Chapter 6

His feet were hurting in his new shoes as he wondered just how far from Little Whinging he was. He felt like sleep would never happen but the general feeling of wellbeing was slipping away. Still he walked on the seemingly endless road. A car bounced past the bass bins of the speakers shaking the early morning peacefulness. The car swung in front of him and stopped.

"Do you want a lift?" A female head, that looked familiar poked out from the passenger window. He gratefully accepted and jumped in the back. The driver was in her mid-twenties and reminded him of Tonks. The other two passengers were girls of his age. The one in the back seat snuggled up close to him and he looked blankly at her trying to place her.

"Don't remember me with my clothes on then? Would it help if I let you fuck me again?" Her voice was low and with the pounding music he doubted the people in the front seat would hear it. He recognised her then as the girl he'd had sex with behind the barn.

"You coming down yet?" She asked. "You seem nice enough but I wouldn't have done that unless I was high."

Harry considered offering her another pill but that wasn't the way her monologue went. She talked non-stop on the car journey into the town centre. He knew that he had the same desire to talk but was holding back. He knew that if he started he would talk as much as this girl whose name turned out to be Sue.

He just enjoyed her closeness and ignored her talking. The car left the countryside and he started to recognise buildings as they approached the town centre. It was still early morning and although the sun had risen the town was still deserted.

He was dropped off and it was sheer mischievousness he thanked them for the lift and fuck. He walked off as Sue reddened in the back of the car. The town was a strange place with no people in it. He wandered with no direction or plan. He looked in the zip lock bag there were a lot of pills still in there. He took an E and swallowed it grimacing at the taste. His perspective started to change he recognised it as the drug but welcomed it. The town went from grim , empty and deserted to a wonder playground filled with delight. He wandered wide eyed in amazement. Eventually the town began to fill up with people and the day warmed up. He needed a drink and he had no money on him he had no alternative but to head back to the Durseley's. As he walked through the council estate looking for all the world as if he hadn't moved was Mickie his best friend in all the world.

"Mickie! Good to see you I've done so much since I've last seen you, do you have a drink I could kill for a drink, I'm so thirsty right now how are you, have you moved since I last saw you? Do you have a drink?"

Mickie looked at him in surprise. "Fuck Harry you're off your face. What have you been taking."

Harry puled the bag from his pocket. "A bit of one a bit of the other. You can help yourself if you can get me a drink."

"You serious, you could sell those for a fortune."

Harry shook his until he started to feel sick. "They make you feel great, lets share them or better still swap them for booze and fags or right now any drink. I need a drink have I said that before?"

Mickie spoke to some other teens and in a few minutes Harry had a two litre bottle of cola in his hand and he gave out tabs like sweets.

Mickie was his constant companion always getting the best swap or the best favour. Harry found himself sleeping on floors or dancing in strange houses or just drinking and smoking high on tabs watching the clouds,never quite certain where he was or how much time has past but he was with his best friends ever.

The light streaming in through the pink curtains woke Harry, although it could have been the sound of a baby crying. He groaned and rolled over looking for his glasses. Finding them on a bedside cabinet he put them on and blinked the world into focus. The room was undoubtedly pink and feminine. It wasn't much bigger than the bedroom he had at Privet drive, the wardrobe across from him, white wood and mirrored and the double bed, pink duvet case, filled the room. One thing he couldn't see in amidst the pink were his clothes. He was naked in this bed and painfully aware that he needed the toilet soon. There really was only one option with a child outside, hanging on the door was a towelling bath robe in pink.

Harry pulled it on glanced down at the amount of leg it showed and headed out of the bedroom door. He stepped out into a hallway, directly in front of him was another door that was open leading into a sitting room, with a boy about four or five was playing with toys on the floor. Sitting on a sofa was a woman slightly older than him. She had mousey brown hair tied back in a ponytail. She was wearing leggings and a pale blue button up shirt, which was unbuttoned as she had a baby at her breast.

"Mummy, he's awake."

The young woman looked up and smiled at him. "Hello Harry, we did wonder if you would ever wake up."

"Um, Hi." Harry had no memory of meeting her but she clearly knew him. "Where's the toilet?"

"End of the hall on your right."

After Harry had finished in the toilet he stepped back into the hall.

"Harry over here." Opposite him was the woman sitting in the flats kitchen, two cups of tea steaming in front of her. "Darren has a packet of crisps and Thomas on the TV and Wayne has gone down after his feed, so we won't be disturbed for a while. How are you feeling?"

Harry paused while he took stock. "Fine thanks."

She nodded. "That's good, you were proper wasted when you got here. Mind you you've slept for close to eighteen hours."

Harry nodded as if he knew what she was talking about. There were two things he wanted to know but couldn't think of how to ask either. What was her name and where were his clothes?

"So what's the last thing you remember? As I said you were proper wasted when Mickie brought you over."

"I don't remember that. Last thing I remember is sitting on the field drinking with Mickie."

She laughed then, it was a light musical laugh. "You've got no idea where you are or who I am do you?"

Harry shook his head.

"I'm Sally. I'm a friend of Mickie's he knew you were too wasted to spend a night out and I'm one of the people he knows with their own place. We're only a half mile from the park and he knows I'm a soft touch. Provided you're not a violent drunk. I'd have let you die in the gutter if I thought you might put my kids at risk."

"I've never hurt anyone who hasn't hurt me first." Harry assured her.

"Yeah I could tell. You even stopped trying to grope me when I told you too, that's perfect behaviour for a drunk."

"Um did we sleep together?"

"Yes and no. You slept in my bed last night, best way to make sure you woke up alive. If you're asking did we fuck, then the answers no."

Harry was surprised over how straightforward she was. "You were too much of a mess, although I did strip you." Sally's ever present smile changed to an evil grin. "I washed your clothes they're drying now. They stank, mind you, you don't smell so great. Go back to the bathroom and have a bath and I'll get you some food."

Harry sniffed and Sally was right, he did smell. He headed off to the bathroom and started to run a bath. Sally was without doubt was one of the nicest people he had met. She took in a stranger and shared her bed with him all because of a favour.

Once clean he headed back to the kitchen, still in the pink fluffy robe. It was this fact that caused Darren who was sat at the table to start laughing and pointing at him. Sally managed to hush him. The table conversation was dominated by Darren asking random questions and Sally answering them all with the demand he eat his dinner. Eventually he finished and scurried off to watch more Thomas episodes.

"Bedtime in half an hour." Sally warned.

"What time is it now?" Harry asked.

"Six pm. You arrived late last night. Once the drugs wore off you slept for close on eighteen hours. Six thirty is his bed time, although I don't expect sleep till seven thirty. Wayne will sleep till nine when he'll want another feed and hopefully sleep the whole night. Once the kids are asleep you're coming to bed with me, although sleep is not high on my list of things to do."

Her straight forward manner surprised him and he almost choked on the mouthful of lasagne he was eating.

" What you thought I was a nice girl? I'm not quite eighteen and I've got a four year old. You're not the only one with issues Harry."

Harry looked up at her wondering what she knew.

"I undressed you." She paused and rolled up her sleeve, there were faint scars on her left forearm. "I know what cutting looks like and I've done enough therapy while in care to know the reasons are multiple. Mine really was a cry for help, although I didn't care if I lived or died. Yours are hidden so that's not the reason. I wanted someone to notice me and get me away from my step dad. He was a violent drunk. He'd think nothing of kicking me down stairs or beating my mum if she said she wasn't in the mood. I started cutting myself to get control over myself then I met an older man. He was eighteen I don't know if he knew I was thirteen but he knew I was under sixteen, anyway I got pregnant and taken into care. He got jail time. He was Darren's dad. Wayne's was my age a nice guy but completely unsuited to being a dad. For his sake I left his name of the birth certificate. He pops in now and again but he's clueless. So here I am seventeen in a flat with two kids. Social services pop in once a week to check I and more importantly my kids are all doing OK. I don't get much chance to socialise I'm not asking for anything more than tonight. Especially not till you've got your head sorted."

If she had sounded judgemental Harry would have snapped at her but she had been honest with him so he was inclined to listen.

"What do you mean?"

"Well you've stopped cutting but you've got a bag full of drugs and booze. Your still not facing your problems what ever they are. Group therapy taught me never assume I got it worse than anyone else. Some people's stories would make your hair turn white. I will say this. Even with what ever is going on your a nice guy. You weren't upset at Darren laughing at you. Even last night while out of it you didn't behave badly.

You understood that no meant no. But you've not stopped hurting yourself. No one spends as much time as you do drunk and high unless they have issues. I helped myself to some of your tabs. I've taken four that will do me for the rest of the year. I pop a pill when I go to a club, which I'm lucky to be once a month. You are looking at addiction the amount you're taking. As I say I'm not judging you but I wouldn't feel right if I didn't warn you.

There really was no judgement or condescension in her voice, so Harry shrugged off her warning rather than snapped at her. In the end it didn't really matter soon he would meet Voldemort for the final time and then he would die. What would it matter if he was wasted when that happened?

"So who do you live with, parents?"

Harry looked back up at Sally. "No, they died, it happened when I was only eighteen months old." As he spoke Sally's face fell.

"I'm sorry, I knew it was a stupid question to ask as I asked it but I was trying to change the subject"

"It's ok, I've had a long time to get used to that."

"So what do you know about them? If you don't mind."

Harry told Sally their names and what he knew of their history. He didn't mention their murder or anything to do with the war. As he spoke he could hear music from the living room.

"Excuse me Harry, end of an episode, Darren won't complain as much if I get him to bed now rather than half way through an episode."

With that she headed out of the room, Harry finished his food and then cleared up in the kitchen washing up and putting plates away. His clothes he noticed where on a drying maid in the corner of the room and he could have dressed if he wished. Except for Sally's offer to sleep with him tonight. It was a straightforward and unambiguous offer with no overtones of romance or relationship. He was wiping down the table when Sally put her head round the door.

"Fucking hell." She mouthed rather than said the words but Harry could read her lips and see the surprise on her face. "Darren won't go to bed until you say good night, do you mind?"

A small face put its head round the door. "Goodnight Darren, be a good boy for your mother."

"Goodnight Harwy" With that he ran off to his room it was another fifteen minutes before Sally reappeared round the door.

"Thank you, you didn't have to tidy you know."

He shrugged. "It passed the time and it wasn't a big job."

"Come on we can have the living room now I've got that one to bed. The room was messy but clean. Darren's toys littered the floor mostly plastic trains. Against the wall was a Moses basket with a sleeping infant in it which Sally fussed over before putting some soft piano music, that Harry wouldn't have expected from her. "Darren can hear it and it'll help him sleep."

Sally talked then of her past and while her youth had been worse than Harry's she had turned herself around once pregnant she had stopped smoking, drinking and cutting herself once she had someone more important than herself to think of. Although she admitted smoking was hard. The others were just habits that represented internal beliefs the habit was easier to kick than the belief.

As the clock wound round to seven thirty she turned off the cd and switched on the telly. Harry tried to concentrate on the soap opera and the lives of Deirdre and Ken but Sally's points kept coming back to him. He was messed up, but then what would be the point of trying to sort himself out? He was going to meet Voldemort and one of them would die. He knew that it would be him. Every time he thought back to the duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort Harry realised how much he had been playing before. Voldemort was so far above him in spell craft he had as much chance of defeating him as he did as when he was a baby and he'd run out of parents to sacrifice themselves for him. No, death was his only future.

He was suddenly pulled back to the present. The present in which he was wearing nothing but a short pink bath robe and was sitting next to a woman who was happy to take advantage of that fact. Sally's hand ran up his thigh and his reaction was immediate and obvious.

"Not a soap opera fan, you were miles away."

Harry looked down at her hand moving up and down his thigh. "Um, no not really."

Sally moved her hand and looked at him seriously. Harry I need you to know that your clothes are dry and you can go anytime you want. I'm not keeping you hostage here. I'm hoping you decide to stay and spend the night but you do have a choice in the matter."

Harry leaned toward Sally and placed his hand on her thigh feeling the warmth of her leg through the thin leggings she wore. He moved his hand up her leg. "I'm happy to stay."

Sally leaned forward and kissed him. "As soon as the little wakes and has a bedtime feed then we can go to bed."

Sally then skilfully lead the conversation on to lighter things. She talked of mixing school with breast feeding and nappy changes and Harry found himself smiling, he even told some modified stories of Ron and Hermione. It wasn't long before Sally got up to a fussing baby.

"Nappy change first." With that warning Sally went about the quick and efficient change of Waynes nappy. Once that was done she unselfconsciously unbuttoned her shirt and let the baby begin to feed. "He's just on the verge of solid food but there are times it's just easier to get a tit out and let him help himself.

Once the child had had his full he drifted off to sleep. Sally had him move the basket into the hall outside the bedroom door. "He's almost out of this but once he moves into a bed he'll have to share Darren's room. Then I'll have two of them want up not just one.

Sally then stepped into the bedroom and her shirt was still open from feeding the baby. She kicked off her trainers then peeled down her leggings and knickers in one movement. She then looked up at Harry who was stood in the doorway.

"Last chance to run."

Harry was aware this was the first time he'd done this sober but with slightly shaky hands he undid the cord the stepped out of the pink dressing gown.

Sex with Sally was an education. She knew what she wanted and taught Harry how to do it. It wasn't all one sided either as She had Harry gasping in ecstasy too. Eventually she declared foreplay over and allowed him to enter her. He soon found his orgasm building. "Where?" He grunted.

"Keep going."

Harry soon collapsed on top of her finished. Then rolled off as she clung to him. There was no space between hem as she held him tight and it was in this pose that they fell asleep. It was dark when he woken by a crying child. Sally changed and fed the boy and Harry drifted off to sleep. He was woken by as Sally got back into bed and climbed on top of him. "Remember everything I taught you?"

"Um, yeah."

"Forget them, do me hard."

After they'd both orgasmed he held her pressed tight against her. "I take it you're on the pill?"

"No, but I can count to twenty eight."

He wasn't certain what she meant but she seemed to think it meant something and sleep soon called him before he could ask anything else.