A/N:

hah i made it before 2020 ended here. not what i expected to update but it has happened nonetheless.

Chapter 4: Dead Man Walking

"Hey," Harry said awkwardly as he approached Neville and Narcissa.

"Hi, Harry," greeted Neville. He was holding what Harry assumed to be a paper cup of water.

"Narcissa told you about the piñata?"

"Yeah!" Neville answered. "Something about how it's a homecoming party tradition?" Not that either of them knew much about those.

Harry glanced at Narcissa, trying to get a read on the tone of the conversation. In the gloomy party lighting, it was hard to make out the details of her expression. Was she as into this whole thing as Bellatrix was? How to make her leave so he could talk to Neville?

"Absolutely. It is going to be so much fun," Narcissa said happily, clapping her hands together. "Everyone is so excited, and Neville's agreed to take the first swing!"

"Great," Harry said, full of fake enthusiasm. "Why don't I take the blindfold? You can go help your sister, um, set the piñata up."

"Well, okay." Narcissa frowned. "Don't tell her I gave it to you or she'll think I'm being lazy again."

"I won't," Harry promised.

Narcissa pressed the pink sash into his hands, then planted a sticky lip-gloss kiss on his left cheek. "Andy's right. You are a sweet boy, Harry." She gave a little laugh, then sauntered off.

Harry's face heated with embarrassment, but he forced himself to turn back to Neville. "You don't have to do this."

"I know." Neville smiled ruefully. "But I want to. Besides, isn't that why I'm here? To become 'popular'?"

"I guess." Harry couldn't shake the voice in his head—Bellatrix's voice warning him about having second thoughts.

"Tonight's been really nice. Nicer than I was expecting, honestly," Neville said. "I'm glad I decided to come."

In the background, the volume of the music lowered to a bearable level. A few party goers began to groan, but their complaints were quickly quieted as Bellatrix took center stage.

"Listen up everyone!" Bellatrix called out. "It's time to celebrate our upcoming victory by whacking apart Durmstrang's mascot!" She beamed at them all, then clasped her hands together. "We already have our first volunteer... let's show Neville Longbottom some Hogwarts spirit!"

The crowd let out a confused cheer in response to Bellatrix's enthusiasm.

"Come on!" Bellatrix cried, pumping her fist in the air. "Neville! Neville! Neville!"

The crowd took up the chant with all the rabid enthusiasm that dozens of drunken teenagers could muster. Bellatrix allowed a pleased smile to stretch across her face as she made eye contact with Harry from across the room. That smile did nothing to alleviate the anxious churning in Harry's stomach.

"That's my cue, I suppose," Neville said nervously. "Would you mind putting the blindfold on me?"

Reluctantly, Harry tied the blindfold around Neville's eyes. Then Andromeda came over and took Neville by the shoulders, steering him towards the space that Bellatrix had cleared in the middle of the room.

"It'll be over soon," Andromeda said. She was looking at the wall as she spoke. Harry's unease doubled.

Narcissa re-entered the room, her arms wrapped around the large midsection of the pig piñata. It was a wonder she was able to carry it on her own at all, what with the way she was stumbling. After some struggle, she managed to pivot her body so that the pig was balanced on her hip, and that was when Harry saw the sheet of paper taped to the side.

"No!" Harry said aloud. But no one could hear him, not when all eyes were focused on the prize—the piñata with Neville's name stuck to it. There was even a sloppy yarn wig taped to the top of its head.

People were laughing and cheering loudly now, the rhythm of their chanting rising to fill the entire room. Bellatrix was drinking in the atmosphere, her eyes travelling lazily over the crowd. Then she caught Harry's gaze for the second time and paused. Her grinned sharpened wickedly. She was enjoying Harry's misery the same way she enjoyed everyone's misery. Even the misery of her own sisters.

The awful enormity of the situation was rapidly dawning on Harry. Bellatrix did not care for anyone. All she cared for was her own power, a power she used to make everyone around her absolutely miserable.

So long as Harry was useful to her, he was safe from the humiliation and punishment delivered by others. There was nothing he could do to protect himself from Bellatrix. Bellatrix had been very clear that while he lived under her protection, he also lived under her rule—and all of the conditions that came with that. He had been an idiot to think for even a second that he was better off than before. All he had done was trade one prison for another.

The crowd was now starting a new chant, urged on by Bellatrix and Narcissa. "Neville is our king! Neville is our king! He will not miss a single swing! Neville is our king!"

Harry couldn't stand it anymore. He had to do something. With panicked, jerky motions, Harry shoved his way through the crowd, pushing and knocking people out of his way. In the center of the room, Narcissa was attempting to hoist the piñata up on her own. Everyone nearby seemed content to watch her struggle, and some of them were even giggling at her.

"Let me help you," Harry heard himself say, the words rushed and out of breath.

Narcissa stared at him with wide eyes, shocked by his request. Clearly, she had not expected Harry to offer aid. Or, Harry thought distantly, maybe Narcissa was unused to anyone offering to help her in the first place.

But there was no time to think about that. Neville was his friend. Harry had to seize the moment and take advantage of her distraction. He snatched up the piñata with both hands and yanked it away from her. Narcissa did not move, did not even scream. She merely stood there, open-mouthed, and watched as he stumbled off like the drunken idiot he was.

Harry ran headlong into the crowd, charging at full speed, the pig held out in front of him like a battering ram. He crashed into a lot of people, most of them confused and definitely not sober. Harry's head was pounding horribly, and his glasses were knocked askew as someone's arm mashed into his face by mistake.

"Harry! Get back here!" That was Bellatrix shrieking his name.

Harry kept going, kept his legs moving as he ran out of the house and into the backyard. His vision was blurry, but in front of him was the swimming pool, large and impossible to miss. The pool was empty of people since everyone had gone inside to witness the smashing of the piñata.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing? Harry, give that to me!"

Harry swung around, gazed upon the vengeful shape of Bellatrix Black. Even with his poor eyesight, he could tell that she was furious. His body was shaking with adrenaline—his throbbing head and pounding heart working in synchrony, making him feel sick inside and out. The only way to get rid of the sickness was to right the wrongs he'd caused. The only way out was to get rid of this stupid pig.

"You want it?" Harry choked out. "Then swim for it!"

With a solid heave of his arm, Harry tossed the pig into the pool. It landed with a loud splash, splattering his legs with chlorine-scented water. Harry stared at it along with everyone else, watched as the paper tags grew soggy and dark, the pink darkening to an ugly, muddled purple.

"Harry?"

Reluctantly, Harry turned around. There was Neville. His best friend, confused and hurt, looking at the damp paper with 'Neville Lardbottom' scrawled in black marker.

Harry's mouth was dry, his voice cracking as he said, "Go home, Neville. Just—just go home. I'll explain later."

Neville's eyes scanned Harry's face. What he saw there must have disappointed him, not that Harry could fault him for that. Neville turned around and started to talk away. The crowd shuffled aside to make way for Neville's departure, leaving Harry with one final problem to deal with.

Harry shifted to look at Bellatrix. She was moving back and forth—or was that because he was the one swaying? But he knew what he had to do. What he had to say.

"I'm resigning from your royal court, Bellatrix. You'll have to find a new scribe to kick around."

Bellatrix did not hesitate in walking up to him and seizing him by the lapels of his jacket. The sudden jerking motion triggered a fresh wave of dizziness in Harry.

"No," she hissed.

Her fragrance wafted up to meet him, too-sweet and overwhelmingly strong. Bellatrix was terrifyingly beautiful, but it had never been her beauty that enticed him. That honour went to the authority she oozed wherever she went. Harry had never wanted power for himself, but the concept of it had drawn him in.

Bellatrix bared her teeth and shoved him backwards. Harry's teeth chattered noisily. There was a stabbing pain in his gut that hinted at imminent calamity.

"Stop that," he protested weakly. "I'm not feeling well."

"You don't get to be a nobody," Bellatrix said loudly, her voice loud enough to reach the audience of their peers. "Come Monday, you will be an ex-somebody. What your cousin does to you is child's play compared to the hell I will unleash," she snarled. "I will turn the whole school against you. It's almost laughably easy. The school staff will have to scrape your pathetic remains off of the cafeteria floor."

Harry could hardly hear what she was saying. His head was so heavy, stuffed full of cotton, and a cold sweat had broken out across his forehead and down his back.

"I said—" Nausea swept through him, vicious and unforgiving. Before he could stop it, bile rose in his throat, burning like fire all the way. Harry's body curled forward on instinct, and he expelled everything he'd consumed over the past few hours all over Bellatrix's heel-clad feet.

It was comical, the hush that fell over the crowd. Harry had probably just ruined designer shoes that cost hundreds of dollars. Huh. Now that thought was actually hysterical—it prompted Harry to cough out a disastrous attempt at a laugh.

Then Bellatrix let out an ear-splitting scream that was downright inhuman, both in volume and in pitch. If not for the fact that he'd just thrown up all over her, Harry would have covered his ears. Though his nausea had subsided, his head felt like someone had taken a croquet mallet to it.

Bellatrix stepped away from him and inhaled deeply. She seemed to be gathering her wits, and therefore Harry was unsurprised when she started yelling again.

"I raised you up from nothing!" she shrieked. "And what's my thanks? I get paid in puke?!"

Harry was utterly exhausted and frankly fucking annoyed that she was yelling at him and making his headache worse. He wanted to lie down in some dark, undisturbed corner of the world and conk out for twelve hours or so. For the first time in his life, the dingy darkness of the cupboard under the stairs seemed like an excellent place to be.

"Lick it up, then," Harry snarked, fed up with her attitude, her voice, her everything. "Lick. It. Up."

The crowd gasped and whistled, but Bellatrix recovered from the insult faster than Harry expected. She straightened with dignity and regarded him with nothing less than pure loathing.

"Well, we shall see if that cheerful attitude carries you through the weekend, won't we?" she asked brightly. "After all, I know who I'll be sitting with for lunch on Monday." Bellatrix held a hand to her chest and flashed him a bright, innocent smile that belied the savage triumph in her eyes. "Do you?"

Harry had no response to give. He did not need to look at his fellow classmates to know they would shun him at Bellatrix's behest. They would do what they were told because Bellatrix was the one telling them. Anyone Harry sat with at lunch would become a fresh target for abuse and bullying, and that included Neville, who Harry had dragged into this mess with misguided intentions. Fuck. Harry couldn't even go back to sitting with Neville at lunch, not in good conscience. He couldn't sit with anyone.

"That's right," Bellatrix said softly. "You're all alone now. Itty bitty baby Potter. There is no one out there who can protect you from me."

Harry's throat seized a second time, and for a horrific second he thought he might throw up again. But it was not vomit that choked him—it was fear and despair overwhelming his senses. School had always been a sanctuary of sorts for him, and now that was lost too.

Instinct gripped his limbs; the sweet promise of escape was calling to him. Harry needed to get away, and he needed to get away now. Away from the judgmental eyes of his classmates, away from Bellatrix and her twisted need for control.

Harry turned on the spot and ran.

In the dark, it was difficult for Harry to tell where he was. It had been years since Harry had visited Piers' house. This deep into the neighbourhood, all the houses and streets looked the same. Harry didn't even have a mobile phone to help navigate himself.

He couldn't stand around and do nothing. He had to get home eventually, even if he hated it there. Harry sighed. He would walk in the direction they had originally arrived from until he recognized a street name, and then he would make a new decision. At any rate, the cold air and relative silence were working to soothe his throbbing head. The nausea from before was gone, and he felt physically better than he had only minutes ago. Now that the source of his stress was far away, he was free to think more clearly.

The party would continue in his absence. Bellatrix would have the rest of the evening to craft her plans, to make sure that everyone knew that Harry Potter was at the top of her shit list.

Come Monday morning, Harry was doomed. Dudley would return to his usual bullying, only now he would be encouraged by Bellatrix's praise and attention. It would be a bloody miracle if Harry lasted until the end of the day without being assaulted. They would, as she had said, need to scrape his remains off the cafeteria floor.

But that was Monday. Monday was still hours and hours away. Starting from whatever ungodly hour it was right now, until eight AM on Monday morning, Harry would be alright so long as he didn't go home. If he went home, Dudley would get him.

If this was any other night, he would have gone to bunk at Neville's, which was the only safe place he had to go to when the Dursleys were acting up. But Harry had fucked things up enough with Neville tonight. He wasn't going to impose himself on Neville any more.

Harry hit the end of the street he was walking. He squinted up at the street signs to read the cross street and was disappointed to note that he did not recognize either of them.

This was what happened when you didn't get out much, he thought glumly. If this kept up, he'd end up spending the night on the street. In the morning, he could see if there was an adult to ask for directions.

Harry turned his face to the sky, to the stars and the moon. This was shitty and awful. He'd brought trouble down on himself and now his life would be over. Dreams of leaving this dumpy town for somewhere better were a joke. He was going to be stuck here forever, the whipping boy of Hogwarts High even after he graduated. Alone and powerless.

Just once, Harry wanted to be in control of his own life. To have some say in what happened to him. He had tried to be a good person, but that had failed. Then he'd been a terrible person, and that had backfired on him. It seemed like no matter what he did, he was destined to suffer for it.

So what point was there in trying to adhere to the norms dictated by society? Society hated him. His own family hated him. By Monday morning, his school would hate him too.

Harry looked over the rooftops and chimneys of the nearby houses, absently tracing their silhouettes with his gaze. In the far, far distance, he could make out the top of the house on the hill. The haunted house, the Gaunt House. The house that, according to the Black sisters, Tom and his father had moved into.

All of a sudden, Harry's aimless wandering had a new purpose, and that purpose was to get to the Gaunt house as quickly as possible. His pace quickened, his heart race increasing irrationally. Tom would like to see him, wouldn't he? Tom didn't care what other people thought and could hold his own in a fight.

Even if—even if the answer was no, at least Harry had tried. At least he'd done something other than feel sorry for himself all weekend long.

But Tom wouldn't say no. Harry was wildly certain of this. Tom would not say no because Tom was different from everyone else. Tom saw things clearly where Harry could not. Harry had let the shine of his new lifestyle distract him from the truth, but Tom had known from the very start that Harry had made a huge mistake by aligning himself with Bellatrix Black.

So many things had gone wrong today; too many to count. Pretty much all of them were his fault. Harry's biggest regret today, though, was that he'd turned down Tom's offer to stay at the 7-11. If only he'd said yes, all of this could have been avoided. Neville had only gone to the party because of him. Bellatrix had only done all this because of him.

Turning Tom down was a mistake that Harry could make right. He would go to Tom's house and apologize. He would confess all that had happened and hope that Tom would help him figure out what to do. How to cope with being an outcast, how to live a life drenched in misery, how to forget the scars that hurt the most.

Harry's feet carried him forward. He was a man possessed, clinging to the lifeline of Tom's cavalier attitude. Harry liked both girls and boys, but Tom was—well, Tom was the first boy that Harry had met in person and liked.

If Tom wanted to stick by him... they could survive the rest of the school year together. Harry thought that Tom was interested in him—Tom had offered to buy him a Slurpee. But if that perceived interest was a fantasy, another stupid dream to toss down the drain pipe, then that was okay, too. Harry could live with that.

But there had to be something good in the universe. Harry felt he was owed that: one good thing. He hoped that maybe Tom Riddle could be that good thing.

Some minutes later, Harry was walking up hill, towards the Gaunt house. The house was more frightening in the dark; it loomed tall and large, its hedges unkempt, its side wall covered in ivy. Harry made his way around to the gap in the fencing. The hole from his childhood was still there; Tom's father must not have bothered to repair it given they did not plan to stay very long.

So the hole was the same, but Harry was larger than he had once been. It took a good bit of careful maneuvering to fit himself through the gap. The last thing Harry wanted was to cut himself open on the jagged fencing and get some kind of infection.

Once he was through, Harry straightened carefully and adjusted his clothes. At least he hadn't thrown up on himself back at Piers' house. His breath probably stank, though. Harry fumbled with his pockets and retrieved a beaten-up pack of spearmint gum. The same gum he had informed Tom that he usually purchased at the 7-11.

Harry popped out two pieces and crammed them into his mouth. While he chewed, he examined the upper floor of the house. All the lights were off save for one of the rooms. Harry squinted at the window—he could make out the barest hint of a silhouette. He thought it might be Tom, but he wasn't sure.

It would be embarrassing to get the wrong window, but Harry was not about to knock on the front door in the middle of the night. Once he got up there, he'd have a better view. Hopefully. God, he really was about to climb up to Tom's window in the middle of the night like they were the lead roles in some Shakespeare play. This was a terrible, cheesy idea. Knowing this wasn't going to stop him, for some reason.

Harry spat his gum out into the wrappers and wadded it up. After a moment's debate, he left it on the stone base of the fence. He wasn't going to stick it in his pocket like an idiot and wind up with sticky clothes. The environment could hang itself for one night.

Cracking his knuckles, Harry set to work. There was a nice, sturdy tree on the left side that made for a good starting point. From there, he could use the bits of house that stuck out to make his way to the window. Then he would take a look and see how well a rap on the window would be received.

Harry scaled the tree with ease. He was used to climbing them to escape Dudley and his friends. Then Harry crept off the tree and onto the house, silent as a mouse. The structure of the house was cold beneath his fingertips, but it was not unbearable. He could manage so long as he was careful.

Harry was plastered to the wall, three meters from the window, when a sudden creaking sound scared the shit out of him. This was followed by the light shutting off. It took every ounce of willpower he had left not to shriek like a baby. Slowly, Harry looked over in the direction of the noise.

Tom—or someone who looked very much like Tom—had opened the window. Harry breathed out, trying to still his thumping heart, and continued his slow crawl towards the opening. Then, at last, he arrived. Harry exhaled softly, his breath partly-fogging against his glasses. Gathering his courage, Harry craned his head around the edge.

The lights were off, but there was the dim glow of a reading lamp to illuminate the room. Tom was on his bed, book in hand, flipping idly through the pages. His usual coat was nowhere in sight; instead Harry was greeted with the unfair vision that was a tousle-haired, t-shirt wearing bastard who probably belonged in some fancy clothing advert.

Ah well, whatever. He was here, he was pissed at the world, and Tom was either going to let him in or not. With a steady hand, Harry rapped quietly on the window and waited for a response.

A/N:

i feel like i've said this fifty times over the past two days but: happy new year everyone! wishing you all the best for 2021.

i'm still kind of,,, iffy on if i like this? if i end up rewriting chunks of this story, such will be life 😔

next chapter will continue the theme of 'dead girl walking'!