Chapter Text
Normally when Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were out, Harry didn’t have to sneak around as much. He’d either be locked up in his cupboard or he would be sent to Mrs. Figg, down the street, and she would try to tell him the complete genealogy of every cat she’d ever owned or set him in front of the telly. It wasn’t his favorite place on earth, since the whole house smelt of slow-cooked cabbage and cat pee, but Mrs. Figg was nice, and sometimes she saved him some of her signature chocolate cake, or she’d let him work in the garden, which was his favorite thing ever, since he liked the feel of the dirt and he liked looking at the bugs—especially bees.
Aunt Petunia never let him take care of her precious rosebushes when she thought the neighbors were looking, because the entire reason she was so popular was because she supposedly grew the roses all by herself. She didn’t—Harry did, but he often had to do it around noon, when no one else was out, and then it was usually too hot for bugs and too hot for Harry, and he would drink straight from the hose and daydream about that time he managed to sneak Dudley’s lemonade while there was still ice in it.
Today, though, Uncle Vernon had a corporate dinner at Grunnings, and Aunt Petunia had spent all the time leading up to that evening trying different dresses since the faux silk one she’d been planning on wearing didn’t fit her figure anymore, and Dudley had been off playing computer games and (for once) not trying to stomp up behind Harry and hit him with Uncle Vernon’s Smeltings stick. Harry was folding the laundry and trying to pretend he didn’t exist.
“Mooooom?!”
Oh no. Dudley wasn’t happy, and when Dudley wasn’t happy, he tended to make sure no one else in the house was until he got what he wanted.
“There’s a new game out and Piers already got a copy and I want my own copy!!”
Harry shoved himself further back into the corner of the living room, and tried not to wrinkle the dress shirt he was folding.
“Not now Dudleykins, I have to get ready. Mum will get you the game tomorrow.”
“But I want it nowwwwww!” Dudley’s whine was quickly reaching a dangerous pitch, and it seemed for once Harry wasn’t the only one who noticed.
“I have somewhere to be in half an hour, Popkin, the earliest I can get it is after the dinner,” Aunt Petunia placated, rummaging around for her handbag. She was wearing the dress she was going to in the beginning, and the shiny blue fabric did her absolutely no favors. “I would get it now, but this is a big thing for your Dad, understand? I can’t miss it. How about you invite Piers over to play it with you today, and then I can get you the full game tomorrow?” Aunt Petunia found her handbag and started rummaging through it. “There are extra crisps and chocolate in the pantry, and I have that ice cream we were saving for the movie on Friday,” she added cajolingly. “You could make a party out of it.”
Dudley’s eyes started to sparkle, and Harry tensed in anticipation. “Can I invite Carl too? And Jake?”
Oh no. Dudley was bad enough on his own, but when the whole gang was here, Harry knew that soon enough they would lose interest in playing video games and watching the telly, and then they’d fall back to their favorite amusement—Harry Hunting. And Harry would rather not be hunted, believe it or not.
“Of course, Dudleykins,” Aunt Petunia soothed. “I’m trusting you with the house while we’re gone. Just make sure not to drink too much pop.”
Harry, who had hastily gone back to folding laundry before either of his relatives noticed, thought dismally that Dudley couldn’t be trusted with a painted nickel, much less the house, but it wasn't as if he had a say.
An hour later, Uncle Vernon’s company car zoomed off, Harry folded the last shirt and disappeared into the safety of the laundry, and the doorbell rang about ten times in succession, which probably meant it was Piers at the door. Piers didn’t take no for an answer and he had the patience of a goldfish, so if someone didn’t open the door within a minute, he would just keep mashing the doorbell until—
“Hey Freak!” Dudley yelled from the other room.
…Here we go. Harry scrambled out of hiding—it would only be worse if he stayed where he was.
“Get the door!”
Harry muttered something that would have made Aunt Petunia backhand him and scrambled to the door, pulling it open to see Piers and Dudley’s other friends—Jake and Carl and the one kid with the pig eyes whose name Harry never bothered remembering.
“Dudley’s in the playroom,” Harry said, and ducked away before he could get hit. “He’s getting out the ice cream.” Harry’s mouth watered at the very thought of ice cream, but it wasn’t as if he could sneak some while Dudley was watching. He’d have to wait until Dudley got distracted with whatever he was doing and left his bowl—it might be a little melty, but it’d be better than nothing and it wasn’t like Dudley was missing any meals.
Dudley’s friends all shouldered past him, heading to the playroom, and Harry took the opportunity to bolt. It was going to be a long night.
It was, in fact, a long, long night. Harry stayed out of the way when he could and spent the rest of the time “helping” Dudley and his friends—that is waiting on them hand and foot so they wouldn’t notice he was sneaking snacks that a freak like him wouldn’t ordinarily get. He tried not to go with the obvious ones, like crisps or ice cream, but he did manage to hide an ice cream bar in his waistband. It was weird and melty and a little stuck to his skin when he got the chance to eat it, but it was ice cream, and he hadn’t really had anything since the dry toast Aunt Petunia shoved at him for breakfast.
The game Dudley and his gang were playing seemed pretty cool. Harry tried to melt into the wall, just watching them play it, and he wished he could play too. He bet he’d make a cooler house than Dudley’s hut. Sure, he kept boasting about it being made of diamonds, but Harry knew he was cheating, and it looked pretty ugly anyway. Plus, who made a house out of diamonds, anyway? Weren’t there other things you could do with those?
Dudley and his friends weren’t even doing anything interesting, they were just mining and occasionally hitting virtual zombies with swords, screaming “Yeah! Wicked hit, man!” The game looked so cool, but all they were doing after a while were squabbling over the controls. Then Harry made the mistake of moving, and Carl turned around. “Hey Big D,” he said, and Harry knew he’d blundered big-time. “Your freak cousin is in here! Y’know, wouldn’t it be more fun to fight brain-dead idiots in real life?”
Harry thought that the only braindead idiots in the room were Dudley and his friends, but he clamped his mouth shut and bolted instead. It was too late, though, because Dudley and his friends were tromping after him, and he couldn’t help starting to shake. All he wanted was a peaceful night without Uncle Vernon drinking and screaming at the telly and Aunt Petunia talking on the phone at the top of her lungs. One night. Was that too much to ask? He really wished that he didn’t have to live here. Maybe someday he could go on a vacation maybe? That would be nice. He remembered the game Dudley had been playing while he hid in a closet, back against the door, and wondered what it would be like to live in the game, in a wide open world where no one could hurt him except for made up monsters. He could hear Dudley and his gang stomping up the stairs, Dudley stumbling on that one creaky step. He just wanted to not be there.
All at once, there was a little twist in the back of his head, and then…everything was gone. And he was standing in an eerily quiet forest. The trees stretched up and up and up, and for some reason, everything seemed blocky and weird. What on earth was going on?
Then he saw a wolf like from the game Dudley was playing, and he realized somehow, though he didn’t have any idea how, he was actually in the game. Worse yet, he didn’t know how to get out. But would that really be so bad? He’d seen Dudley build stuff in the game and give a bone to a wolf to make it tame, and Carl had said something about making pies. So maybe he could live here, and he wouldn’t have to worry about anything but fake monsters? But they wouldn’t be fake now, would they? Could he die here? If he did, would he just be dead, or…
Harry didn’t want to think about that, so instead he did what Dudley and Piers and Carl had all done—he turned around and punched a tree. It did nothing but make his knuckles hurt, so instead he started punching the leaves, hoping to get sticks or something, and all at once something round and red hit him on the head. An apple. But wasn’t this tree…not an apple tree? He’d seen old Mr. Miller’s precious apple tree, in his backyard, and this looked more like the big oaks in the park. Maybe there were different kinds of apple trees? However he got that apple though, he was super thankful. There was food here.
Now he just had to figure out how to find a place to hide for the night, because he didn’t know that much about the game, but one thing was certain—you did NOT want to be caught out at night, cause that was when the monsters came.