A/N: As always, many thanks and lots of love to Sadsnail who betaed this fic. You're a great friend and have been amazing support for me in these hard times, even with the oceans between us.
You can follow her kidfics and more (and me under the same name) on ao3.
The creature wakes up in a wet darkness, his whole body aching with hunger, and fights his way up to it through the tangle of limbs. The others gurgle and snap their teeth at him half-heartedly but make no move to stop him—their own kind is of no interest to them.
A faint green light comes from an island in the middle of a lake, and the creature instinctively turns and swims in the opposite direction. Although he can't quite feel anything other than the boundless hunger, there is an echo of fear and anger he might have felt from before. Before what, the creature doesn't know.
He drags his feet along the shore, slowly but with a single-minded purpose. Eventually, his sensitive ears pick up a distant sound of running water in the cavernous space, and he works his way towards it, pushing aside boulders and rubble. He passes through underwater passages and a smaller cave system before reaching a rocky beach.
Outside, the light almost makes him retreat. Everything is shades of grey, but the world is so much brighter than the pitch black where he slumbered for so long. The creature lets out a moan as his eyes painfully adjust.
The smells are so much more intense, too, assaulting him from every direction. The salt of the water in the air, a dead seagull, the artificial stink of a metal contraption on the road and—there it is—the smell of prey.
He follows it to a group of humans. The smallest is a splash of colour in the sea of grey, and he instinctively zeroes in on it. The biggest has its hands on its throat, yelling something the creature cannot comprehend even if he wanted to. He doesn't, not particularly. Another stays silent to the side, its young tucked behind it. The scene stirs something in the tiny part of the creature's mind not filled with hunger, but he doesn't dwell on it. Whatever he has been before the lake doesn't matter now.
Noiselessly, he creeps up to them and lunges at his prey from behind, instinct urging him towards the one who would provide the most sustenance. It lets go of the younger human and tries to fight him off, but it's no match for his strength. The struggle is over soon. The other humans scream, but he pays them no mind. He snaps the prey's neck and lets it fall, bashing its head for good measure to make its skull crack.
Finally, he feeds.
The matter explodes in his mouth, sending shocks of pleasure through his body, and he scoops it with both hands from the inside of the skull to shove into his mouth. He is greedy for more, more, more. Coarse hair gets in the way, and he rips the scalp off, impatient.
As he satiates his hunger, he looks at the small human in front of him. It's a boy—the creature remembers the difference now—and he's staring silently with wide eyes. It's a nice shade of green, not at all like the predatory green of the island. The creature reaches out to him, but the child spooks, leaping to his feet, and an unseen force grips the creature and flings him backwards, face-first into the water. Distantly, he hears the pebbles crunch as the boy runs away.
Aunt Petunia always said that he was destined to meet an ugly end. This was probably not exactly what she had in mind, Harry thought hysterically, watching a zombie gobble down his uncle's brain.
He had seen The Evil Dead on a VHS Dudley had smuggled from Pierce's house just before the summer holidays, a rare moment of tentative truce between him and his cousin. Aunt Petunia had busted them halfway through; unlike Pierce's parents, she did not think that a film with this much gore—and freakish unnaturalness—was suited for nine-year-olds. Dudley had blamed the whole thing on him, of course. If the movie had any practical zombie-killing tips to offer, Harry had never learned them.
This zombie looked much more human. A young man, almost normal if not for his unnaturally pale, corpse-like skin—and general flesh-eating behaviour. He was wearing some sort of a robe, soaking wet, and the water from his black hair dripped on Uncle Vernon's mangled head. His fingers, stained red, shoved greyish parts into his bloody maw. Harry watched them detachedly, as if this, too, was just an image on the screen.
The zombie looked up, dead eyes meeting Harry's. He raised his hand in a gesture that was all too familiar from the movie, and Harry was at once free of whatever spell that kept him still.
"Stay away," he shouted, panicked.
A strong gust of wind, much like the one that once transported him to the school roof, rushed past him and threw the zombie into the water. Whatever weirdness usually happened around Harry, landing him in trouble, he was very grateful for it now.
Without wasting any more time, he turned around and ran to the road, grabbing Aunt Petunia's beach bag. Had Dudley and Aunt Petunia hidden in the car?
Apparently, they had. As he ran, he saw the car speeding towards the town, tires screeching.
"Wait! Aunt Petunia! Dudley! Don't leave me here!"
The car swerved away.
His mind came to a screeching halt, even as his feet kept moving. Had his aunt seriously left him for dead with a murderous zombie?
Over his shoulder, Harry saw the zombie get out of the water already. No time to waste on freaking out. He could have a crisis about his so-called family after he got away from this beach, and fast. There was one thing he had a lot of experience with, and it was running away from people who wanted to hurt him.
He desperately wished for some cover, or at least a tree to climb. Could zombies climb trees? Not that it mattered now. Not even one measly bush around. Only cliffs and patches of yellowy grass, with the faint outline of the buildings in the distance. Uncle Vernon hadn't wanted them to stay near the town and share the sea with the 'effing tourists and ruddy Geordies', so he had driven up and down the coast for an hour to find this deserted corner of rocks and nightmare monsters.
Behind him, the zombie ambled towards the town as well, at a much slower pace. Harry finally lost sight of him as he reached the first two-storey house. Out of breath, he leaned against the pale bricks.
"Oi! Kid!" an older man shouted from the window. "Where did you get that bag?"
Harry looked at the beach bag as if seeing it for the first time.
"It's my Aunt's," he heard himself say.
"So go find her and quit loitering here!" the man said, eyeing Harry's fraying trainers and oversized T-shirt with distrust.
On autopilot, Harry obeyed, walking down the streets of the coastal town. For the life of him, he couldn't remember its name, even though Aunt Petunia must have said it a hundred times in the week before the trip.
Should he have said something about the zombie? Asked to call the police? There was no way this man would have believed him. He already thought Harry was up to no good, as many others had before.
The town was bustling around him, shops opening late and people going about their business. No one else looked at Harry twice, and he didn't try to get their attention either. In a back alley behind a closed pub, he squeezed himself into a narrow space between a wall and a fishy-smelling dumpster. His hands shook as he hugged his knees to his chest.
To think of it, he had actually been excited about this trip. Mrs Figgs broke her leg, and Aunt Marge had a dog show, so the Dursleys reluctantly took Harry with them, staving off Dudley's tantrum by promising that his upcoming birthday would be decidedly Harry-free. Aunt Petunia woke Harry up at dawn, and together they made sandwiches for the road. Even Vernon's road rage hadn't been able to dampen Harry's cheerful mood as he ignored Dudley's kicks and watched the sea from the window of the car for the first time in his life.
And then things went to hell, as they were wont to do in his life. A seagull stole Uncle Vernon's sandwich right from his hands, and, naturally, he blamed Harry. Harry mouthed back before he could stop himself, and the next moment Vernon was attempting to throttle him. He was usually able to avoid his uncle's meaty fists, but there was nowhere to run or hide in the open space of the beach.
Gingerly, Harry touched his neck. This was surely going to bruise. Funny how the only time someone intervened was a zombie attack.
He thought about the relief he had felt when the zombie had dragged Uncle Vernon away from him. It was still there, if he was honest with himself, underneath the horror. Uncle Vernon was never going to lay a hand on him again, or call him a freak and his parents worthless layabouts. Did feeling like that make Harry a terrible person, like the Dursleys always claimed? It probably did.
A big black dog trotted past and stopped, barking.
Harry quietly crept forward and peeked from behind the dumpster.
The zombie was there, his damp robe sweeping the pavement. A brownish stain covered the front, contrasting with the dark green of the fabric, but his face looked mostly clean after the dive into the water. His wet hair hung limply past his ears, and his eyes, somehow less dead but still vacant, were focused on the stray.
With a low keening sound, the zombie reached for it. The dog barked again and drew back. The zombie pulled a stick out of his robe pocket and fiddled with it with a confused expression on his face. After some internal thought process, he threw the stick to the dog, a clumsy gesture that made his previous ruthless efficiency hard to believe.
The stick landed right next to Harry's hiding place. The dog looked at it in disdain and wandered away without a second look. The zombie watched it go mournfully.
Once the dog disappeared behind the corner, his eyes refocused on Harry. Harry inhaled sharply, his heart in his throat. Should he make a break for it right then?
He snatched the stick off the ground, although it was too thin to be of any use, with carvings of snake-like vines along the thicker end. Oddly, it was warm to touch and gave off a strange, almost humming feeling. Harry gripped it harder, trying to push back his panic.
The zombie took a few steps forward, and Harry raised the stick in what must have been the least threatening stance ever. What was he going to do? Push the stick up the zombie's nostril?
"Go away!" he said with more bravado than he felt.
Predictably, he didn't get a response.
A blinding flash of light interrupted their stand-off, and thunderous noise assaulted Harry's ears. He pressed his back against the dumpster, disoriented, as a purple triple-decker bus appeared out of nowhere, coming to a halt, its enormous wheels almost as big as him.
The door opened, revealing a pimply older teenager in an eye-watering purple and gold uniform.
"Welcome to the Knight Bus, the best magical transport for a stranded witch or wizard! My name is Stan Shunpike, and I'm your conductor today!"
"Um, hello," Harry said, processing the 'witch or wizard' comment and whether it meant it was him or Stan who finally lost it. Probably him, because he was actually considering boarding the thing.
"Nice place you found yourself in," Stan said with a snicker, gesturing at the dumpster.
Hurry felt his cheeks flush red.
Before he could answer, his zombie, evidently put off by being ignored for too long, pushed himself past Stan and boarded the bus. What even—No. No way. Harry watched his back with wide eyes for a moment, panic swelling in his chest again. He wanted nothing more than to turn and run away, making the zombie other people's problem. But he couldn't do it, could he? Stan's uniform might be a crime, but he didn't deserve to die for it.
Stan who was looking at the zombie's robe with a mildly miffed expression.
"Drying service is an extra twenty knuts," Stan said, pursing his lips.
Really? That was his biggest concern? He was so getting eaten first. Besides, Harry had no idea what a 'knut' was.
"Where to?" Stan asked as he climbed into the bus with a sigh, the stick still clutched firmly in his hand.
A good question. He wasn't about to get back to the Privet Drive, that was for sure.
"London," he said after a moment of hesitation.
"Eleven sickles."
He didn't know what a sickle was either, but it sounded like money.
"I only have pounds."
"Twelve pounds for you and twelve fifty for your brother, then. Next time bring proper coins, mate," Stan admonished. The mundanity of the exchange felt ridiculous in the face of an impending zombie busapocalypse.
Harry bit down a hysterical laugh. His 'brother' managed to find himself a window seat in the second row and was now staring emptily at the paisley back of the chair in front of him. He didn't look about to jump other passengers just yet, and Harry hesitantly sat next to him, putting as much distance between them as he could. Every fibre of his body tense as he expected the zombie to pounce any minute now, he rummaged through Aunt Petunia's beach bag to get her purse. She'd kill him for taking her money, and then revive and kill him again for using it to pay for a magical bus, but Harry found that he didn't care anymore. Riding a bus next to an actual murderer would do that to a person.
Unlike the local, Stan didn't bat an eye at the woman's bag. But then another passenger across the aisle was wearing a long gown similar to the zombie's robe and had a tank with a live snake next to him, so maybe Stan was used to the strangeness.
The engines revved, and with a sickening lurch that pushed Harry into the chair, the bus blasted off. Outside the window, the view was a blur.
Stan whooped with joy at his stunned expression.
"There's nothing like first time on the Knight Bus, eh?"
Harry did a double-take when a hood-like contraption that looked like an oversized old-timey hair dryer from Aunt Petunia's black and white films floated, unsuspended, from the depths of the bus and hovered over the zombie's head. It gave a series of abortive whirrs and clicks, and Stan reached over Harry's head to give it a poke with his own stick with a put-upon sigh. The sounds got much smoother after that.
"I'm technically not allowed to use magic for another four months, so it'll be our secret." Stan gave him a wink.
A blast of warm air rushed from the dryer, raising the hair on the zombie's head and blowing up his robe like a sail. Harry's knuckles on the armrest were white in anticipation of the reaction, but there was none. The zombie kept staring straight ahead.
In less than a minute, the zombie was completely dry. His black hair was sticking in every direction, curling at the nape. He couldn't be older than twenty. Like that, Harry could almost see how they would be mistaken for brothers.
The dryer flew away, and Harry let out the breath he had been holding.
Stan dubiously eyed the blood stains, now even more pronounced, and seemed to take in the empty eyes and the unhealthy greyish tint to its skin. His face showed concern for the first time.
"You're taking him to St Mungo's, right?" he asked.
"Maybe?" Once again, Harry had zero idea what he was talking about and tried his best not to show it.
Some hesitation must have seeped through, because Stan lowered his head to Harry's ear conspiratorially.
"If you don't want to go to St Mungo's, there's a clinic in Hogsmeade. Healer Tonks is very discreet, if you know what I mean. What'd ya say? Fare's the same."
Harry bit his lips. It would be nice to make the zombie somebody else's problem. The fact that magic was real was staring him in the face like a giant flying hairdryer, so maybe this healer would know how to handle the brain-eating undead.
"Yeah, okay," he said finally.
"Okey-dokey, erm—" Stan looked at him expectantly.
"Dudley," Harry said the first name that came to mind.
"Hogsmeade it is then, Dudley."
"Swansea in a minute!" the driver called out. "Go get Mr Prince, Stan!"
"Fine, fine! I hear ya, Ernie!" Stan said before disappearing up a steep twisted staircase.
Harry looked out of the window again and was surprised to see that while they were still driving along the sea, the landscape looked completely different. The dramatic cliffs were nowhere to be seen, and instead of the bright sunshine, the sky was now gloomy and overcast.
Wait a minute—wasn't Swansea in Wales?
Stan came back downstairs, followed by an ancient man in a throne-like chair on four lion's paw feet that walked by themselves.
"Blasted can!" the man swore as the bus veered, making the chair stumble and right itself. "In my days we had a proper thestral-drawn coach, swift and sleek and dark as the night!"
"And when was that, in the times of the Founders?" Stan muttered.
"What's that, boy?" the man glared over his beak-like nose. "It's my legs that are useless, not my ears."
"Nothing, Mr Prince."
The bus hit the curb and stopped, inches from a tree, and Stan opened the door to let the man out.
"And the valet was a good chap, courteous and respectful. Knew his place."
"Goodbye, Mr Prince."
The driver slammed on the gas again.
"Abergavenny next!"
Harry could have sworn that the tree outside just leapt backwards a foot.
Surreptitiously, he looked over to the other passengers. A woman in a stereotypical witch hat, complete with a pointy tip and a buckle, had a deathly grip on her basket of flowers, looking rather green. The snake-owner across the aisle was reading a newspaper now. The photo of a man in a green top hat on the first page waved—literally waved—at him.
'CORNELIUS FUDGE ELECTED NEW MINISTER FOR MAGIC,' the headline read.
"Psst," said a muffled voice.
Harry startled, looking over at Stan, but the teen was in conversation with the driver, feet on the dashboard.
"Stupid two-leggers," said the voice again.
Harry looked back at the man, but he was still engrossed in his paper. At his feet, the snake stared at Harry through the glass wall of its tank. Its head, sporting a large blue horn, rose slightly from the massive black coils of its body.
"What are you staring at?"
The snake's tongue darted forward, and Harry realised that, incongruously, it was the one speaking right now. The man did not react outwardly, turning the page as if he didn't hear anything.
For some reason, this was the tipping point. Harry was willing to go along with murderous zombies and magical buses, but the talking snake was just too much. A wet laugh escaped his lips, and then another, and another.
"You okay there, lads?" Ernie asked from his driver's seat.
"We're fine," Harry wheezed, trying to pull himself together.
Uncle Vernon had his brain eaten, Aunt Petunia abandoned him to die, and now he and his uncle's murderer were sitting on a magic bus with a magic snake and a magic hairdryer on their way to who knows where. They were fine. Absolutely peachy.
After a few more stops all over the country to pick up and drop off a mix of seemingly normal people and colourful characters, including a blond father-daughter duo in matching yellow robes with wreathes on their heads. The father gave Harry and his zombie a once-over that was way too perceptive for Harry's liking, but then turned to Stan to talk his ear off about sightings of something called a Crumple-Horned Snorkack. Stan rolled his eyes behind his back none-too-discreetly and made a face at Harry but took a complimentary magazine nonetheless.
All too soon and not soon enough, the bus skidded to a halt on the outskirts of a picturesque village in a valley with a castle looming in the distance, like something out of a postcard. The houses were all stone, with steely-pitched roofs, and had an air of history around them. The place looked as unlike Privet Drive as possible, and Harry liked it even more for it.
He got up and looked over at his zombie, hesitant.
"Come on, you big lug," he hissed.
After some deliberation, he yanked at the zombie's sleeve and immediately stepped back, putting a row of chairs between them.
Thankfully, the zombie seemed to get the right idea and followed.
"Just go to that house with the phoenix windvane over there," Stan said as Harry jumped off the steps of the bus. "I'm sure Healer Tonks can sort out whatever it is wrong with your brother. I mean, she finally cured the rash on Ernie's—"
There was a muffed thud, and he cut himself off.
"Right," Harry said. "Thanks, Stan."
He turned in the direction of the clinic as the Knight Bus disappeared in another eruption of light and noise. At his side, his zombie was looking at the castle the same way he had at the dog—with a confused almost-recognition bubbling under the vacant surface.
"Watch out!"
Harry spun back just in time to avoid a flash of green light. It sizzled past him, making the hairs stand up on his neck, and hit a lamp post with a clang. He stared at the deep indenture in the cast iron, feet rooted to the spot.
"Harry Potter," the man from the bus hissed, brandishing a stick similar to the one Harry had in Aunt Petunia's bag right now. His eyes were filled with pure hatred.
The glass tank hovered next to him, the snake inside swaying in agitation.
"You're mistaking me for someone else," Harry said loudly. "My name is Dudley." He scanned the street for an opening to slip away, but it was wide and empty, buildings huddled close together on each side.
"Don't lie to me, boy. I can see that scar clear as day."
Harry's hand automatically darted to smooth his fringe over his scar. "What do you want from me?"
"I worked so hard to get in my Lord's favour, only to have him killed by some brat in his nappies! My blood is no less pure than Malfoy's, but I had to kiss his pasty arse to stay out of Azkaban!" the man ranted, looking more and more unhinged.
"Still don't see what any of that has got to do with me." Before today, Harry had never even left Surrey except to visit Aunt Marge. He certainly didn't know any Malfoys or Lords—was it a religion thing?
"You don't s—You cost me everything. Everything!" Droplets of spit flew from the man's mouth. "And for that, you'll pay!"
Whoa.
Harry took a trembling step back, eyeing the stick trained on him warily. This was Ripper's level of unhinged aggression, and you didn't reason with Ripper. You found the nearest tree to climb.
"And the Black brat." The man looked over at the zombie who bared his teeth in response. "Thought you were dead already. I suppose it's easy to slip through the cracks if you're loaded and don't have to make ends meet on a Ministry job with Mudbloods and Halfbreeds. Do you have anything to say for yourself, traitor?" He didn't seem to be interested in an answer. "What's wrong with y—No matter. Avada—"
The zombie—Black?—lunged, cutting off the rant. The fight that followed was swift but brutal. The man fired a few spells, including another green one, but they did little against the zombie. In mere minutes, Harry's would-be assailant fell to the ground, his neck snapped.
The snake tank cluttered down a few feet to the side, unbroken, as Harry was preparing to dash.
"Don't leave me here!" the snake called.
Harry ran to it, avoiding the sight of the zombie cracking the madman's head open like the chocolate egg Dudley would get for Easter.
"Don't bite me," Harry said, prying the lid open.
The snake pushed up and wound against Harry's hand before he could blink.
A woman screamed from a window above him, loud and shrill.
"Why are you still here, useless human?" the snake asked. "Flee!"
Harry fled.
The snake slithered onto his shoulders without warning, but Harry hardly noticed. Past the overgrown shrubs and thorny bushes, he weaved away from the village proper and towards a dilapidated shack on the edge of a dark forest. Its windows were boarded up, and the door stayed firmly shut when he tried it.
"Use magic," the snake urged.
"I don't know how! I'm not a wizard—I'm just Harry!"
"The Executioner seemed to think you're plenty important."
"He was also a psychotic crackpot," Harry said. The Executioner, what a nice character. Wizards and magic seemed more dangerous than he'd imagined when watching Saturday morning cartoons.
He pushed the gory image of the creep's death away and reached into the bag to get the stick. Maybe he did have some powers after all, he thought, remembering the way the zombie was thrown into the water. Concentrating on that memory, he pointed the stick at the door.
"Open!" he ordered with more confidence than he felt.
The door stayed closed.
"Open sesame?" he tried.
Nothing.
In his peripheral vision, he noticed a robed figure ambling in his direction. Again? At least he didn't have time to eat anyone else. Probably.
Desperately, Harry pushed his forehead against the door and begged, "Please. Please open."
The stick thrummed like a live wire, and the door creaked open.
Inside, the shack was thoroughly thrashed. There was no piece of furniture that wasn't broken or overturned. Wallpapers, peeling and fading, had claw marks all over them; the shabby chairs were ripped, their stuffing sticking out from the seats. One was missing a leg. A deep crack ran through the mantelpiece of a fireplace so large it would fit a person inside. Harry shuddered. Who or what could have left it? If not for the thick layer of dust everywhere, he would consider looking for a different hiding place after all. But whatever had raged here, they had left long ago.
Harry rested for a moment as he looked around and bolted the door. That didn't seem enough, so he decided to push a cupboard with one of its doors falling off its hinges to block it. It was a much harder task than he expected. He strained with effort, the rough wood scratching his palms.
"Careful here!" the snake grumbled at another shove, slipping off him and onto the cupboard.
"Are there a lot of talking snakes like you?" he asked.
"All snakes can talk, it's just humans usually can't speak our language."
"Is it a magic thing? Sounds like English to me."
"Perhaps. I'd say most two-leggers are simply too stupid to understand us."
"If you say so. What's your name?" He gave the cupboard another push.
"She Who Slithers In The Dark. I'm a horned serpent." She preened—as much as a snake could preen— showing off the white horn on her head that contrasted sharply with her sleek black scales.
"I never heard of your kind before."
"No offence, but you don't seem like a particularly aware kind of wizard to me."
"I didn't know I had magic powers before today." A final shove, and the cupboard slid into place, barricading the door. "Why did you help me there on the street? Wasn't that man that tried to kill me your owner?"
Slithers hissed and coiled tighter on herself. "Of course not. I lived in a potions lab before the Ministry busted it. That man was the Ministry's Executioner for Dangerous Beasts. He was going to behead me later. Thank Medusa for Form FB13XXXXX-d keeping him from doing it then and there."
Oh. It seemed like Harry hadn't been the only one to escape a certain death today.
"Do you want to get back to that lab?" he asked.
"No. They only kept me for my horn and didn't feed me enough. Called me stupid names, too."
"Sounds familiar."
"And when the Aurors came, they just ran away and left me there."
"Sounds really familiar."
She swivelled her head and flicked her forked tongue a few times. In one smooth move, she was off the cupboard.
"Rat!" she cried out excitedly before disappearing in the crack between the floorboards.
Harry winced. Maybe it was silly to be squeamish about a rodent after all the gore he had seen today, but he truly didn't want to see one.
A keening sound came from the other side of the door, freezing him in his tracks.