In accordance with the newly-passed Muggleborn Registration Commission; the recipient of this summons,

Dean Andrew Thomas, born 19th April, 1980 and resident of 16 Millers Row, Stratford, London,

is hereby required to present themselves to the Ministry of Magic on the 16th of August for evaluation and questioning.

Failure to attend will result in your immediate arrest under Section 8 of the Muggleborn Registration Commission.

Please bring any wands or other stolen magical items you have in your possession.

Kind regards,

Dolores Umbridge,

Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

The letter was crumpled and torn, having been shoved into books and stuffed under pillows every time his mother entered the room. He couldn't let her see it; she didn't need to know.

The pamphlet that had come with it had been thrown into the fire almost immediately. 'Mudbloods and the Dangers They Pose to a Peaceful Pureblood Society.' Dean hadn't even opened it. The purple cover with the cruel face of a crazed man brandishing a wand in one hand and a knife in the other had made him sick to his stomach.

What was happening to the world? The world he hadn't asked to be a part of was kicking him out the same way it had invited him in: with a letter on his doorstep. Cowards. They didn't even have the decency to say it to his face.

His bed was covered in so many letters he could barely see the duvet underneath. Some from Pavarti and Lavender. Dozens from Seamus, all saying the same thing that they'd fight for him, protect him. That the Ministry was a crock of shite anyway and they could go shove some expletives into other creative expletives.

He hadn't let his mother see those letters either.

It'll be grand once we're back at Hogwarts, mate, alright? Those amadán's won't have a scrap on yeh. Cac madra faoi dhrisiúr agus caonach liath air atá é… mind yourself.

He hadn't replied to Seamus or any of the other letters. He told himself it was because he didn't want to worry them. Truth was he couldn't stomach it. What would he even say? It's not like they could help him. They couldn't hide him from the Ministry, and regardless, he wasn't going to put any of his friends in danger.

Dumb father, dumb school, dumb magic. What use was it to him, huh? Stupid wizards could pull flowers from their arses but couldn't do a simple blood test to tell him if his father was a wizard or not. And now they were hunting him down, as though it was his fault his father had walked out on them withoutexplination. His mother had said he was 'normal.' But Dean had been hiding his magic for years. Who was he to trust people and their secrets?

No, it was better to run before the Auror's showed up. Before his Mother woke up. Before anyone could start looking for him.

So he did.

OoOoO

He went to Khalid's house first. He didn't know why; it was almost out of desperation. He hadn't spoken to Khalid in years, not since Dean had left for Hogwarts and all of his old school friends had gone to the local grammar school, the school Dean was supposed to go to before the letter had shown up. But Khalid had always been kind, straight to the point. And it was somewhere without magic.

Khalid was as surprised to see him as Dean was to find himself on his porch.

"Hey, mate. Erm… Mind if I stay a few days?"

Khalid stared at him blankly for a few seconds before stepping aside and letting Dean over the threshold, rucksack in hand.

"What's going on?" Khalid asked, closing the door softly behind him. "Is something wrong?"

Dean dropped the bag to the floor. "Had a fight with Mum. Just need to lie low for a few days." It was a simple lie, something Dean hoped Khalid wouldn't question. "I'll be out of your hair in a day or so. I promise."

Khalid fixed him with a stern look. His mouth opened for a moment, then hesitated, and Dean's heart hammered in his chest while his wand burned in his pocket. But Khalid must have thought the better of whatever he was going to say because he merely smiled and said, "Well, shall we get takeaway then?"

It took almost a week for them to find him. He'd been careful—or he'd thought he had. He didn't use magic, didn't speak of the Death Eaters or the Ministry. But he couldn't stop the owls from finding him.

The second summons came as a Howler. It exploded in the kitchen while Khalid was upstairs. Dean quickly set it alight with his wand, but the damage was done.

"What the hell was that?" Khalid said as he stumbled down the stairs, clutching his ears. "Were you blasting the TV or something?"

"Yeah, sorry," Dean mumbled, but his eyes were fixed on the singed table. They had found him. Somehow, they had found him. He had to leave.

He got up from the table and pushed his way to the door, knocking Khalid over in his haste to get up the stairs.

"Oy, where are you going?"

Dean said nothing. He grabbed his rucksack, shoving his clothes inside. They'd come for him. If the letter could get here, how long before Umbridge sent one of her Ministry lackeys to pick him up? What would they do to Khalid? Even if Dean was a halfblood, he'd have no chance convincing the Ministry of it if they found him in a Muggle home.

By the time Dean barrelled down the stairs, Khalid was waiting at the front door for him, arms crossed and his leg tapping anxiously on the mat. "Hey, what's going on, mate? I mean, not to be rude or anything, it's great to see you. But you look more stressed than when West Ham lost the quarter final. Is something wrong?"

For a split second, Dean considered telling him everything. Screw the Ministry, screw the Statute of Secrecy, screw all of it. Hey! I'm a magical wizard, I'm seventeen years old, and the racist-as-shit government (including a former teacher who scarred us) is trying to throw me in prison because my dad was a piece of garbage who walked out without even telling us who he was.

Dean was close to tears. His tongue was itching to spill it all, to just crumple right there on the mat and beg for help.

But he couldn't. He couldn't. He just shook his head and tried not to give into the shame that flooded him when Khalid sighed and stepped aside, letting Dean go through the door.

"Well, mate. I'm here if you ever need me, yeah? Keep safe."

OoOoO

He tried to keep safe, but after leaving Khalid's, Dean was out of places to stay. He took a bus to London, keeping to the side streets and parks where he could. He tried to use as little magic as he could, but once winter hit, Dean was forced to use warming charms and basic Transfiguration to keep his hands from freezing.

He Transfigured wrappers and other bits of rubbish into five pound notes, using them to buy hot food from McDonalds or Burger King. He felt bad about scamming them, but his growling stomach overpowered any scrap of morality he'd left.

When he could, he'd buy an extra burger for the other homeless people on the street who didn't have the money for food, which helped the guilt somewhat.

He tried to steer clear of the magical places he knew about. The Leaky Cauldron, King's Cross, Diagon Alley. But he never really knew where wizards liked to gather. He had never known about King's Cross before his Hogwarts letter showed up. He had never heard of Hogsmeade before someone had told him.

Perhaps that was how the Snatchers found him. Perhaps he'd stumbled across some other unknown corner of the Magical World, but either way, he knew he was screwed.

The two Snatchers cornered him, shoved him against the wall of a back alley, and tied his hands with conjured ropes. They kicked him, rooted through his bag, his pockets. Pulling out all the money and coins he had scrounged on his travels. Dean curled in on himself, tears streaming down his face as he cried for help, every fibre of his body panicking and screaming to run, flee, get away.

The first man fell on top of him with a grunt. He heard the second man fall soon after. A pair of hands heaved him from the ground, and Dean jerked away, kicking wildly.

"Hey, hey, hey! It's fine, son. Look at me, I won't hurt yeh."

But Dean didn't listen. He tried to twist his bound hands around to his pocket, feeling frantically for his wand, but it wasn't there. A broken sob tore from his throat, and he kicked again, scrambling backwards against the wall, his ribs and head pounding with pain. He felt a set of hands on his shoulders and jerked away, but the hands stayed put.

"Look at me, you're okay. Here, I think this is yours."

A pair of blue eyes beneath a mop of greying hair was staring down at him. An older man, about forty years old with kind wrinkles criss-crossing his face. He was holding two wands, one of which was Dean's. Dean flinched unconsciously at the sight of them.

"It's alright. I'm going to undo your hands now, okay? Did they hurt you?"

Dean rubbed his raw wrists. "A bit," he muttered quietly. He glanced over at the two unconscious men. "I should go," he said, pushing himself up and away from the older man, who had just knocked out two men as easily as you would a toy tower.

"I'm Ted Tonks. Muggleborn. Given your situation, I'd wager you are too?"

Dean froze but nodded numbly. He was tired and hungry. His head hurt, and his ribs felt bruised and broken. He was cold and alone and desperately wanted to just run home to his mother, or Seamus, or Khalid and wish the whole damn mess of a world away.

"Listen, son. It ain't safe here. I've some friends up north who might be able to help. You come with me, we'll look out for each other, yeah?"

So they went north, travelling by foot mostly, apparating where they could. They slept in forests, under bridges, in abandoned houses on quiet roads. Ted told Dean stories of the first war, about Voldemort's first rise to power. How prejudice and bigotry had slowly crept into day-to-day life until the schism between Purebloods and everyone else was almost assumed.

"But why did no one say anything? Why did no one stop it?"

"We tried. But people were afraid. You see, you have to be invited into this world. That Hogwarts letter is your passport, your right of passage. For the Muggleborns, they were afraid of losing that passport. That all this magic and wonder could be taken away from them as quickly as it was given. So it was easier to stay quiet, to bow and comply than to fight. Purebloods have money and power and we... we don't even have a name people recognise."

Ted sighed. "Some of us did fight. But we just kept losing. As bad as it is, I think if Harry hadn't stopped You-Know-Who that night, the war never would have ended. That's why I think he's our only hope now."

Harry Potter hadn't been seen in months. The newspapers said he had fled the country, abandoned them, run far away, never to come back. But Dean had seen Harry Potter fight basilisks, fend off dementors. He had seen Harry Potter outfly dragons, outwit sphinxes, outswim merpeople. He had seen Harry Potter stand up to Umbridge, stand up to Snape, stand up to You-Know-Who himself.

The one thing Dean Thomas had never, ever seen Harry do was run away from the people who needed him.

"Harry'll stop him. I know he will."

OoOoO

Dean lost track of the days since he had left his mother's house. He lost track of the places they stayed, the people they met. He lost track of the shoes he replaced, the shopkeepers he stole from, the lies he told to people he would never see again.

He lost track of what it felt like to feel warm, to feel well-rested and safe. He got used to looking over his shoulder, to being hungry, cold, damp, and grimy.

He got used to travelling by himself, then with Ted, and eventually with goblins and Dirk Creswell and other beings who were shunned from society. They each shared their stories, and he shared his in return. They camped in forests and caves, using their wands to fish in rivers and cook the mushrooms and herbs they could scavenge from the land.

The goblins were crafty and unfaithful, often lying about the food they'd eaten or the supplies they needed. Ted didn't trust them, so neither did Dean, but they knew more about the inner workings of the Death Eaters than Dean expected. Rumours of a vault and a sword, one Dean vaguely remembered sitting on the head table at the end of year feast in his second year. He had known it was Godric Gryffindor's sword then, but until he heard the goblins talk about it, he never appreciated just how important it was, both to wizards and goblins.

When they all finally called it a night, Dean was the last to crawl into his makeshift tent. He sat outside by the fire, his mind still flipping across memories of petrified cats, giant snakes and the smell of the fire in the Gryffindor common room. The smell was so real that he thought he could almost see the smoke of it drifting across the top of the trees.

OoOoO

Ted Tonks died protecting him. He'd tell Andromeda one day; he swore it. Dean's feet burned as he raced through the forest, Griphook clinging to his back. Tears burned his cheeks, but he didn't dare stop.

"RUN! RUN, BOY!" Griphook screamed in his ear as spells shattered branches and tree trunks to their left and right, sending chunks of wood flying into the air.

Dean's wand was long gone; the Snatchers had taken it when they intercepted them. He'd tried to fight, he swore he did. He threw every spell he had learned from Harry and Dumbledore's army, but none of them helped.

Ted Tonks crumpled in front of him like a puppet cut from its strings. Dean hadn't even seen the spell that hit him, but he knew he was dead. The once-shining blue eyes were blank and glassy and seemed to stare straight through him, burning a hole in his chest.

Dean had screamed. The Snatchers had flown backwards. It took Griphook grabbing his hand and forcing him to run before Dean could even think to move.

He left Ted lying there. And Dean felt bile in his throat as he continued to race through the forest.

"YOU HAVE TO APPARATE!" Griphook yelled at him as another purple spell whizzed past his ear, singing the hair as it went.

"I'VE NEVER APPARATED WITH ANOTHER PERSON!" Dean yelled back, darting behind a tree. His lungs were screaming for air, but he couldn't stop.

"YOU HAVE TO OR WE DIE."

This wasn't a question, but what else did Dean have to lose?

OoOoO

When the Snatchers finally caught them, Dean was almost relieved. He was getting tired of running. Of hiding and starving and freezing. What was the point? What was he even running from anymore? What did it matter?

Was he just supposed to wait out the war? Hope that it got better? Hope that one day it would just end and he could go back to his normal life with his normal friends?

What would he say to Khalid? To Seamus? To his mother? He hadn't spoken to any of them in almost a year; how would they ever forgive him? How could Dean ever expect them too?

He could be dead for all they knew, and Dean would never know if they would ever find out.

Perhaps he could ask the Snatchers to tell his mum before they killed him. Give her a letter or something so she would know. She deserved that much. Hell, she deserved so much more than this, but maybe Dean could give her that.

The ropes hurt his wrists. He sagged into them which only seemed to make it worse, but Dean didn't care. It'd be over soon and that's all that mattered. He'd tried. He'd tried so hard.

There was a shuffling, and Dean felt three more bodies being tied to the back of his. Were there more? Dean had only been with Griphook; he hadn't noticed anyone else in the area at the time. Though it was a large forest, it was easy to miss people.

Maybe they'd kill him first. Dean wasn't much in the mood to see anyone else die in front of him.

"Anyone still got a wand?"

It was like a light switch turning on in his chest. The hope which had been dwindling and deflating for months suddenly ignited like a roaring fire within him. His heart raced, and without even thinking, a broad grin spread across his face so large it was almost painful.

Hope. Hope. Dear lord, Dean had forgotten what it felt like. It was beautiful, warm and safe and everything Dean had been missing for months. Possibility. A future. A way out. Because behind him, behind him was the one person Dean had been banking on since the beginning.

Dean swallowed, took a breath, and with more hope and fear than he had ever felt in his life, he whispered out a name.

"Harry?"

A/N: Translation for Seamus' letter.

Cac madra faoi dhrisiúr agus caonach liath air atá é… == Dog shit under the dresser with mould growing on it...

It means bullshit. Absoloute, complete and utter horseshite, the lot of it. It's one of those ridiculous phrases that doesn't translate literally but the essence of the phrase means: the situation is terrible and screw it all to hell. (Bit like this year.)

THC

House: Ravenclaw
Class: Astronomy
Standard
WC: 2998
Prompts: Travel - literally travelling around the UK while on the run. / [emotion] Sadness.