My sincerest apologies for the long wait for a update, for reasons, see my profile, but i'm working on it every time plot bunnies find me and I have the time and energy to pet them.
Disclaimer: Why yes, I own Harry Potter. And Lord of the Rings. And Egypt. And the whole world while I'm busy telling obvious lies. Eigth grader King Bob will rule the world for me in my stead, while I will busily fly around the galaxy in my wooden pirate ship. Avast, a cookie for the person getting the King Bob reference.
Cold. No, more like freezing. He could barely feel his toes anymore, yet this frigid temperature only started what seemed like a second ago.
He dared not open his eyes for he was afraid that his watery eyes would freeze up.
And then he noticed the pounding snow, driven by harsh winds that were stronger then any other gale he experienced before.
As he lay there, he desired back for the warm melodies that he heard before this shift happened. The winds were slowly softening up, not hurting as much as they used to.
Or maybe that was just his body giving up, he couldn't quite tell.
But the roaring sounds that the winds used to make didn't sound quite as bad as they used to anymore.
The snow seemed softer now, just a chilling touch. Yet he dared not open his eyes, for his mind was afraid that it would all come back.
But nothing was changing now, the snow was still chilling him and his instincts told him to move or he would end up as a frozen statue. Forever silent like Petunia's garden gnomes.
Wait, who was Petunia? And garden gnomes? Little fake men made out of stone.
But more important, who was Petunia? A memory started coming back. A woman, quite tall, a worried expression upon her face. Yes, maybe she was worried for he was in a small dark place and hungry. He did not know the time, it felt long, but not as long as the harsh winds from before.
Maybe she would free him, feed him. Something told him she was family, but the only thing they had in common would be that they were both thin. Suddenly he remembered a something about his past.
He banged his fists on the wooden surface, a door, he had been looking through the keyhole, waiting for somebody to come by.
A loving look was upon her face, but she was not looking at him. As she heard the sound coming from behind the door, the look suddenly changed to …disgust? He was not quite sure, but it was something unpleasant to look at. She started barging towards the door. All hope was gone. This was not the loving family that he hoped for, that he prayed for.
Crawling back into the smallest cranny he could find with his hands, he tried to hide. But the door opened and the sudden surge of light made his eyes close in pain.
Knocking over bottles and banging his head against the bottom of a staircase his mind blurred but one sentence remained clear. In a shrilly voice something shouted ''What do you want, Freak!?''
Harry woke up to voices far more unpleasant then Petunia's could ever hope to be.
"-Freak right now, Rash is hungry!" a gnarly voice called out.
"No, no, far too little meats on it! Bait, bait, use it as bait!" a second one shouted.
"For what? The fish down deep? You're useless, Stomp!" The roughest sounding of the now three grumbled.
The voices were coming from above him, all from a different directions. He did not like these nasty voices at all, longing back for the warm melodies. Trying to stay as still as possible hoping that they did not notice him being awake now, he thought that this was preferable to the biting chills from before.
"But we haven't eaten nothing but FISH for ages! Why not take a bite?!" the one called Rash spoke.
"No more human meats, not even sheep anymore! Everything is gone! " the unnamed one said, speaking less then the rest.
"We should just eat it and leave for east, I hear they have hairy men with sheep. And horses, oh delicious horse!" Rash continued.
"We should bring him to the Goblin King, may he'l reward us!" Greed spoke, drool dripping onto Harry.
Having completely lost track of the conversation, the captive tried to subtly clamber away while the people above him were busy argueing.
"Oh, awake, are we." The rough one said, firmly setting his leather clad food upon his stomach. "No escape for you, and even if you did, the rest would catch you and you'd just be a morsel for the goblin king!"
"But he won't get you, not if I can get in a bite in first!" Rash said, and proving his name true, he felt grimy hands grip onto his arm and set of teeth starting to touch his skin. Opening his eyes he saw a foot kick the head away. It was rough goblin who seemed to be the leader of the group, as far as they had a leader.
Taking in the details, our little captive saw that the things wanting to eat him were not people but gray-brownish things, as short as he was. On eye-level was Greed, who was still rubbing his wounds after being kicked in the face. Standing with one foot on Greed was "Rough" as Harry named him for lack of better.
Rough was debating with Greed over the lack of 'morsel' whatever that was, most likely food, since that was all that they could talk about. Hopefully Harry wouldn't be food, but he would have to do something about being here. He was just so very tired, getting rest while on this rock would be hard, not to mention the worryingly loud voices above him.
Looking around Harry saw that they were in a small alcove on a mountain ledge. All he could see beyond that was just the steep gray slope of another mountain. He though they were mountains because the cliff face matched with the picture in the schoolbooks.
Having no idea where he was, except 'mountains', Harry decided that getting out of wherever he was, was priority. Only his hands were tied up with big rope, but the little boy dared not move again for falling under attention again of the creatures. If he moved too much, he would either get kicked or eaten he guessed.
He couldn't see where Greed was, but he sounded somewhere behind him. Rough was gesturing angrily at greed with one of his foot still on the half-passed out Rash. The winds roared passed the alcove and it started raining.
Apparently Rough had won whatever he wanted by pulling out a sharp small sword from a sheath and gesturing to a path facing away from him.
Looking down at Harry, Rough picked him up by the hips and threw him over his shoulder with surprising strength. Keeping one arm over Harry, they started walking on the path gestured to earlier. Being able to see more then a cliff-face, Harry saw that the path they were on went up steeply and went down even faster. Blinking, Harry tried to keep his eyes open, determined on escape. But surely closing his eyes for one little minute couldn't hurt...right?