Title: Celtic Stars and Crooked Scars

Characters: Harry Potter, Dean, Sam, Calem

Rating: M (for language only)

Warnings: Language, non-descriptive torture, and blood

Spoilers: None, though this happens in Season 3, so knowing up until then might be helpful.

Word Count: 3,316(~11,000 total)

Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter series or Supernatural

Summary: Dean finds himself captured by a real psychopath, and meets Harry, a boy who has been chained up for years. It's a desperate attempt at survival and time is ticking away.

Author's Note: Huh. Only one chapter left. THis story is drawing to a close. unfortunately, once I post that I probably won't have much time to update any other stories. I'm in all honors classes including Hon. Chemistry(which I really need to put my entire focus on right now), so sorry. Enjoy.

To answer a few reviewers questions:

No the ring isn't a hallow. That would be one of the elements that would appear in a sequel if I decide to do one sometime in the future.

Harry is thirteen in this story. You find out how long he's been there in the next chapter.

There is no rape in this story. Calem is sick, but he never goes that far. I'm afraid the thought is a bit much for me. I can handle torture and blood(sadly), but rape is beyond my capabilities.


Criminals are so predictable compared to Demons.

It takes a total of twenty seconds combined to jimmy the locks and free himself, but it takes almost a minute for him to use his weakened limbs to stand and react correctly. In the corner, Harry stares at him with an expression akin to awe.

Managing to hoist himself up the side of the wooden structure turns out to be harder than he formerly expected. Three days of starvation has significantly weakened most of his limbs; walking is hard, climbing is harder. He ignores the stabbing pain in the lower region of his stomach and the aches in his upper arms in favor of tediously balancing on the thin wooden that makes up the part where a prisoner would have their arms attached.

His own arms twinge a bit in remembrance.

"What are you doing?" The small voice echoes as Harry inches forward curiously, observing the unstable position Dean's in.

"Trying to get us out of here." Dean huffs, pulling himself up fully so that he can reach the cement, hoping there was some sort of detaching mechanism. If there isn't, all his his planning was for nothing. He feels around for a few moments, looking for anything that would detach...and finds another lock.

Dean smirks, triumphant, and pulls the wire from where he'd stashed it between his lips for the climb. He feels his way towards the lock again, stretching as much as possible. It's quite a bit harder to pick a lock when it's out of sight and his arm is at such as awkward angle, but after five minutes and a reassuring click later, he's lowering the cement carefully to the floor. Just because Calem's gone doesn't mean there are guards outside the door who would find loud noises interesting and come to investigate.

Once more, he climbs up and pulls the final protective covering—a thin piece of metal with slate for the air to filter through — from the hole. Instantly, a burst of cool air surrounds him, nearly knocking him over. There's a strong gust of wind flowing through the tunnel, meaning they probably weren't very far from the surface and the way out.

The tunnel goes up about two feet before branching off to in two directions. Dean sticks his hand up in the tunnel and determines the air is coming from the left passage. That's their best way out.

"Can you climb up here?" He directs the question towards Harry who looks uncertain.

"Think so."

"Come on then, I'll help you."

Harry makes it halfway up the side before he starts to slip and Dean's forced to lean down, grabbing Harry's forearm smoothly. Dean nearly falls, but he catches himself at the last minute. He helps Harry clamor the rest of the way up.

When they're both safely up top, Dean holds him close, carefully whispering instructions, "Follow that tunnel until you find a way out. Don't stop no matter what. I'll be right behind you. Feel the air, okay?"

Harry nods, so Dean hoists him carefully into the tunnel. The boy disappears for a few moments and Dean waits until Harry's face appears over the side to pull himself up. It's extremely small; someone of Sam's build would never have a chance of squeezing their way through here.

The ventilation shaft is short, but Dean expected that of a home-project. Calem doesn't seem like the type to hire a professional outside source to do his dirty work. It leaves a paper trail—something people outside the project may find out about.

They emerge in a small wooded area, near the highway. It's day and bright sunlight shines through the trees, beating down upon them. Harry shrinks away from the sun at first, making a small sound of pain. Dean covers the boy's eyes, as well as his own as he waits for them adjust to the light. It hurts, but not as badly as it does Harry.

That annoying, nagging part of him comes back, wondering just how long it's been since Harry's seen the sun. "Harry, we've gotta get out of here. Calem may still be around somewhere."

The trip topside has been way too easy; there's always a catch.

Dean didn't bother to cover the hole the shaft made—Calem is going to know how they got out either way. Disguising their escape would only waste time they don't have.

Harry is still curled up in a little ball, covering his delicate eyes from the devious rays of sunlight that beam down upon them, so Dean picks up the kid and sets off in the direction of the highway. He's going a lot slower than if he was alone, but no way in Hell is he going to leave Harry behind for Calem and his followers to pick up again.

He navigates the woods carefully, not wanting to trip and crush Harry beneath his weight because of his current weakness. Days without food will do that to a person.

After a few minutes of walking, Dean allows himself a brief respite and relaxes against the side of a nondescript tree of average proportions. Harry groans and manages to remove his hand from it's protective stance in front of his face and blink a few times, looking in every direction but towards the sun. "I c'n walk."

"You sure, buddy?"

At the answering nod, Dean lowers the smaller than normal kid to the ground, clouds of dirt flaring up around the small boy as his bare feet hit. Dean feels a bit of regret that Harry is going to force himself to walk on the hard forest floor without any means of protection for his feet, but one thing he's learned is that Harry is stubborn despite his captivity up to this point and refuses any coddling or comfort.

Well, if Harry wants to walk, he will walk. Dean has no qualms about independence. At Harry's age, he was watching Sam while his father was out on hunts. Heck, he was out on hunts half the time. It would be hypocritical for him to say no.

After a few more moments of rest, Dean pushes himself off the tree and continues his steady walk towards the highway. Behind him, Harry trails a few feet back with a thoughtful expression on his face. He remains mostly impassive during the walk, but Dean can tell something's up.

It's nothing good—that much is clear.

The highway comes into sight a few seconds later, but Dean stays carefully out of sight, his eyes scanning the road suspiciously. If their absence was noticed, they could be in any of those cars, awaiting for them to emerge with hopes of hitchhiking.

Coming into the open would give them away instantly.

"We're going to follow this road to the nearest town, okay Harry?" The kid hardly seems to hear Dean. His eyes are wide, staring at the busy road with slight fear. Who knows if the kid's ever even seen a road.

The anger is back.

Stupid psychopaths, ruining the life of an innocent child. If Harry doesn't turn away from all adult figures it'll be a miracle.

Dean takes Harry's hand in his own and the boys eyes slowly disconnect from the road to meet Dean's own eyes, a plea hidden deep down. "Hey, don't worry. We're out of that place now. We're gonna meet up with my brother, Sam—you remember me telling you about him?"

"Yes." The voice is timid, quiet.

"He's going to get us far away from here. You're not going back no matter what."

"How do you know?" The inane look—empty and dry—nearly drives Dean to punch the nearest tree in frustration. Whatever Calem has been doing to Harry has broken him so deep, it hurts Dean to even look.

"I'm going to personally make sure of it." And he will. Though Dean considers himself to be an extremely bad example to children—the one-night stands being a key influence—he won't break a promise.

Ever.

"Why?"

There's the million dollar question—the question not even he has an answer to.

Because that's how I was raised.

Because I care.

Because I...

They all mean the same thing. No matter what cocky attitude he puts up, he has a heart. Seeing a child so torn up puts everything into perspective.

Dean's seen a lot of things over the years. He's had children die in his arms when him and his brother arrive to late. Parents have screamed, thrown things at him when he doesn't bring back the news they want to hear. He disconnects in those situations, not letting the deaths get to him. He knows that if he does, it would eat away at him, slowly ripping him to shreds.

Harry got close somehow, so now it's personal. Calem isn't going to hurt Harry again.

Calem won't hurt anyone.

"I don't know."

And it's the truth.

(~) (~) (~) (~) (~)

It's a long walk to town. If they followed the highway, it might have been a much quicker trip, but staying out of sight is difficult, especially when the trees ended and open up into endless fields in every direction. He's really starting to hate the state of corn. Really, really hate it. Come on, how much corn does one state have to grow anyway?

Hiding is essential so they took their time, staying well out of sight, using the long routes and ducking into ditches whenever necessary. It's tedious, but they don't get caught, so it works. Usually, Dean's all for the rush in and nearly get ourselves killed plan, but seeing as they don't have a weapon on them and he's useless from overexertion and lack of substance, that plan would only be stupid and irrational.

So they walk and hide, walk and hide, walk and hide in an endless cycle.

If Dean had longer hair, he may have pulled it out in frustration.

The nearest town turns out to be a drab little place with a population of less than 2,000, cloaked darkness despite the bright sunlight. When Dean and Harry trudge into town, no one is in the streets and most of the shops on Main Street are closed. If Dean hadn't seen a small child poke her head through the curtain of one of the houses, he may have thought it was deserted. It isn't, though, and that means there's some mode off communication around...like a payphone.

He finds one outside the town's obsolete post office, past some overgrown weeds, and taps the numbers in quickly. The phone rings twice before Sam picks it up, sounding tired and crabby. "Hey, Sam. Need you to pick me up."

"Dean?"

"No, Samantha, the tooth fairy."

The silence on the other end is deafening.

"Funny, Dean. You're a real riot." The sarcasm relaxes him; this is familiar territory. "Where are you?"

Dean recites the address and city carefully. Now is not the time to send Sam to Montana because he gives him the wrong zip code. "Be careful, Sam. It's not a creature taking these people."

"Humans?" Sam doesn't sound as surprised as he should be.

"Something you wanna tell me, Sammy?" Dean grunts out, casting a look over his shoulder to make sure Harry hasn't run off. When he sees Harry sitting behind the weeds, out of view of the road, he turns back to his conversation. "The human theory might've been nice before I got shot at."

"None of this shows any signs of any creature we've dealt with. Human serial killers are pretty good at what they do now. I'm surprised we haven't wandered across any before now." A pause. "Don't call me Sammy."

"Whatever you say, Samantha," Dean replies smoothly, "Get here fast. There's a whole cult of these psychos out to get us."

"I'm only about thirty minutes away."

"Gotcha. Sam, they're out for a ring. It's at Bobby's, Celtic kind of designs all over it. Bobby'll know what I'm talking about." Dean hangs up first, signals Harry to follow him, and they go deeper into the alley, where there's hopefully cover from the town nasties.

He's going to need to buy another phone soon, since his cell was taken after being captured—by frickin' humans.

Holy crap, he got overtaken by a bunch of trigger-happy humans. Sam's never going to let this one go.

When the shots start to ring out in the alley out of nowhere, only Dean's hunter instincts prevent him from getting a shot between the shoulder-blades right of the bat. He pulls Harry to the ground forcefully, pushing him behind a nearby dumpster.

Dean curses under his breath as a new round of shots ring out; there isn't nearly enough room for both him and Harry to fit, so he dives behind a less conspicuous pile of...actually, he really doesn't want to know what it is.

Unless Sam gets here pretty damn fast, they are going to be so screwed.

(~) (~) (~) (~) (~)

The loud shots stop abruptly and Dean tenses, his eyes scanning the alley. The only people currently caring enough about a Winchester to shoot at him is Calem—meaning, somewhere, Calem is pretty mad. Mad enough to kill them? Hell, yes.

In other words, he and Harry need to get out of here.

The alley is almost useless—Dean has the urge to slap himself for backing himself into a dead end corner. On two sides, tall, three story buildings loom over them ominously. Behind him, there's a solid, brick wall a least two stories high and no possible footholds in sight. No fire-escapes remain on the sides of any of the buildings, a set-up if he's ever seen one. The only objects in the alley is a dumpster, the pile of whatever he's hiding behind, and a few beers bottles littering the area.

God, he really needs a beer right now.

So, when Calem steps into sight, effectively blocking the only way out, with a gun in hard and a hard expression Dean figures their pretty much screwed. Sam's probably still a good ten minutes away, so unless Dean can hold off Calem...

"Dean, Dean, Dean." At the false happiness in Calem's sickeningly sweet voice, Deans hands clench and he lets his forehead rest against the brick wall. This guy complete sickens him."I must say, this was a novel attempt. I would applaud you if not for the fact that we're on a rather tight schedule right now."

He's being lured out.

Apparently Calem, for some reason, doesn't want to shoot him.

"But I found out a lot about you by your disappearance. Probably much more than you want me to know." Calem lets the gun fall to his side, but in a way that it could easily be pulled back up again and fired within seconds. There is no way to get the gun from Dean's current position. "You had the opportunity to leave alone, but you took the boy. I have no doubt that you would be long gone, untraceable, if that boy wasn't there, mucking up the trail."

Harry shifts behind the dumpster, looking at Dean with wide eyes. It doesn't take a genius to recognize the guilt within their depths.

"Yet, you took him and a that tells me something about you, Dean. Something quite curious." Calem lifts his jaw, staring down the alley as if he felt he was above the setting. He takes one, confident step forward, a sick grin slowly forming below his glowing eyes. "You're some sort of vigilante. You care more about the stupid boy than yourself. I'm sure that's it. I wonder," Calem pauses his small speech, his eyes finally fixating on the dumpster. "What you would do if I, say, decide to shoot him right now? Just like that?"

Dean grits his teeth. It's not the first time a bad guy figures out just what gets him, but it is the first time a human has figured it out. This particular human is planning to exploit that weakness.

There isn't a chance in Hell that Harry will take the fall for all this—Dean just needs more time.

"Do you want to hear my theory, Dean?" Calem stops, actually expecting Dean to answer. "Why don't you make this easier and just stop hiding like a child. I expect this kind of thing from the kid, but not from you. Aren't you Winchesters supposed to be a big deal?" Calem laughs softly as he begins to pace the alley. "I'm only seeing a coward.

"Dean, I'm going to tell you the absolute truth right now. You are not going to get out of there alive unless you come with me. I'm sure you have already determined the possibility of any sort of escape from a place such as this." Calem crouches on the, looking completely comfortable in the position on his toes, leaning forward slightly. "Let me tell you something else. I have twelve competent men up on the roofs with guns, fully loaded. Tell me, what are the chances of you getting out of here alive?"

He talks like a cop. The revelation surprises Dean at first—until he realizes how incredibly possible it is nowadays.

"If you are so adverse to answering me, then I think I should answer the question myself." Calem remains in the crouch, gun still hanging off to the side. He still isn't unprotected, because if he's telling the truth, then Dean's guts would be all over the sidewalk before he even got a chance to think about disarming their 'leader'."It's impossible. Not even you, Dean, can manage to scale that wall. You could try to get by me," the psycho admits freely, "but you won't get far, will you. Either I or one of the twelve other men surrounding the area would ensure you were incapacitated before stepping within five feet of me. So, tell me, what are your options?"

Calem switches tactics, straightening up once more with a thoughtful gleam to his strange eyes. "I think there's something I should tell you about that boy you rescued, Dean. Something very...important." Dean can clearly see Harry pale and begin trembling even from the distance that separates them. "Do you remember what I did to you—that pain I inflicted without so much as touching your skin?"No asshole, I forgot. He seriously considers saying the words out loud, but Calem probably wouldn't appreciate the sarcasm.

"I filtered that power from the kid. All that wonderful pain came directly from him. Wasn't it exhilarating?"

When Dean doesn't answer, Calem makes a hand gesture towards one of the buildings. Dean sighs, fully aware of just how deep this problems is beginning to go—the kid being some sort of jumbotron of power is not helpful information, even if it is weird and slightly...disturbing.

To make matters worse, the situation is completely out of his hands.

The first guard that comes at him gets a swift punch in the nose. The reassuring cracks tells Dean that he definitely broke the guys nose. Dean, in return, receives a couple kicks from the back-up(s), while the original guard blubbers about his perfect nose being doomed to be crooked now. Hope your wife divorces you, you sonofabitch. The familiar jibe makes him smile, despite the blood dripping down his face. Just because he's weak doesn't mean he will go down without a decent fight.

One of them gets a lucky shot at his head and it all disappears—just for a little while.

He really, really needs to stop getting himself into these kinds of situations.


Poor Dean. Poor Harry. I make them suffer a lot don't I?

Review for poor unconscious Dean. He's gong to need the pick-me-up when he finally stops getting knocked around.