I'll just say it one more time for good measure since someone brought it up again. This is not a slash. Daryl and Harry are not going to fuck each other. Harry is fourteen in this story. No no no.

Also, if you have Twitter, you can find me at alexes_writing. You can also angrily Tweet at me when I haven't updated in forever.

Wormtail stood in the shadow of the Riddle House, cradling his master in his arms. The scaly babylike creature he currently served wriggled within the bundle of robes. He was restless, ready for the ritual to begin.

"Everything is ready?" the creature hissed.

"Yes, my Lord."

"When?"

"Any moment, my Lord. Any moment." Wormtail averted his eyes from the bundle in his arms, preferring to look at anything else but those scales and red-black flesh.

Wormtail checked the time with his wand. Crouch said he had the portkey set up. He said he would ensure the Potter boy got to it first. The boy-who-lived should have already arrived. Wormtail shifted his weight, the bundle in his arms growing heavier by the minute.

"Where is the boy?"

"I don't know, my Lord. H-He should have arrived by now." Wormtail fidgeted. If something went wrong tonight, he was sure he would be the one punished.

A loud pop resounded through the quiet cemetery, and he jerked his head toward the sound. A figure strolled toward him, his scarred face and whizzing magical eye becoming visible as he hobbled forward – the spitting image of the auror Mad-Eye Moody.

"Bartemius?" Wormtail asked.

"If I wasn't, you'd already be dead, vermin." Bartemius leered at Wormtail.

"Where is Harry Potter?" the creature asked. Bartemius suddenly looked pale, ashen.

"I came to tell you th-there must have been some mistake, my Lord. I have—I have never made a portkey before. I will find him for y-"

"Crucio," the master said. Wormtail flinched as the false Mad-Eye Moody's wooden leg slipped out from under him. He fell on the ground, writhing in pain.

When it was over, he crawled to his feet, wavering a bit. "Thank you, my Lord. Your punishment was just and deserved."

"Find the boy and bring him to me," the bundle hissed.

"Yes, my Lord." Bartemius bowed. "It will be an honor."

"If you fail me again, I will feed you to Nagini."

Bartemius paled once more, his features starting to shift back into his own, which only heightened the look of fear on his face.
"I will not."

Another pop resounded through the air, a magical eye and wooden leg left behind on the ground.

Thousands of miles away, Harry Potter sat up in the RV, sweat running across his skin. His fingers found his scar, burning through his skull.

So this had never been the plan. Harry was supposed to have been a part of some ritual, and someone named Bar—the name on the marauder's map. Barty Crouch's son. Harry gripped his skull tighter. Barty Crouch Jr. wasn't dead. He'd been masquerading as Moody, maybe even all year. He botched the portkey spell, and somehow Harry and Cedric had been thrown here instead of wherever Voldemort was.

His first reaction was that he had to tell Dumbledore everything, but he had no idea how to do that. If there was a Ministry of Magic in America, maybe they would have detected his underage spells. Or would they be tracking him at all since he wasn't American? Were they too busy fleeing the walking dead to care about keeping magic a secret?

Maybe if he had an owl, it could somehow get to Dumbledore. He put his head down on the table, the cool linoleum top soothing his scar a bit. He tried to think. What would Hermione do? If he could apparate, maybe he could get home. But he didn't know if there were distance limits on apparition, and he couldn't do it anyhow.

A broom. He had summoned his from the castle before, but he doubted he could summon one across the ocean. The linoleum under his forehead grew warm, and he shifted his face to a cooler spot, the pain in his scar steadily fading.

"'Mione, I could use you right about now," he whispered to the tabletop. He drifted back to sleep trying to think of a way out of this mess.

The first movements of the day in the RV woke him up. He sat up slowly, rolling his neck which was sore from sleeping with his head down on the table. The first thing he realized was that he felt dirty. His robes were stiff, probably with Cedric's dried blood.

"There'll be breakfast outside by the fire," Dale said, and Harry nodded, the information barely registering even as he stood up and made his way to the door.

Down by the fire, he peeled off his robes, grateful that he had never felt fully comfortable going without muggle clothes underneath them. He threw them into the fire and watched them burn. No one said anything.

"Here." A woman with short hair put a plate of beans into his hands. Before the last task in the tournament, Harry had barely eaten at all due to nerves. Now, the tournament and his last meal seemed like years ago. His stomach growled, and he started shoveling beans into his mouth with his fingers before the woman could even hand him a spoon. When he finished the last bite, he looked up at her. She stared at him for a moment with something akin to pity, and then she took the plate from his hands and turned away.

"You can sit if you want," Andrea said, pointing at one of the coolers near the fire. He didn't know what else to do, so he did. He watched the people go about their routines. They cleaned up after breakfast, hung clothes out to dry. How long had they been living like this? How long would he have to? A vision of last night came back to him, of Cedric's eyes glazed over, of his organs falling from his gaping belly. Harry closed his eyes and willed that away, trying to think of happy thoughts. But those hands reaching for him wouldn't go away. Neither would the thought of watching Cedric's face go blank after that flash of green light.

"Morning guys," Rick said. "Let's get going. We've got a lot of ground to cover." Rick glanced at Harry as he walked through the middle of camp. A group of people including Andrea and Daryl gathered around an old car with a map spread over its hood. It took Harry a minute to remember them talking about a lost girl, to realize they were planning a search. Harry tried to imagine what it was like to be a child in a world like this. A child without any means of defense. At least he had his wand. At least he could use magic in a pinch. She was just out there, alone and defenseless and trying not to be dinner. He stood up.

"I'm gonna borrow a horse. Head up to this ridge right here." Daryl pointed out something on the map. "Get a bird's eye view of this whole grid. If she's out there, I'll spot her."

"I'd like to help."

Every head turned in his direction. Every face said, "you've got to be kidding."

"No offense, Scarface, but your a kid with no weapon and up until last night, if we're sposed to believe what you said, you didn't even know Walkers existed. You're lucky you ain't dead right now."

"I can defend myself."

"Yeah, with what? Left your trophy back in the woods." Daryl chewed on his lip, looking Harry over.

"I just can." Harry could feel his wand in his sock, pressing against his leg. He knew fire worked if he got into that situation. And in the daylight, he'd be able to see them coming. Harry was a fast runner, and these things seemed slow, even slower with an impediment jinx.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Rick said. "Daryl's right. You don't have a weapon and you don't know enough about the Walkers."

"Look," Harry said. "I'm sitting over there and all I keep thinking about over and over is how my friend died last night, how he was dead and then he wasn't, and how I had to kill him because something ripped him open and everything inside of him was falling out, and it was the only thing I could do for him. And there's a little girl out there who can defend herself even less than I could, probably more afraid than I was. And I want to stop thinking about last night and help find her."

"Something we used to tell people," Rick started, glancing at Shane, "sometimes helping does more harm than good, especially when you aren't qualified."

"Smartest thing you've said in a while," Shane said, leaning against the car.

"I'll take him," Andrea said. "He wants to help."

Rick sighed, but nodded. There was a little more discussion. Andrea agreed to take another person who really probably shouldn't be out there. And then they set off into the woods, marking the trees with torn cloth so that the other search groups would know their territory.

But there were no Walkers. And no little girls. And when they made it back to camp, Harry felt even worse. He locked himself in the bathroom of the RV for a bit. He briefly wondered if the memories you put into a pensieve were merely copies of memories, or if you had to view them again to remember what you remembered. Maybe someday he could siphon the memory of killing Cedric away, put it into a bowl, and forget about it. Somehow, he doubted it worked that way. He put his head into his hands.

"Walker!" Andrea yelled from outside, her voice muffled. Harry flinched in the bathroom and then opened up the bathroom door. He nearly collided with Rick at the RV entrance when the man reached in to grab his gun. Outside, a few people had weapons, headed for the lumbering figure approaching from the woods. Harry watched.

Andrea lay down on the roof of the RV to steady her rifle.

"Andrea, don't," Dale said.

Harry had the feeling something was wrong. If nothing else, she shouldn't be shooting when there were a group of live people approaching her target.

"I don't think you should-" he started, but Andrea cut him off.

"Back off, both of you." She pressed the scope against her eye. Harry started walking out into the field before she even pulled the trigger. The gun shot echoed off the trees, reverberating through the fields and the camp. Harry stopped for a moment as the figure Andrea had spotted fell.

And then Rick started screaming.