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The dog’s been around for a couple of weeks now. At first Harry isn’t sure if it’s really there and not just a trick of the light or a flight of fancy in the corner of his eye. He knows better than to ask of course. Noticing anything worth mentioning is ill-advised around the Dursleys. Ill-advised and absolutely crucial. He has to notice Dudley’s friends scheming in the corner of the playground to have a good head-start when they inevitably come after him, he has to notice the hairs, pebbles and dead bugs his cousin likes to hide in Harry’s food, he has to notice Aunt Petunia’s pressed-into-nothingness lips and the vein on Uncle Vernon’s temple. He has to keep track of a lot of things for a seven-year-old and he had to learn them all by himself. Enormous, shaggy, black dogs lurking in shadows and under hedges seem an obvious addition to the list, especially considering the temperament of the other dogs Harry’s come across so far; namely Aunt Marge’s bulldogs.
Within a week or two though Harry revises this last assumption. The dog had plenty of opportunities to chase him up trees or snap at his ankles but it never does. In fact, it hardly moves at all. Whenever Harry sees it, it stands still as a statue, quite unlike any dog Harry knows. Once a squirrel dashed right in front of it and the dog didn’t so much as take his eyes off Harry, let alone go after it, as dogs should want to do. That’s another thing: every time it appears – without fail – the dog will look at Harry, always Harry and only Harry.
Initially that frightened Harry a bit and he had the odd nightmare about the beast’s grey eyes chasing him through the night, but in a further not-at-all-dog-like turn it seemed to notice. From then on it would appear lying on the ground, its head rested on its front paws or it would sit with its head slightly tilted and its tongue hanging out. And then there was this one time where Harry could swear, he saw it wink at him, with one eye and everything! Of course, he can’t tell anyone. Not only does nobody apart from himself seem to notice the dog (Aunt Petunia would have called the dog catchers immediately at the sight of such a large and unseemly creature out and about without an owner in sight), even if they did, alluding to dogs winking would land him in the cupboard for a week at least. So, he keeps the dog to himself and thusly makes it (at least in a way) his dog.
One thing – if only in the abstract – that Harry has and Dudley doesn’t.
It makes Harry happy and it gives him something to dream about when he inevitably ends up in the cupboard again. Three weeks for breaking one of Aunt Marge’s hideous gifted vases. Not that he so much as touched it, but he has already given up on making sense of his punishments. More likely than not, it has just been too long since his last stint.
It’s somewhere between day eight and eleven (keeping track is hard, alone in the dark) that Harry smells tuna casserole. He doesn’t care for tuna, which is beside the point. What matters is that Aunt Petunia doesn’t trust fish dishes to keep in the fridge since the incident with the spoilt trout and the subsequent week in bed. Which means left overs in the bin rather than accounted for in the fridge. Which means anything but stale cheese sandwiches, which is fine by Harry, even if it means tuna.
Harry’s keen gift of observation applies not only to seeing but also to hearing things. He hears Dudley being put to bed. He hears Dudley still watching another two hours of telly in his room. He hears Aunt Petunia’s bedtime beauty routine and he hears Uncle Vernon getting up for the loo a second time roughly an hour after his first “last” time.
That’s where he starts counting. At two hundred he pushes the cupboard door carefully open. He’s in luck; no padlock this time ‘round. Harry forgoes the light switches entirely and sneaks into the kitchen. He’s halfway across to the bins when his hairs stand on end. Sitting in the dark, in the corner of his eye, are two figures. One at the kitchen table, one – curiously – on the floor.
Harry clasps his hand over his mouth just in time to muffle his yelp of surprise. Even catching burglars wouldn’t be enough to make the Dursleys overlook him sneaking out of the cupboard and waking them.
Harry considers making a run for it. He’s rather quick on his feet and he knows the house by heart, especially in the dark, so he might make it. Just as he’s about to, the figure at the table does something that glues Harry to the spot like a moth to the light. The figure snaps their fingers and a tiny orange flame dances just over their thumb. They hold it to a stout little candle they must have brought with them (for Aunt Petunia wouldn’t stand for something like it in her house) and just like that the kitchen is not only lit up (much more than a single candle has any right to), it is also filled with the most scrumptious scent of cinnamon and toasted chestnuts. It hardly fits the spring weather outside and yet it is enough to make Harry’s stomach growl. (The tuna casserole is long forgotten.)
At the table sits, now pleasantly illuminated, a man that is both very old and very young at once. His coat is worn, his curly hair dishevelled and there are pale scars all across his face, accentuated by the flickering candlelight. He should be scary, were it not for the hint of a soft smile and his tired, kind eyes. They make Harry not want to run away any longer.
“I’m sorry if we gave you a fright” (His voice is soft and kind as well) “But you see, Padfoot here was becoming rather worried, about no longer seeing you out and about. So, we figured we’d check in, to calm him down again.”
As he speaks Harry stares at the dog at the man’s feet. It stands to reason that it’s the man’s dog. Though it is clearly Harry’s dog. “Padfoot?”
The man nods. “That’s his name; or at least one of them. He has several. Though he likes Padfoot better than Snuffles.”
The dog – Padfoot – huffs indignantly.
“Can I…can I pet him?” Harry asks tentatively. He’s never petted a dog before.
“’Course! He might be scruffy and entirely too full of himself, but he’s marvellous for cuddling!”, the man says while scratching Padfoot behind the ears.
Harry shuffles towards them. He reaches out and while he debates actually going through with it, Padfoot leans into Harry’s open palm and rubs his head against his thigh. The fur is surprisingly soft and wonderfully warm. Before he can stop himself, Harry’s wrapped his arms entirely around Padfoot. He’s sunk to his knees as well, burring his face in the dog’s shoulder.
Why does this feel so familiar? And why is it, that he can feel tears prickling in his eyes? He never cries if he can help it. Uncle Vernon detests it. And sure, Uncle Vernon isn’t here right now, but Harry doesn’t want to give the kind man a reason to call him a cry-baby or a Nancy-boy.
Harry’s plan is to wait out the tears, but they don’t stop, because they don’t come from being sad. They come from being happy and Harry doesn’t want to stop being happy. What he wants though, is to stop making Padfoot’s fur wet. Dogs – even dogs as wonderfully peculiar as Padfoot – can’t possibly care for wet and snotty fur.
When the man sees Harry’s tearstained face, he doesn’t look annoyed or angry as Uncle Vernon would, instead he looks sad and even more tired.
“He likes you a whole lot”, he says, his hand in Padfoot’s fur, as if holding on.
“I like him a whole lot too”, Harry says, “at first I was afraid he’d chase me up trees, like Aunt Marge’s dogs do, but he never did. He’s a good dog.” Padfoot whines, pushing his wet nose against Harry’s hand.
“They chase you up trees.” “Oh, but I’m a rather good climber, so it’s mostly fine.” “Of course you are.” The man tries to sound kind, maybe even light-hearted, but it comes out mostly tired.
“Are you sleepy, sir? It’s alright, it is quite late.” For some reason that startles a laugh out of the man; even Padfoot makes a noise akin to a snort.
“Thank you, Harry, but I assure you, I’m quite alright. Also, you can call me Moony if you’d like.”
Harry has his mouth already half open to ask how the man – Moony apparently – knows his name, but thinks better of it. Asking questions can be a dangerous business, though something tells him that might not be the case with Moony.
Harry’s stomach growls again. It makes Moony furrow his brow, which in turn makes Harry nervous.
“Have you missed tea tonight?”
“I was in my cupboard.” Harry snaps his mouth shut at once, but the words are already out. He’s not supposed to talk about his cupboard outside the house. Though technically he isn’t outside the house, just now. Still, that seems rather inconsequential, seeing as he’s done it. He’s made the soft, kind, tired man angry. He shrinks away against Padfoot, but his fur is also raised. So are his heckles. He’s looking at Moony as if awaiting commands. Harry whimpers.
Just as suddenly as it came, the anger in Moony’s expression dissipates again, when his eyes fall back on the frightened Harry. For the first time they linger on what, by now, has to be nothing more than a faintly yellow shadow on his cheekbone. All fight seems to leave the man; he looks utterly wretched. He slides out of the chair, on to his knees, right in front of Harry.
No one ever bothers to get on eyelevel with him. It feels strange and also surprisingly comforting.
“You listen to me, alright? I’m so, so sorry that you have to go through what you have to go through. It is wrong and it is bad. Nothing about it is your fault, yeah? Hurting others, especially those you’re entrusted to care for, is an evil thing to do and I can promise you, that no matter what you say or do neither Padfoot nor I will ever hurt you! Because it’s always wrong and there’s nothing you can do to deserve it. Understood?”
Harry nods shyly. Moony’s amber eyes are imploring him. It feels like a lot and yet Harry can’t bring himself to look away. Just as with Padfoot before he feels the urge to hug Moony tugging at him, but Moony’s a person, not a dog. And Harry has just as much experience hugging people as he has petting dogs and Moony would surely notice if he did it wrong and maybe he’d get angry again, even if it’s not directed at Harry.
The tears come unbidden a second time and Harry doesn’t have to decide, because it’s Moony who pulls him into a hug, just as soft and kind as his first impression. It’s the kind of hug you could slip out of without having to try if you wanted to. Not that Harry has any intention of slipping out. With permission granted, he clings to Moony as tightly as he dares. Padfoot nuzzles the side of Harry’s wild hair and Moony rubs circles on his back., humming softly until the sobs subside.
When they pull apart Moony gives Harry a sad, but kind smile. Out of the pocket of his ratty coat he pulls a bar of chocolate.
“I wish I’d known; I would’ve brought something a bit more substantial. I will the next time. For now, though, there’s nothing like chocolate after a good cry.”
He snaps off an entire rib and hands it to Harry. Harry openly stares at him. He can’t decide on what he’s most stunned by: the most chocolate he’s ever had to himself at once, the fact that Moony has obviously cried as well, even though he’s a grown-up and most definitely not a cry-baby Nancy-boy or: “Next time?”
Moony nods gravely, swallowing a bite of his own chocolate. “Of course. Now, that we know for certain, we can’t possibly leave you here.”
“You’re gonna take me away from here?”, Harry whispers. He wants to believe it, he really does, but this confirms it: he is dreaming. None of this is real. It can’t possibly be. No, this is a dream and though Harry will enjoy it as long as it lasts, he will also wake up tomorrow morning to his life precisely as he’s left it yesterday.
“Your aunt and uncle forced our hands, not that I mind in the least”, Moony’s eyes dart to the still untouched rib of chocolate in Harry’s hand. “Eat, I promise it’s not poisoned and I promise you’ll enjoy it more that way than Padfoot trying to lick it off of you once it’s all melted.”
“Dogs aren’t allowed chocolate, it makes them sick”, Harry says. He’s learned that in school only a few weeks ago. Still, he follows Moony’s advice and it is quite possibly the best chocolate he’s ever had.
“Right you are. Though I’m afraid this one rarely knows what’s good for him. Entirely too reckless, not that I can find it in myself to be mad at the idiot for too long.”
The next morning starts as every of Harry’s mornings start, with Aunt Petunia coming down the stairs and wrapping at the cupboard door, even if she has no intention of letting him out. Harry burrows his face in his flimsy pillow. He doesn’t care for starting the day, not when the night has offered him such marvellous dreams. At least he remembers it properly this time; he never manages with the ones he’s flying in. He remembers so well in fact, that he’s convinced he can still taste the chocolate in his mouth.
He yawns and moves to open the ventilation slits so that at least a little light might enter. It is then that he sees it. A note. A note he’s positive he’s never seen before. In a dashing, swirly hand, that makes it near impossible for Harry to decipher, it reads: “No, it wasn’t a dream and yes, we are going to get you out of there. Just wait and see. Forever yours, Moony & Padfoot”