Savage

Disclaimer : Hippity, Hoppity, Harry Potter is Rowling's Property !

Chapter 2: Fate has a job for you

Albus Dumbledore was a powerful man, yes. But for now, he was above all a tired man. It had been three days since Harry had disappeared. The Dursleys had returned the evening before, and immediately went to the police.

At first, Albus had been sceptical about them. Well, on the very first night, Minerva had described him as the "worst sort of muggles", and since then Arabella had reported nothing for three years other than them being rather cold to Harry. The first year, Albus thought that it was normal, that Harry, while their nephew, was not as much their family as if he had been their son. Certainly, it had an effect. Maybe. Actually, he didn't really know. Albus never really understood how family worked, his own family be proof of that.

Then, the second year, he told himself that, surely, it was the special circumstances of the family that drove their behaviour. After all, Harry had his mother's eye. His Aunt probably was reminded of her sister and, stricken with grief, it's understandable that her relations to her nephew would be difficult. Albus paused a few seconds on this…

Now that he thought about it, he had no idea how Severus would react to the boy. Would he hate him just as he hated his father ? Love him as his mother ? Be stricken by grief like his Aunt ? Or, maybe, he could even be totally indifferent, as the past hate and love might have faded. That was one of the many reasons Albus Dumbledore had such a hard time with emotions, even his own. Sometimes they would fade in less than a few minutes, while some other times they would last for a century…

But anyway, what was he thinking now… Ah, yes ! Harry Potter. Well, when the third year of reported coldness came, Albus actually started to feel worried. Tom was given the cold shoulder too, at the orphanage. Well, to be fair, Tom was already a kleptomaniac bully, but Albus always wondered which came first. The orphans hostility or Tom's hostile behaviour ? It was one the reasons Albus always gave second chances, to test either theory. The problem was that, even now, he still didn't know the answer. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it failed…

What was the subject again ?...

Ah, yes ! Harry !

Well, for all his arisen doubts about the family during the last year and a half, especially the last two days, he didn't really doubt them anymore. He observed them when they came back to their home. They immediately reported to the police and seemed quite shaken; they were literally shaking, in fact. Not to much, mind you, but as a Master Legilimens, it couldn't escape Albus' notice. Especially Petunia, she looked particularly nervous and distressed into the police station. She even burst out into cry.

No, after such a display of heartbroken love, Albus Dumbledore couldn't doubt their true feelings anymore. Even though he still would have wanted to…

"You should have done it." Said a cold, slow voice.

Albus lifted his eyes to look at his young friend and spy, Severus Snape, that just came out from the Headmaster's floo.

"You know I can't, Severus, it would have destroyed their minds."

Snape gave a sneer. In fact, did it start only now ? It was difficult to know when the man started to sneer, since he never seemed to stop.

"I know your ethical concerns, Albus, but don't you think the feeble minds of two muggles are an acceptable price if it helps to retrieve the damn Boy-Who-Lived ?!"

"It might have been, if we were sure that surveying their minds would give us any information on whomever took Harry. Which we are not. They weren't even there when it happened."

The subject of the discussion was to determine if it would be worth it two subject the Dursleys to a direct and in depth Legilimency survey, to assess if they could have seen any suspicious person or activity the last months that could constitute a lead on what happened to Harry. The problem was that, while a quick, surfaced legilimency survey of a muggle's mind has (generally) no consequences, an in depth examination, contrary to wizards, gave the absolute certitude of ending with a vegetable-state reduced muggle, for they completely lacked any form of magical protection.

This was also why legilimency had been ruled out of tribunal proceedings. The wizarding world had three main sources of criminality : 1) impoverished squibs; 2) impoverished "half-breed" (mainly werewolves); 3) pompous aristocrats (mainly dark wizards).

While the squibs were pretty much in the same boat as muggles against legilimency, the other two categories were on the opposite side of the spectrum, as it was generally dangerous for the legilimens. Aristocrats, especially dark wizards with too much secrets, were often formed to advanced occlumency. Whereas trying to legilimens a werewolf or vampire was purely suicidal.

Thus the use of veritaserum. Although, to be fair, it's only a poor substitute, considering that occlumens still resist it, and that it is the second most time-consuming potion to prepare after Felix Felicis, with a hole month of brewing, while Felix Felicis takes three whole months. Minimum. It was often noted that in a lot of cases, catastrophes "unfortunately" happened during the potion's brewing, which was now considered a part of the recipe. So Felix Felicis could in fact take between three months and twenty years.

But what were they discussing, now ? Albus' mind suddenly refocused. Ah, yes ! Harry !

Well, it happens that Veritaserum is also toxic to muggles, making it useless to their current endeavour, too. After all, they couldn't risk to damage the Dursleys, for it would ensure the damaging of the Bloodwrds currently protecting the boy, wherever he might be. As a sidenote, now that he thought about it, Albus reckoned that the veritaserum's only use was pretty much a "poor hunting" item.

Such a terrible and unforgiving world the wizarding world was, indeed.

Unaware of the annoyed glare that his Potions Master was giving him since he entered his musings, which were also the reason he was unaware of said glare, Albus stood behind his desk and declared :

"Lemon drop ?"

Severus sneered twice as hard and stormed out of Dumbledore's office.

His Potion Master would avoid Dumbledore for the entire next week after that, and he didn't quite understand why. Sometimes, he was truly fazzed by the young man's actions.

It had been half an hour since they departed from Privet Drive. Harry, still shocked by what happened, stayed quiet during the whole trip. Until they stopped on the side of the road.

"Out!", growled his Uncle Vernon.

Immediately, Harry was out of the car, and immediately after, he was thrown into the car's boot. Now, Harry was no longer shocked, but utterly terrified. During the three hours trip that followed, every second was spent by the boy's brain to try and answer two questions : First, why was he here now ? What did he do wrong ? Second, what were they going to do to him now ?

Harry certainly wasn't mature enough to imagine all of the horrors an adult would have thought of, but he was just old and educated enough to imagine them throwing him into a deep dark forest with some sort of monstrosity waiting for him, be it a big bad wolf or an ugly wi… He immediately chastised himself, the last three years of conditioning coming in action. "There is no such thing as magic!" he whispered nervously to himself. Oh, the sweet irony of a child terrified by monsters when he already lived with one of the worst sort: The terrible good-in-all-respects-family.

At some point, the car stopped again. He heard the sound of a car's door opening, then footsteps, and… BOOM, BOOM. "Wake up, Freak !"

The boot opened, a hand reached for him, grabbed him, his eyes took a few seconds to readjust to the ambient lighting. Everything was dark already. He was lifted for a few minutes. At some point, in the beginning, he tried to scream for help or mercy. The tentative didn't last for more than two seconds, before Vernon Dursley's large hand punched him in the face, breaking his nose and his spectacles. After five to ten minutes, Vernon stopped and said "You know, at some point I started to like you. I even had hope you'd be normal. But I was wrong. You're an error of nature, and should have died a long time ago. What I'm doing now is simply putting things back in order."

Before he could say anything, or even process what he had been told, Vernon threw Harry above a small cliff. With some luck, the boy was dead on impact, and wildlife would take care of the rests.

Pain. There could be only one word to describe Harry's world, right now, and that was it. Pain.

Well, even if it wasn't the case, his perceptive world would be quite limited anyway, considering his spectacles were broken, along with the nose they rested upon. As well as his right arm, his right leg, five of his ribs and, oh, his spine. You know, it was this kind of days, when one better have stayed in bed.

At first, he tried to cry, but could only produce a faint whine. It rapidly regressed into whispered wail, then a loud breath, a death rattle.

Nothing.

For a moment, this silent nothingness choked under its weight any other phenomenon that might have the hubris to come into existence and try to overshadow the boy's demise.

Until it happened. For, as much as he's the epitome of the daft obese motherfucker, for once in his life, just like a broken clock, Vernon Dursley had been right about something.

There is an order of things.

Things are what they are and, against all of humanity's will to be otherwise, things are what they are supposed to be. Sure, there's a little bit of leeway in it, as you can turn on the right instead of the left, but a the end of the road, you'll be at the exact point you're supposed to get, anyway.

But here's what there's no leeway in: There is only one hand that is destined to kill Harry James Potter, and it is certainly not the arthritic, diabetic hand of Vernon Dursley.

Plus, quite conveniently, the boy had something of a Joker card, logged inside his forehead.

Never let it be said that Fate isn't provident.

A loud gasp. A panting breath. Harry Potter, aged five and a half, finally woke up, laid on the ground, face pressed into the dirt. As you could imagine, the boy felt like having the hardest hangover ever experienced, though he obviously wouldn't word it like that himself. Yet, it would be quite fitting, since the boy was waking up from his own death. How drunk should one get to feel like literally waking up from death ?

Harry certainly didn't know. No more than he knew where he was, in fact. Aside from his headache, his whole body felt terrible. First, he had opened his eyes, only to see bushes, leaves and a shallow sunshine coming through them. Then he tried to sit. The two first tries weren't so successful, but he finally got up.

Still panting and confused, he rested for a few minutes. The air was quite cold, easter had barely begun. That was when the memories hit him. The Dursleys were supposed to go on vacations for easter. Uncle Vernon had beaten him up and thrown him in the forest. He fell and… pain ? Coldness ? That's all he remembered after that.

For next hour, he just stayed there. A young, terrified child, curled up against the bottom of a small cliff behind bushes. What else could he have done ?

During this time, he thought. First, he thought of why. Why had he been abandoned ? At some point, he remembered that Uncle Vernon had broke his nose, but said nose was perfectly healed. Freakish. He must have done something freakish again. Continuing on his thoughts, he had to admit that, while it got him abandoned, his freakiness still healed him. Well, one must find comfort where they can… Hey ! Didn't his glasses break, too ?

Young Harry thus realised that he didn't have his round glasses, but he still could clearly see distances. Whatever feat of freakiness he had done, it must have been a big one.

Out of the amazement of having perfectly seeing eyes, it was his stomach that compelled him to move. He was so hungry. His throat, too, felt really sore. The problem was that he didn't really knew how to find food in the forest… Maybe he could find fruits, they grow on trees after all, right ? For sure, he wasn't going to find meat, but it didn't really count on it anyway. The Dursleys gave him just enough food, but were very greedy about meat. Only when it concerned him, obviously. They never had been greedy with themselves or their guests, mind you.

Lost in his thoughts, he had wandered in the forest for 20 minutes before reaching the following conclusion : No fruits in this damn forest ! Don't fruits grow on trees ?!

Sure they do, except when you're on the first week of April. At some point, he couldn't bear it anymore, and simply decided to eat the leaves of a nearby tree. If farm animals could eat leaves, maybe he could too, after all. Now, while this idea surely sounded like a genius' discovery to a 5 year old, any adult would have discarded it, mainly for two reasons, the first being that eating raw tree leaves was quite unhygienic, the second was that not all tree leaves are edible, some even toxic, and in our day and age, nobody really cared to learn which was which and didn't eat leaves altogether.

Unfortunately for our young friend, the leaves he chose as breakfast were oak leaves. While they're not outright toxic in small quantities, oak leaves have a high concentration of tannins, which are chemical agents responsible for astringency, the feeling of dryness that comes from drinking wine, for example.

As a result, Harry Potter was now half-hungry, but twice-as-hard thirsty. Naturally, this lead to the Quest for a River, that stared Harry Potter as a headless chicken, roaming around the forest in search for water. The show could even have been comical, if it hadn't been about a starved, slightly intoxicated, five years old boy, abandoned in a forest by his abusers.

At some point, his efforts paid, as he stumbled upon a river, its water, coming out of a small source, was as clear as it could get. This, at least, could not harm him in any way, right ? For once, he was right. Harry drank as much as could manage, before letting himself fall on his back.

"Help me… Please…" he wailed, tears coming to his eyes. He had no energy in himself to muster for more.

Yet, despite his complaint, no answer came.

It had been fifth days now. Step by step, he had learned what was edible, and what wasn't. Forst the first day after his abandon, he survived by eating leaves on the trees that surrounded his river. His river. His only landmark.

However, he quickly learned that one could only eat so much leaves before getting sick. At some point, he spotted some red berries growing from some sort of shrub, or bush, he didn't know, but he tried the berries anyway. He never tried again. They were toxic rowan berries.

The evening, it had started to rain, so he built a "shack", that, truth be told, was nothing more than a pile of branches put together to prevent rain from falling on him. It didn't work so well.

His "leaves regime", however, wasn't enough to sustain him correctly, obviously. The already thin boy was starting to get bony.

Furthermore, he was lucky when, on his fourth day, some of the trees had shown their fruits, especially the oaks and hazels. It certainly wouldn't feed him enough to become a rugby player, but it allowed him easier access to sugars and fat than mere leaves, so his state wasn't going to worsen as fast as it had until now.

And there he was, trying to break the shells of freshly grown hazelnuts with a small rock. His movement were slow because of the accumulated fatigue.

At the same moment, he heard some rustles coming from a nearby foliage. Immediately, he froze, remembering tales of little children lost in the forest and eaten by the big bad wolf.

But the wolf never came. Was he reassured ? No. For instead of mister Big Bad, he saw a long, greenish snake with black spots coming out.

Finally seeing him, the snake froze too. The both of them observing each other for a long minute that, to Harry, felt like an hour. Then the snake moved his tail slightly.

Startled, Harry couldn't help himself but whimper, "Help !"

Terror turned to horror when only one voice answered his call. The snake's.

"You ssspeak?!"

Oh, for the first time in five days, Harry hoped Uncle Vernon wouldn't find him. For sure, if he did now and found Harry speaking to a snake, he would hit him with the belt everyday for the next year. Yet, confused, he found nothing else to say than :

"You speak ?!"

For a second, the snake looked annoyed. "Sssure, I sspeak. But how do you ? You're a hairlesss mamal. Those don't sspeak !"

Still as confused as before, Harry answered the only thing he could "I don't know…"

They continued to stare at each other for a moment before the snake spoke again.

"Didn't you assk for help?"

"Erm, yes, I did. Do you.. Would you help me ?"

The snake looked once more in silence before answering with a straight "Yes."

"…Thanks… If I can ask… why do you want to help me ?"

"…"

For a moment Harry regretted asking the question. Had the snake been offended by his question ? Well, it was a good question anyway. He had always been taught that snakes equals to either dangerous, evil or nasty. But on the other hand, it had been the only - person ? Being ? Let's go with being – who had spoke to him in almost a week.

His worries were washed away – well, those about having offended the snake, at least – when the beast answered him.

"I don't know. You sspeak, sso I'm compelled to lisssten."

Thanks Mister Snake, that's very informative of you.

"Sssso, what do you need help with, hairlesssss mammal ?"

"Um, first, my name's Harry. What's yours ?"

The snake seemed taken aback by the answer. Was it the first time someone asked for its name ?

"I have no name. I am, that'sss all. And I can't pronounce what you told as your name, so you'll be Hairless. Now, pleasssse tell me what you need help with."

Harry was confused by the answer. The snake couldn't pronounce his name ? Why ?

Never mind. His aching stomach called him back to reality, and he knew exactly what he wanted from the reptile.

"Well, if it's okay, could you bring me food ? I'm really starving right now and –"

Harry hadn't even finished his sentence, but the snake was already gone.

Harry, knowing nothin better to do, had resumed his hazelnut shell-crushing after the mysterious had disappeared, had was once again startled when the snake came back.

Harry noticed that its head was bigger than before. He wondered why, until the snake ejected four small rodents from its mouth.

"Here. Food."

Nice. Now Harry had meat. Except that he really didn't know how he could eat – what was it even ? Mice ? Rats ? Whatever – just like that.

"Huh… thanks."

The snake looked at him intensely.

"Eat. That isss for you."

Now, Harry was caught in a terrible dilemma. He could either eat the rodents and get sick, or he could not eat them. However, he wasn't sure how the snake would react to him refusing its gift, and he was almost sure that the snake could make him rather "sick", if it wanted to.

"How… how am I supposed to eat it ?"

"You eat them. That isss all."

"You mean.. ?"

In the face of his hesitation, the snake probably thought that he had be shown how to eat, and promptly swallowed one of the rodents.

"Sure…", Harry took one of rodents by the tail, with two fingers, and drew them near his face. The damn thing smelt horribly !

Harry made a disgusted face and was about to throw the cadaver away, just before he reminded himself of the snake's presence.

The reptile merely looked at him while bobbing its head, as if it tried to encourage him.

Pondering for a while what was the worst between swallowing a rodent and be eaten by a snake, every portion of his skin was drenched in sweat due to the stress and fear.

When the snake started to slowly move forward to him, the panic increased instantly and, without a second thought, he engulfed the poor rodent.

Immediately after, he wanted to throw up. That was probably the most disgusting thing he had done in his life. But before he could do so, the snake spoke again.

"Eat. Those are good for you."

At the end of the day, Harry Potter was suffering from an infection. Surprising, really. Who could have thought that swallowing three mice, raw and unskinned, could be unhealthy ?

And so, at 3am, Harry Potter died once again, illness eating him up from the inside. But still, there was an order of things, and such was not the way he was meant to die. If he had to live like a beast in order to survive until the time came, then so be it.

Fate's course would not be stopped, even if a monster had to arise in its path.

Auhor's note : a little note about my Dumbledore. My Dumbledore won't be an idiot. That's it.

However, I like the idea of a slightly autistic Dumbledore, which, to be honest, I find rather coherent with canon. By that, I mean, look at his life choices:

1) Grindelwald. Dumbledore was clearly a bored young man, whose family didn't really understood him, until he meets this other awkward guy that rivals his intelligence. The two teenagers are so happy to finally find an equal that they shag each other, until Albus, completely mentally cut from his family, living in a world of concepts and ideals with his boyfriend. Until he neglects his little sister, she dies, and he realises that death is a real thing, and not just a concept. So rather than being nuanced and temperate, he decides to become the absolute opposite of what he defended before, following ultra-rigid moral rules that, hopefully, shall prevent him from ever making such a mistake again.

2) "I don't want for Harry to become Tom Riddle 2.0. Hummm, let's get him to his abusive family, with only a squib (so probably one of the people the most used to child abuse in the whole Harry Potter universe) to look after him !". Thanks the plot armor that made an abused child to fit well inside society and have him easily make friends.

3) "Harry has clearly been shocked by Cedric's death. Let's have him bath in guilt and loneliness all summer". "Oh no, Harry is stricken with grief and aggressive with everybody ! I really don't know why ?!"

4) "If I don't look at Harry in the eyes, Voldemort won't possess him outright. Of course, he will never develop the feeling that I avoid him, resent me for it, and do something stupid that'll put us all in danger. Instead, he will trust me like a good lad !"

5) "The only adult Harry has ever thought as a parent has just died. Let's have him study occlumency with the person that hated him the most. It's gonna be fine."

I won't do it all, and I obviously exagerated some of it, but you see the idea. Yes, in each of these cases, Dumbledore had a logical or moral reason to do what he did, a "if - then" way of thinking. But every time, he ignored the emotional factors. And that always led to terrible events.

So, even if he's not pictured like that in the canon, I can totally figure a slightly autistic Dumbledore, outsmarting everyone, but quite oblivious to the emotional aspects of things, which lead him to make plans based only on logic and facts, and never taking in account the emotional factors that will make people fuck up his plans from the inside.