Harry smiled to himself a little bit as he felt the early morning breeze despite how cold he was and he flinched as he moved. He had fallen asleep on the fountain in the park after arriving in London the night before once he had escaped from the Dursleys, mesmerised by the sound of the running water. As he slowly woke up, letting his senses stretch around himself, Harry heard the sound of voices. They sounded like kids like himself.

"Spare some change, please?" The voice of a boy said.

"Sorry, no," the clear voice of a grown-up said.

"Thank you," the boy said a second later in a whisper that Harry could hear. And the sarcasm laced with smugness. Harry guessed the other boy had snatched their wallet. But he became even more alert through his half-open eyes he spotted the other boy walking towards him. "Hey, Mike, who's this?"

"Dunno, just found him there," the voice of another boy said, nearly making Harry jerk when he realised the second boy was only a few feet away and he hadn't even noticed.

"Looks like he's been through a war, look at that bruise on his face," a girl said. "He looks peaceful though."

Harry lifted his head and opened his eyes and looked around. When he had left the Dursleys the night before he had arrived in a fairly random part of London, and he had found this park and he had found the fountain which would be the place he would stay until daybreak, and when he had woken up he would spend the day exploring and making plans from there; he didn't know the city well enough to know exactly where he could go, and the Dursleys had never really brought him here unless they didn't have any choice. The Dursleys had never liked him knowing too much about the world, which went hand in hand with their belief he should never ask questions.

But he hadn't expected to meet some kids. He didn't know who they were, but as he woke up a little bit more he looked between them. There were three of them, two boys and one girl. All of them were his age, but the girl looked a little bit older although he wasn't sure by how much. Their clothes were well worn and looked battered, in that sense he wouldn't exactly look dissimilar from them despite how large his clothes were in comparison.

"Hullo," Harry greeted them cautiously; he had never really had good experiences with other kids mostly because of how Dudley would beat them up should they even look like they wanted to be his friends, but while he knew Dudley was miles away from here and these kids didn't know him, he was still careful. "Who are you?"

"What're you doing here?" The girl asked.

"Well, I was sleeping," Harry replied.

"Where's your family?" One of the boys - this one was the one who'd been asking for change and then uttered a sarcastic comeback after, but he was looking at Harry curiously with probing eyes.

"I haven't got one. My parents were killed in a car crash and I was raised by my aunt and uncle. Who do you think did this to my face?" Harry said shortly, his tense shoulders making it clear he was not interested in talking about it.

The girl snorted. At first, Harry assumed she hadn't believed him, but just as he was opening his mouth to utter a really cruel remark that would hopefully cut her down to size, the girl folded her arms. "I ran away from my parents. They were bastards. They treated me like shit until I was learning how to steal and then I just walked away from them."

Harry frowned. He had never really met any more children who'd been abused by their parents, so meeting this girl was a bit of a surprise. While a part of him was morbidly comforted by the revelation there were other children like him, he was unsure of how to react. Harry was about to say something, but just before he could, one of the boys who was looking away called out, "COP!"

The result was dramatic. The other two kids turned in the direction their friend had been looking in, and they ran in the opposite direction. Harry had also followed their gaze and spotted a police officer running towards them. Harry didn't know what would happen if the police officer caught him personally, he didn't know if someone other than the Dursleys would call the police and tell them that he'd run away.

That made him run after the gang.

They had a good head start, and he quickly ran after them, relying on his speed to catch up. As he did he slowly pushed his power into making him go faster so he caught up with the gang quickly enough. They turned down numerous side roads and down back alleys as they raced to avoid being caught by the police officer. The trio were fast on their own, they'd likely been chased by others like this police officer in the past and they knew to run whenever they needed to. Glancing over his shoulder a few times, Harry realised that the police officer was losing ground before he turned his attention back to the kids he was with. He quickly noticed all three of them were racing through the back roads and alleys of this part of the city to lose the police, but where they planned to eventually go, Harry couldn't say.

Finally, the kids raced down a corner…only to duck through an open panel in a wall. Harry knew if he hadn't pushed some of his power into running, then he would have lost them and would have likely run on and on, or he would likely have been caught. But he had no intention of leaving these kids. He hadn't planned on joining anyone when he got into London, but now he'd met them, he believed it would be stupid to throw away the only chance he had of learning how to live out here.

As he ducked through the panel, thanking his lucky stars he was small and light on his feet enough to effortlessly fit through the gap in the wall, Harry took a second to study the place the kids were rushing to. They were running into a partially demolished building that looked like the builders had begun the work before putting their tools down and decided they couldn't bother with the rest of it.

Harry raced after them, going down a stairway as a rabbit went down its hole into a warren. He merely chased the girl up another flight of stairs, which were in the open air and he then followed her across a rooftop and she gracefully jumped through an open window. Harry followed her.

"Too bad about that kid," one of the boys said before Harry landed on top of several mattresses that were left to cushion the fall.

"Look behind you," the more insightful boy said.

"How did you find us?"

"I chased after you. I am staying with you," Harry declared, before he softened his voice, "Look, I've just escaped my relatives. I don't have anyone. I don't know London. I just ran as far and as fast as I could so then I could get away from them. I'll leave if you want, but give me a chance."

The girl looked at him seriously. "We're not going to send you away. My name's Sandra, this is Mike," she introduced the boy who'd been in the fountain, "this is Kevin."

"Harry Potter," Harry introduced himself, relaxing slightly as he realised he was being welcomed. "So, are you normally chased like that?"

"All the time. That police officer in particular knows us too well. He's chased us more than once," the boy Kevin said, relaxing as he realised Harry was a member of their gang now. "Dunno how he's not realised where we live."

Harry briefly looked around the room they were in. The place had a few old mattresses lying around, covered with old blankets and pillows, and was clearly where the gang slept. The room was fairly clean but there were old wrappers and pizza boxes among other things. "Could be because you're too quick for him," he said, still looking around the room.

"Do you have any more bruises on yourself?" Sandra asked him.

Harry turned back to face her, biting his lip guardedly. He had learnt the hard way not to talk about his abuse. Nothing he'd ever said to anyone in Little Whinging had worked. The Dursleys had beaten and mentally abused him but they had been extremely careful about how far they took it although Vernon had pushed the limits once or twice.

But the most damaging things they'd done had been when they had told the neighbourhood and Little Whinging those stories about him being a troublemaker. After that, he stopped even trying.

Why should he even bother speaking to anybody if they refused to listen to him? Why should he even go to them for help when the Dursleys were such pillars of the community? It hadn't helped one bit that Vernon Dursley was the managing director of Grunnings, a company which employed a lot of people in Little Whinging, so that meant his word carried a great deal of weight.

And his word was Harry Potter, his nephew, was persona non grata.

It had made Harry extremely guarded and even wary of trusting anyone in Little Whinging until he had realised nobody was going to hear him and so he had no regrets about walking away. Now he no longer cared one little bit if the whole town became a smoking crater in the ground.

But these were kids like himself, although he wasn't sure if Sandra was the only one who'd run away from her parents since both Mike and Kevin had been able to guard their faces, so it was possible. Harry had a lifetime of not trusting anyone, so he was having a hard time opening up to anyone, even someone like himself.

Fortunately, Sandra didn't seem bothered he was guarded. She just regarded it as proof. After that, he was accepted into the gang, and as the day wore on and the group chatted and were more than happy to include Harry in their chat, he noticed that all of them treated him as one of them. For him, it was an eye-opener.

Xxxx

It's impossible to keep track of the adventures Harry had with Sandra, Kevin and Mike, doing so would fill too many books. While Harry was with the gang, he learnt many things. As the eldest, Sandra taught him about the gang's connections. They sometimes stole things bigger than wallets, and they regularly fenced them. Sandra taught Harry how to track down and make use of criminal gangs and thanks to her, he quickly learnt of some of the criminals in the city.

The gang were pickpockets. It wasn't long before Harry began to be taught everything. And he quickly learnt his lessons. They found Harry was very smart. While his abused body had suffered greatly even if he had tried his best to steal food, Harry made up for it by being small and quick for his age. It wasn't long before he was laughing with the rest of the gang like they'd known him for years and years.