Welp, it's been exactly two years since I updated this thing. I had given up on it (and all my fanfics) entirely. I've been focusing a lot on writing original fiction the past few years, and my muse for this just died.
But then I watched the first few episodes of The Mandalorian on Disney+, and seeing a stoic badass bounty hunter with a little kid seems to have resurrected my dead muse for this fic.
I've been writing a lot from the point of view of children, so here I am trying it out with Harry. It's actually harder for Harry than my own characters.
Harry feels horrible, like he's getting squeezed all over. Everything's spinning too fast around him, and it feels like his feet are off the ground.
He wonders if he's inside a tornado. He'd seen one on the telly once. Dudley had been fascinated, but Harry hates it. He tries reaching out for Nighty, or his Batman.
As suddenly as the squeezing and spinning had started, Harry's feet hit the ground again. His knees sag, but someone is holding him up. The next thing Harry knows, he's throwing up. He sees chunks of the animal biscuits hit the floor, but he can't tell which animals they were.
When he's done, he looks up at the person holding onto him. It's not his Batman. This man is old, with long gray hair and a long gray beard.
Harry looks frantically for Mr. Asset. He'd been there in the Tesco car park, laying on the ground, stiff as a board. Harry isn't entirely sure he'd been asleep, as he'd first thought.
He isn't in the car park anymore. Somehow, in all the twisting and turning, he'd ended up in a room with a large desk and cushy chairs. Shelves of books line the walls as well as- Televisions? Paintings? They look like paintings, but are moving and talking like on the telly. They're asking questions all at once. "Is that him?"
Harry bites his lip. Did they leave his Batman behind? Nighty is here, throwing up as well.
He sees Mr. Asset up and walking. As horrible as that tornado had been, at least it had woken him up.
Harry squints at the man with long, greasy hair. The man is dressed in black clothes, but not the Batman sweatshirt, and he sees both the man's hands are skin. It isn't Mr. Asset. Harry had seen that man's whole robot arm, and there were burns around his shoulder like Harry had on his hand, and scars like when Uncle Vernon used his belt.
Harry stares at the man Mr. Asset had fought when Harry was in the car. Mr. Asset had smashed a teeter-totter into this man, who hadn't even punched, just waved a wand around like magic. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon told Dudley that magic was just in stupid storybooks for stupid people.
Then he sees Mr. Asset laying on the floor, still as stiff and lifeless as one of Dudley's action figures. Harry waits for his hero to leap up and fight the other man again, like Batman beats up bad guys. He'd done it before, Harry had seen it!
"Batman?" he calls out, worried. Mr. Asset just stares at him, still as stiff as an action figure. He hadn't said anything in the car park once he fell down, either.
"Help!" Harry chokes out.
Would he help? None of the adults Harry knew had helped him. Most of them had hurt him, and Mr. Asset had grabbed Nighty around the neck after thrashing around while asleep.
But he also gave Harry the big white bandaids around his hands, instead of using them on his own burnt shoulder. Mr. Asset gave him animal crackers and never hit him for crying, he let him keep Nighty and even dressed up as Batman because Harry wanted him to.
Best of all, he took Harry away from the Dursleys.
Mr. Asset isn't like other adults, Harry has decided. He's a hero, and heroes help.
Only, Mr. Asset isn't helping. He's still laying there, looking quite angry but not moving at all.
It's like the bad guys won, but Harry knows that never happens. Batman always beats the bad guys. Dudley had boasted that heroes always won, while he punched Harry over and over before bringing him to jail (which was really Harry's cupboard).
The scary man places a broom against the wall, then waves a stick. Mr. Asset starts to float.
"Nighty, help!" Harry calls out. Surely a big dog could bite the bad man, and make him let Batman go.
Nighty doesn't do anything except bark at the huge red bird.
Harry wriggles free of the old man as a huge statue starts to turn, making stairs spiral down.
Harry knows he's not a hero. He was the bad guy in all of Dudley's games. He's not good for anything, but he runs after the bad guy and his Batman.
"Let him go!" he shouts, because the bad guys can't win, ever. Mr. Asset seems to drop for a second, as if what Harry had wanted actually came true.
Harry remembers the word from before, when Mr. Asset had gone all blank in the cabin. There had been tons of men with guns, and Mr. Asset had just stood there until he'd said it. After Harry said the word, Mr. Asset beat up all the bad guys in the bedroom.
"M-marionekta." Harry's tongue stumbles over it. "Mario-net-ka!"
His Batman will snap out of it now, right?
No. He stays rigid, and his body thumps heavily on the statue as he floats down the stairs after the scary man.
Harry tries to follow them, but the stairs are spinning downward. They aren't even attached to where Harry is anymore.
The old man pulls Harry back. Harry stares at the statue. Any minute now, his Batman will return. He'll wake up, beat up the greasy-haired man again and come take Harry away.
The old man finally speaks. He doesn't look angry like Uncle Vernon and Aunt Tuna always did, but he's not Batman."You're safe now, Harry."
No he isn't. That man took his Batman away. Dumb Nighty's still growling at the big red bird, like Ripper growled at Harry when Aunt Marge came.
"Bad dog." Harry tells him angrily. He was supposed to bite the bad man pulling Mr. A'set away. Harry sees blood on the floor, but then suddenly, it's gone.
"Batman will help you." Harry tells the dog, even though Nighty was bad. Harry is really bad and Mr. A'set still pulled out the glass and wrapped them up.
"Who is Batman?" the old man asks. Harry stares at him in disbelief. Who doesn't know Batman? Even if Mr. A'set maybe isn't really Batman like on TV, he still looked like Batman except for the metal hand and long hair.
Harry looks back at the door. "He'll beat up the bad guy." he tells this to himself and Nighty, more than the old man.
"You mean Professor Snape? He may look bad, but he's on our side."
But he hurt Mr. Asset.
"Where are they? Are you a bad guy?" the questions leave Harry's mouth before he can stop them. He watches the old man's hands, waiting for the man to hit him like Uncle Vernon.
The hands reach out, but instead of a hit, the man plucks up a small yellow candy from a bowl. "Lemon drop?"
After that weird twisting, and now Mr. Asset being gone, Harry's tummy hurts too much to even think about eating.
"Where's Mr. A'set?" Harry asks. Did they go through another tornado after going downstairs? The first one brought them here from the car park, so Mr. Asset could be really far away.
"He's having a talk with Professor Snape." the old man tells him, but in that way where grown-ups are keeping secrets.
"No! I want him back!" Harry stomps his foot on the ground and grabs onto Nighty's fur. Nighty is a really bad guard dog, he didn't bark or chase the man like Ripper chased Harry and he's still looking at that big red bird.
The old man blinks, looking too calm. Uncle Vernon would have smacked him already and Aunt Tuna would have slapped or yelled at him for being a freak. Dudley could stomp and scream- and he did, a lot- but not Harry.
"You're safer here, Harry." the old man says. "Your... Batman wasn't a safe man. He could have hurt you."
"Batman's a hero." Harry tells him. Everyone knows that, except this man. "He beats up bad guys. He only hurted me one time."
"So he hurt you." the man says. But it only hurt because that's where Uncle Vernon hit him.
"My name is Professor Dumbledore." the old man says. Harry doesn't care. He probably couldn't say that name anyway, not that he wants to.
The man waves his hand, and the blood from Nighty's foot disappears. Nighty doesn't make a pain sound when he steps on it now, and he barks louder at the bird.
"Leave Fawkes alone." the old man Dumbledore tells Nighty.
"I want Mr. A'set." Harry repeats. He wouldn't have dared say it again at the Dursleys, he's scared saying it now, too, but he has to get Mr. A'set back.
"You look starved, Harry. Have you eaten since you went left the Dursleys?"
"Mr. A'set got me lions and tigers." he tells the man. "Where is he?!"
"The Asset fed you?"
"Where is he?!" Harry stamps his foot again and pulls Nighty away from the big red bird, towards the spinning statue.
The old man Dumbledore heads to the fireplace. "Come on, Harry."
He must be one of those nuts people Uncle Vernon complained about, thinking a fireplace is a door. Unless that's what squeezed them. Did they fly down the chimney like Santa? Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia hadn't liked Santa when Piers talked about him.
"We're going to hospital." Dumbledore tells him.
If Harry knows anything from Dudley, it's that hospitals are horrible. Dudley always throws a fit when he has to go, and Aunt Tuna always promises toys and candy while Dudley screams on the floor. "Make the freak get shot!" he'd hollered last time.
Harry's never been, but whatever getting shot is, he doubts it can hurt more than Uncle Vernon's beatings. Harry's learnt not to cry when Uncle Vernon beats him, that just makes it last longer.
At the fireplace, Dumbledore throws in something that makes fire green. Suddenly, the old man stuck his head, long beard and all, into the flames.
Harry stares. He really is one of those crazy people. Harry didn't think he could keep from screaming if his whole head was in the flames.
Dumbledore was talking to some lady, and then he pulls his head out. His face isn't red like Harry's hand or Mr. Asset's shoulder. Not even half of it is burnt like that Two Face bad guy Batman fought.
Harry stands stiffly, scared senseless as Dumbledore approaches him, then whimpers as the man pulls him towards the fireplace. No. It hurt too much when Uncle Vernon burnt just his hand. His whole face will kill him.
"Uncle Vernon." Harry begs. It's not the old man dragging him. Uncle Vernon's pulling his hand to the burner back at the Dursleys. He knows he should be quiet, but he can't help it.
"Batman!" he shrieks. "Pwease! Marionetka!"
Who's going to patch him up now that Mr. Asset isn't here?
He's shaking on the floor, slowly trembling as something cold presses to his cheek. Nighty's nose. He's back in that room, not at the Dursleys.
Dumbledore is crouched in front of him, blue eyes sad. "Harry," the man murmurs as if from far away. "We won't go that way. It would most likely upset your stomach again, and Madame Pomphrey would have my head."
Harry lays there, too tired as Dumbledore scoops him into his arms. He only sort of notices going down the spiral stairs at last.
He wants to wiggle out and look for his Batman. Surely he's just around the next corner, he thinks as the old man carries him through the halls.
So I know everyone's waiting for the Occlumency scene with Snape and Bucky/WS, but that thing's been giving me trouble for years.
Sorry this chapter was so short and not much happened. I wanted to post something today since it's the anniversary, and maybe this'll give me the kick to keep going.
Honestly, the way I'd been writing Harry talking gets on my nerves now. My cousin has a three-year-old son, and while he can occasionally be hard to understand, he doesn't sound as babyish as Harry does in earlier chapters. But I guess Harry struggles with pronunciation since he's been discouraged from talking.