It was near dawn when Harry woke up again, in the same position as he had passed out in. His ass was uncomfortably propped on one of the cushions, the rest of his body on the wooden floor.
As a result, the moment he stood, his back ached and creaked like an old house.
He grunted as he propped himself on his elbow, kicking the cushion. Cold light filtered in from the window at the bottom part of the store, which wasn't entirely disconnected from the top floor.
The man sat hunched by the dying embers of the fire that had been roaring during the evening.
He didn't even twitch when he noticed Harry stirring, and he seemed to be in deep conversation inside his own head, unwilling to be disturbed.
He occasionally took a sip of something from a massive mug he held in his hand, presumably the soup he had been making before. Did the man never sleep?
When Harry finally came to fully, he remembered everything that had happened, everything that it meant, and the irremediable situation he was in, completely cut off from everything he had ever loved.
Forget the Dursleys cutting off his communication and barring his windows, or Dobby intercepting his letters and making him believe no one had written him. Now he really was alone.
He had no one to be angry at and, worst of all, no one to miss. Not even his parents had been born at this time.
There was nothing. He was nothing. He wept silently, the tears passing down his cheeks one after another.
It was impossible to tell that he was crying: in the faint light, and with his utter silence, he looked like he was thinking just as hard as the man beside him.
Only he wasn't thinking. He was mourning. At some point, the man turned to look at him, but there was a new expression in his eyes.
It was something like pity and empathy, not as hostile as he had previously appeared.
His forehead had lost its harsh lines, and he seemed overall more peaceable and genuinely feeling for Harry's terrible situation.
"It always happens like this," he muttered, his voice so low it didn't so much break the silence as it did contribute to it. "You's arrive… by that dark road just outside'a town, I'd wager," he continued. Harry's head snapped to what he said. So this had happened before.
There were others like him. "You don't realize where you are… maybe you know how you got there. And after the confusion, well.
There comes your despair. Ain't that right?" Harry was careful not to wipe the tears from his face, but he wasn't going to be ashamed of them, either. So instead, he looked at the man with steel in his gaze.
The man nodded to him. "Come out with me, boy," he commanded, slowly rising from his stool and fetching a satchel of sorts that sat on one of the counters.
Harry lifted himself up with great difficulty, his entire body in a wailing sort of pain.
Harry ambled over to him and followed him down the stairs, feeling like a grandpa with the way his body was responding rustily to his commands.
The man leaped out to the shop, and outside it was blissfully cool in the blue cold that comes only before the break of dawn.
They went around the shop and sat down outback, the streets empty by this time save for the two of them.
The man sprawled out his long legs before him and pulled out tobacco from his pouch, beginning to roll himself a cigarette.
Harry watched him attentively. "You want one, kid?" He asked, nimbly packing in the stringy, sweet-smelling tobacco. Harry was about to refuse on impulse - but why refuse? He was in the wild west, after all. Or something like that.
Besides, he didn't want to refuse something this man offered him, and he heard cigarettes calmed people down. He needed to be calm, and the thought of keeping his hands busy as he sat there at this time was appealing.
He nodded, and the man handed him a perfectly-rolled cigarette that looked better than the industrials Harry had seen people smoking.
The man rolled his own and then pulled out a match from his satchel.
He struck the match savagely against the stone of the street and then reached it to the tip of Harry's cigarette, then his own.
Harry inhaled and immediately began coughing. The man chuckled dryly and then slapped his back. "You'll get a taste for it," he reassured.
Harry could feel the vomit returning up his throat.
He held the cigarette between his fingers like he was holding a bomb. "'S I was sayin'," the man said, taking such a deep drag Harry didn't understand how his lungs didn't explode, "you may come through here, but you won't stay." "You mean there's a way to get back?" Harry asked, far too excited.
The man quickly shut him down with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Ain't no way to get back to your time, boy.
Start acceptin' that now." Harry looked down and then tried again with his cigarette.
It was still disgusting but not as vomit-inducing as the last time. "You'll move on… New York, San Francisco, maybe Long Island, who knows?
You lot have weird… historic motives I ain't pretend to unnerstan'. Someplace modern." Harry shook his head. What would he do in any of these places?
He didn't know anyone. He didn't even feel he really spoke the language, considering how hard he had to try to get the gist of what this man was saying. "I don't have anywhere to go," even if he wanted to mess with the timeline, go visit someone he loved… maybe someone he had never met. He couldn't do that even if he tried.
There was no one he knew that had lived in this time. "I don't have anywhere to go," he suddenly looked at the man.
He realized he had no practical skills: he wasn't particularly good at academics, he wasn't a charmer, he didn't know any muggle things that could make him any money.
Maybe he could seek out Hogwarts. Maybe Dumbledore was a teenager around now, considering how old he was.
But none of it would make sense. He would run too many risks and for no reason at all. So he was right when he said he didn't have anywhere to go. "Let me stay, please," he asked the man firmly.
The man side-eyed him. He didn't speak for a bit. "What's your name, boy?" He asked. "Harry. Harry Potter," he could see by the man's lack of reaction that, of course, that name carried no weight. It was somehow relieving. "Right, then, Harry Potter. Name's Guidry," he said, stretching out his leather-like hand.