Chapter Text
His feet were pounding on the sidewalk, heavy pants falling from between his lips. He didn’t dare stop, didn’t dare to turn back to get a grasp on how much distance he had put between them, didn’t dare stop until he knew he was somewhere safe.
He knew exactly where to go, slipping in between the legs of strangers unseen, hoping to lose his cousin in the rush of the crowd.
Harry had risked stealing a leftover biscuit from the plate he had been bringing to the sink to wash, his stomach grumbling, mouth going dry. He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t been sent to the cupboard with an empty stomach.
He had underestimated his stealth, his cousin’s watchful gaze catching his movement. Dudley was shouting then, and Harry was shoving the entire biscuit into his mouth and chewing as fast as he could, swallowing pieces that were too big, choking and spitting. This was the first thing he had eaten in days, he needed it, needed it even if it meant Uncle Vernon forcing his mouth open afterwards and Dudley’s fist plowing into his stomach as if determined to make him heave the biscuit back out.
Harry had bitten the joint between Uncle Vernon’s thumb and wrist, causing him to yelp and release his grip on him. He slipped past Dudley and ran out the door and hadn’t stopped running since. He could still hear Dudley’s heavy footsteps pounding somewhere faintly behind him, still chasing after him after what had to have been at least ten minutes. Dudley lacks determination when it comes to most things, except when it involves Harry.
Harry feels his breath shortening, legs threatening to give out, when he finally sees his destination up ahead. It’s a grade school, the one he most likely would have attended if the Dursleys had bothered to enroll him. Dudley never follows him past the gates, the threat of faculty and adults seeing him chase after Harry scaring him enough to know he can’t avoid getting in trouble here.
One last burst of energy and Harry is stumbling into the hallways of the school, inconspicuous and silent enough that he blends in with the rest of the students milling about. Here he looks like any other nine year old, maybe dressed a little more shabbier and sloppier than most of the others.
He walks a now familiar path, a single turn left into a mostly empty hallway and he’s at the back door of one of the school’s classrooms, slipping inside unseen and sitting cross-legged on the floor in between rows and rows of chairs, hidden from both the occupants at the front of the room.
He’s late today, recognizing the child as the third student in the usual schedule of individual classes. The teacher stands straight-backed behind the student, gaze intense and unforgiving as he watches his students fingers run across the keys.
His mind no longer in flight-mode, Harry finds his breath calming and body relaxing, recognizing this part as the one the student has been struggling with for the past couple of days. The teacher must have had made the child play it over a hundred times by now, unrelenting practice until she finally gets it right.
Harry had stumbled upon this place weeks ago after a similar situation of running from Dudley from a mishap of some sort. It had been towards the end of the instructors last session, the melody drifting through the empty halls of the schools and drawing him closer and closer towards it.
He had recognized the sound of a piano almost immediately, days of straining to hear the soft sounds of classical music and secretly watching the performances Aunt Petunia would put on telly from the small crack between door and wall coming to mind.
He had been fascinated, standing at the door of the room watching as the little boy's fingers moved rapidly across the piano keys, the soft melody echoing throughout the room. He had wanted to stay and watch more, but then the instructor was getting his things ready to leave and Harry was forced to slip back outside to avoid being caught somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.
He had returned every day after that, eventually figuring out the timings of the lessons and learning exactly when to slip in and out of the room to avoid being seen.
Harry was enthralled by the piano, and always had been. He loved listening to the pieces, even when the students made a mistake or Mr. Snape — which was the name of the piano teacher, a fact he had learned after a week of being there when another teacher came in to retrieve him for something — would make the students repeat the same 30 second melody over and over and over again until they got it perfect.
Harry especially loved it when he would arrive to see Mr. Snape had gotten there earlier than usual, and was sitting behind the piano playing to a room without an audience. Harry did not know the names of the pieces, but Mr. Snape always played works that Harry felt were written just for him, heart-wrenching and melancholic and aching in a way that felt as if Harry’s own emotions had been ripped out of his heart and transformed into melodies.
He wanted so furiously to be the one sitting behind the piano, learning to play pieces that could evoke such intense emotions without a single spoken word. He had stayed exceedingly late one evening, the entire school quiet and empty, and had crept slowly to the front of the classroom and sat on the little piano bench. Harry had just sat, hands hovering over the closed lid of the keys, daunted by the size of the grand piano that sat before him. He hadn’t realized how large it was from his viewpoint in the back of the room. He sat there for two whole minutes, minuscule in retrospect but it was the only amount of time he dared to be so out in the open in a single place.
Harry had sat there and he had imagined himself, fingers running frantically across the keys, chasing after a melody he had spent hours and days learning, dedication and determination spilling from his fingertips like magic. He ached. He yearned. He wanted to learn to play so desperately.
Perhaps it was the exhaustion in his muscles from exerting so much energy running or the hunger in his stomach from not eating in days or maybe it was just the soothing melody surrounding him, but Harry found himself slipping into a peaceful rest, eyes falling closed against his will.
That is how Mr. Snape found him an hour later, body slumped somewhat uncomfortably against the legs of a chair and eyes crusted with sleep. He awoke to someone shaking him gently, opening his eyes to see a dark gaze perring at him assessingly. Harry panicked and did the only thing he was familiar with. He ran.