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The next couple of days passed Contentedly and without excitement, Harry didn't see anything of the Dursleys and the bullies left Spencer alone for once. Spencer had school and visited on his way in the morning when he could get away early enough and on his way home for a while before going to look after his mother. In spite of his great joy in having a friend, Spencer was feeling a little guilty how much time he was spending at the hideout instead of home with his Mom. She didn't seem to notice how often he was gone or the changes in their routine that came about because Spencer arrived home to begin cleaning her up and cooking dinner much later than normal, which only made him feel worse, he was reading much less too, though that didn't matter, his schoolwork wasn't suffering as he already knew all about most of the things they were studying in class. Still he couldn't stay away, having a friend like Harry who didn't have an ulterior motive was such a novel experience and he basked in the company of a peer who didn't want anything from him except his company and accepted Spencer as he was and was always happy to listen to him geek out even though he didn't always understand what Spencer was talking about.
Harry loved listening to Spencer talk enthusiastically about things and when he didn't understand he jotted the concepts down and researched them without asking for help, when they were in the library. Spencer was impressed the way Harry didn't complain when Spencer's rambling went over his head and how he remembered conversations and researched things so he could participate more in Spencer's life, and how his research frequently led the younger boy on tangents like his own did and he took his own turn at excitedly sharing the things he'd leaned. Spencer also liked to listen to Harry's point of view about things too as a bright but normal British schoolboy. He'd lost touch with the children his own age in his neighbourhood as he'd moved up classes and dropped out of sports when his father left, not that he was any good at them before that but his father had insisted that he spend some time trying to be a normal boy with kids his own age. For the first time Spencer wondered whether wanting him to experience a friendship like this one with Harry was the reason his father pushed him so hard into interacting with a wide range of children, or whether as Spencer had always assumed he just wanted a son that was more normal or who liked the same things that he liked as a kid. But if he'd wanted his son to make friends, then surely he would have been better off pushing Spencer into activities he was interested in instead of sports that Spencer didn't have the co-ordination to do well at. The problem was that those thoughts led to Spencer wondering why his father had refused to take him with him when he left and whether he ever regretted not keeping in contact with him and after a moment's melancholy he resolutely pushed all thoughts of his father away again.
-o0o-
Spencer came limping into the hideout late Thursday afternoon. Harry had been out in a secluded part of the yard waiting for his friend and making another attempt at reading the end of Schindler's list because the light was too dim to read comfortably in the hideout without wasting the batteries in the torch. He wanted to finish it before he left because he wasn't sure he'd be able to find it in the Little Whinging library, or whether the librarian there would let him read such a serious grown up book.
"Spencer what happened?" Harry asked looking up worriedly. "Where are you hurt? Sit down and I'll get the first aid kit."
"No, I need to be out of sight, I don't want them to find me here if they come looking, I don't want to risk losing my safe place," Spencer replied.
"Okay then let me help you inside," Harry said helping him shuffle on his bottom through the tunnel.
"I can't go home like this. Mom will worry. Can you try to heal me again?" Spencer asked.
"I can try but it's never happened because I wanted it to before," Harry said doubtfully.
"I had another thought about why this stuff happened more often while you've been staying here. You've put on weight which means you've been eating more than you get to eat at home at the Dursleys, and you told me that doing it makes you hungry and tired. Maybe the reason you can't make things happen so often at home is because you're always hungry and already tired from the amount of chores they make you do," Spencer said.
Harry thought about it. "You might be right. Do you think that my aunt and uncle are doing it on purpose, not feeding me enough and wearing me out with cleaning and garden work so I won't do freaky things?"
"It's possible, I mean they're horrible people but it wouldn't harm them to feed you properly otherwise," Spencer said thoughtfully.
"Will you try to heal my foot? I don't want to take advantage of you but if you can't I'll have to get to the clinic before it gets too late."
"You're not taking advantage I want to heal you if I can do it. I'll try my best, but we shouldn't have brought you down here. It's going to hurt an awful lot to climb out if this doesn't work," Harry said looking at his friend's foot anxiously. He put both hands around Spencer's foot and started to examine it.
"I think you've broken a couple of bones in your foot. How did this happen?" he asked.
As Spencer described being caught by and trying to fight off the bully from the football team and how the guy had slammed the locker he was trying to put Spencer into on his foot with all his weight, Harry began to get angry that people could do that to his friend and that the teacher's still ignored him limping as they saw him leave, and that emotional response and the desire to heal and protect Spencer caused his hands to heat up and there was a crunching sound as the bones knitted back together. I was lucky that the way Harry had positioned his foot to see the injury had put the bones almost back into alignment and the injury was healed without complications.
Spencer let out a scream and Harry jerked his hands away.
"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said horrified.
"The bones were broken and I've been trying to walk on them so they're probably been moving about getting even more damaged, Harry. Even if I went to the doctor they would've had to hurt me to straighten them before they could plaster my foot, or maybe even had to operate to fixate them with plates and screws and I would've been on crutches and vulnerable for weeks. Instead you healed them, the pain is completely gone. This is so much better," Spencer tried to reassure him, carefully moving his foot to assess whether there was any remaining damage.
"It would take a really low person to try to hurt someone already on crutches," Harry growled.
"Yeah but some of the guys at school have already established that they are that cruel and despicable," Spencer said softly. "I can't give them the satisfaction of knowing they hurt me that badly."
Harry growled again. "The person who did this already knows, unless he's deaf he would have heard the bones break as he slammed the locker on your foot."
"And yet he still finished shoving me in the locker and left me there for the day," Spencer said dryly. "And I have to make an official complaint. Between Mom and days like this I'm in danger of failing some of my subjects due to lack of attendance if I don't."
Harry winced, no good ever came of telling the teachers anything, he'd long since learned that lesson. Those that cared at all were idiotic enough to believe that forcing the bully to apologise would help. Harry couldn't understand how they didn't realise that it only ever made things worse.
"Thanks Harry it feels much better," Spencer said smiling as he stood and walked around the room.
"But if they knew they'd broken your foot and it's fine tomorrow, that might be the sort of thing that gets noticed by whoever monitors this stuff. I don't want them screwing with your memory. That might be why Dudley and his friends are so stupid," Harry said anxiously.
"No, they can't possibly work on rumours and stories like that. How would they tell the difference between an actual occurrence and some kid having an overactive imagination or ghost stories and stuff. They have to have a way of tracking the actual use of the superpower or whatever it is," Spencer said.
"I don't think I can be a hero Spencer. If I could've I would've transferred the broken bones and the rest of the injuries to the git who did this to you, or gone to school with you tomorrow to beat them all up to protect you," Harry said angrily.
"I'd love to have seen his face a minute ago if you had managed that," Spencer said laughing. Harry was relieved he wasn't frightened off by him wanting to use his gift to hurt someone. Of course, Harry figured it might've been because they both thought it was impossible to do. He hadn't injured the bully but unknown to either of them, his intense wish that the older boy wouldn't mention to anyone that he'd broken Spencer's foot and would leave his friend alone had made a difference, the bully would still join in with his friends' bullying but wouldn't think of focusing his own attempts on Spencer. It didn't seem to make much difference to Spencer, he was still bullied almost daily but he never again came home with broken bones, the rest of the football team was more interested in humiliating their targets than seriously injuring them.
-o0o-
Harry was disappointed when he realised that his family was flying home the day before Spencer's birthday and he wouldn't see the older boy for his special day. He'd never celebrated a birthday with anyone and he wanted to have a bit of a birthday party just for the two of them before he left.
He didn't have any money to buy Spencer a cake or a present but he used some blank card he'd found in a bin behind the stationers and the pens and highlighters in the hideout to make him a card, and also found some discarded crepe paper and festooned it up all around their room after Spencer left the night before his last full day in the hideout, then got up super early went out scavenging in the bins behind a couple of bakeries to collect any party type food he could, determined to at least try to make a special meal for the two of them to celebrate the day before he had to leave.
Spencer who hadn't had friends celebrate with him in years, since he stopped playing T-ball, was surprised and delighted. They ate their feast for breakfast, which made Harry feel vaguely ill because he wasn't used to eating so much sugar. Then Harry pushed Spencer off to school, reminding him that he couldn't afford to miss any of the classes with attendance requirements. Spencer hurried back after school and ate the new treats Harry had managed to collect during the day before they spent the rest of the day reading Spencer's favourite book to each other. As a birthday celebration it wasn't much and it would never have satisfied most of the other kids they knew but Spencer thought it was just about perfect and Harry was happy with the joy he saw in his friend's eyes and smiles.
-o0o-
"I wish I didn't have to go, this has been the best thirteen days of my life," Harry said regretfully as he packed up his things.
Spencer came over and hugged him. "I wish you could stay too Harry, if I could take you home and ask Mom to adopt you I would and we could be brothers but it is impossible. Even if Mom understood and accepted you, she wouldn't always remember and we can't afford to draw the attention of CPS like that. Unfortunately, you can't stay here in the hideout, you're pretty much living on the streets here, pretty soon someone will notice and move you on, or the developers will pull down the building and rebuild on the lot, and bad things happen to kids who live on the street," he said. "As horrible as they are you are better off living with your relatives or the foster care system so you can go back to school and I'm going away to college in September I won't be here anyway and I can't take you with me. Even going to the buffets to eat won't work once I'm not here to clean your clothes for you so you don't look homeless, and you can't get adequate nutrition just from the things that are safe to eat out of the dumpsters."
"I'll miss you, I'd offer to write but I'm not sure how often I will be able to. It would be better if you didn't write to me at the Dursleys, they wouldn't let me have the letters anyway and might try to cause trouble for you to stop you writing to me," Harry replied. "I will try to find someone who will receive the letters and pass them on to me without telling the Dursleys but it's going to be difficult, the Dursleys have told everyone that I'm a delinquent."
"That's horrible, but surely someone realises that it's they that are the monsters?" Spencer replied, delighted that his friend wanted to keep in touch but upset about the way the whole town seemed to treat him at home. He also worried that the neighbourhood's erroneous beliefs about Harry also made his friend a lot less safe at the Dursleys than he thought he was.
Harry sighed. "You'd think someone would but everyone seems to believe them, or keeps their mouth shut about it to keep the peace which doesn't do me any good."
"I may not always get your letters either, my Mom has schizophrenia. On a bad day she is likely to get suspicious and tear up all the mail, especially letters from people she doesn't know and with unfamiliar stamps," Spencer admitted, then panicked that Harry would think he was telling him not to write to him. "It is worth trying though, she is less likely to tear up hand written envelopes, especially with kids writing. No offence intended. But please don't think I've forgotten you if I don't reply and keep trying until I do. Eventually I'll get to the mail first or she'll be having a good day and a letter will get through to me."
Harry nodded understandingly. "We can try anyway! Some of our letters might get through. I'll make sure to print the addresses." He desperately wanted to keep in contact with his only friend.
Spencer nodded, "It will be easier for you to send me letters once I move to college in September as long as I can get the address to you," he agreed hopefully.
Spencer helped Harry get his bag back up the pipe entrance they used into the hideout and they parted ways both hurrying off to avoid looking back and making things harder.
-o0o-
Harry thought hard about who he could trust would pass the letters on to him without telling the Dursleys but couldn't think of anyone. To begin with he thought that Mrs Figg who looked after him when the Dursleys went away might, but something told him not to trust her. He knew she had patched him up after a particularly nasty beating or two, and her horrid tasting tea seemed to make him feel better the way she said it would, she always tried to feed him up when she was looking after him as if she knew he wasn't fed properly at home but she'd never done anything about it other than patch him up a bit and send him back. She never contacted the authorities even though she was one of the few people who got close enough to have had proof of his mistreatment as a toddler before the whole neighbourhood was turned against him by the Dursley's lies. Think ing back critically over his time with her, he got the impression of dishonesty about her, there was something she was lying to him about and he didn't like it. The problem was he couldn't think of anyone else that would do it either, except maybe one of the librarians in the Little Whinging Public Library who'd always been nicer to him than the other librarians, and didn't watch him with suspicion whenever he pulled a book from their shelves. He wondered whether she'd be allowed to do it for him. He also worried about that solution because every time he'd heard her talking to her friends it was about leaving Little Whinging or living in London, but at least it would help for a while and hopefully if she did leave he could find someone else.
-o0o-
Petunia and Vernon had enjoyed their holiday tremendously. Their favourite part had been the all you can eat buffet meals, though for different reasons. Petunia had enjoyed learning about new American foods she could serve to impress her garden club, and the break from having to purchase and cook meals and endless snacks for her husband and son. Vernon had loved the value for money element which prevented him from feeling guilty about the amount he ate. His biggest complaint about the restaurants they went to at home was the fact he had to order several entrees along with his main meal and desert to feel like he'd had a decent feed which since he had to order that much for Dudley as well meant that most restaurants charged them an exorbitant amount to eat there, and the buffets were all so cheap here. Dudley had adored the fact that he could choose whatever he liked to eat and his parents wouldn't say anything, even if he only ate deserts and that there was such a huge range of sweets, pastries and cakes to choose from, though funnily enough the last couple of days he'd been wanting to eat the chips, chicken wings and pizza more than the sweets and cakes.
Other than the food Dudley had to admit he hadn't enjoyed the holiday as much as he thought he would. His new friends had pretty much abandoned him when he refused to be part of stealing a car, and he found that he missed having his cousin around to torment. The first couple of days after Vernon had kicked Harry out, Dudley had gloried in his parents undivided attention, not realising that he had always had it, but then he noticed that nothing had really changed and he was still being left in the casino kid's clubs that his parents knew he hated, where he wasn't even allowed to take out his frustration on the younger children and Harry wasn't there to take his frustrations out on afterwards either. He'd loved the Marvel's Avengers Station and wanted to go back there but his parents had refused. The superpowers of the Avengers was a little too close to magic for Petunia.
Vernon had also lost a little more money in the casinos than he was comfortable admitting to his wife so was glad that the holiday was over before Petunia realised that he was out of money until payday next week and this was making him more short tempered than usual with Dudley's whining for more gifts and sweets he could ill afford.
Petunia had found the best part of the holiday was as always not having Harry around and was glad that Vernon had kicked him out for the rest of their time there after he'd gone missing overnight, even though she wasn't able to relax as thoroughly as she normally did on holiday when they left him with Mrs Figg. She was more than a little concerned that the hotel would notice the absence of the freak and call the authorities. Apart from that niggling worry, she enjoyed the shows at the casinos but found actual gambling to be quite boring and had missed being able to show other people how normal and upper middle class she was. Nobody in Las Vegas seemed to care a thing about normal. In fact, most of them seemed to glory in being as unnormal and unique as they could be, and she saw glimpses of things she couldn't believe were achieved without magic nearly everywhere they'd been. She couldn't wait to get back to Little Whinging and their 'perfectly normal' everyday life.
-o0o-
Vernon and Dudley definitely weren't pleased that Harry returned to the hotel about an hour before their car to the airport, Petunia didn't want him back either but she was also relieved he'd turned up, she'd begun to worry how they'd explain the disappearance of a child that had been travelling with them. If they were arrested for child abandonment then her precious Dudley might be sent to foster care until Marge could get to Las Vegas and collect him. who knew what terrible things could happen to a fine boy like Dudley in that time.
Harry carefully stayed out of Vernon's reach as he helped carry their bags down to join his own, and stayed with them within sight of the hotel staff while the rest of the family did whatever they were doing in the hotel room. Dudley was probably watching the television while Petunia was compulsively checking and rechecking the cupboards, drawers and under the bed to make sure nothing had been left behind. Harry wondered if she'd manage to blame him this time if something was lost.
Their ride arrived and Harry helped the driver load the bags. "Thanks lad, have you enjoyed your stay in Vegas? Where you off to next?"
"It's been brilliant, the best three weeks of my life," Harry said enthusiastically. "I wish I didn't have to go home."
The driver smiled, he didn't usually get that reaction from children, Vegas was a holiday destination designed for adults and most kids wanted to go to California or Florida to the beach and the theme parks. Dudley came down and the driver asked the same question and was astonished to hear him complain about having had a horrible time, compared to his cousin. The adults came out and ordered Harry into the front seat with the driver before they climbed in the back and engaged the privacy screen without giving the driver instruction on which part of the airport they wanted to be taken to.
The driver shook his head in annoyance as he began driving them to the airport. Do you know where you need to go?" he asked.
"The airport," Harry said confused why the driver didn't know that.
"Where in the airport, it's too big for me to drop you at the nearest entrance and hope you find your way to the right gate on time," the driver replied.
"I don't know but we're flying back to England, does that help?" Harry asked.
"If you're flying directly it does. What airline did you fly here on?" the driver asked.
"British Airways, Uncle Vernon wouldn't trust anyone else, we flew directly here when we came but I haven't seen the tickets," Harry replied.
"British Airways departures it is. Unless you want to knock on the window again and ask your Uncle," the driver said. Harry turned and knocked but the privacy screen remained up.
Luckily it seemed that it was the right place since nobody complained, and Harry was able to relax again as he pushed the luggage trolley and Vernon checked them in while Dudley whined about not being able to wait in the restaurant instead of in line. The flight home was unremarkable, they'd visited the buffet at the airport and while Vernon grumbled about having to buy Harry a plate before the waitress would let them in, Dudley proceeded to eat himself almost into a food coma and fell asleep as soon as he was strapped into his seat on the plane, leaving Harry in peace until just before landing.
The drive back to Little Whinging was uncomfortable, the Dursleys were all tired and ill tempered, and Harry tried to avoid their notice as much as possible. Of course, even in a luxury car there wasn't really enough room to get away from them and he spent the time huddled against the door hoping that he wouldn't be beaten too badly when they arrived home. He wasn't looking forward to going back to his cupboard after the light, comfort and freedom of the hideout. Spencer had given him his torch, though Spencer had called it a flashlight, and some extra batteries to help him cope with the darkness and to allow him to read and a couple of books and a deck of cards to practice his card counting for when he was locked in all day in punishment. He knew what a huge sacrifice giving up the torch was for Spencer and was incredibly grateful. Hopefully he would be allowed to put his bag away without Aunt Petunia trying to go through it to make sure he didn't have anything he shouldn't.
He was in luck, Dudley started whining about being hungry about half way home in spite of a snack at the airport and as soon as the bags were in the front entryway the Dursleys went out to eat, ordering Harry to carry the bags up to the appropriate rooms then take himself to bed. Harry quickly put his bag in his cupboard before opening Dudleys and taking the dirty clothes to the laundry to begin washing it to make his bags lighter. He wished he could do that with his Aunt and Uncle's bags but didn't dare go through them. He did take the opportunity to go through the cupboards and relocate some long life snacks into the darkness under the lowest stairs so that he would still have something to eat when they Dursleys next deprived him of food. Unfortunately there wasn't much he could make for his dinner without risking Petunia smelling it if he defrosted or cooked anything, but he ate some cereal with the powdered milk Petunia used for cooking and some apples from the tree that hung over the fence from number two's back garden, stashing several more away for later. He enjoyed his food but missed his friend something fierce and after a couple of hours lying on his mattress with the door open for light he noticed that the something inside him that expanded when he did impossible things felt like it was slowly growing smaller and weaker and wondered why. He vowed to pay attention to what happened to it while he was out at school the next day.
-o0o-
At school on the Monday the teachers and students ignored him, it was almost as if he wasn't there. But on the Tuesday, they were all interested in listening to the stories of Dudley's holiday and the things he had done and learned. Even Harry was interested, wondering about what Dudley had don't other than eat enormous amounts of sweets. The few teachers that asked Harry were disappointed that he didn't have anything to say about his weeks away. Sitting quietly allowed Harry to concentrate on that feeling he got before anything impossible happened and he realised that it felt like it was slowly growing stronger throughout the day, until he arrived back to No. 4 Privet Drive when it started to shrink or leave again. He wanted to tell Spencer about it and see what he thought which made him think about who he could ask to receive letters for him. He saw Mrs Figg on the way home from school and he noticed the way she looked at him curiously as he walked past. He said hello to her and answered politely when she asked him about his holiday, but he had a feeling that she was relieved when he spoke of being left behind in the motel room while his relatives went out, and he hesitated to mention Spencer. He wondered how he was going to find someone else willing to let Spencer send letters for him to collect without telling anyone. He also thought again about running away or going to the police or the hospital and asking to be put into foster care but he was still too afraid of the stories he'd heard to take that step. He figured that it wasn't something he needed to decide to do now, he could always go later and might be taken more seriously if he waited until after Vernon beat him next time and he had injuries to present as evidence.
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed followed or favourited this story for your support.