Harry awoke from the nightmare, screaming and covered in sweat, with blood dripping from his fingers.
It had just been another horrid dream; those seemed to be much more vivid lately.
Thank Merlin for the silencing charms he'd placed on the room.
Harry spelled on the light and surveyed the room he was in. It took only a second for him to know he was alone in the tiny space. Not room for much more than the bed that Harry was sitting on and a small table with the equally small lamp. In the dim light he could now see that he'd torn his fingernails on the sheets sometime during the nightmare.
"Episkey," he whispered as he touched the tip of each of his bloody fingers, healing them, and then wiping the blood on the sheets. Examining his fingers, and happy with the results, he laid back down on the bed to try and get a few more minutes of sleep, before the sun invaded his room and forced him to stay awake.
Tossing and turning, unable to go back to sleep, Harry got up and went into the tiny bathroom to shower. The lukewarm water and yellowed bar of soap seemed to scrub away the dirty feel that he always had after such a nightmare, much better than a scourgifying spell ever could.
"Probably my muggle raising," Harry muttered, a bit disgusted with the fact that something so muggle could be so comforting to him. Nothing from the muggle world had ever done a bloody thing for him, so why could something as insignificant as a muggle shower give him such comfort?
Harry climbed out of the shower and used a drying spell on himself and cringed when he looked in the mirror at his hair sticking up all over the place. With a towel wrapped around his waist he made his way back out of the bathroom into the tiny bedroom and surveyed it once again.
Time for a change of scenery he decided.
Harry quickly dressed in jeans and one of Mrs. Weasley's sweaters, threw his belongings into his trunk, then shrunk it, and stuffed it into his pocket as he readied himself to leave. Thinking of the elderly owner, he took a moment to scourgify the blood from the sheets before he left. He took off quietly, down the stairs of the small boarding house, taking care not to wake the renters in the next room. He waved goodbye to the grandmotherly woman who owned the place and ventured out into the streets for the first time in over a week.
He stopped on the sidewalk just outside and took in a breath of the fresh, clean morning air. Harry wanted to believe that today would be a better day than usual, but something in his gut told him otherwise. "Since when do I get a good day?" he asked himself with a snort.
Harry walked along the streets of the tiny little town he'd been hiding in. The early morning sun cast dark shadows in the alleyways and around the trees that lined the streets. It gave him an eerie feeling but Harry ignored it and kept walking.
Suddenly he felt himself pulled into one of those dark alleys and being struck in the side of the head.
"What the bloody FUCK do you want? Leave me the fuck alone!" he yelled at his attackers, who ignored his pleas and continued the beatings.
"Look at this, it's The Boy Who Lived," one of his attackers pointed out.
"The savior of the world and he can't even manage to defend himself," another laughed, kicking Harry again.
The boys searched his pockets for anything valuable but when they found nothing, they all kicked him again and took off.
Harry crawled to the end of the alley, and collapsed, yelling for help as he passed out.