A/N: The title of this story is supposed to be ironic. If you've listened to Nirvana's song Ain't it a shame you probably will get why I picked the title. Also I watched something about a woman who would do make-ups for hookers to make them feel good… feeling good gives hope. I thought it was a nice thought…

Chapter 2

I got the blues so bad

It hurts my tongue to talk.

- Some old blues song

That I have on tape.

There are several things you learn out on the street. One of them is that unless you manage to make a loyal friend or become one with a group you are in danger of being sucked in by what I've called the Vulture Effect… in other words prostitution or thievery.

I don't make friends so I naturally walk around all night hoping to find some place eventually to lay down my sleeping bag and embark on a restless night. I find that I allow myself to wander. In my mind as well as my physical being. I think it has something to do with the night; everyone who was considered a great thinker walked in the night. The twilight glinting making one think emasculate fairy tales…

I sometimes get a coffee in a Muggle place called 'Starbucks'. I nurse over that aroma for as long as I can stall… sometimes there are people who give me dirty looks because of how I look. The obvious dishevelment of my clothes…

Runaway… as if it's a disease; no understanding, no sympathy… nothing.

Not to say that there aren't some. There are quite a lot but most of them are more pitiful and likely to believe that you are suffering from drug addiction… no one really believes that you just made the wrong decisions.

I've met some kids here. The ones that weren't very smart and saw no point in school. Some of them are even grimier than me. Which to be honest I never thought would be possible. Then again they tend to laugh at me because I nick toothbrushes and toothpaste out of stores.

There's a girl whose name is Amber… she's pregnant and still turning tricks. She smokes, but I find it redundant to tell her that it's a stupid way to insure that her child ends up in a retarded state of mind… her icy coldness and obvious sense of strength. My mother's strength… it's overwhelming but I like the false sense of security I get from her. The way her wire brown hair tangles around her shoulders…

I wish I were home. With my mother's strength to keep me warm.

Amber. I don't really like the name it sounds so… common…

When it comes to things like that I don't suspect that I'll change. The whole aristocratic shit that I've grown up, as no that'll be a part of me for a very long time.

There are other kids like Amber whose every second word is 'fuck' 'shit' or anything of the one syllable variety. I've noticed some of them are illiterate and I can't help but remind myself of Greg and Vincent. Though I understand that they had mental problems… dyslexia is what they call it out of here. They also talk about be hyperactive, which confuses me because Greg and Vincent were anything but.

It's cold on the streets… but nothing so cold as the alleys where the Muggle authorities try to keep those who have no place to go. I think it's a bit ironic that both worlds have the same viewpoint on the poor. To help but not go so far as to touch the actual issue…

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They have things called 'turfs' here. Territorial markings are what I think of them. As if we're all werewolves and vampires who are forced to claim their own. It makes me laugh at odd times when I think this way causing even the other 'street kids' to look at me strange.

Some of the territorial markings are on the side streets for the whores and their pimps. Other's are for the young who would appeal to the upper people of London. There is some claim for standing outside of churches hoping for goodwill from god-fearing people. These ones are nearly always fought over. Mainly because of the good money you make… I know this because I've stalked claim outside more than once.

'Street kids' don't do the downtown part of London because the police almost always catch you. They don't make a big deal out of it, but there are some stories where they take random kids off the street at night and beat them nearly to death…

I've found comfortable places to sleep at night under bridges where little villages seem to come alive. With cardboard boxes to keep in the body heat from all the people down there. There are usually metal garbage cans that are lit for fire if it's a good night.

It smells like sewage and sometimes becomes so bad that I must leave.

I've been offered drugs to take away the 'pain' and loneliness. I disincline to acquiesce to the request, because I'm not here because I had a drug addiction or a horrible family that beat and molested me during all hours of the night. In fact I don't have to be here at all…

I don't have to be. Just like no one else does.

But the circumstances that are visited on one forces the oddest of choices.

My choice is that I want to live.

Not in a cage. Not in a constant fear of 'Crucio'.

No, I'd rather starve, as I am in order to live.

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Kit- I don't know why they call him that, told me that the best place to be is in front of office buildings. Where he says the 'geeks' work. They always give the homeless food instead of money… they don't believe that the money will go to actual food and since someone can go up to another and gut them open to get the already 'shit food' it would be better to stake claim over one of them.

So that's what I've done.

Staked claim over an office building that's tall and looks immaculately clean from where I sit on a stonewall. If I keep my head down and don't actively go up to people with my hands outstretched they give me either money or a little something to eat. I was given a small cup of warm milk from the store across from the building that I've begun to think of as my own.

I can tell there are some people who don't want me hanging around.

I leave when the security guard starts to walk slowly to me.

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