For disclaimer, see prologue.

Chapter Two: A Bit Chilly

(A/N: I don't like the first bit of this chapter either. I seem to have some difficulty in beginning chapters. (sigh))

Dedicated to…hmm. Well, the plot bunny who, for inexplicable reasons, decided to latch on to me, I guess. Thank you, plot bunny. Thank you. :)

W00T

Harry woke up abruptly, sweating and shaking slightly from the nightmare he had just had.

He remembered a group dressed in dark clothes killing people. He remembered the group laughing. He remembered the victims screaming. He remembered a high, cold laugh of approval or amusement, or possibly both. He remembered…

He remembered green light. There had been quite a lot of green light.

He'd been having a lot of dreams involving these people – he could tell they were the same people after a while; he remembered their mannerisms, their dark clothing, their laughter, and occasionally he'd catch a name – for the past few…well. Harry couldn't exactly remember when they had begun, but he knew they had been plaguing his sleep for quite a long time.

Why did his brain keep inventing these nightmares for him? He'd never seen these people before. Perhaps he had a secret fetish involving killing people gruesomely, slowly, and painfully. Harry winced at that.

'Oh, don't be silly, Harry,' said the logical part of his mind. 'Every time you wake up from one of those nightmares you're always at least slightly ill. You can't possibly have a fetish for murdering people. You'd have killed the Dursleys a long time ago, if that were so.'

As most people do, however, Harry ignored the logical part of his mind, even though it made quite a lot of sense – which it should have. If it hadn't, he would have been a bit worried.

And about reoccurring dreams…Harry remembered another dream. It wasn't quite as bad as the ones about killing people, but it had the same green light and the same high, cold laugh – except that one was of triumph – as in his other dreams.

Well, it was no use to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Harry shivered and looked around nervously. Was there a chill in here?

Hang on, it was winter. Harry rolled his eyes at himself and noticed that the sky was pitch black, without a single star in sight.

It was still the middle of the night, then. Even though he'd turned in early the night before, Harry decided to sleep for a couple more hours and then get up. The dreams only came once a night, if at all, so he had no worries.

W00T

Four hours later…

W00T

Harry yawned and stretched. That had been one of the best nights' sleeps he'd had in…well, quite a long time, actually. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and decided to get to work (if you could call it that).

He looked around for his tin. Finding it in a corner of his box, he dumped the coins out (no bills last night, unfortunately), and started counting.

Two pounds and forty-seven pence. Harry sighed. Yesterday hadn't been a very good day.

Maybe he could make up for it today, then. Sighing again, Harry stashed the money into his pocket and picked up his tin.

Walking to his usual spot, Harry found it…occupied?

His eyes narrowed. Who was this intruder trespassing on his territory? Every beggar in the area knew that that spot was Harry Potter's and Harry Potter's alone, and that they were never to touch it, because he could get nasty if he wanted to. Harry never knew how, but somehow, fighting was very easy for him. It was as if everything slowed down to a third of its actual speed. Sometimes he got bored, even, waiting for a punch to come close before dodging it (for effect, of course).

Of course, it might have been the practice of dodging Dudley and his (literally) stupid gang. They'd been able to catch him less and less times in one day as he grew older, and they eventually gave up, for which Harry was grateful.

Harry stalked over angrily to the trespasser. 'Excuse me,' he demanded, 'but who are you and what are you doing on my territory?'

The anonymous man didn't even look up. He was dressed in rags and tatters just like Harry's, which confirmed that he was a beggar, just like Harry. Oddly enough, his clothes looked slightly burnt around the edges.

Harry tapped a foot impatiently. 'I asked who you were. Answer me.'

The man didn't move.

Harry muttered something very colourful and very rude about the intruder before him and decided to reinforce his point. 'I asked,' he said, grabbing the man's shoulder, 'who you were. You could at least have the polite courtesy to look at me,' he snapped, yanking the man up to put him face-to-face with himself.

And he gasped, for the man's face was truly grotesque. His eyes were nothing more than sockets; nose blackened and burnt to a crisp; face wrinkled and moldy; hair nothing more than a few strands on his scalp. He quickly let go, and the corpse fell to the ground like a rag doll. An extremely cheap, bargain-bin rag doll. Harry shuddered and hurriedly stepped away from the dead body.

He decided to keep away from this spot for a while. The MI5 would come later and get the body out of here anyway, and he could have his space back. Walking back a few more steps, Harry turned to run – er, walk away quickly, because he was in a hurry, of course.

Until he saw the corpse twitch.

Harry froze in his tracks, debating whether to run or not. On the one hand, running would be an extremely un-brave thing to do. And Harry was, by all means, not an un-brave person at all. On the other hand, running would the extremely smart thing to do. And Harry was, by all means, not a stupid person either.

The corpse twitched again.

Harry stood absolutely still, continuing to argue with himself.

The dead body emitted a groan and started to get up, joints creaking, ever so slowly.

Harry ran like a madman.

W00T

This is so surreal, Harry thought to himself as he ran for his life. I'm being chased by a zombie. I thought this sort of thing only happened on TV!

Because indeed, he was being chased by a zombie. A re-animated corpse, so to speak. Either way, it was pretty much the same thing.

It was a surprisingly quick zombie. Harry had always thought zombies were sluggish and slow and generally easy to escape from. But nooo, Harry had to get a lightning-quick one.

And because it was so early in the morning…or so late at night, either one…there were very, very few people around. In this district, there were surprisingly few police officers around, which Harry used to be thankful for, since they wouldn't kick him out of his begging spot, but now he was very resentful of this fact, because at this current point in time he was being chased by a zombie. He could really use some help here, please!

Even of those very, very few people around, they were either too sleepy to notice, too busy to notice, or too selfish and/or idiotic to assist. Of the people who did notice, they just screamed or gasped and pointed, which wasn't really all that helpful.

'Halt! State your name and business!'

A police officer? How oddly convenient. Of course, Harry had no idea how long he'd been running, so for all he knew he could have run into the next county.

'Look behind me, you – (Harry called the officer something that, had he stopped, would probably have got him arrested)!'

The officer glared at Harry, but looked at what was behind him anyway. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped almost comically, and if Harry hadn't been so preoccupied with his current situation, he might have laughed.

'Stop! Stop, you monster!' the officer yelled, drawing his pistol and shooting at it.

'Watch it, you idiot, you nearly got me!' Harry yelled, ducking. He ran until he was far behind the officer and turned around to watch, panting and out of breath.

What he saw was the officer rapidly running out of ammunition and the zombie still chasing him. Harry choked on his own saliva and quickly turned around, getting ready to run.

He promptly tripped on the absolutely flat pavement and went flying.

Or, he would have gone flying if it hadn't been for a pair of hands grabbing his shoulders and pulling him upright.

Harry turned around, about to say a quick 'thanks' and start running (and to tell the guy to let go), and found that the person in question was the zombie.

Harry opened his mouth, found nothing to say, and closed it.

The zombie groaned.

Harry opened his mouth again. 'Er, excuse me, Mr…uh…Zombie?'

The zombie groaned in response.

'Erm, I'm sort of in a hurry here, and I would really like to, er, make it on time, for that…that thing I have to go to right now, and I would really appreciate it if you, er, sort of, let go of my shoulders so I can run for it.'

The zombie groaned in response.

Harry flipped it over his shoulder and slammed it onto the ground (a little trick he'd learned from sneaking into Dudley's room while he was out and stealing one or two of his, believe it or not, books on martial arts).

The zombie groaned.

Harry stood there, gaping at the success of his maneuver. After all, he'd only ever tried it once, and it had only sort of half-worked.

He soon snapped out of it though, when the body twitched again.

Harry ran like a madman.

W00T

Well, that was certainly a change from my everyday routine, Harry thought to himself dryly, sitting outside a convenience store in another district.

He looked around nervously again for the zombie and relaxed when he saw nothing out of the ordinary. He sighed and leaned back against the glass of the window behind him and was just about to take a nap (he'd had a very tiring day, even though it was only just past noon) when –

'Hey! Get off the window!'

Harry jerked awake and glanced around. A convenience store worker was standing on the steps, glaring at him. 'Don't lean on the window, kid. We don't want your filth dirtying our clean glass,' he added under his breath.

Harry glared at him. The worker glared back. Harry glared again and got up, walking away. He'd find someplace where people appreciated him.

…Well, actually…

Harry sighed again. This train of thought was rather depressing.

'Hello.'

Harry jumped and turned around. There was someone standing behind him, dressed in what seemed vaguely like a long black cloak, with the hood up, so Harry couldn't see his face.

He stared warily at the man (at least he guessed it was a man, because of the voice). 'Hello.'

There was a pause.

'…What?' Harry added, seeing no introduction forthcoming.

There was another pause, then the man said, 'It's a nice day, isn't it?'

'…Yes, I suppose it is,' Harry agreed, after some thought. 'Although it's a bit too chilly for my tastes.'

'Well, I've got a nice warm…cloak,' said the man. 'I probably couldn't feel the cold if a blizzard came through,' he said, chuckling a little.

Harry smiled weakly.

'What are you doing in these parts, Harry?'

Harry's eyes widened involuntarily, not hearing the question but instead only able to focus on one thing the man had said – 'How did you know my name?' he demanded.

The man muttered something; Harry could make out something like 'always a griffin-y door, you were…straight to the point…bit rudely though…just like…' and then he couldn't hear the rest.

Harry felt the need to point out that no one used door knockers anymore (since that must have been what the man had meant by 'griffin-y door'), and said so. He also felt the need to point out that 'griffin-y door' made absolutely no sense used in that context, but chose not to say anything on that matter, guessing that the man might be slightly mad (and mad people were always unpredictable; Harry didn't want to take any chances).

The man paused, seeming not to know what to say. Finally, after another long pause, he said, 'You didn't answer my question.'

'Pants to your question,' Harry replied, irritated. 'You didn't answer mine either.'

'Yes, but I asked it first.'

'That has no bearing on the current situation.'

'…Sorry, what?'

Figuring that the man was slightly slow as well as slightly mad, and feeling a bit of pity for him, Harry simplified his retort. 'That has nothing to do with what I said.'

'Yes, it does. See, I asked you a question, and then you asked me one. Then I asked why you didn't answer my question, and you said I didn't answer yours either. And then I said that I asked my question first. See, it all makes sense.'

Harry stared for a moment, and started to slowly back away.

'I'm not insane,' said the man in an annoyed tone of voice.

Harry blinked and stopped, and sighed. 'Well, since you're the one who started it, you could tell me your name.'

There was another pause, luckily shorter this time. Harry wasn't a patient person. 'My name is Peter,' the man said at last.

'Thank you. It's nice to meet you, Peter,' Harry replied, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. 'If you'll excuse me, then, I have – '

'I say, what's that?' Peter said suddenly, pointing behind him.

Harry sighed and turned around –

W00T

(A/N: It's never too early to leave a cliffie
That's what I say.
After all, the key
To the way
To a good cliffhanger
Is not where you have it;
It's how you write it.

Although you probably know what's going to happen anyway.

Oh yes, and please review.)