Thanks a million Owlfur, Ciara, Gothazon, Blue Luver5000, Phoenixx Rising, Lexisfightingrobots, Mongruad, Tortus, Scarlett Woman, Cauchy, SernaJ and guests. You guys are amazing, honestly you are :P Thank you for your lovely reviews, as always they've been read and cherished many times. This chapter is dedicated to you. Another angsty one, I'm afraid...

DISCLAIMER: No no I own nothing. Now onwards with the story.


Chapter 11:

The rest of the day passed in restless monotony.

After the police officers left, Harry had retired back to his sleeping bag facing the window upstairs. Outwardly he appeared no different than he usually did, but anxiety was brimming just below his calm surface. Now that he was back where he'd started, where nothing had changed, the fear that it had all been a mind-constructed illusion began to manifest itself. He wished he was able to keep that slip of paper, if only to reread Tom's message.

In response to his emotions his magic started to behave erratically. The lights on the landing flickered when he passed; the window latch became undone every few hours, causing fresh cold air would wander in through the crack. Thankfully hardly anyone noticed these changes, and even if they did no one mentioned anything.

Somehow with much difficulty Harry managed to sit through the tireless waiting until evening. Dinner was meat stew and oven-baked potatoes, and while most welcomed the warmth of food, Harry couldn't stomach more than a few bites before wandering back to the window to watch the darkening sky. The others thought better of disturbing him, and Harry was left relatively alone in the quietness of the deepening night.

Dinner, and afterwards a light supper was cleared, but Harry continued to watch the minutes come and go. His gaze remained trained on the fogging glass, but he'd been trained to rely on his internal clock ever since he was very young, and he could tell the time without looking over to the clock hanging on the wall.

Soon, he told himself. He would leave soon.

One by one the lights downstairs flickered off, and Harry heard a few people shuffling upstairs as they conversed in quiet voices. For most of them it would be their last night staying here before they were brought somewhere else; some were waiting for relatives to pick them up over the next few days. Harry was expected to stay the week before the papers were legalized, as he was told, but Harry knew nothing of that sort was going to happen. Providing everything that happened in the room with the officer hadn't been a hallucination by his mind, Harry guessed that the whole conversation had been a ruse to get him to see the message without being detected. After all, if there were going to be legal papers at all there was no reason for Tom to come for him that very night.

Finally eleven o' clock came and passed. Most of the workers had retired, but there was still a single light coming from the kitchen downstairs. Slowly Harry stretched out one leg, easing his cramped muscles. In a way he was reminded of how he used to sneak out of the orphanage, from a room full of sleeping occupants. He cast his eyes out of the window one last time, and idly noticed that beyond the fogging glass white-crystal flakes were fluttering softly from the sky. It was snowing.

Silent as a shadow Harry got up and padded downstairs. The snoring of a few elderly men drowned out any noise he might have made. He paused a little at the last step, back pressed against the wall as he waited. There was the tinkering sound of spoons coming from the kitchen, where the light was still on. The door was closed, though.

Like hundreds of times he'd done in the past, Harry flitted across the hallway quietly and reached the backdoor. It was only when his hand was already on the doorknob, brass cool against his skin with the cutting chill whistling through the crack that something in him paused.

He'd already come this far, so it would be foolish to turn back without checking. But suddenly a crushing well of uncertainty gripped him, and he didn't know what to expect or believe.

What would happen when he reached Acre Park? What did he expect? He could see his fear growing, running down the end of the street to the designated meeting place to be met by emptiness, him stumbling around lost in the dark, calling out and receiving no answer… Had all of it merely been another symptom to be expected? A mind illusion?

It was just as well that a slight creak from the kitchen door took the decision out of his hands. He hesitated long enough to see the shifting patterns of light on the floor before making a split second dash. Following through his instincts, Harry opened the door and slipped out through the tiniest fraction he could manage. Then once outside he spun round and shut the door cautiously, ignoring the frigidness biting into his hands as he slowly counted to ten in his heart.

A snowflake fell from the skies to land lightly on his hand while. It tasted like a different sort of cold, fresh and comforting. Harry's breath jarred up in his throat, as if frozen by the beginning of winter. With a jolt of his heart he suddenly remembered it was the first snow of the year.

He stepped away from the unmoving door. The fluttering white crystals dotted the sky in a faint imitation of stars, dancing to the rhythm of the wind. In detached wonderment Harry tilted back his head to watch the snowflakes perform a loose spiral down to earth, but at that moment something brushed across his mind.

He froze. The caress of the wind bit his cheek and brought dust which stung his skin. Snow fell softly around him, gathering gently on his hair, his eyelashes. But the silent wind spoke in his ears.

Behind him, something shifted. So soft, so vague like the flitting shadows cast by the falling snow, that he hardly would have known. But he could sense it, a faint touch in the back of his mind, and it called his name. It prickled at his heart; something strangely warm and painful and bitter. Swallowing, Harry turned around slowly, one foot at a time, and the hard winter-bitten earth crunched beneath his feet as he did. His breath remained caught in his throat even though he remembered to breathe; and he tore his gaze away from the powdered grass swaying in the light wind. He raised his eyes.

He was simply standing there. Tom. Wearing his normal black cloak dusted with snow, under the tree Harry had took refuge under earlier that afternoon, simply waiting. Tom said he would turn up, and he just did. No disguise, no elaborate plans of escape, no useless assurances. Like the scent of fresh snow, it tasted like liberation, like freedom. The sheer simplicity of it made a laugh choke up in Harry's throat.

"I-I thought you wouldn't come," Harry spoke first, breaking the silence with a half-laugh.

Tom made no move to step forwards. He just watched Harry, hooded green eyes saying nothing. The snow dotted his hair and cloak, he didn't move. He was like a silent statue standing there in the backyard, only his brilliant green eyes watching him. And perhaps because of that Harry decided to take the first step forwards. He reached the other within two short strides, coming to a halt an arm's length away. And without planning to, he threw his arms around the other's middle, warmth blurring his eyes against the dust of snow.

"I really thought you wouldn't come," Harry said again.

For a brief moment the sensation of a hand resting on his shoulder tingled on his skin, so real as if it really could have been, but it was never there. The illusion painted by his mind blurred and faded. Harry broke away first, and he looked up and grinned at the other despite everything. Tom's face remained impassive, but the brush in the privacy of his mind painted a softer edge to those hardened emerald eyes. Tom simply held his stare for the briefest of moments, and a faint prickle tingled against Harry's scar at the gesture. It was as if Tom was reading his mind. Then:

"I thought it'd be wiser to wait here," Tom offered to the unasked question.

The sudden unexpected answer caused the words Harry had wanted to say to be caught in the back of his throat. Harry blinked, the powder of snow on his eyelashes falling away to melt against his skin. He stretched his lips into an imitation of a smile and tried to clear his throat.

"Aren't you a genius then," Harry retorted, but while his tone was deceptively light his eyes remained serious.

And this time when Tom looked down at him, his smile was not painted by Harry's imagination.

-X-

From that day onwards, Harry left both Muggle and Wizarding world for good. All that existed for him was the little ruined cottage at the end of Middle Street, with the Wyr Tree summoned to its full height guarding the main gate.

Tom must have set up certain wards in place, for no one ever came around save the first day. One of the investigators in charge had gotten as close as three feet within the broken fence before he'd abruptly turned back to walk up the road, his face one of utter confusion. After that no one had ever approached the house at the end of Middle Street.

Like all those days before he'd fallen out with Tom, Harry now spent most of his time stretched across the floor in the living room, sketching graphs and charts assigned by his mentor. Tom never raised the topic about the attack, and so Harry never elaborated, even if the psychiatrist had previously told Harry that talking about it would help. Instead Tom compensated by piling Harry with loads of reading, tasks and homework, both in theory and practical. The diversion did Harry much good though, and Harry soaked it all up like a sponge. If he was tired he wouldn't think, and if he didn't think his heart wouldn't ache.

Despite his previous outgoing nature, Harry was content to stay indoors all the time, poring over strange tomes and texts Tom had procured for him. He became considerably quieter and more withdrawn, hardly asking as many questions as he did in the past. Tom was mostly away during the daytime, where Harry would find a take-out meal left on the table for him. It was the nights Harry came to look forwards to, where Tom would teach him the spells he didn't manage to muster, or any theory he had questions with. Those were familiar routines, and in a way he could pretend the last week hadn't happened.

However, although there were many tomes focusing especially on the topic of runes, Harry never consulted Tom on any of them. He simply avoided them all. The memory of him using the Forsildan rune still burned nightmarishly in his mind, and even though he knew he was being illogical by giving up on that particular subject, his courage had all been used up for the moment.

As the days passed, Harry lost count of the days he lived in Middle Street. He never left the cottage door; there was never need for him to. He didn't even explore the whole house, only living in the main hall, slumping over the sofa – and mostly sprawled on the cold floor beside the small fireplace. He knew that outside the winter had brewed harsher than ever, and he heard the wind rattling ferociously at the windows, but he barely saw anything of the outside world. One day when the flurries of snow had dotted the window panes so closely together that he could barely make out the world outside of it, Harry had simply given up and stopped trying.

There were times when he knew Tom wanted to say something about his abnormal behavior. He never caught him at it, but he felt the sidelong glances, the taint of uncertainty lurking at the back of his mind that Harry had now learnt to recognize as Tom's emotions. But Tom never broached the topic, so life went on as usual.

It wasn't until one late afternoon when Tom had come back from whatever errands which had been keeping him, when he finally broached the topic they'd been avoiding all the while. At first he didn't mention anything about the attack, but instead he told Harry they would be going out. Harry was faintly surprised at that.

"Where to?" he asked.

It seemed like Tom wasn't about the answer, but perhaps he recalled that it was a rare occasion for Harry to volunteer questions nowadays, because he obliged a few seconds later. "Wool's," he replied simply.

Harry felt an icy fist drop to the bottom of his stomach, but he didn't say anything. Tom always had a reason for whatever he did, and he wasn't about to argue with Tom over it. But at the same time he could feel bile churning in his gut, and an unknown fear gripped at his heart and clamoured to freeze like an icy block in his stomach. He wasn't sure if he could be brave enough to go.

Nevertheless, Harry moved to store away his charts and books mutely (Tom tolerated nothing less than tidy). Then with less speed than he could normally manage, Harry went about to gather his winter jacket and boots before leaving.

Even if Harry wasn't aware of it, it was the first time he'd stepped out of the cottage for five days. While he had been holed up in the house, the rest of the world had plunged into the first week of winter without his noticing. Pulling his jacket tight around himself, Harry took a deep breath of the warm air in the cottage before crossing over the threshold.

The first thing that hit him was the chilly blast of the wind. The second was snow.

There was so much of it, piled all around the garden like a thick white blanket. It covered the street, piling so high that it was half the level of the low-fence, and it completely buried the small shrubs and hedges growing in the garden. Where all the other trees had shriveled to leave only bare branches, the Wyr Tree was still thriving, and the sparkles of white dusting the silvery leaves only added to its quiet majesty. Lifting his eyes, he noticed that the roof ledge looked as if it had been coated by thick white icing, with an alarming amount of snow gathering at the edge, ready to slip off at the slightest nudge.

When he was taking in all of this, Tom was watching him again like he always did, but Harry made no comment on the other's behaviour. "It's changed a lot," he offered instead, diverting his gaze to the snow-coated earth.

"More than you could imagine," Tom replied softly.

They went out of the gates together, crossing over the low-fence which now was little better than a threshold. The chilly wind bit at every inch of skin that wasn't covered. Harry felt a sharp prickling pain on his eyelids whenever he tried to look up, but despite the discomfort he found himself observing his surroundings the best he could.

He'd grown up in these areas, crossing each fence and street more than three times a day. He could navigate twisting alleys and high walls and chain-linked fences to access the nearest short-cut like no other local could even follow through. But now after the ashes had cleared and been blown away by the wind, with the debris silently buried by the snow, he couldn't recognize a single landmark. There were steep inclines he couldn't remember them ever existing, strange wide expanses of ground that must have held a building or another.

He could hardly guess how to get to their destination now that so much had changed, so he only followed behind Tom, speechless and subdued. Everywhere they went seemed exactly the same: a blanket of white. Many times he saw decrepit structures that must have been houses he'd known, but he couldn't name them, and he couldn't name the streets either.

They kept on walking for a full ten minutes. His boots kept sinking into the slush, making process difficult; and the razor sharp wind partially blinded him. After a while he simply hung his head and dedicated his attentions to Tom's boots which left prints in the snowing ground. He followed their steps and counted their rhythm unconsciously, as if it were the only temporary distraction he could find to distract himself from the hollow abyss growing inside him. And then, quite, abruptly, Tom stopped. A hand came to rest briefly on his shoulder, a gesture Harry still didn't quite know what to make of.

"We're here," he told Harry.

Harry looked up from the ground, and suddenly he found that he could recognize his surroundings at once. Having to accommodate a large number of children, Wool's had always been one of the larger buildings in that district. It was the only multistoried building in the whole street. Harry had never been particularly fond of it, for the orphanage had always looked little more than a slab of cement from the outside, but now it looked if possible even worse. It was still there, but only as a horrifying skeletal structure looming out, black and burned out and dark. Harry turned his back on the sight violently, the chill crackling up his spine threatening to hold him in place. But at the gesture, he saw what was lying across the remains of the orphanage, and in a flash he understood why Tom had brought him out.

Rising out of the snow a few feet away was a huge grey stone. When he got closer, Harry could see that there were words carved on it, from the top to the bottom. Coated with dull gold, they read: In remembrance of the victims who perished in the fire, 30 November 1990.

There was a low fence separating the memorial from the desolate street, painted the same shade of white as the snow. Harry stared at it, feeling a lump grow at the back of his throat. A sense of helplessness gripped at his heart, but then Tom came to stand directly behind him.

"I'll wait for you here," the other offered quietly.

Not trusting his voice, Harry only swallowed and nodded, before starting forwards on his own. The door to the fence was once more stuck shut due to the piling snow, so Harry simply walked over it to approach the memorial.

There were countless white flowers lying at the foot of the stone, their petals creamy against the stark white background. As he neared it he saw that below the gold words there were scrawls of names carved into stone, listing them in alphabetical order from left to right, forming four long columns. There could have been hundreds of them. Harry's eyes scanned over each of them, and even if he didn't recognize them each name sent a pang to his heart. He went through the list a second time, his heart feeling as though it were frozen numb, every beat was faint and hapless like the whirling flurries of snow unable to settle on the ground, but he didn't even know what to search for.

"I told you that you should have given me your name, didn't I," Harry muttered.

The wind picked up, battering at the feeble roses, scattering them all over the place. A few petals came loose and skittered away. His eyes burned hot against his eyelids. None of the names told him who the man who'd once cared for him was, yet it was solely that name which mattered. He'd finally come to pay his last respects in the end, but still he never knew the other's identity.

Even still he came to a halt before the stone and bowed his head, feeling the wild wind run through his hair like a forgotten whisper of a caress.

"I wanted to say thank you," Harry began quietly to himself before he lost the courage to. "I know I always said your house was hardly inhabitable, and the second-floor still is… I mean was," he caught himself. "But however topsy-turvy it may be, it was still the one place I liked the best here, so thanks for letting me stay. They were some of the best times I've had around here."

He paused, the burn in his throat catching his voice whole. The names on the stone merged to form blurry swipes of grey. "I know, I was literally nothing but trouble. You say it like you don't mean it, but I know it's true. I-I got into a load of mess all the time, but you always helped me out."

His breath hitched. He cast his eyes to the wind, turning away from the cold, unfeeling stone which stood erected before him, forced himself to continue. "And, just… thank you for taking care of me. For scolding and nagging me about homework and stuff, even if they never worked. For all the food even though I was joking when I said I was always half-starved. Especially the sweets, too, and – "

He trailed off. There was still so much more, so so much that he couldn't say. The new cushion and blanket which materialized 'from the musty store, way before you were born' when he started to stay longer. His spot on the sofa which always mysteriously remained free of clutter despite the messy state of the living room. The sweet jar which was always full even though Scrooge never liked any of them. So many little things noticed and heartfelt but simply went unsaid, until it was too late and pointless to acknowledge them at all.

The tears were coming now, thick and fast. He clenched shut his eyes, feeling the brief warmth of them trickling down his cheek, to be immediately frozen against his cold skin. "Thank you for giving me a second chance when I didn't deserve it," he said finally, his voice unbearably small. "I'll try to be good, and… I-I'll miss seeing you."

He opened his eyes. He had nothing to offer, no white roses or gifts. Even the buried earth showed no sign of life, no whisper of a peeking wildflower. He patted down his jacket pocket, only to find a small Caramel Macchiato sweet given to him at the shelter the day he left for good.

He had nothing else on him to give, so he took the sweet and threw it into the pile beside the white flowers. It settled there among the little bed of roses, unmoving. And then Harry turned his back on the grey stone, and began his walk back to the low fence where Tom was waiting for him.

A/N: Another angsty chapter I'm afraid. Let me know what you think in the box below :)

Thanks for the encouragement. It's nice to get some reprieve from hectic life. :D I'm too tired to write anything else at the moment, so yeah. I appreciate it a lot.

Rating system:

:D for amazing

O for okay

X for terrible

P.S.: Inspirational tracks for those interested: 'The Call' by Regina Spektor, 'Sometimes Love Just Isn't Enough' by Charice. I don't know why, but I was listening to these two when writing this.