To New York again? It wouldn't be difficult, even with Harry. John knows all the ways to the city, knows all the nooks and crannies, all the secret waterways and more. He knows how to forge document, knows what to say to the right people, at the right time.
It is tedious though. He is better with a gun in hand, a ghost that creeps in for the kill and leaves just as fast. It is the staying part that he struggles with.
And Harry would need a place to stay, wouldn't he?
It isn't until he's driving on the M3 that the thought hits him and he looks into the mirror to see the boy in the backseat, sleeping. As if sensing eyes on him, Harry wakes up and looks around wildly.
"You okay?" Wick asks and Harry nods before croaking out a soft 'yes'. "Listen, I can turn the car around anytime you want, take you back home a-"
"It's not home," Harry says, and it is the most alive he has been in all these hours. For a second John feels as if the air in the car has gotten denser, pressing in down on him. In a moment, John is taken back to when he was nineteen, his first kill and the panic attack that had followed. "The Dursleys...their house was never home."
"Your choice, Harry" And the pressure lifts, it feels easier to breathe. For a second Wick flashes back to the one time he talked to Petunia Dursley, how she'd sniffed and said 'He makes things happen, that blasted boy,' and stows the moment away as something to remember. "But you should know, there are a lot of people after me."
"The ones who hurt you?" He asks, his eyes sharpening in a way they just shouldn't.
"The ones who hurt me," John confirms. Harry thinks it over, and that's strange isn't it? A six year old thinking over his options of whether he wants to go off into the world with a man with a clearly dangerous past or stay with his aunt and uncle. And it's telling that it's not a difficult decision for him.
Finally, he shrugs, "Still better than the Dursleys," He claims, and sinks back into the seat ready to sleep some more.
And against all odds, John does something he hasn't for ages.
He smiles.
In another part of the world, not too far away, in an office filled with books, portraits and an empty bird stand, there was a desk covered in odd silver instruments, some spinning, some puffing smoke.
One of them paused suddenly. It was early in the morning yet, so early that it was still night. The office's usual occupants were away for a meeting in France and would not be back for ages. But a man in a portrait stood vigil over it, eyeing the instrument carefully. Then a single silver instrument paused, turning a murky colour as if getting tarnished with a lifetime's worth of exposure to the elements, in a single second. It let out a large cloud of smoke and then began turning the other way, faster than it had before, quicker and quicker with every single second before imploding. All that was left of it was a crumpled and tarnished piece of silver, and the man in the one portrait still awake gasped before fleeing to a single chocolate frog card in France to warn the current headmaster of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry of what had happened.
A pity he had drained a vial of Dreamless sleep potion moments ago.
A/N: I would have updated earlier but then I pushed it back because I wanted to watch John Wick 2 and then I missed it while it was in the theaters and now I'm sad.