There was a short, scrawny, black haired boy running. His thin legs blurred faintly due to the speed he was using to escape. Behind him was a group of boy's around the age of 6, the same age as the bespectacled boy. Any onlookers could see that the boys weren't playing, shown clear as day in the actions that soon followed when the group of boys caught up to the smaller.

Dudley smiled gleefully when the Freak slowed down enough for one of his friends to run ahead and trip him over. The Freak skid for a short time before stopping, causing his hands and knees to be scratched up and begin bleeding faintly.

"Where ya going Freak? We wanna play. How we gonna play Harry Hunting without a Harry?"

The boy, now known to be Harry or the Freak, looked up and looked away quickly when he met the malicious eyes of his cousin.

In the corner of his eye he saw a russle in a nearby neighbor's flower bush, but quickly ignored it in favor of rolling to the side to avoid a kick from one of Dudley's friends.

"If you don't play then I'm going to tell Daddy that you ate his slice of pie yesterday." The pig like boy threatened. The pie in question that the Freak knew for a fact his cousin ate because he did it loudly outside the Freaks cupboard door while the Freaks stomach grumbled hungrily. Dudley used the same voice he always did when he wanted to get Harry in trouble for something he did or sometimes for something that didn't even happen.

Harry would get into trouble either way, whether it was the truth or not. Harry felt that his relatives were just looking for an excuse to punish him and Dudley's lies gave them the justification they needed. Though sometimes they didn't need justification at all, like when his cupboard door unlocked by itself and Harry was punished for his freakishness, even if Harry couldn't have possible done anything.

"I don't like this game Dudley." Harry said quietly. Though that was obvious. But Harry knew that his opinion wasn't wanted and it wouldn't mattered if he liked it or not, for Harry was a freak and freaks don't question, freaks don't complain, freaks don't have opinions, freaks should be grateful to their generous and normal relative's because freaks are undeserving of their charity and freaks must obey because freaks are unlovable.

"I do" Dudley claimed, unashamedly. "So do I." "Same." "Me too." The other boys agreed.

No more time was wasted and Harry had dirt and rocks thrown at him and was kicked until the group of boys got bored and ran away to torment the other children of the neighborhood.

A wet feeling at his cheek caught Harry's attention. Groaning quietly, Harry slowly rolled out of his fetal position, mindful of his bruised and aching body.

Looking up, Harry saw a grey rat to his side. It was of average size, with black beady eyes and a pink, worm like tail. It was dirty and looked a bit rough. When it saw Harry looking at it it squeaked and made to run but was cornered by a wall to one side and Harry's body to the other..

Harry moved slowly, wary of scaring the animal but also very aware of the pain that shot through his body at every movement.

"Hey there. I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm Harry, or Freak, but I prefer Harry." While he talked he slowly moved closer to the still rat. "Are you hungry? I am, but I'm always hungry. I know I know, I should be grateful for everything Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia give me. But Dudley usually gets me in trouble so I'm not allowed eat." Harry talked to the rat as if it could understand him and speak back, all the while getting closer to the rat. He could reach his hand out and grab it easily, but feared getting bit.

"You look a bit tired." He observed. "Would you like to come home with me? Aunt Petunia won't like it but this can be our secret. You could stay for a bit and then if you want you can leave. I'd leave if I could but I'm a freak." The boy confessed, whispering at the end as if he was telling the rat a shameful secret.

Careful not to scare the creature, Harry picked the rat up with both hands and stood up shakily. Looking around quickly, Harry started the short walk to number 4 Privit Drive. He ignored the suspicious glares of the neighbours and watchful gaze of Mrs Figg. He instead focused his attention on his new pet rat.

When he reached number 4, Harry entered the house and tried to go to his cupboard as subtlety as possible, while keeping the rat hidden.

His plan failed when Aunt Petunia caught sight if it and let out a shriek full of disgust and rage. Uncle Vernon, who was in the sitting room watching the TV got out of his chair swiftly, red faced and angry, he let out a bellow. "BOY, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Holding the animal closer to himself, Harry couldn't help but compare his uncle to a walrus.

"WHAT IS THAT?!" Aunt Petunia demanded. "IS THAT A RAT? DID YOU BRING A DESEASE RIDDEN, FILTHY RAT INTO OUR HOUSE?!" Her incredulity was laced in her voice. She took a large step back, as if the mere sight of the rat would give her an incurable illness and moving away from it would save her.

Harry tried to make an escape to his cupboard but was stopped by his uncle who easily snatched him by the collar of his oversized, hand me down shirt.

"OH NO YOU DON'T YOU FREAK! YOU HAND THAT THING OVER RIGHT NOW OR SO HELP ME THE NEXT TIME YOU SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY WILL BE CHRISTMAS!" Harry held the struggling rat closer to his chest and shrunk into himself.

"No." He said stubbornly. In Vernon's surprised at the boys boldness he let go of the hold he had on Harry's shirt collar. This gave Harry the chance to enter his room, which was too small for his uncle to enter and too dirty for his aunt to try.

Slamming the door closed, Harry squeezing himself into a spiderweb ridden corner, as far away from the door as possible.

Peeking through a gap between his chest and hands which were protecting the rat from Uncle Vernon, Harry spotted the scared rat looking up at him. Smiling reassuredly, he loosened his hold enough for the rat to jump down to the cold and bare ground.

"It worked! Kinda." he exclaimed happily. "Now you need a name, I can't keep on calling you rat in my head."

"Squeak? Squeakers? Mr Grey? Scabs?"

A faint memory surfaced of a man's voice saying "Wormy."

The rat looked up quickly, as if surprised. Before it was just looking around the poorly lit space, walking around carefully, but now the newly dubbed Wormy was staring at Harry with watery dark eyes. It's entire focus on the young boy before it.

Harry took the stare as agreement to his new name and smiled warmly at his new pet.

Body still tired and sore from Harry Hunting, Harry started to doze off, content in the knowledge that he now had a new friend.

Peter Pettigrew stared at James Potter's look alike. Wondering what the future had in store.

This is my first Harry Potter fanfiction so bare with me. I have wrote a fanfic before so this is my second but the first was a DC Dick Grayson as Joker's son kinda thing on Wattpad. Didn't finish it and would prefer that I didn't start it tbh.

I'm going to try with this one and if you do read it please leave a review (if you want, if your not bothered like me that's grand), if it's helpful criticism great, if it's you saying you like this great, if it's you saying how bad it is, that's even better, I live out of spite anyway.

Imma try not make these short and be consistent in updates but I literally wrote this because I wanted to claim I did infact do something over the summer and because I couldn't find a fanfic like this one, I could be wrong.

Also yes I am doing this author note to bring up the word count but that's neither here nor there.