Chapter 20.

Flight to Freedom

That night, the raven had trouble finding sleep. He'd gone without dinner of course; the Dursleys couldn't be expected to allow him out of his room after such an outburst. Moreover, his bruised side was uncomfortable to lie on; and whenever he started falling asleep, his fists loosened, and the pillowcases around his hands unwound themselves, which made him more aware of the pain and the loose skin and splinters.

There had not been many peaceful nights, where the raven could sleep undisturbed, since he'd come to the Dursleys. The child simply did not feel safe, not at home, not treasured. But he had slowly gotten used to it, had accepted it as his new way of life. What alternative was there?

Harry sat up on his bed. He was cold, but he could not pull up his covers for he was too clumsy with the two pillowcases wrapped around his palms, and his fingers continually in a fist. He had been unable to change into his pyjamas. It reminded him of the time when he'd dislocated his shoulder two months earlier, although back then, he'd been more disabled, and in much more pain.

Harry stared at the floorboard under which the pictures of his parents, and his favourite book lay. Or rather, he stared at a blurry patch of darkness, for if he'd been able to take off his glasses, putting them on again was impossible. It was for the same reason that he could only look at the floorboard. With the two 'boxing gloves' around his hands, he could not even begin to imagine how to pry open the floorboard and handle the thin pictures.

No, Harry could do nothing but wait, and ignore any pain and discomfort. Luckily it was the weekend, and he could go back to sleep after making breakfast with aunt Petunia the next morning. (If that was even possible.) With some luck, she would leave him locked up in his room and he could sleep until noon; provided that he could fall asleep by then.

A soft tap on the window made Harry's heart leap. For a second, he thought of the corpses of the black subterranean lake in the book. His chest moved at the heightened rhythm of his breathing and rotting pale faces flashed before him in the shadows.

Another few taps, neither louder nor softer than the previous time. It was clearly coming from the glass pane, behind the curtain…

The raven gathered his courage. Living corpses didn't exist. You're filling his head with imaginary creatures, James! He heard a pale echo of his mother's voice say. Harry is bright enough to know the difference between reality and fiction. His father's voice brushed his mother's off easily. Both sounded so distant and lifeless, here and now, in his little bleak room, number 4 Privet Drive.

But the memory encouraged him. Harry could not let his father down; he would not be a coward. He had braved Pansy Parkinson, Draco Malfoy, Vernon Dursley and even Miss Snape. He could not be afraid of an imaginary corpse.

Still, his legs were slightly shaking as he stepped out of his bed and to the window. The curtain seemed to flutter for a moment. He reached up with one of his wrapped hands, his heart in a frenzy, and peeked behind the curtain.

The raven couldn't repress a gasp of surprise and pleasure. But he was equally puzzled. Hedwig! How have you gotten here? He thought towards the snowy owl sitting on the window ledge as he struggled to get his window open with the pillowcases in the way. Hedwig had still been flapping around, only half-flying when he'd last seen her, even though she had all her new feathers. Hagrid had promised he would wait for Harry to be there before setting her free.

Only for a moment, the raven considered it being a different owl, and he was mistaking the blurry image (he was still without glasses) for the owl he'd watched growing up for the past month and a half. But he quickly dismissed the suspicion when he got the window open and the bird hopped through and onto his shoulder without hesitation.

"Oh, Hedwig…" Harry whispered dejectedly as he stroked her smooth plumage with the protruding tips of his fingers, "I can't keep you in here." He had neither food nor water, or a nest or cage, or even newspaper. He'd already ruined two pillowcases; Petunia would lose it if he stained her sheets with owl droppings.

Besides, one of the Dursleys was bound to come into his room sooner or later. What would they do to her? He could never stop them…

It was the same dilemma as when he'd first picked her up in the front yard outside. And the solution was exactly the same: she had to go back to Hagrid's. But he could not bring her this time. If she'd come all the way here, it meant she was both able to fly and to find her way. Could she return to the giant's shabby house by herself?

The raven brought her back to the window and tried to make her hop off his shoulder. He talked to her under his breath, explaining what he needed her to do, and promising he'd come and see her, not the other way around. But it had started to rain lightly outside, and the snowy owl would not deign to move a muscle. She stubbornly held onto his shoulder and looked at his with her high and mighty expression. She had lost all of her ugliness, and nothing but pure majesty remained.

The boy sighed. What could he do? He was lonely after all. And he could not leave the window open for too long, the air in his room was too cold already.

The boy-who-lived conceded, and the black raven and the specked snowy owl spent the night in each other's company, until both of them nodded off when dawn arrived.

A few hours later, both of them were brutally pulled from their slumber when another loud tap, from the door this time, announced it was morning. Harry quickly calmed Hedwig down before she could make too much noise to be noticed.

Aunt Petunia's sharp voice came through the door: "Kitchen in ten minutes."

It left just enough time for a grumbling Harry to urge Hedwig out through the window. His heart was pinched when he thought he recognized a look of hurt and resentment in her impressive eyes. But she opened her great wings and soared through the sky anyway, leaving Harry behind in the tiny world of number 4 Privet Drive.

Having his clothes from the previous day still on, he went straight to the bathroom (in case he got locked up again before he got the chance, he didn't trust himself not to burst out in anger) and then to the kitchen. There, he found only aunt Petunia sitting at the kitchen table, with what looked like a first –aid kit in front of her.

It was still early, and the world was entirely quiet. There was an awkard atmosphere around, like an armistice between eternal enemies. She nodded towards the chair in front of her and Harry sat down.

"Give me your hands." She said. Her face was expressionless, her voice was expressionless, but her eyes looked a little red and swollen. She looked like she'd had just as peaceful a night as her nephew.

Harry placed his two big and white-gloved hands on the table. She pursed her lips when she saw what he'd used to bandage himself, but did not utter a sound. Instead she unwrapped them slowly but firmly and began inspecting the damage.

The raven wondered how she'd known he was hurt. She had not been there. Had Vernon told her? And why did she bother helping him now? After ignoring him all this time, betraying him the day before…

"Stop squirming!" She snapped about halfway through the work. The disinfectant she was using stung horribly, and just seeing his skin and the splinters made the raven shiver and want to run away. But aunt Petunia worked quickly and expertly. She seemed to know what she was doing.

"Finished." She said as she fastened the bandage on his left hand and started cleaning up the table. "You can go to your room now. I will call when breakfast is ready."

"Uh…" Harry mumbled as he got up, not knowing why she seemed unusually kind (in comparison to before, she was indeed kind), if it would last, or what it meant. Did she feel guilty for what she had done? Did she recognize it as wrong? Or should he prepare for an even worse betrayal? Was she simply afraid to be judged by others in her behaviour?

"Thank you…that was…uh…quick." The raven could not find anything else to say. This single act of kindness did far from erase the deep hatred in his heart. It only pushed it to the background for now.

"I was a nurse before I married." Was aunt Petunia's cold and short answer. Then she turned her back to him and started to prepare an elaborate breakfast. There was nothing left for Harry to do than to go back upstairs and lay down, trying to get some rest. He was looking forward to the morning meal though. His stomach was doing to his insides what he had done to his bedroom door the day before.

At the dining table, an hour later, everything seemed practically back to normal. The same words were exchanged, the same expressions used. Dudley was fully himself again, eating anything within range. But aunt Petunia had made so much this time that even Dudley couldn't deprive Harry of as much food as his stomach could hold.

The raven wondered in silence whether Petunia had seen that all the sweets and crisps were missing from Dudley's cupboard. If she had, she had mentioned nothing about it. She had brought her own groceries with her when coming home, apparently.

The more important question Harry was asking himself, was whether all had been forgotten between his aunt and uncle. What exactly had happened, he still, and would probably never know. But appearances indicated that this family was perfectly normal, and that was all that mattered to the Dursleys.

There were minute differences however, in the way each family member treated the black sheep of the herd. Aunt Petunia kept on showing a more tolerant side, as she had done that morning. Dudley, had seemingly come to the conclusion that his younger cousin was actually the same species as he was, a human instead of an animal or lifeless toy to mess with. How that change had come about, was unclear.

And uncle Vernon…well, unfortunately the change here was rather negative than positive. All his annoyance and anger was turned to the boy. Worse even, it was supported by the two other Dursleys, even if they in themselves were slightly kinder to him.

Harry had effectively become the glue that was holding the pieces together. He was the outsider, which in contrast, united the others as insiders.

The boy felt all the unfairness of the situation, and for a while, had trouble suppressing the rising indignation. But he learned from his mistakes, and getting angry would only unite them even more against him. It would give Petunia an excuse not to be tolerant anymore (if it was in fact guilt that made her this way.)

It was becoming a complicated and twisted affair. The dynamics within a family of such opposing personalities and histories was, to say the least, difficult. Harry really didn't want to spend too much time in their presence, and swallowed everything he could as quickly as he could, so as to escape to the only place he liked in the house.

Later that day, Harry heard the doorbell ring from his bedroom. He listened attentively, for it was a welcome distraction from a monotonous afternoon. There were low, unrecognizable murmurs, footsteps to what sounded like the living room, and then Petunia's voice calling his name from the hallway.

Curiosity invaded his mind, and he stood up, but he was not so eager to go down the stairs. There was really only one family who knew where to find him. And since recent events, he was not so keen on meeting them. Well, it was actually just Draco he didn't want to see. Mrs. Malfoy was still a firm but merciful mother-figure to him, despite what her son might do.

Harry was not lucky today. In the living room he found the older and arrogant face of Draco Malfoy, but the pale and elegant one of Mrs. Malfoy was nowhere in sight. There was no chance of her being in the kitchen with aunt Petunia. Her manners would have kept her right in this room, keeping an eye on her son.

Draco looked very uncomfortable, and this made him look disdainful. Harry wondered if he'd looked like that to aunt Petunia. He recalled the murmurs, but couldn't decipher any rudeness or indignation from either side. It had not even been clear who was visiting.

It was just the two of them now, and the raven felt even more just how little he could call this place 'home'. If it had been, he could have claimed it as his territory, he would have felt confident faced with his enemy-then-friend-turned-enemy-again. Or was Draco more of a rival?

Harry was thus just as uncomfortable in this living room as he was in the Malfoy's living room. The sole advantage here seemed to be that Draco was also uncomfortable here. At least it evened out the odds. But the most important thing Harry gained at that moment, was a sense (it was not actually put into words) that his confidence could not flow from his surroundings, from his friends or family. If he wanted to be brave, he had to stand on his own, and trust only his own, so that he would be as strong on his feet in any place on earth, be it his or someone else's.

The raven lifted his chin, mirroring the show of pride Draco usually put on, which unsettled the latter; seeing a shadow of himself, without realising he recognized it. But he did recognize it somewhere within himself, and his liking for the raven-black-haired boy grew.

"Look, I don't know what happened exactly, but I had nothing to do with it." Draco said first, not daring to raise his voice to more than a whisper.

"Then how did Parkinson know?" Harry demanded in the same tone.

"I'm not sure." Harry raised a sceptic eyebrow. "She said it was the neighbours, all right!" Draco went on immediately. "I…I think everyone's talking about it."

The raven cocked his head to the side. There was that look again in the grey eyes. He'd seen it last from across the playground; a mix of pity…worry…and apology. Three things Harry never expected to see in the blonde. Is he aware of it? He wondered.

"My mum made me come." Draco admitted after a while, lowering his head as if he were ashamed of this fact. "She watched from the corner of the street to make sure I came in. I expect she's still there."

"Why?" Harry could not imagine why she'd go to such lengths.

But Draco would not answer. Instead he pouted slightly, and repeated "I didn't tell."

The raven was still standing, and glanced at the door. He'd actually thought it over in his room, and come to the conclusion that the information was more likely to have leaked through the Durlseys. They had made clear their opinions of the affair, and did not hesitate to let loose their critique upon Harry's parents. They used it as a defence, to make sure that no one blamed them for the improper behaviour and appearance of their nephew.

Apparently, rumours spread quickly, without any distinction between true and false ones. It was another lesson learned for the seven-year old.

The ten-year old on the other hand was getting annoyed at feeling awkward and powerless in someone else's home, and being seated while his 'inferior' was standing. He sprang to his feet, his head once more where it ought to be: towering above Harry's. It was only then that his eyes caught sight of the state of Harry's hands.

"What's this?" He asked, more curious than worried. Wounds were something to be proud of for a boy that age.

"Nothing." Harry shrugged, not willing to answer the question, and not willing to answer Draco in particular. He found he was still angry with the blond-head. The latter was Parkinson's friend after all, he was an enemy by association if nothing else.

At that moment, Petunia passed through the living room, coming to fetch some thing or other, and threw a stiff glance at the two boys as if to say "Are you still here?" She had not so much courtesy towards the boy as towards the mother.

Draco looked back at Harry, and saw unhappiness. He himself only wanted to get out of there, and so, once Petunia was out of the room again, he took the youngest one by the wrist. "Do you want to sneak out?" And nodded to the door, a smile playing around his lips.

Green-eyes knew that the Dursleys didn't much care whether he left or stayed, but he did not have the heart to tell his companion. There was this light in Draco's eyes, a spark of excitement at the idea of running away, that was infectious, and suddenly he just wanted to pretend that he was flying away, just like Hedwig had done a few hours before.

Harry left everything behind, and followed Draco out through the hallway, as they quietly opened, and then closed the front door behind them.


Hello again, everyone!

I was blown away by the reviews and messages I got in response to the question (or more like general wondering really). I got to know many different sides. And I actually felt bad for having written so little in comparison to what you wrote, because I thought I would bore you guys with my personal blah blah :)

Anyway, it does occur to me that everyone started reading Harry Potter while they were still young. Is it that only children can see how wonderful this is? Has anyone who came in touch with HP as an adult become as much of a fan as we did? Do you know anyone? Because I don't.

And yes, they are children's books, technically, and about the first few, I agree. But the last few books are much more than that! I think six and seven are much more mature than a load of adult books I have read!

Other than that, it looks like most of you read it in English from the start, except for a few from Germany, I believe. I wondered also, if anyone has read other translations, and if they were any good?

Because I read it in French first, and I think it was quite decent. They respected most of the names, though far from all, sadly. But once I glanced into a dutch copy, and it was absolutely horrible! I choked when I read how they translated some names. Sacrilege! My internal fanatic screamed out in outrage :p

For now I can only read those three languages, so I have no idea how other translations are, but I've sworn to myself I would try the Japanese version as soon as my reading level is good enough. I'm really curious for the Japanese Hari Poteru (or something like it...)

See you soon! Leave me some news :D