Chapter 2

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It turned out that Dudley didn't like the kids' clubs at the casinos, (something that wouldn't have surprised anyone other than his doting parents). The staff there were all aware that they'd lose their weekly bonus if a child was injured or a parent had to be called away from the gaming floor to attend to their children. That meant that while there were a lot of decent activities to choose from (management wanted the children to enjoy themselves so their parents wouldn't feel guilty leaving them for hours of play at the gaming tables), bullying or roughing up the other children wasn't one of those activities. They had a quiet room set up to isolate children who didn't play well with others and a male security guard they could call in to help who was more than capable of restraining Dudley and moving him into the quiet room without damaging either of them.

Of course, the first time it happened, Vernon and Petunia complained when they picked up their son and heard Dudley complaining about being locked in the room 'for no reason', but security quickly arrived and the kids' club management pointed out that the disciplinary actions were outlined I the code of conduct agreement they'd signed when they left their son at the kids' club and that the security footage would show that the discipline was well warranted. They then pointed out that if they were to make a scene, they would be asked to leave the casino and not return. Vernon and Petunia had had a marvellous time in the casino and neither was willing to give up future visits or shows they'd already purchased tickets for, so for almost the first time in Dudley's life, his parents ignored his tantrums and did something solely to benefit themselves, leaving him at the kids' clubs several times while they enjoyed the adult attractions of Las Vegas, though each time it had to be a different casino kids' club as those Dudley had already been to, refused to have him a second time for the safety of the other children.

Harry on the other hand enjoyed the nights he spent alone in the hotel room. He knew that he couldn't eat anything left in the room, other than the complimentary fruit bowl that had been shoved in his direction at the start of the week, and that he mustn't order food or even watch any of the current release pay per view movies but because he'd never been to the cinema or been allowed to watch television he found more than enough to interest him on the free channels, and while he didn't dare sit on the beds or the furniture the deep pile carpet was a luxury to sit on when compared to the bare dusty boards of his cupboard floor at Privet Drive. It would have surprised everyone except the librarians at his school and local library that Harry preferred technical documentaries and animal shows to the cartoons that his cousin and Dudley's friends were almost addicted to.

Harry also enjoyed his days dropped at the local park while Dudley was taken to more expensive and exciting amusements. Though he was lonely and a little bored it was nice to be left alone instead of bullied. The weather was warm and the park was good and had a water tap he was allowed to help himself to, and when he became too bored he knew he had hours to explore the surrounding neighbourhood so long as he was back in the park in time to be picked up by the Dursleys on their way back to the motel to get ready for dinner. He found a local school and snuck in to read in their library, and was there most of the day before someone tried to send him to the principle for skipping class and discovered that he wasn't a student at the school. He wanted to make friends but there weren't many kids around during the day and when they did arrive after school they were all in groups and playing games he didn't understand well enough to join in.

-o0o-

Unfortunately for Harry, three days after they arrived in Las Vegas Dudley managed to make friends with some of the boys living near the motel. Harry was a little surprised that Aunt Petunia let her precious boy out of her sight long enough, but she did and Dudley being Dudley took up with the meanest, rudest, most obnoxious kids that he met, and once they got bored with making fun of the locals and minor vandalism, Dudley introduced them to his favourite game. Harry Hunting.

Harry ran as fast as he could, desperate to get away, unlike his little gang at home Dudley had managed to make friends with some kids at the hotel that were nearly as mean as Dudley without being slow and unfit and when they caught him they they'd hit harder than Dudley's friends at home too. Harry managed to get away from them though they were giving chase and he knew he couldn't keep running too much further, the cracked ribs were already burning as he gasped for breath. He just needed to get far enough out of sight for a moment to find somewhere to hide. He noticed a hole in the chain link fence around a boarded-up property and squeezed through it scratching his leg.

He barely fit so it should slow the bigger boys down a little and if he got out of sight in time they might overlook the small hole in the fence completely, he ran across the deserted yard looking for somewhere to hide, and crawled into a concrete pipe. It was a pretty tight fit but he dragged himself in as far as he could, hoping to be far enough not to be seen if Dudley's new friends managed to get into the yard and search for him. Even if they couldn't fit into the pipe after him he was worried that they would decide to poke him with one of the rusted metal bars that were lying around the yard.

The pipe bent downwards and Harry being head first almost fell in but luckily there was a grate that swung open slowly before he could hit his head on it and that he was able to hold onto just long enough to stop himself falling head first onto the floor. He landed on a heap of old mattresses which surprised him. He chuckled, someone must come in this way a lot to have found and dragged all the mattresses under the hole. He reached up and reclosed the grate so nobody would notice anything out of place, then began to explore the place looking for somewhere to hide in case the people that used this abandoned building came back and objected to a kid finding it. Somewhere hopefully out of reach of the rats. Opening up several doors to rooms full of dusty boxes and broken furniture he finally opened one that looked clean and almost lived in.

Strangely he wasn't afraid of whoever had made this space their own, the place just seemed to have a feeling of safety and serenity about it. For one thing there was a change of clothes that was made to fit a skinny kid and almost his size though the arms were a lot longer, and then there were the books, adult books, kids chapter books, technical books on all sorts of subjects some with school and local city library stickers on the spines. He felt a kindred spirit with the person who used this place to hide and read and couldn't help but sit down and reach for a story to escape into.

He was exhausted and his ribs were burning with pain. He curled up on the mattress with a book trying to distract himself from the pain and hunger as he hadn't eaten all day, and soon fell asleep. He woke later cold and still feeling fatigued though he noticed that his ribs and other wounds didn't hurt any more. He pulled on the hoodie left on the chair and slipped back to a light doze, figuring that if he didn't leave before the owner came back, he or she probably either wouldn't mind him borrowing the clothes any more than the bed and the book or would be so put out by the rest that the jumper wouldn't make him any angrier. Harry was too tired and too cold to really consider the consequences of helping himself to the jumper, let alone the reason that the temperature had dropped so dramatically when the other days they'd been there had all been warm until sunset.

-o0o-

Spencer squeezed into his favourite hiding spot early Saturday morning and was shocked to find someone there. There never had been any evidence of anyone else using the place in all the times he'd used the place and he'd fallen into the trap of thinking of the place as his safe haven and belonging to him and he'd been leaving a few possessions there between visits for mornings like this. He'd fled the house still in his pyjamas without breakfast, his mother was in the middle of one of her episodes and hadn't recognised Spencer as her son, accusing him of being an intruder sent to harm her son and threatening to scratch his eyes out. He knew from experience that she might try it if he didn't get out of there quick enough.

The boy in his hideout didn't seem like a threat to him. At first glance he appeared to be about five or six years old, small, and almost impossibly thin and scrawny, a little roughed up but too clean to be homeless and from the book he'd borrowed, unless he was either a genius like Spencer or for some reason just looking at the pages and pretending to read, he was probably older than he appeared. The boy looked up from the book he'd been reading, his face adding to the impression that he was probably closer to Spencer's age. His face had already lost most of the roundness of childhood and his eyes looked positively old in their wariness and fatigue that spoke of a lifetime of pain and suffering.

"Hello," Harry said awkwardly, "I guess this is your place, I'm sorry for using your stuff but I've been careful not to damage anything." He looked up at the older boy slightly anxiously, the boy who probably owned the jumper he'd borrowed was bigger than him but still skinny, though he looked healthier than Harry did. He didn't look mean like Dudley or Piers did, in fact he looked as nervous about what Harry would do as Harry was worried about him.

Spencer recognised the book as one he'd left there and the hoodie the boy was wearing as being his as well one he'd been looking forward to putting on to ward off the early morning chill.

"Hello, are you hiding too?" Spencer blurted out, not feeling any sense of threat and more curious about the boy than angry that he was using his things.

Harry grimaced, "Yeah, my cousin has made some new friends and introduced them to his favourite game of Harry hunting and my aunt and uncle won't let me back into the motel room until dark. I'm Harry by the way. I guess this is probably your jumper, I'm sorry for borrowing it without asking." He began pulling off the hoodie.

Spencer stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Keep it on, I've got another one here, it isn't cold enough to want to wear both of them. I'm Spencer, my Mom isn't feeling well today so I need to be outside until she's feeling better," Spencer admitted going to the old packing box he hid his stuff in and pulling out the woollen sweater his aunt had knitted him. "It's going to be hot later today so this is a good place to avoid the heat and the library isn't open this early in the morning. Weren't you worried that I was your cousin when you heard me come in?"

"No. Dudley and most of his new friends wouldn't fit through the pipe to get in so unless there's a bigger entrance that I didn't find somewhere when I looked around, I'm safe from him, and his friends probably wouldn't bother to start something if he isn't there to egg them on. That's how I found this place, I was looking for somewhere small to hide and crawled into the pipe, I went as far as I could so he couldn't grab one of those metal bars out there and poke me with it and then I could feel the air moving through it even though there wasn't any light at the end of the tunnel so I kept going to see what I could find and fell through onto the mattresses," Harry replied, totally missing Spencer's comment about it being early morning, he felt like he'd been asleep only for an hour or two.

"I'm surprised the rats and spider webs didn't scare you away," Spencer commented. They gave him the creeps but a safe place to hide had become too important to him to give up because of a few spiders and rats, though he did periodically try to poison them to keep the numbers under control.

"Oh, I'm used to spiders, there's plenty in my cupboard at home," Harry said. His stomach started growling and Harry blushed.

Spencer went to the box he'd pulled the knitted cardigan from and pulled out a sealed container, opening it he pulled out a couple of muesli bars and handed one to the boy.

"Thanks Spencer, I'll try to pay you back somehow," Harry said, though he didn't know how unless he managed to steal some chocolate bars from the stockpile his aunt kept hidden to give Dudley to snack on when he whined for sweets.

Spencer smiled. "That would be appreciated, I don't always have the time or money to restock my stash," he admitted. "I use this place to hide from everyone too. I've always been bullied at school, I just don't fit in with the other kids, but because I skipped so many classes the bullies are all five years older than me now, and they hit so much harder than kids our age can," Spencer said. "They can't get to me in here either."

"That's terrible, Dudley and his friends at home are much bigger than me too, mostly because they eat too many cakes and sweets, but at least he's too unfit to catch me if I get the chance to run. I'm pretty fast. But everyone at school believes that I'm the trouble maker. But if your bullies are that much older than you the teachers couldn't possibly blame you for it," Harry said horrified.

"No they don't, but my school is huge. Over two thousand students and the teachers look the other way when it comes to the football team especially during the season because they're successful and supposedly bring prestige to the school," Spencer said cynically. "If it wasn't for not wanting to draw attention to me and Mom I would go to the police and have them charged with assault. Some of the seniors are already eighteen."

"Why is it so important not to draw attention that you're willing to let them get away with bullying you?" Harry asked confused. If he thought that he could tell someone about the bullying and the Dursleys and actually be believed he wouldn't hesitate.

"My Mom isn't well, she isn't always able to take care of herself, let alone me. If the authorities find out how sick she is they'll put her in a hospital and put me in the foster system," Spencer said carefully.

"I understand trying to avoid that. My Aunt and Uncle threaten to send me to an orphanage if I make too much trouble," Harry said shuddering sympathetically. "They make it sound even worse than living with the Dursleys."

"I don't know if it would be worse for you, but I'm too much of a geek to fit in, and the foster system is state based, they wouldn't let me move to California to go school next year," Spencer replied.

"You must have got into some pretty fancy school to be willing to move that far away to go to it," Harry said admiringly, not realising that Spencer was talking about a university not a provate secondary school.

"It's been my dream to go to Caltech for almost as long as I can remember, since I first read about the school and the subjects they teach and the honour code there," Spencer said enthusiastically.

"Well congratulations on getting in. you must be thrilled. I bet your parents are proud of you," Harry replied.

Spencer looked awkward for a moment, then began asking questions to avoid answering about his parents. "How long have you been here? I stop in here most days and there wasn't anybody hanging about when I came in yesterday. How old is your cousin? Were you hurt running away from him and his friends? I have some bandaids and bandages in the first aid kit if you need them. Did you find it?"

"Dudley's only about seven weeks older than me but his circumference nearly matches his height," Harry replied. "I don't know how long I've been here, I fell asleep. I'm not hurt enough to need bandaging, it's just scrapes and bruises. They'll be gone in a day or two." In fact, he had a suspicion that the scrapes and bruises had already disappeared though they shouldn't have healed so quickly.

"It's just after eight in the morning," Spencer said helpfully.

"Saturday morning?" Harry asked appearing frightened.

"Yes," Spencer replied.

"I slept all afternoon and all night, I've been here since early afternoon Friday. My Aunt and Uncle are going to kill me," Harry said shaken. Even the excuse that he'd fallen asleep wouldn't help him, would make things worse, his relatives knew that he got extra sleepy after doing whatever it was that made him different, so they'd be even more angry if he tried to explain. That explained why his scrapes and bruises all felt gone.

"Will they have gone to the police, we need to go and tell them you're safe. Where are you staying, I'll walk you back so you don't get lost?" Spencer said hurriedly. The last thing he wanted was the police canvassing the area while his mother was having a bad day.

Harry shook his head. "No, they won't have called the police unless one of the hotel staff mentioned that I was missing and they couldn't think up an excuse quickly enough, I think they'd prefer it if I was dead in a ditch somewhere so long as they could prove they had nothing to do with it and it happened in a perfectly normal way," Harry said cynically. "I'll be in huge trouble if they have had to call the authorities. But they probably just pretended I was with them and went on with their sightseeing."

Spencer didn't know what to say to that so fell silent, looking around for something else to talk about before things became awkward.

"You're British, are you here on holiday or has your family moved here and looking for a house?"

"We are on three weeks holiday, Uncle Vernon won it in a competition at work, which is why they had to bring me with them instead of dumping me with someone the way they normally do when they go on holiday. Uncle Vernon was afraid his bosses would be told if they cashed in the extra ticket, and Aunt Marge wouldn't take me, and Aunt Petunia was worried about if the neighbours saw me if they left me home alone. I'm from Surrey," Harry explained.

"I'm from right on the birder of North Vegas, my Dad was born here and my mother moved here after college to work at the university. This is a strange place to come for a holiday, so far from the strip," Spencer replied.

"What's the strip?" Harry asked.

"The main street in the tourist part of town, where the big casinos are," Spencer replied.

"Where all the lights and lit up signs and fancy buildings are, the hotel's nearer to there than this here. But Uncle Vernon was complaining about the location being too far from everything," Harry agreed. "Is there anything cheap to do or look at around here, that doesn't require an adult's supervision?"

"Not much, and one kid on their own attracts attention," Spencer replied. "I could show you some stuff though."

"I'd like that, and if you're with me we wouldn't be one kid on our own, we'd be together. Two of us together would blend in more than one. Are you okay with me hanging about in your hideout? I promise I'll be as careful as I can not to let anyone see me come in and I won't wreck your books and stuff," Harry replied.

"Yeah, it's nice to have someone to talk to that doesn't want to hurt me, or for me to do their homework for them," Spencer replied, blushing as he realised what he had admitted. "I don't have many friends left, most of them stopped wanting to hang out with me when I got moved up a grade, and every time I started to make new friends, the school moved me up again. It doesn't help that I can't ever have friends come over to the house. People think I'm weird."

Harry smiled sadly. "No one at home talks to me either, the other kids at school are all too afraid of Dudley and his friends. They hit anyone who's nice to me and Dudley makes me do their homework too. I don't know why his friends would want me to, they all get better grades than I'm allowed to. He'll hit you too if he sees you being friendly, I'll understand if you want to pretend not to know me, except in the hideout."

Spencer could see that his new friend was trying to be generous and that it would hurt him if he only agreed to be secret friends. He thought about how it would make him feel if someone was only willing to be friendly with him when nobody else could see them and realised that a couple of the kids he hung out with in the library were like that, they'd ignore him when their other friends or the popular kids were around, and it did hurt and make him distrustful of their friendship.

"I wouldn't do that, we will just have to both try to avoid the bullies. They're worse when you're alone, mine always are anyway," Spencer said.

Harry nodded, "I'm always alone, so I hadn't really noticed that, but you're right, when Dudley can't find me he only picks on other kids when they're on their own unless his gang is all there and they're bigger than the other kids. You're taller than Dudley but his new friends are bigger and meaner than his friends back home. Meaner than Dudley used to be too. At home they're just his school friends and he's the meanest one, though Piers enjoys watching people get hurt and eggs Dudley on, he's a bit weak and never hits as hard as Dudley can. But these boys are older and I think they are real trouble makers, they weren't in school when they should have been, they're going to get Dudley into trouble and you can bet that I'll be punished for it when Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia find out."

"You're right that they're going to get him in trouble, they're probably setting him up to take the fall for something, otherwise why would older boys want to hang around with kids our age? But how can his friends possibly be your fault, it isn't like the two of you are friends or that you're friends with the kids he's hanging out with?" Spencer asked.

"You're being logical. Uncle Vernon never lets logic stand in the way of blaming me for things, and they can never admit that their precious son isn't perfect so if he does anything he shouldn't it's always my fault," Harry said tiredly.

"I'd say it wasn't fair but you already know that life rarely is fair or kind," Spencer said softly. "I wish I could make things better for you."

"Just knowing that there's someone in the world that doesn't despise me helps more than you know," Harry admitted smiling sadly. "It's good to know that it really isn't my fault that nobody likes me."

A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed, followed or favourited this story for your support.