Escape
Run Away (The Escape Song)
Run away--run away from here
Run away--run away from here
Run away all alone--run away from fear
Run away from sadness--run away from tears
Run away from home--from the wife & kids
From the cats & the doggies--run away to forgive
Run into the light . . .
A harsh hand jabbed him in the stomach, forcing air out of his lungs and making him groan in pain. Harry rolled over, muttering something to the effect of 'five more minutes' and 'lemme sleep just a bit longer'. "Get up! I told you last night you would have to be up early!" Harry moaned and sat up, suddenly remembering what had happened last night. It all came back in a rush, in flashes. Suicide. The dungeons. Snape. Hot chocolate. Make up. Hair cut. Snape again. Nothingness. "Alright, alright, I'm up," he groaned, swinging his legs over the side of the bed into another pair of legs. "Watch it," Snape growled, as he usually did. Or did he? Was it just a mask? Was he really such an asshole? Eh, probably. Harry scooted over, away from where Snape stood, and stood up, rubbing his head. "You know, if we train it right, it'll stay slicked back." The muttered remark was barely caught by Harry, however he knew Snape must have been talking to himself, so he forced himself to shut up. He was led back into the room where his hair had been lopped off and styled, and then handed a simple comb. "You'll need to learn how to do this on your own. I won't always be around to do things for you," Snape said cryptically, and proceeded to explain where to comb back, with how much force, and at what angle to do so and having Harry do exactly as he said, occasionally correcting him and showing him what to do. And then the asshole completely screwed up his hair and made him do it all over again. Rinse, lather and repeat until he got it down to perfection without help or prompting.
Hide away--in the lion's den
Play with matches--get burned
Flyin' high--in an aeroplane
Run away . . .
In a fast car--on a highway
Burnin' tracks--towards the sunset
No turning back--and no regrets
I'll think of you . . . (if I don't forget)
Run away from the church--run away from guilt
Runaway from (your) dream--everything you built
Run into the light . . .
Harry slid gratefully into the chair he'd been sitting in the night before when Snape finally let him go. His scalp hurt really bad, but no where near as bad as slitting open his arm had been. "Where to?" he asked hopefully. Maybe Snape would keep them in England, maybe they'd stay in a familiar place, maybe he could still attend a wizarding school - "Texas." Inwardly, he groaned. "In America?" He really hoped it was some city in England, or even Europe. "Yes, America, you idiot. Where else?" Harry's head collapsed into his lap unhappily. "I happen to have contacts there. We'll be welcome enough, if I can gather the right stuff and find the right spells and potions." As he was talking, his voice dropped to a loud muttering, as if he was thinking aloud. The now brunette rummaged through his various potions, books, spells, and drawers that had previously been unnoticed. Harry, however, was mulling over what all Snape could mean by contacts. The accursed man never said what he meant. "Ah," Snape exclaimed, straighting up from one of those mysterious drawers. He sat down across from Harry and pulled over a little coffee table to set between them. He dumped a bunch of papers onto it and carefully put down a couple of flasks filled with strange liquids. "This stuff here," he set his finger into the top of one of the flasks, "will change your accent. The other one," his finger moved to the other flask, "will enhance your learning ability." Noting Harry's confusion, he added, "As in, you'll learn more, faster and better." Harry nodded and looked pointedly at the papers. "Papers on the SCA. The Society for Creative Anachronism. It'll tell you what to do, where to go, what to wear, and so on. Read up." And then Snape wandered away again, digging through stuff and even leaving the room. Of course, harry did not notice, because he was reading, like he was supposed to.
Run away from the office, from your old work shoes
Run away from crime, and the big city blues
Run away from money, and the jaws of death
Run away from lawyers, and the government
Run away from your friends, and your family too
Run away from yourself, run away from you
Run away from here . . .
Harry found himself growing excited while reading about all the stuff that the SCA did. Author Interjection - I have provided some underlined reading material below. It has been directly taken from the SCA website. It's if you want to look around and read a bit. Who knows, you may even want to get into it. None of the SCA is going to made up in this story, except maybe the people.
The SCA is the Society for Creative Anachronism, which is a group dedicated to researching and recreating the Middle Ages in the present. Many groups meet weekly, and at these meetings we dance, talk, study, learn, revel, and make plans. But first, let's get a little bit of info about the SCA in general.
The avowed purpose of the SCA is the study and recreation of the European Middle Ages, its crafts, sciences, arts, traditions, literature, etc. The SCA "period" is defined to be Western civilization before 1600 AD, concentrating on the Western European High Middle Ages. Under the aegis of the SCA we study dance, calligraphy, martial arts, cooking, metalwork, stained glass, costuming, literature... well, if they did it, somebody in the SCA does it (Except die of the Plague!).
The SCA is a feudal society. A feudal society takes its form from the idea of service and duty. A noble owes duty of service to his lord, who might be a Baron or Knight. In return, his lord owes protection from danger, and food, money, etc., when times are bad. For his own part, the lord owes fealty (the word that encompasses this idea of reciprocal responsibilities) to his own overlord, and so on up the ladder to the King. In return for their service as good stewards of the land and readily available warriors, the King owes Knights, Barons, and other high nobles protection, honor, and a return of money, food, etc., in times of hardship. It is something like the idea of a Pyramid club, but the benefits are greater and the idea of personal honor and mutual responsibility, not profit, tie the structure together (or at least it did in Europe for nearly a thousand years).
Fighting in the SCA evolved from what happened when two armed knights were unhorsed and had to fight on the ground. It resembles nothing so much as medieval foot tournaments. There are two basic types of SCA fights: single combat, and group or team battles, known as melees. SCA fighting does have rules. The first, and most important rule, is that each and every fighter on the field has honor. The fighter keeps faith with his honor by accepting blows that would be killing or wounding (more about this a little later). The second basic principle is like the first; A fighter keeps faith with his brother fighters by acknowledging his opponent's word -- if he says a blow was too light to cause injury, then it was light. Since we prefer that no one get hurt, SCA fighting is done with real armor (made with leather, metal, padding, kydex, etc) and rattan swords.
There are several essential and required pieces of armor -- a helm, and protection for the neck, cervical vertebrae, elbows, knees, kidneys, hands, and groin. In addition, most SCA fighters wear chest, leg, arm and forearm, and foot protection. Before being allowed to participate in combat without close supervision, each fighter is trained by senior fighters, known as "marshals." This training aims at ensuring that the fighter is safe to himself or herself and to others, and typically lasts a few months. As part of this training, the novice fighter is taught how to recognize a "good" blow.
Every person in the SCA picks a name to use in the Society. It could be something simple and familiar (John of Wardcliff) or something elaborate and exotic (Oisin Dubh mac Lochlainn). Most people pick a time period in the SCA "period" (pre-1600) and a country (any place that can documented and proven to have had trade with western civilization during the period), and choose a name from that. Some SCA members try to create a "persona" which could have lived in some time and place within the scope of the SCA, and fit their garb and activities to that persona; some people try to live at events as if they were their personae. Other folk simply pick a name and go ahead with life if the "Current Middle Ages."
The SCA has an elaborate system of rank, awards, and honors, which are granted to individual members by the royalty in return for various kinds of service to the Society. SCA rank is earned, not inherited: Everyone is presumed to be minor nobility to start, but any noble titles or honors used in the SCA must be earned in the SCA. Many new members (and lots of long-time members!) find the SCA's system of rank to be rather peculiar, in that it differs rather radically from medieval practice. Like many of the SCA's institutions, our system of rank wasn't so much planned as evolved. It seems to serve our needs most of the time, but don't be surprised to hear people discussing how it could be improved.
One of the most interesting parts of the SCA is "events", our word for the times when we put on our medieval clothing, go out and dance those dances we've been practicing, flirt, eat, talk, and generally have a good time. Events are held almost every weekend of the year somewhere; some weekends there may be as many as a couple dozen events scattered around the SCA. Most groups hold at least one event per year; some larger groups will hold two or more. At events there are often tournaments, art exhibits or competitions, classes on all manner of medieval skills, workshops, and, later in the evening, a medieval feast, Royal or Baronial Court, and dancing. There are many different kinds of events, and the common pattern varies from place to place and season to season. The events are the most fun to most folk, because you get to go and show off all the things you have been learning in the past few months.
Eventually, Harry finished off one packet and was reaching for another when Snape tapped his wrist. Immediately, his eyes shot upwards. "You need to be fixed up more. And it's already six a.m. This stuff will probably take about six hours to set in." Harry groaned. Only six a.m.? The man was insane! But he was already being handed a dose of this and a dose of that, and was told to down then in the order he was handed them. "And then I'll need to spell you a bit. Try not to puke all over the floor - It'll be a pain in my ass to clean up." Again, Harry moaned, but did as he was told. If this is what he had to do to get out and away from Hogwarts, then he would. There was now turning back now. No regrets.
