For disclaimer, see prologue. Warnings: lame humour, as usual, and stupid people.

Chapter Four: Crazy Kid

Last time…

Harry's eyes darted around suspiciously. He turned around to face the entryway to the alley and his eyes widened in shock.

W00T

There were a dozen men in navy blue robes standing just outside the entryway, pointing wooden sticks at him. Harry's hands immediately went up in the universal 'I surrender' gesture. After all, he had no idea what those wooden sticks could do.

'Put your hands up!' one of them called.

'They are up, you idiot,' someone else hissed.

'Oh.' The first voice coughed. 'Er…you have the right to remain silent!'

'This isn't some bad Muggle television drama, Struthers! Shut up and let the real Aurors do the talking!'

'I'm an Auror just as much as you are, White!'

Harry was understandably quite confused by all this. First of all, what were 'Muggles' and 'Aurors'? Secondly, who dressed in robes anymore? And finally, if they were part of the law enforcement, as they seemed to be, why were they acting so unprofessionally?

The Auror, White, who had told Struthers to shut up, glared at Struthers, then Harry. White blinked when his eyes landed on Harry, conveying some emotion that Harry couldn't quite figure out, but shook his head and resumed his glaring. Harry only blinked back in confusion at him, which was apparently not the reaction White had been looking for, because he only glared even more fiercely.

'State your name and occupation,' he commanded.

'Harry Potter, unemployed,' he responded quickly. Even if it was a bit embarrassing to admit he was unemployed, they sounded (sort of) like the police, except with robes. And Harry didn't really want to mess with policemen.

White's eyes widened, and he seemed a bit taken aback. He quickly regained his composure, however, as his colleagues starting muttering amongst themselves.

'Don't lie to us. Do you think we are that easy to fool? We – ' he seemed to think better of this, and quickly amended it to '– I am a fully qualified, top Auror with prestigious honours in the Ministry, and using a famous name is not going to get you anywhere, especially when the name is one of a dead person.'

Harry gaped. 'But…I am Harry Potter! I'm not famous though, and I think I would have realised by now if I were dead.'

White clapped a hand over his face. 'We've got a stupid one here, Faust. Take him out.'

One of the Auror's colleagues stepped forward, raising his little stick-thing. Saying something that Harry could not recognise (which really wasn't saying much as Harry only knew English and a tiny bit of basic French, which had been compulsory at Stonewall), a jet of red light shot out of the stick, seemingly in slow motion to Harry, who dodged it.

Registering the looks of surprise on the other Aurors' faces, he had to quickly start dodging and ducking under and jumping over various coloured jets of light (red, blue, blue, red, purple, red, yellow, blue…), yelling, 'Oi! Hey! Stop it! I haven't done anything!'

Harry sucked in his breath and almost fell over as he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his side. Placing his hand to the wound, he found that it came away with red. Ducking under another jet of light, he briefly glanced behind him and realised that he was getting closer and closer to the wall behind him. Harry knew he needed to do something. The Aurors were closing in quickly, and there seemed to be no way of escape.

Suppressing a wince of pain when several other bleeding cuts appeared on his arms, he felt behind him with a hand and felt brick. Starting to panic, he looked behind him to see if a magical exit had opened up or something (a ridiculous idea, Harry knew, but he was desperate) –

– there had. Harry blinked, figured, Hey, it's an exit, I really can't complain, and darted into the…er, hole in the wall, for lack of a better term.

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I feel creeped out. I really, really do, was Harry's first thought when he came out from the…hole in the wall.

He stood there staring at the creepy store into which he had emerged for a moment, almost afraid to keep going. There were assorted creepy things sitting on creepy shelves in the creepy store, which included, but were not limited to, dusty human skulls, dusty animal skulls, dusty shrunken heads, a dusty human skeleton that looked extremely real, and something that looked like a dusty, rotten, mutant strawberry. But then his ears picked up the sounds of a small commotion somewhere behind him.

Years later, he would tell people, 'I really thought I was going to be caught right there and then. It was scary. I didn't know who they were at the time, of course, but after those wounds they'd already given me, I wasn't going to take any chances.'

The person he was telling his story to would wince sympathetically and ask, 'Well, what were they saying?'

Harry would chuckle. 'I still remember it now, even to this day. It went something along the lines of:

"He went right through the wall!"

"No, the wall opened up, you idiot!"

"What? No it didn't."

"Shut up and stop arguing. Did anyone see what was in there?"

"Knockturn Alley, sir."

"How do you know what Knockturn Alley looks like? Never mind, I don't want to know. Our tip was right, then. You, find a way to get in. You, help him. The rest of you, don't just stand there, think of something to do! I'm going to the Leaky Cauldron."

"Yes, sir."'

The person would commend Harry's storytelling skills and voice imitations, Harry would mumble something about them not being that good, really, they would both laugh at the Aurors' seeming stupidity, and they would both move on with their lives.

In the present, Harry would have liked to be doing exactly that, but he was too busy running out the creepy store and through the creepy street outside it.

'What's your hurry, sonny?' someone who looked exactly like a witch – crooked nose, frizzy hair, warts, the works – cackled as he sped past.

'Watch where you're going!'

'D'you want a fight? Huh? Do you? Do you?'

'Hey, you're getting blood all over the place! Stop it!'

Harry skidded around a corner and stopped, doubled over, using a wall for support, and out of breath. He looked up and his eyes widened.

He had run onto a street completely the opposite of – er, the creepy street: clean, crowded, well-lighted, and not creepy.

'Crazy kids,' a voice said. Harry looked at the speaker. It was an elderly man with a ring of white hair on his otherwise bald head. He was wearing what typical middle-class elderly men wear.

'Daring each other to go into the Knockturn Alley, eh?' the man continued. 'Crazy kids,' he repeated.

'Funny, though,' someone else piped up.

'Yeah.'

Harry blinked.

'Doesn't look like a kid though, does he?'

'Nah. Weird.'

'How old are you, kid?'

'Er…twentyish,' Harry said.

'Not a kid, then.'

'No.'

'No?'

'Er, no,' said Harry.

'Oi, you're bleeding!'

Harry looked down at his side. 'Oh, yes. Sorry.'

'What's to be sorry about? That looks nasty.'

'How'd you get it?'

'Er…'

'Here, you can borrow my handkerchief.'

'Oh no, I couldn't really…' said Harry, taken aback. After all, it was hard to get blood out of a handkerchief.

'Hey, it's okay. You're getting blood all over the place, did you notice?'

'Er, yes. Thank you,' said Harry gratefully, taking the proffered handkerchief and applying it to the wound.

'Why do you keep saying 'er' all the time?' a young boy asked, gazing up at Harry with curiosity.

Harry looked down at him. '…Er. I don't know.'

'Jimmy! Honestly,' said a man who appeared to be his father, poking the boy and leading him away. Harry blinked at them as they walked off, the boy still looking back at him.

'Er,' said Harry (again). 'I don't suppose anyone would happen to have the date?'

'January third,' a random woman walking by informed him.

'2003,' her friend added helpfully.

'Actually, it's the fourth now,' the elderly man said. 'Past midnight. Crazy kid.'

'Thank you,' said Harry, and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the hand that wasn't pressing the borrowed handkerchief to his injury. He was still really hot from all that running.

W00T

(A/N: I like reviews. Why didn't any of you review the last chapter? That equals sadness. :(

If the last form review didn't help, then you can just type 'this was cool lol kthxbye' or something like that. That would be nice. Hey, it lets me know you liked it, and that's good enough for me. :D

Anyway, so please review. Seriously.)