Chapter 2
Harry's POV-Friday, 6/7/1991
My alarm clock rang. It was a tiny beep, as it was made before I was born, and when you combine that with the fact that my oaf-of-a-cousin Dudley Dursley owned it, the outcome doesn't look too good. Dudley is my age, but he's five times bigger than me in every area of the body except the brain, which is as empty as an ice cream shop during the middle of winter. "Just let me go back to sleep…" I said, barely awake. "5 more minutes…" But then a loud pounding at my room's door shook me awake. My head banged against the roof. "Ouch…That hurt!" I said. The loud voice outside the door said, "I don't care. Get your sleepy butt up and cook breakfast for us, boy!" "Yes, ma'am." I said, rubbing my eyes. "NOW!" she yelled, then left me to wake up a little bit. Want to know who that is? Yeah, you probably guessed it. It's Aunt Petunia, who is tied with Uncle Vernon for being the meanest person on Earth. Anyways, I carefully got up, not wanting to bang my head on the roof. I opened my tiny closet door-did I tell you that I live in a tiny room under the stairs-and trudged to the dining room. Uncle Vernon was sitting at the table reading the newspaper. He did not look up until he heard my footsteps coming towards him. "There's a letter for you at the front door. But before you read that, make breakfast for us." "Yes, sir." I answered. I never get letters from anybody-I don't have any friends or family except for the Dursleys. They treat me like dirt, so I don't think they count as real family. I was shocked that I even got a letter. Anyways, once I got in the kitchen, I heated up some bacon, cooked the eggs, and made some French toast. In about 20 minutes, I had made breakfast, barely taking one slice of bacon before the Dursleys ordered me away. I walked to the front door and picked up the letter, looking at it as I walked back to my tiny closet-bedroom. It had an American stamp, which was weird-I almost never got letters, much less things from halfway around the world. I read it through-it talked about having a cousin named Percy, meeting my other cousin Justin, who actually lived pretty close by me, getting on the plane together, and heading to Percy's house. I also found 3,000 dollars inside. 'It looks like I'm ready.' I thought to myself. 'Now, all I have to do is convince Uncle Vernon to let me leave.' A smile slowly appeared on my face as I thought about the consequences. 'This should be good.' I got up and ran to the living room, where the Dursleys were sitting watching TV. Uncle Vernon heard me running and turned his ball-like neck towards me. "What do you want, boy?" he asked. I walked over to him and handed him the letter. "Read this." I told him. "If you let me, I'll be leaving today. You'll probably never see me again." He cocked one eyebrow at me, then read the letter. "Go on, get your stuff and get out of here." "Actually, Uncle Vernon, I'll probably be leaving at about 9:30." "Oh…well, that's still okay." He responded. "Do whatever you want. Just stay outside, please." I smiled again, then got my stuff and went outside. I ended up staying at the library until 6 PM and then hung around outside of it until 9:30. At 9:30, I took a taxi to the airport and walked to the room for plane number 97. I sat down on a bench and waited for Justin, holding up a hand-made sign that I had made at the library. I waited for about an hour and 30 minutes until 2 kids walked in the room. One of them saw the sign and gestured at the other kid, then walked over to me. I assumed that they were Justin and a friend, so I said, "My name's Harry Potter. You must be Justin." He said, "Yeah, I am. You're Harry, right?" I could tell that I had a happy look on my face. "Yep." I responded. "And I'm Nick." The other boy said. "Much obliged." I stated. The three of us talked for a while until 11:15, when we got on the plane. It turned that we had picked 3 seats right next to each other. As the plane took off, we screamed in joy until an official told us to quiet down. We hung out and relaxed until midnight, when we finally went to sleep.
Justin's POV-Friday, 6/7/1991
It was morning time. That meant I had 14 hours to plan my escape. 14 hours may seem like a long time to you. It's actually a little bit more than half a day. But when you're trying to escape from St. George's Orphanage for Children with Special Needs, one of the most secure orphanages in the world, it's not a long time. I had gotten a letter from my cousin named Percy at night time yesterday, a relative I didn't even know I had. What got me kind of mad is that he could've adopted me, when instead, I was stuck with "Spiritless St. George" and had nothing to do. It sucks, right? Anyways, my escape plan involved an awful lot of fighting, wax, a clock, money, and food. This was just the rough draft, so I still had a lot of work to go. I was in the midst of making edits when the breakfast bell rang. In a couple of minutes, those annoying kids would just barge into my room, without knocking, I may add, like they always do. I hastily packed all my stuff up, and shoved it into my pillowcase. I flopped on the bed and closed my eyes. By the time the kids came into my room, I was sleeping. They came over and shook me once. I didn't wake up. They whispered to each other, "Is Justin okay?" They shook me again. I still didn't respond. They stared at me, then ran out and down the hall screaming. "Ahh!" one of them yelled. "He's dead, he's really dead!" another said. I didn't really care. I know that was kind of underhanded, as they are 7-10 years old and younger than me, but they're SO annoying. I was just glad they were gone. When I sat up, I found they had trashed my room in only 2 minutes! 'How rude.' I thought. 'Well, I suppose that's what I get.' Then, I took out my escape plan and worked on it some more. By the time I finished the whole thing, it was 11 o'clock. 'Only an hour before lunch, Justin.' I thought to myself. 'You can do this.' After that, I pulled out my homework and began working. I wanted to finish it all, because I probably wouldn't get the chance for a while. I had asked for the 7th grade workbooks for each subject because I "had wanted to get a head start", when in reality, I was going to America. I don't know if I told you this, but I'm a proud Englishman. I was born in England and I still live there today. Unfortunately, my mom died when I was 3, so I've been living at St. George's ever since. My dad disappeared before I was born, so I never had a dad. And that's the history of my family. Anyways, it was noon when the lunch bell rang. It was about 5 minutes before the teachers and counselors came to check up on us if we didn't come right away. The decision I made about the escape plan was risky, but less risky than my other choice. I would fold my plan up and put it in my jacket pocket, because it was less risky than leaving it to rot. It was laundry day today, so I didn't want it to be all wet if I came back. Even worse, someone might find out about it and snitch on me. Then, I would be busted. Plus, nobody would trust me for ages. 'Okay, Justin.' I thought to myself. 'Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. You're picking the right option, and that is that.' I had just finished jamming my papers into my pocket, when Mr. Lansing came in. 'Uh-oh.' I thought. 'I'm so busted.' He was this middle aged guy with graying hair that was originally brown, and a playful smile. He says he's from the U.S.A, but I don't know if I believe him. Also, I hated to make him mad. From the moment he stepped through the door, he knew something was up. "Hey, Justin. Are you alright?" I started to sweat. "Yeah, I'm okay." My voice cracked and became weak. "What's up?" "Don't play games with me, Justin. I know you got a letter from the Jacksons, and I know you're planning to escape!" I groaned. "Could you have been any louder?" I asked. But then I realized something. "Wait…How do you know Percy?" He grinned. "Caught me!" he exclaimed. "So this was all a joke?" I asked. "You tricked me?" "It was all a cover so that people wouldn't become suspicious." he said. "So please shut up." "YOU KNEW THIS WHOLE TIME?!" "SHUT UP!" he yelled, then dragged me into my room. "Look, I'm just trying to protect you. If anyone finds out you're trying to escape, we'll both get in trouble. So calm down, okay?" I took a deep breath, in and out, in and out. I sighed. "Fine. I'm sorry." "You're forgiven." he said. "So let's get down to business. Hand me the paper and I'll put it in my office for safekeeping. I'll protect it from everyone else, or snooping eyes, if you get what I mean." "Yeah…Nicholas." Nicholas, or Nick Cespardes, was my best friend, and only friend in my age group. Apparently, everyone else thought I was socially awkward, because my only friends were Nick and the kids age 5 and under. Actually, maybe I am. Huh. I never thought of it that way. "I will also give you the things you need. So, meet me in my office at 2:30, okay?" "Sure." I shrugged, not really caring that much about what was going on. "Here's the paper." "Dang, Justin. This is a pretty well thought out plan!" And without another word, he turned and left. 'He obviously trusts me…I think.' I thought to myself. 'I guess now, the million dollar question is…Can I trust him?' Mr. Lansing was reading the escape plan, and was so into it, he bumped into the wall instead of going through the door. At lunch, I was sitting with Nick, chattering away, when the annoying kids swaggered over and said, "Hey, Justin. Want to plaaay?" They drew that last word out so long just to irritate me. I hate it when they do that. My temper started rising like the temperature in a desert on a summer day. "If you don't get your butts away from here in 5 seconds, I'm going to move them for you. Okay? Now leave!" I yelled. Mr. Lansing came running towards me. "Justin, Justin, JUSTIN! You don't want to get yourself in trouble, do you? C'mon, let's go." Immediately, I knew what he meant. "Fine." I said. Once we walked around the corner, he whispered, "What were you thinking? I know you dislike them, but they aren't worth it. You can't get yourself in trouble on the day you want to escape, right?" By now, I had calmed down enough to respond. "Yeah, I guess." "I guess? What do you mean, I guess? You either escape, or you don't. Which option do you choose?" Seeing that I wasn't going to respond, he sighed and dragged me into his office. "Alright, Justin. At 10 PM, I'm going to turn the lights off. Although, before I do that I will make them flash 2 times. That's your signal to get out and get moving. Now, here's your stuff. You get a cellphone, a reloadable Visa gift card with 3,000 dollars on it, a Walkman, a couple of books, some clothes and chips, things to keep you clean, and a flashlight. Also, here are your tickets to the airport. They're for the airport in London, plane 97 to America, first class. It's set to leave at 11:15 PM. By the time the lights come back on, you should be in a taxi on your way to the airport. Okay?" "Yes, sir." I answered. Before I left, he called, "Just know that you are my favorite. That's the only reason I'm helping you. That, and Sally is a dear friend of mine. Now goodbye and please try to have a nice day. Okay, Justin?" "I'll try." I said, then turned back and left his office for my room. When I got there, I found someone had trashed my room again, this time even worse than before. "Oh, my gosh! Those stupid kids…" I grumbled, shaking my fist. I packed up my stuff again, then sat down on the bed pondering my plan. We got a small stipend of 20 dollars every week. I had been saving up my money for years, and by now, I had 7,180 dollars, plus that reloadable gift card that Mr. Lansing gave me with 3,000 dollars on it. I saved it up because in my heart, I always knew I would escape. At 6 PM, the dinner bell rang, and I made sure I had everything. 'Man, oh man…' I thought to myself. I've lived here for 8 years and haven't left once. I've been in this room for 3 years, and haven't changed it once. I'm going to miss this place, even though they don't give us much opportunities. This is a part of my history and I hate to leave it behind.' After looking around for the probable one last time, I turned around and walked to dinner. On the way there, I met up with Nick. "Hey, Nick." I said to him. "Hello." He responded. "So, what went on at lunch? Why was Mr. Lansing so worried about you?" "If you can give me a chance to explain AFTER DINNER, I will tell you in my room. If you can just hold on until then, I'll buy you 10 candy bars." "How do you have that much money?" He asked me. "All will be revealed later in time..." I replied in a mystical voice. He started cracking up. "Whatever. I guess I'll just have to hold on 30 more minutes." "Right you are, Watson!" And with that, he chased me all the way to dinner. Once we got there, the smell of French fries and corn dogs filled the air. "It's American Cuisine Day today?" Nick asked me. "Yeah, I guess so." I said. American Cuisine Day happens every Friday. 5 days out of 7, there are meals from foreign countries at dinner. The U.S.A. just happens to be one of those countries. We walked to the counter and got the same thing everyone else was getting-heaps of fries and 2 corn dogs. Since it was the beginning of summer, you could get 4 corn dogs instead of 2, but I didn't have that big of an appetite or stomach, unlike Nick. It was a good deal, but I still chose to get 2 corn dogs, which was the regular amount. If you gave Nick a big bag of Lays Sour Cream and Onion Chips, he could eat it in 15 minutes flat. Those things are good, but I could probably only eat half the bag in one day. As we sat down, Nick said to me, "Why do those Americans call those fries "French fries"? That's being kind of racist to French people, who as a matter of fact, are our allies!" "Don't forget, Thomas Jefferson was the one who went over to France in the very early 1800s, 1802 to be exact. And plus, almost everyone was racist in the United States during the 1800s. Some people there are still racist today to basically everyone who is an immigrant. That's messed up, because everyone there is an immigrant, or their ancestors were immigrants." Nick's mouth was wide open. You could see bits of corn dog in his mouth, which was pretty disgusting. "That's nasty." I said in a Cleveland Brown imitation. "That's just nasty." His mouth was still open after 3 minutes had passed! Finally, he closed his mouth…but then started laughing again! Little pellets of French fry and corn dog were spraying out all over the place like a machine gun raining death across a battleground. I brought my lunch tray up to my face like a shield, but it didn't really do much other than protect my face. Bits of food still got all over me and my clothes. "Dang, man!" I screamed from behind my lunch tray. "Chew and swallow! Please, just chew and swallow like a regular person! It's not that hard!" Finally, he stopped. "Well, I guess I'm finished with dinner." I took my tray to the back of the room, dumped the leftover food in the trash, and stacked the tray on top of many other trays. I walked past Nick and screamed in his ear, "Come on!" I quickly walked around the corner and waited for him. When he finally ran around the corner, I was right there. I dragged him by the arm all the way up to my room. "Let go of me!" he said. Once we got to the second floor, I finally let him go. "Why did you do that?" he asked me. I had finally calmed down enough to respond without hurting him. "I don't know, I was mad." I responded. "Mad enough to scratch me and make me bleed?" He showed his upper arm and sure enough, it was bleeding. My mouth hung wide open. I could not believe that I had done that. There was a big scratch on his arm that was oozing out blood. "I would say that I'm sorry, but right now, we need to get you to the nurse!" As we speed walked there, I could see that his lips were kind of puffed out. That was a sign that he was about to cry. "I'm sorry, Nick… Just please cover for me if you ever want to see daylight again." I could tell that he didn't want to, but almost immediately, he quickly looked towards me. "What do you mean by that?" he asked. "I told you, but I'll say it again. I will tell you once we get back to my room!" With a big "Harrumph", Nick turned his head away from mine again. But by the time we were at the nurse's office, he said, "Fine, I'll wait; I'll also cover for you, just because you're my best friend." "Aw, that's good to know!" I said in an overly sweet voice. "Shut up." he replied. We knocked on the door and we could hear footsteps coming towards us. We could hear the lock unclicking and the nurse turning the doorknob. The door opened and the nurse appeared in the shadows. "My goodness, Nick! What happened?" He looked at me, then reluctantly said, "We were running outside, and I tripped and fell on the gravel. "Well, don't just stand there!" she said. "Come in, come in!" She took Nick to her office to fix him up, and he was out of there in 5 minutes. Before we left, she said, "Be careful next time…Well, actually, be careful all the time. Okay?" she asked. "Yes ma'am, we'll be careful." We responded. "Alright, goodbye. Please don't let there be a next time." "There won't be one." I called out, meaning it in more ways than one. And with that, we left the nurse's building. Once we got outside, it was pouring rain. There was no roof covering the walkway back to the main building, so we were going to have to… "Run!" I yelled. We charged forward like noisy elephants, running through the grass and splashing in the puddles. By the time we got back to the main building, we were soaking wet. "Come on, or else the officials are going to catch us!" I yelled. It was 7:45, which was 15 minutes before our curfew. Plus, we didn't want the officials to see the water on the floor, but it was bound to happen anyway. "They can't catch us if we hurry up." I yelled. "Let's just go in circles until our clothes dry up." We ran for a little bit until it was 7:55. "Let's go to my room!" I yelled. "Plus, the trail of water we're leaving should be gone now." At 8 PM, all of our rooms locked. If we did not make it back in time, we would be stuck outside. When we arrived at my room, I said, "Go get your stuff and do it before your door locks. I'll hold my door open." Luckily, Nick was in the room across from mine, so he could get all of his belongings and be back in 1 minute. By the time 2 minutes had passed, he still wasn't coming out. '15 seconds left…14, 13, 12, 10, 9…' I heard the door open and close and footsteps running my way. I heard pounding on the door. It was Nick. "Open the dang door!" He yelled. I opened the door and Nick ran in with all his stuff in his hands. I pushed on the door and it closed at 50 milliseconds, which was just in the Nick of time (pun intended). We both let out a breath we hadn't realized we had been holding. Little beads of sweat came out of our hands. We both sagged for a moment, then perked up when we realized we had done it! We cheered quietly, as we didn't want to get caught. Then, we hugged each other. "We beat the clock!" Nick said. "We actually beat Spiritless St. George!" "I know, right?!" But then Nick's mouth curved into a Mona Lisa smile. "So…what were you going to tell me?" he asked. 'This is it.' I thought to myself. 'It's now or never.' I sighed. "Well, you're going to think I'm crazy." I said, trying to get out of it. "Go on." he said with a big grin on his face. "It's totally reckless and irreversible." I said. I could clearly see him getting angry. His eyebrows were a little bit upturned and he narrowed his eyes. "Okay, I'll do it." He said. "Are you sure?" I asked. Unfortunately for me, he was at his boiling point. That always meant something bad was going to happen. "JUST TELL ME WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN!" he yelled. "Okay, not so loud! You might get us all in trouble!" He calmed down immediately, his face shifting to a curious expression. "What do you mean, all of us?" He had a gigantic smirk on his face, like he was about to beat me in chess, just lacking the checkmate. He knew he had me. "Alright, alright. I'll tell you." I said. "Just sit back and relax, for I will tell you the whole story of my noble adventure!" He cracked up, laughing so hard that tears were literally pouring out of his eyes. "Just tell me." He said. "Alright. I'm going to escape and Mr. Lansing is helping me." He sat straight up, the smile wiped off his face. "What?!" I could understand why he was worried. Many people had tried to escape in the history of this orphanage, many of them crazy with no idea what they were doing. The thing is, nobody made it out. They either got sent to another orphanage, killed, or sent to live all alone in another part of the orphanage until they were eighteen years old. I'm not trying to brag or anything, but my plan might be the best, as I have inside help from a teacher, and he is very smart. "You're crazy." He said. "I'm escaping to New York to live with my cousin." I said. "If you want, you're welcome to come along." I said, waving the letter in front of his face. His eyes followed it almost like a hypnotized magician's volunteer. Finally, he snapped out of it, looking straight at me, instead of the letter. "I'm nervous, but I'll take the chance." Nick said, taking a deep breath. "I'm going with you." "Oh, come on, I enjoyed that! Watching your eyes go back and forth, back and forth; it was so funny!" I started laughing, at least until he punched me. "Come on, bro, focus!" Now it was my turn to take a deep breath. I did so and said, "Anyway, we're never coming back here. Are you sure that you have everything?" "Yes, I'm sure." he said. We waited, quietly joking around and playing truth or dare until the lights went off. We looked at each other, wide-eyed, until we finally got up, gathered up our stuff, and headed out the door. We headed for the front door, avoiding the teachers and officials, until we were at the front hallway. We made it out and ran through the courtyard, dodging little stone gnomes and other garden decorations. We successfully climbed over the barbed wire fence, holding the 3rd wire down for each other. We ran to the end of the street, called a taxi, and hopped in the car, silently celebrating. Nobody even saw us! "Head for the airport." I said. "We'll give you 200 dollars." "Sold." The man grinned. We gave him 200 dollars and managed to get a bag of chips for each of us. We got to the airport at 10:30 and got to the room at 11 PM. We saw a kid with a sign that had my name on it! I gestured to Nick and we walked over to him. He had a happy look on his face as he introduced himself. "My name's Harry Potter. You must be Justin." "Yeah, I am. You're Harry, right?" "Yep." "And I'm Nick." Nick said. "Much obliged." Harry said. The three of us talked for a while until 11:15 and got on the plane. We had picked 3 seats right next to each other. As the plane took off, we screamed until an official told us to quiet down. We hung out and relaxed until midnight, when we finally went to sleep.