Un-betaed b-day gift for my friend Rob who requested a HP fic that had something to do with music. Also to help kick start me into writing for my other fics again.

Full credit for the Cover Art goes to 'vhm-Alex over at Deviantart under the title of 'music.'

These Will Set You Free

It was a little known fact that before Harry J. Potter became thee criminal of Privet Drive there was another one. His name was August Fills, though everyone on the street called him 'Augie' or (as he preferred) the moniker that a handful of friends he had scattered around Surrey called him, for reasons quite unknown to the authoress, 'Soap.'

Soap had spent the majority of his life in Savannah, Georgia and spoke with a slow, lilting draw that only help set him even further apart from his neighbors and schoolmates. Soap hadn't enjoyed the move from the States to England. At the of age of thirteen and just burgeoning into his own sense of self, the blasé atmosphere of Privet Drive – and much to his chagrin, his parent's apparent love of the place – was hard for him to take.

Because Soap was Different from everyone else on the street. With a capital 'D' and all.

It was clear, both to Soap and his parents that he would not easily fit in on the street. But Soap's mother, Patricia, and his father, August Sr., had hoped that amiable and undeniably mundaneness of Privet Drive would help iron out their son's oddness. Both worked full time in business and this was generally blamed for how terribly their son turned out by those they lived amongst.

Predictably, Privet Drive and the nearby school almost ruined Soap's image of England forever. It wasn't until he'd reached the age of fifteen and began to make uncontrolled, parental free sojourns into Surrey and London did the displaced yank begin to understand that it wasn't England he hated, per say, just his neighbors.

Soap vowed he would leave as soon as physically possible. This understandingly distressed his parents, for though August and Patricia may not have understood their son they indeed loved him something fierce. Their neighbors, however, were quite relieved.

They did not approve of this American. With his strange name (It's Soap, for christsake), stranger accident (Sh-iiiit, ya'll think I talk weird? I need subtitles ta understand anything y'all are say'n) and odd sense of style. With brilliantly dyed hair (there were bets, honestly, on what color his hair would be each week), a habit of dressing in nothing but the same handful of half destroyed band t-shirts, jeans and a pair of worn out converses that were held together by brightly colored ducktape, August Fills certainly did not fit in with the forcibly well groomed children of Privet Drive.

To top of Soap's general inappropriateness the boy had been brought home not once, not twice, not even three times but six by the police for various charges. The mixed smell of pot and tobacco drifted amongst the sound of American rock that pelted almost 24/7 from the garden shack Soap had converted into his personal hang out.

No, the good housewives and men of Privet Drive did not like August Fills, thank you very much. To add insult to injury, despite the fact that they had all been warned/threatened/begged to stay away from him, the American was the eldest teenager on the street and the other children flocked to him. Fascinated by his sheer gal and apparent rebel-ness.

So it was with little lost love that the street sent him off to college back in the States. This was especially so for a young Mrs. Dursely who had a new born boy to think about. And considering the fact that the Fills were her direct neighbor to the right, she had feared that his strangeness would affect her son's development.

The next eight years were a blur for both the street and Soap. He attended the University of Atlanta to study music and most decidedly not business – though poor August Sr. wouldn't find out about that till he had nearly graduated – and there wasn't much thought involved when he decided to settle back down in Savannah.

Soap did, however, take a trip back home to visit his estranged parents shortly after his graduation. It was unknown to the eccentric twenty-two year old but that one trip (and, sadly, his last he ever took to visit his folks) would forever change the life of one little boy.

Harry Potter wasn't really alive. He was just a ghost. The thought was a strange one, but one the little boy knew was so. He lived because he woke up each morning, always feeling some manner of surprise that he did.

One day, Harry was sure; he would simply lie down to sleep and just not wake up.

It wouldn't be true to stay his life was hell, because it wasn't. Harry's life wasn't much of anything. He woke up, tended to his family, went to school, came home, cleaned or gardened and then went straight into his cupboard at eight o'clock sharp. Life never changed from that routine.

And always, there was the biting loneliness.

Harry's family rarely spoke to him and when it was it was a usually sharp rebuke or cold commands. School echoed home, his cousin and aunt's lies insuring he was left by himself. Someone at school had asked him once (and only once) if Uncle or Aunt ever hit him, neglected him.

The eight year old didn't know the last word but he understood hitting alright. He'd answered truthfully – no, they did not.

But he wished they did. Harry could understand being hit. He could understand that kind of hatred, that kind of anger because as a child when he found himself desperately unhappy that was how he had always wanted to react. But they never did. A few hard grabs and pushes yes, but the majority of his life was just a never ending version of the silent treatment.

So Harry was sure he wasn't really alive. To be alive meant you had to feel things and he didn't.

His mother, Soap thought, was one hell of a gossip. Patricia was very fond of their neighbor, a one Petunia Dursley who had apparently championed for her introduction into the Ladies Monthly Book Club, a club that was really nothing more than a popularity contest amongst the bored housewives.

It went without saying that it was Soap's fault that she had never made it in while he still lived with them.

Soap found Mrs. Dursley the biggest, most unflinchingly fake bitch he'd met in a very, very long time. It was Petunia more than anyone else that reminded Soap why he never wanted to come back to this place.

The fact that his father could barely look at him at dinner each night or that his mother decidedly did not take him out with her was just adding to his hatred of this damned street. Soap had sat for four incredibly long hours, listening to his mother simper on and on about how kind and self-sacrificing Petunia was. How she'd taken in her sister's child despite the fact that he was as broken and dysfunctional as his parents had been.

Apparently, despite the fact that he was all of eight this Harry Potter was the terror the neighborhood. To borrow an English phrase, Soap thought it was all bollocks. Especially as he watched the small, mousy boy attempt to mow the lawn adjacent to theirs. The Dursely family had left for a day of shopping and dinner in London – he knew this because his own mother and father had gone with them, conveniently forgetting to invite Soap.

Not that he would have gone, but it was the principle of the thing.

It was a fucking pathetic thing to see and shaking his head, Soap lit a cigarette and leaned over the fence, calling the sweating boy to come over to him. By God, the American thought, he was even smaller and younger looking up close.

Big, startled green eyes stared up at him from behind broken coke bottle glasses, over-sized clothing making him seem even smaller. Soap's eyes took everything in one sweep his mouth pursing around the cigarette in distaste at the boy's obvious mistreatment.

"Aunt said I'm not supposed to talk to you."

The quiver in his voice made the Georgian grin sharkishly. "And why is that?"

"You're a delinquent." Green eyes widen even more seconds later, hands rising up to slap over his mouth. Soap chuckled at the reaction.

"Suppose so. But apparently yer one too, yeah?"

The two stared at each other for a long moment. Soap's gaze was searching, judging, categorizing.

Harry's were simply guarded, jaded. Broken.

With a sigh, Soap flicked the half burnt cigarette and away and motioned for the little boy to wait a moment. He reappeared after a moment, a fairly large moldy box in his hands. He offered it to the little boy, watching him take it with wide eyes.

Inside was a couple of dirty, slightly smelly band t-shirts and a cassette player with thick, heavy headphones and row after row of tapes. There was a liberal amount of Bob Dylan but the collection was filled with the greats, the bands and songs who had made Soap who he was today. Blue Oyster Cult, Janis Joplin, AC/DC, The Kinks, Foreigner, KISS, Joe Walsh, The Clash, Kansas, The Who and many, many more. They had been Soap's babies while he had lived here. His only escape from the world around him.

Harry Potter, being only eight, missed the true significance of the gift and looked up at him in confusion. Soap gave him a half smile, resting one hand on dirty, wild locks.

"When you're old enough, kid, leave and don't ever look back. Trust me; the world's a helluva place once you get away from here. Until then, these will set you free."

And with that he left a bewildered eight year old behind, staring from the box to his back in utter confusion.

That night, Harry waited until the sounds above him had quieted completely before pulling the box from his hiding place in the cupboard. He stared at the t-shirt, a grey thing with the words AC/DC printed below it before pulling it on. Another hand-me-down, but one Dudley had never ever touched.

The strange man from next door's words had repeated themselves over and over in his mind all day.

These will set you free.

Curiously, cautiously, he slipped on the headphones and pressed play. Green eyes grew larger, as his small bodied settled back onto his bed, hands running over the faded and slightly bumpy print on the front of t-shirt and listened to the song playing.

Out here in the fields

I fight for my meals

I get my back into my living.

A small mouth quirked in a movement that was virtually unknown to it.

Harry Potter was smiling.

I don't need to fight

To Prove I'm right

I don't need to be forgiven

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

It was unlike anything he'd ever heard before, the sound of the keyboard and then drums! And when the man began to sing - !

Harry Potter was feeling.

Don't cry

Don't raise your eye

It's only teenage wasteland

And for the first time in a long, long time, Harry Potter was alive.

Hope you guys liked, please review! There are tons of fics with physically abusive Dursley's out there but I always thought that emotional neglect implied in the book can be just as if not more punishing.