Chapter Three: Found
He began to wonder whether he was dreaming. But what an odd dream, and if he was dreaming, why did he still feel like he'd been hit by a truck? Everybody knew you were not supposed to feel pain in a dream. Not in normal dreams, anyway. It could be one of his visions, he mused, but normally he would see something then.
Dreams weren't supposed to be so… vivid, so… real, as well. His surroundings seemed almost alive. But if this wasn't a dream, then what was happening?
His breathing increased in panic and his chest constricted fearfully. Why couldn't he see? Was he blind? He felt his face beneath his fingers. His glasses were missing and his eyes hurt terribly again.
He forced himself to calm down and tried to stand up, but his legs gave out on him before he was halfway up. The boy stifled barely the scream when he fell on his back and his ribcage was jolted badly. Harry was definitely too weak for this sort of adventure. He drew his knees to his chest and buried his face in his arms, crying bitter tears. He was alone again, and nobody had come to help him – they'd never come to help him.
When his sobs had ceased and only occasional tears slid down his cheeks, he started to think.
'Where am I? I'm outside that much is clear, but where! What time is is? It's probably some time at the end of the night – it feels too cool for it to be daytime. What did the Dursleys do after I blacked out? Am I am really blind? Yeah, most likely or why else can't I see a thing? What do I do now? How am I am going to school next month? And if I did, what would Hermione and Ron say? Would they accept me? Perhaps, I don't know. Most likely not. Had there ever been a blind wizard? Is there a chance someone at St Mungo's could heal me? Even if they could, how would I get there? Where is the damn Order when you need it? Oh, Sirius, if you were there, all this wouldn't have happened.'
His body was racked with sobs and he cried himself to sleep.
He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but he was woken by a voice yelling something and a kick at his shin.
"... Freak, what are you still doing here? I've been nice to you giving you the chance to run away from my house yourself. Obviously, you don't understand, so I'll get rid of you myself!"
Harry was paralysed with fear.
So he was on front lawn of Privet Drive, number four? Where was the Order? Weren't they supposed to be watching him? If he was on the front lawn, they would have picked him up, wouldn't they?
What was his uncle doing here? He had mentioned that Harry had had the chance to disappear... Was uncle Vernon just checking whether he had? Or was he simply going to his company and had seen him still there?
He was grabbed by the neck of his oversized t-shirt and roughly dragged across the ground, while he had to hold onto his pants for dear life.
"You can be lucky that I had to get up so early, so nobody will notice anything! Now I can say you just ran away." his uncle hissed near his ear.
He heard some sounds that he couldn't really identify and then he felt big beefy calloused hands lifting him roughly by the waist and dropping him down. He realised that he'd been thrown into the boot of a car when he heard the lid slam shut over him. He would have seen black for a few seconds, if he could have seen anything. He coughed a few times, pressing his hands firmly over his broken ribs in an attempt to stifle the pain. It was almost unbearable and he could only inhale slowly.
'What is he going to do to me? Where is he going to bring me? Please, don't let him kill me. I don't want to die, though my life hadn't been the best. Mum died to safe me. I have to stay alive, if just for her sake. I don't fear death in itself, but I'm scared that I would miss something important I could have witnessed.Why is he taking me away? I don't understand.' He thought anguishly.
He wanted to scream but his throat was so raw that he only managed a weak croak. He whimpered quietly and then banged his fist on the lid of the boot. His arm soon became heavy and he stopped his banging, curling in a tight ball.
The motor of the car sprang into action and and trip similar to a roller coaster began.
'Is he really going to murder me? Is he bringing me away so he can hide my dead body somewhere and leave no evidence?' Fresh tears of despair and of the injustice of his situation rolled down his cheeks.
He was tossed this way or that as his uncle turned the corners. Harry tried to steady himself, but it was difficult with the pain he was in. He knew the wounds on his back had reopened because he could feel the blood running down his skin. He also had a few more scratches and he wouldn't be surprised if he had a bump on his head as often as he knocked against something. He desperately tried to find something to hang onto but his hands found nothing.
Vernon must have thought they'd driven far enough, because he finally stopped the car with screeching wheels after what felt like hours. Harry was thrown across the boot by the sudden jerk of the car. His eyes watered from pain and he let out a small scream.
Harry heard a car door slam shut and a second later the raven haired boy could hear the lid of the trunk open. He felt a rush of fresh air swooshing in the boot and he greedily gulped it in. He expected light to flood into the boot as well and was disappointment when he remembered that he hadn't been able to see anything for a little while now. He really was blind.
'How am I am going to defeat Voldemort if I am blind?'
Anger and bitterness welled up in him. Anger for his uncle and the Prophecy and bitterness for the people who pretented to care for him but had let him down.
Suddenly, uncle Vernon grabbed him and threw him to the ground.
"Where is this place? Where are we?" he asked fearfully.
His uncle laughed menacingly. "Why don't you use your freaky little ways to work it out for yourself? That rubbish they teach you isn't much good if you can't even work out where you are, is it?" Roaring laughter filled Harry's ears and he doubled over when he was kicked in the ribs. His uncle was still laughing when he climbed back into the car and started the engine. It seemed his uncle couldn't get away from him quickly enough, and his tyres spun on the dirt as he sped away leaving him alone. In the middle of nowhere.
'What am I am going to do now? I have nothing, absolutely nothing left. Just these rags I'm wearing. And my wand is still with them, even though I can go a little bit wandless magic.' He hugged himself, partly because he felt completely helpless and partly because it was still quite cool. His injuries were still hurting a lot, but the pain had subsided into a dull ache. Harry was shaking from both the cold and from the shock of what just happened. He couldn't believe that this was happening. He was supposed to be the saviour of the wizarding world, but he couldn't even stand up to his own family. Why couldn't he have a normal life, like everyone else? Hot tears spilled over his cheeks and he wiped them away angrily.
He had to find shelter for the night. Determined, he tried to stand up which was more difficult than he'd thought because his ribs hurt terribly, just like his back and ankle. He made a few experimentally steps and fell. Obviously, he couldn't stress his left foot. It hurt just too much. He needed to find food, though. How would he survive otherwise? He briefly considered whether he should wait for someone to find him, but if Vernon had been trying to get rid of him, he wouldn't have left him where anyone could find him. He had always been on his own in his life, but then he had still had a semblance of a home. Now, he was homeless, lost. Tears once again spilled over his cheeks. He cried harder, because he knew he wished and longed for impossible things like a real family and someone to care for him.
Two weeks later+
Harry was walking across a small gravel walk. He knew, because he felt and heard the gravel crunch under his feet. He had quickly found a long branch and had been using it as a walking stick ever since, as his ankle hadn't healed well enough for him to be able to walk on it yet. It was easier to feel around with it to avoid walking into trees or falling into rivers, but that didn't mean that he didn't hurt himself by tripping over stones or scratching himself with branches. He had sustained quite a lot of cuts and bruises over the time.
His hearing seemed to have improved as well. At first, he was scared, because the sounds around him seemed to be just a jumble of noise, but now he could pick out each individual sound for what it was. He heard every rustle of a low breeze and trickle of water.
When he wasn't walking narrow and muddy cobble stoned paths, he found himself walking through fields or meadows, where he passed the occasional cow which would moo at him.
Once, in the first few days after Vernon had left him, while he was still just learning to adjust to his blindness, he ran into an animal, though he never quite worked out what it was. He had been lost in thoughts so that he hadn't paid attention to his surroundings and when he had suddenly touched an animal, he had gotten scared and had quickly walked away from it. It had had a lot of fur and it was about as high as his chest, though.
At some point, Harry had lost one of his shoes and decided that he was better without the other one, too. His baggy clothes were fast ripped and torn badly, but they still held together. As he had already allowed his hair to grow at the end of term, it was shoulder length now. He didn't know how it could have grown such a lot in that short period of time, but he didn't care either. He liked his long hair which unfortunately had become matted and greasy to the touch. And he smelled. He knew it. It had been a long time since he'd been able to clean himself. He had heard the sound of gushing water near him, but he stayed away from it. He had nearly drowned in a lake once, because he didn't know how to swim. And he didn't want to repeat that incident.
At times his thirst would get the better of him though and when this happened, he would only drink from puddles or very small creeks or ditches. He nourished himself with grass which tasted terrible, but worked reasonably well to still his growling stomach.
He'd also eaten quite a few berries and was amazed that he didn't get sick. Quite a lot of berries from bushes were poisonous. However, his hunger was stronger than the fear of poisoning himself so he took the risk.
He briefly considered wandlessly transfiguring something around him into food, but it probably wouldn't be edible afterwards. He'd never had this topic in Transfiguration and didn't know what to heed.
In any case, the Ministry would most likely swoop down and arrest him for practicing underage magic and he'll have to stand trial again.
Even if HE thought that this was lifesaving, he wasn't sure the ministry thought the same way. And he would have to cast spells more than once, which, he was positive, would be held against him, as well. He remembered the trouble he went through last time with the Ministry clearly and he really didn't want to go through it again. He knew that Dumbledore wouldn't get him out of the trial this time, because it was Dumbledore's fault that he had gotten in this situation in the first place. Then he would be expelled from Hogwarts for sure and he had no home to hope for anymore. He would be in danger of starving then just as well, because he would just get a letter telling him to come to the Ministry at a special date.
And as Hogwarts was his only hope of a normal life to some extent, he couldn't bear to lose it.
He kept moving, only stopping to rest when he had to. He needed to find his way back to London. If he could get to London, he'd be able to head back to the wizarding world and everything would be fine. His hopes of finding anyone to help him were fading though. Until now, he'd only heard three cars pass by and he hadn't met a single person.
He didn't know where he was going, but the warmth of the sun on the left side of his face told him he was going south. He thought it was better to find one direction and stick with it rather than to wander off in a hundred different directions and end up where he started from. All he knew was that he had to get to London. In London, he'd be safe. He could find the Leaky Cauldron and Tom the barkeeper who he could ask to take him to Hogwarts. The castle was his sanctuary. He only kept on living now, because he knew that someday he would be able to get there again.
The fact that he had a certain direction in which he was walking helped him to stay sane, too, though not to know whether he actually was walking towards London. He had never seen a map of London and environment.
He had run across a couple of snakes sometime who had wanted to attack him but he managed to talk them out of it. He asked them if they knew how to get to London, or whether there was anyone else around here, but they didn't know. The raven haired boy was dejected and felt even more helpless, but he kept on searching.
The weather had been quite warm, but without warning, a fresh wind had swept in from nowhere. Normally, Harry decided between day and night by the temperature, but in that time he lost his orientation completely. The chill crept right down into his clothes. He shivered from the cold and the air smelled like it was about to rain. The already sodden path was muddy and slippery from earlier downpours. His bare feet felt like they were frozen and hurt pretty much even if he was only walking. The pain that shot through his feet when he stumbled over a stone, though, was nearly unbearable.
A few minutes later, as he had predicted, it started to rain heavily. The last time had had been able to hide under a tree to avoid most of it, but this time there seemed to be no tree in proximity.
The small boy was completely soaked within minutes. He felt stiff and clammy. The wet clothes hang heavily on him and he wasn't able to move fast because of the howling wind and the slippery ground. Harry had already lost count on how many times he had nearly fallen and how many times he actually did fall. He was about to throw caution to the wind and use his magic when he heard the sound of a door slamming. A door! That meant a house! There was shelter nearby!
'Please, let it be deserted, what ever house or shed there is. I am really not up to deal with people right now.' he thought tiredly.
He hurried as fast as possible towards the sounds. After what seemed to be an eternity he had made his way to the shelter. When he entered, Harry carefully felt the ground around him with his branch before he moved any further. It smelt like a barn and the last thing he wanted to do was to step on any farm tools, or something like that.
Fortunately, all he stumbled across were a couple of rolls of hay. The raven haired boy tore them apart and lay down, sighing relieved, because his injured ankle hurt pretty badly. He was dizzy, his nose was stuffy and he had a headache. Deep covered in hay he fell asleep almost instantly, despite his still soaked clothes.
When he awoke, he noticed that his body felt heated, though he was shivering from cold.
'Great!' he sighed teary-eyed. 'I've got fever and a damn headache and I'm in the middle of nowhere with no help.'
The hay tickled Harry's nose and he sneezed, causing his sore throat to burn and his already sensitive ribs to flare up with pain. More tears sprang to his eyes, but he did his best to blink them away. He also noticed that the hay was scraping on his sore skin.
His stomach growled loudly, reminding him of how hungry he was, but his throat hurt far too much for him to feel like eating too much. He thought his tonsils were swollen.
The need for water was so overwhelming that he took pieces of his shirt, which was still wet, in his mouth and sucked on them It wasn't much, but it would do for now. Then he chose to chew on a few straws of hay, as he was too exhausted to get up to search for food. He lay sleepily on the hay, not bothering about the world around him.
He was day-dreaming and drifting in and out of sleep, his mind unfocused. Later, he fell in a fitful sleep haunted by his dreams about Sirius.
(dream)
Sirius was entering entered the barn and walked towards Harry with his hand stretched out to him.
"Come to me, Harry, my dear Godson! Come with me…" Harry took his hand, and found himself drawn into a bone crushing hug. He wept tears of joy that his godfather had come for him and he clung to him, but he found that the hug was getting tighter and tighter and he began to have problems breathing.
"Sirius, you're suffocating me!" Harry choked out, looking at Sirius in surprise. Sirius, however, didn't loosen his grip and he stared hatefully at Harry. Moments later, the face of his godfather changed into the face of Voldemort. Piercing red eyes bored into his own.
„You are mine, Potter," he hissed. Harry screamed in horror and surprise and struggled to free himself.
"No, let me go!" he screamed desperately. Voldemort sneered and pushed Harry's long hair away from his neck, moving closer to sink his teeth into the smooth skin underneath. Harry shut his eyes and braced himself for the worst, but nothing happened. He slowly opened his eyes and looked around him.
Harry found himself in a nicely decorated living room. He was sitting on the floorand looked around him. Two people caught his attention. They seemed to argue and didn't notice the raven haired boy. Harry called a few times for them, but they never heard him.
Then they turned around and faced him. Harry uttered a shocked gasp. The two people were his parents. The stared at him intently, but watched from their distance.
"What are you doing on the floor, son! Stand up, now!" his father ordered in a sharp tone.
"What?" Harry asked utterly confused.
"I said, stand up like normal people do!" he commanded.
Harry, fearing the worst leapt to his feet.He looked from his mother to his father and back.
'What's going on? Surely, they wouldn't behave like that around me, would they?'
He faced his mother questioningly and she looked disapproving at him.
"Cut your hair, son! It's awful!" she said scathingly.
"But, mum. What's the matter?" He asked close to tears. He didn't understand their behavior. Why were they so mean to him!
"What the matter is, you want to know? I'll tell you. We died to protect you and you are living in the gutters. You let yourself be defeated by your relatives so that they could blind you. We died that you may defeat the dark Lord finally, but how do you think a blind child will be able to do that?" he started his rant.
Harry thought that they sounded so much like his potions professor that something in him snapped.
"NO CHILD SHOULD BE DEFEATING VOLDEMORT!" he screamed at them. "You are not my parents! No parent should say something like to his own child!" His was chest was heaving and he was out of breath. Strangely just then the world around him faded into nothingness.
(dream end)
The door slammed loudly and Harry booted awake, drenched in a cold sweat with silent tears spilling down his cheeks, forgetting the dream completely.
He heard no footsteps, but maybe the owner had come in and slammed the door? He didn't know and felt uncomfortable with the thought that the man might watch him.
"Is anybody there?" Harry called in a raspy voice, turning his heavy head toward the door and listening for a sound. But he heard nothing.
He was greatly disappointed that nobody came to rescue him and started to cry again. The small boy desperately wanted to be found and didn't care by whom. Weakly Harry tossed the strewn hay back over himself and fell asleep once again.
Four days had passed since Harry had crawled into the barn and he now woke properly for the first time. The time seemed to have worked its own magic on the young wizard. His fever had broken and his throat wasn't so painful anymore. His ankle felt slightly better but his ribs weren't any better yet.
Sitting up, he felt nearly fit again. Yawning profusely, he felt around for his walking stick and when he had found it, he stood up on shaky legs.
He had made his mind that it was best to leave now, because he was starving and didn't want to stay here longer than necessary. Who knew whether the owner liked him to be in the barn or not. Better not risk anything as the farmer would be a Muggle most likely.
A few days later, he had been quite a long time since his exposure, he was limping down a sandy path. He had hurt his food again when he tripped over a root from a tree the last day.
He was listening to the birds and the crickets and concentrating on staying on the path. He was swaying slightly, because he felt dizzy. It had been so long since he'd eaten something more filling than grass or berries.
The pounding of hooves caught his attention but he didn't dare gather his hope, in case he was disappointed. Harry hoped that the horse had a rider, but knowing the way his luck has been running it probably didn't, but his heart started beating fast in anticipation anyway.
The sound of the horse's galloping was getting louder slightly while it began to slow down somewhat and then it suddenly stopped. Harry picked up his own pace again, but stopped when he heard the creaking of a leather saddle and the unmistakable clinging of stirrups in front of him. The horse had a rider! Harry's heart contracted painfully in his chest and he didn't know whether to laugh or cry! This was his ticket out of here. He hoped that whoever it was wouldn't hurt him.
'I almost had lost all hope to hear somebody at all! Please, let him or her be friendly.' He thought somewhat happily. He eventually realized how exhausted and hurt he really was and the strain was falling apart from him.
"What business does a lad like you have on my property? How many times do I have to tell the bunch of you to stay away?" A deep voice snarled. It was obviously a man and an unfriendly no less. Harry thought the voice was familiar and knew only one person this voice could belong to. Harry's heart almost stopped beating. The hope he had was certainly shattered.
'That can't be true! Why does it have to be him, of all people?' He felt tears prickling in the corner of his eyes and his legs buckled. He sank to the floor, miserably.
"Answer! Or must I repeat myself?" ordered the voice above him. He merely shook my head no and did nothing except from burying his face in his hands.
The last person the small boy would ever want to meet up with was his professor, particularly in this state. But he was a little puzzled about Snape.
'What happened to calling me Potter? Surely he'd be thrilled at seeing the great Harry Potter reduced to this…' Harry inwardly laughed bitterly. Then he wondered why he wasn't calling him Potter. Did he not recognise him? Apparently not, but why? Ah, perhaps he was too dirty and grubby, he thought. And he had long hair till down under his shoulder blades. He was severely malnourished, far too small for his age and had quite feminine features that all girls at school had always loved dearly. No wonder, Snape didn't recognise him, but Harry was thankful for that.
The question was, what would he do if he did? Harry didn't want to imagine that. And wished his professor would leave him alone. He didn't know whether he could stand the usual threats and scathing comments.
Then a sob escaped his lips and his body started shaking. Harry fell to his knees and he sat down. He heard movement above him, but he ignored it.
'I'm so pathetic. Crying in front of my least favourite teacher.'
He mentally slapped himself, but he didn't stop crying. He couldn't. The pain in his body and his heart was excruciating. He had hoped to be rescued finally, but it didn't seem to be his day. His heart was aching with disappointment and sadness. All the feelings he had suppressed during the last weeks were coming to the surface. That he had been raped, that he had been blinded, that nobody came to save him, that he mustn't use magic and now that his teacher who hated him beyond reason found him in this state. Tears flooded his face.
Suddenly Harry felt a hand touch his shoulder and he screamed, flinching back from the touch. He skidded further away and wrapped his arms around his torso. Trying to calm his erratic breath, he started rocking back and forth. Then there was the hand again, this time on his arm. He yanked his arm away and crouched as far as he could. The hand wouldn't stop. Fresh tears flooded from his eyes.
"Please, stop it. Don't... don't touch me!" he managed to whisper between sobs. Then his mind went blissfully blank, and it finally surrendered to the stain and exhaustion of the past few weeks.
Tbc