "elves?"
The boy nodded absently, flicking golden white hair from his silver eyes. "You want me to go get my spare cloak? I think my mother's got it." He mused to his own. Harry shook his head softly, confusion still burrowing his brow but the barest of smiles lighting his lips. The boy studied him critically, crossing his arms in indignation. "Why not? It's obvious you need it."
Harry shrugged dismissively and the boy narrowed glinting silver eyes in return. "I don't need anything," he assured monotonously from years beneath the Dursleys' disgust, "I'm grateful for what I have."
The boy snorted, rolling his eyes. He interlocked his warm arm with Harry's, spun them around and began walking in the opposite direction. The boy was practically a furnace so Harry did not fight it; the reprieve from the cold was very welcome. He momentarily wondered what would happen if his Aunt bustled round the corner but then decided she was going to have to deal with his absence. He would go home alone, if need be. "Did you practice that?"
Harry ignored the snorted inquiry with his own, cautious one. "Where are we going?"
The boy tufted in return, but he had a light grin on his lips. "We're going to my mother," he slipped his other hand down into Harry's cold one, "how anyone can be this frozen is beyond me." Harry waited for the turn of horror as the boy realized he was touching a freak but it never came, and honestly, Harry was humbled. He couldn't recall anyone just holding his hand just because he was a little blue around the edges. "My mother is going to sort you out; it's stupid to walk around in this weather. You will catch a cold this way, didn't you mother teach you better?"
Harry's fingers clenched unknowingly around the boy's as he scowled, he managed to ground out. "I live with my aunt and uncle." They boy appraised him once more, then squinted as if he would be able to sense the orphan wafting off him.
Harry huffed, his other frozen hand instinctively wrapping around the heat of the boys hand already in his grip. "Oh right, why?" Harry snarled, ripping his hands out of the warmth and backing away. He didn't fathom what the betrayal stemmed from but it bristled to life in his chest. "Oh relax," the boys tone was pompous, but Harry could see the discomfort on his rigid shoulders. "I was just asking, you don't have to answer." Harry's sparked fury relented; he squeezed his still thrumming fingers.
"Sorry, it's just…sorry."
The boy's pink lips quirked in a half-smile, he shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head in the direction they were going. "You still want to come?" Harry wrung his fingers; did the boy still want him to come? As if in response to his doubt, the boy hesitantly reached for his hand. Harry's lips rose in a grateful smile, and he took the boys pallid fingers in his own. They walked rather silently, if not for the minute cough of heated air from their lips. "Here," he tugged Harry into an offset alley, towards a small, boxed café.
Its crimson curtains were drawn, the couple of outside tables glistened with rain and the sign above the café read Thimble's Dimples. Whence inside, both of them exhaled a sigh of relief at the almost suffocating heat and exchanged a grateful glance. The boy unwound his emerald scarf, and took Harry's forearm in his other palm. He led Harry to the shadowed corner, completely ignoring inquisitive ogles. Harry was secretly pleased the boy took charge, for he was amiable to scowl under strangers thumbs. In the corner seated delicately, was a poise woman seeping her tea. At their arrival, her ice eyes narrowed and she placed her tea cup back onto its plate. "Draco, darling?"
Harry swallowed thickly. Thankfully the boy, named Draco apparently – while a name he had never heard before was really cool, he imagined an awakening dragon rustling its emerald scales and bellowing pools of crimson flames – answered, he pulled Harry beside him and patted his shoulder as would a new dog. "I met him outside and he was really cold. I hoped mother that we could patch him up." Harry frowned, resenting the implication he needed 'patching up', but really too warm to complain. He could finally feel his nose, and that was a momentous improvement.
His mother observed him critically, until finally he saw her fingers clench upon the table. Draco frowned questioning at his mother, glimpsing back at Harry to see if he had done anything. Harry winced; Draco's mother could tell he was a freak. "Sorry, I'll…um," he skirted backwards for a way out, "I didn't mean to intrude." Draco exasperatedly rolled his eyes, but still, he didn't move to stop him.
Instead it was Draco's mother who raised a placating palm. "I apologize, you remind me greatly of someone I used to know." She beckoned him forward, whence he did not come Draco tufted interlocking their fingers and coaxing him until he could smell the cinnamon of his mother's tea. She nodded, ice tender as she appraised him. "Yes I would say positively frozen, excellent assessment dear." Draco's grin was crooked, soft around his glinting silver eyes. "Please sit, I'll have some hot chocolate brought."
The opposite couch was scarlet, high with a dark mahogany backboard, and his tattered boots were heads from the ground when he shuffled into place beside Draco. The woman returned a stick to her intrinsic ebony and navy robe, and immediately two cups of steaming hot chocolate with frothing cream and two pieces of shortbread upon the saucer, appeared from thin air. Harry jumped, but Draco was too delighted with the shortbread he was nibbling to notice. His mother on the other hand, was not, ice narrowed once more. Harry remained silent, listening awkwardly while Draco inquired of his mother's day and she answered scrupulously. "You haven't touched you hot chocolate." When Draco nudged him he shrugged, steadying his gaze on the marble ebony table. Draco huffed, and Harry winced. Draco had been nice to him, and here he was being a right brat. "Hey, what's your name?" the question seemed to only have occurred to the boy.
"Harry Potter." Draco promptly chocked on his shortbread, his mother shot him a concerned, exasperated gaze. Had Draco heard that he was a freak? Was there some kind of freak registry that went around so all the names of freaks could be identified as freaks? It would explain a lot if true, he sighed, considering bolting.
"Aah, that's why you seemed familiar." Harry winced; instead she gave him a charming smile. "I recalled your father; he was the best friend to one of my cousins back at school." Something fizzled in his heart, elating a dull ringing in his ears. His uncle had lied, of course he had, he hated Harry, and his parents. His father hadn't been a drunk; how could he have been, when this poise woman's cousin had been his fathers' best friend? "I am also quite certain you father's parents were my great aunt and uncle."
"What?" both he and Draco yelped, they exchanged a puzzled and alarmed gaze. Draco licked his already bruised bottom lip, and turned to his mother. "Really? But father…" he shot completely unsubtle eye-rolls Harry's way, his mother exhaled.
"Draco, please work on your tact, even when frazzled." Draco slouched into the cushion pouting; Harry considered patting his arm for reassurance but couldn't deem if it was appropriate. "Now Harry, is it alright I call you Harry?" he smiled hesitantly, no one had called his Harry in a long time probably since his second year form room teacher, "I'll take that as a yes. Know that you are amongst friends, we will not harm you, but there maybe those that we are acquainted with that would. So if I tell you to hide you are to do so, to the best of your ability." His hands wrung clammy in his lap, all his mind perceived was his endless freakishness and a possible price on his appendages in the black market.
He didn't want to get the two kindest people he had met in trouble, nor could he completely fathom yet that they were related. "It would be better if I just go home. My aunt's probably worried," the lie tasted bitter on his tongue, "so, I should get home."
Draco scoffed, grasping his arm and told Harry rather pompously. "If you're going to lie at least make it convincing." He cringed, squirming from his grip and the bench, nearly collapsing onto the ground in his hurry. His cheeks burning, he thanked them both quickly (Draco was scowling petulantly), and darted out into the wintry cold with his stomach heavy in his shoes.
A fierce gust, a deep-seated shiver rattled his teeth. He hadn't taken into account the weather, but now, it was too late. And he wasn't going to get them in trouble either, so he hunched in his shoulders to preserve the accumulated warmth. It took several wrong turns, the crowd still roaring eagerly for gifts and he diligently halted the urge to rush back to the café. When he arrived by the bench he was assigned to huddle, it was already occupied by his slightly puce cheeked uncle. Now he exhaled the biting cold, squared his shoulders and drew to his farthest height – which to everyone standards above the age of five, was not far. "Uncle Vernon."
His uncle was not the most tolerant of men and Harry was vigorously carted with a firm thick bear-catcher clench on his spiny shoulder. He was deposited in the car, where his aunt Petunia glowered from her seat in the humid heat, of the cars radiator. And they left; traffic did not quench his uncles' fury. His uncle bellowed and roared his fists indigo around the wheel, jostling the entire car while he spat. Harry crossed his limbs, steadily ignored the vicious and scathing insults to his person. Never had he been so insulted, he literally felt all the comfort and self-esteem he had garnered crag, sink and vanish. When his uncle persisted onto his parents, Harry clenched his fists so tight he bled. 'I hate you, I hate you, you liars, you complete liars, I hate you, I hate you…'
His next memory is of swirling blue and red flashes in sunset. He is staring at the dried blood on his palms, in his lap and there is a thin blanket covering his rigid shoulders. There is cotton on his tongue. His right leg, has a bloodied slit drawn the trouser and he carefully fingers the bandages hidden in the folds of cloth. "Oh merlin, Harry…" A man with wide, glazed amber eyes is skimming callous fingers over his face, brushing his hair. Harry winces at a sting from a gash in eyebrow. "Sorry," the man exhales, clenching his twitching fingers on his knees to curb the affection.
Harry can't comprehend why the man cares. He has never laid eyes upon the man before, but Harry has longed for concern enough to recognize it. Harry tilts his head to scrutinize the man; he was weary, pallid, with moonlight scars on his cheek disappearing into his coat, his knuckles adjourned livid crimson ones. He looks indubitably ill; Harry felt a surge of hope. Was this man a freak like him? His aunt Petunia would steal once glance of the man and deem him so. So Harry decided then and there, he rather liked the man. "How'd you know my name?" The man froze his cheek sprinkled with red. "So-sorry, I thought…doesn't matter." Only freaks asked questions, his aunt had elucidated.
To his surprise the man perched on the end of the ambulance beside him. An emergency medic scowled at him, but he ignored her. "I'm an old friend of your parents." Harry defiantly liked him. Taken with an urge to giggle he stifled it, but the man relaxed beside him. He was meeting with people today who had known who his parents really were. Harry glimpsed the man's tender amber eyes, to witness the supple smile grow. "You have your mother's eyes you know," he really didn't know, but kept quite in the light of the revelation. He had often pondered in the bathroom mirror what he got from his parents; he had no pictures to pull from of course. It had panicked him to realize he might have well just plopped from the edge of the town into existence, and could just as easily combust. In the end, garbling with mythical imagery of his parents was a gigantic don't. "But you got your dad's jaw, and cheeks," the man laughed brushing a stray lock, "defiantly his hair."
Harry whimpered, "Really?" the man nodded scrupulously, sandy brows drawn slightly.
Then noticing the intensity of his stare distressed Harry, he actually stopped. "Guess that's the first time you've heard that then," Harry shrugged dismissively. "Anyhow, just call me Remus." Remus said softly scratching a mar on his knuckle; Harry pursed his lips at it. Had someone harmed Remus because he was a freak like Harry?
"Who hurt you?" he pointed to the fuming red scar, Remus froze, jerked both palms from Harry's view. He hadn't wanted to push him away, he was like Harry. He'd theorized that with other people who were like him, he could ask questions.
Remus grimaced, his gangly limbs rearranging stiffly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I have a disease, it's not contagious, so don't worry. But sometimes I get scars." He didn't think Remus was lying but he also wasn't entirely forthcoming.
Harry stared a winking street lamp, daring to whisper. "Is it because you're a freak like me?" Alarmed amber, shot an uncomfortable lurch somewhere just below his heart. He began to apologize, for what exactly he was uncertain. Long fingers clasped over his blood-crusted hand, and when he raised his eyes to where they had fallen. He couldn't begin to fathom the crumpled fear in the man's amber eyes.
"Did your aunt and uncle tell you that?" something cold clasped in his heart and yanked into his stomach. He nodded jerkily; he glared at the flickering street lamp willing it to combust with pent fury. It did not.
"It's fine though," he shrugged, the silence rebuked by soft chatter of several officials at the scene. He still didn't know what happened; ignoring it was a top priority at the moment. "I've always been a freak; strange things do happen around me a lot. So it's not like it isn't true." His latest predicament proved this.
Remus seized his shoulder, when Harry met his bright gaze he wished he hadn't. Heartbreak shimmered in amber. He looked faraway furious, and positively determined. "You are not a freak Harry. Your aunt and uncle don't understand, in fact I think your aunt is a bit jealous of you." Remus grinned, his eyes crinkling at the incredulous glare Harry shot him. "She was of your mother, that's for sure."
He gaped. "Aunt Petunia was jealous of my mum?" If anything Remus's grin elongated to impish, as he nodded. Harry smothered giddy laughter, grasping the marred hand in both of his own. "So was she like me? Was my dad too?" he implored.
The man bent closer, glimpsing around them for eavesdropper. Harry's heart thrummed in his ears, in expectancy and flutters of hope. Amber eyes crinkled impossibly closer, and nodded again. "We all met in a school for special people just like ourselves." Harry gaped, breath trapped in chest. There was a school full of people like him out there somewhere. "And when you turn eleven Harry, you'll be going too."
"Really?" was what he managed to squeak. Remus chuckled, wrapping a hesitant arm round his shoulders. Harry curled into his side hesitantly, not used to forms of affection, his fingers skimming until clenched in the man's threadbare jumper. His aunt and uncle really were liars, then. A midnight breeze tousled his hair; he buried his pink nose in Remus's side. He felt the man stiffen; the man wouldn't push him away though. He couldn't after everything he had said. Harry was correct, and Remus gave a warm ruffle to his mussed hair. Harry smiled into his side.
"It's been a long day; do you want to go to bed?" His body ached, tingles on his fingertips and sharp spasms in his injured leg. He still didn't think he would be able to sleep. Harry steeled his pounding heart, fearlessly lifting his head to the scene splayed before him.
The sun had mostly set, casting glinting crimson and scarlet onto the shattered glass littered road. To one side, a duo of police officers conversing with cups in their hands, beside a crumpled nose of a truck. Somehow it reminded Harry of a scrunched puppet's maw, the glass of the window had exploded and if he tried he could see the faint smear of red on the worn seat. And opposite tilted fetal, onto its crushed side, one wheel propped onto the curb, another winding in the faint breeze. The shotgun seat door severed to one side as discarded paper, and the window of Harry's seat was stretched, elongated just enough to allow a small body through.
He had been in there; he could remember the thrum of his anger, until it skewed to overwhelming fear at the glare of belated horn. He had no time to comprehend anything more than a painful lurch. But he had been in there, in that trampled aluminum. And he had come out unscathed. His fingers brushed the bandages on his leg; it had happened when the medics had extracted him through the window. He had been cationic, heaving dry sobs. He only possessed eyes for the crumpled and bloodied and broken forms of his aunt and uncle. "Where are they?" Remus brushed a warm palm across the scar on his forehead.
"In the hospital," he said softly, drawing Harry tighter. "They're being treated for their injuries," Remus makes it sounds so simple. Like a scraped knee and quick kiss on the offended area that mothers gave their kids in the park. But it wasn't, Harry knew it was worse. Remus held him when angry tears wormed onto his cheeks, and quivered his shoulders. Harry smothered his apologies.