Chapter Text
Tuesday, 18 August 1592
“Young children are fucking starving in the streets and all you do is sit on your high and mighty thrones while you feast!” The prince yelled, distress evident in his tone.
“Be quiet and sit down Harry! Your uncle and I are fully aware of the situation in the poorer areas of our kingdom and it will be handled but there is absolutely no reason to use language like that!” The Queen's eyes bored into those of his nephew, threatening severe punishment if he were to push the issue further.
“If by handled you mean they’lll starve and you will no longer have to consider them then yes, it will be fucking handled!” Prince Harry was on his feet now, he was sick and tired of his aunt and uncle who only pretended to care. “And you know what! I think people dying because of your blatant neglect is a perfectly good fucking reason to use an expletive or two!”
“Enough! Go to your room, you shall not disobey us again” Vernon despised being criticised, especially by the nephew he had never wanted to take care of in the first place.
He left the dining hall in a flurry, angry, seeing red. Storming into his room and slamming the door shut. There were no locks on his door, the Dursleys had them removed the first time he decided to lock it, when he was 6 and decided he didn't want to go to his tutoring session because his tutor yelled at him all the time. His was the only door in the castle with no locks.
He hated dinners with the Dursleys, dinners where he had to sit and be prim and proper. He much preferred the days where they forgot he existed, when he could go and eat with the servants. In the bowels of the castle there was laughter. There was no laughter with the Dursleys, except for Dudley laughing at one of his own pigheaded and offensive jokes, while his parents smiled politely and pretended to laugh, because their “Ickle duddykins was oh so funny”
He pulled off the dress shirt he was required to wear at dinners, took off the itchy trousers the Dursleys called “respectable”. As he put on his bedclothes, the same dirty pair he’d had since he was 9, he clambered into his single bed and tried to fall asleep but was kept awake by an unsettling sort of paranoia.
It got so bad that he eventually got out of bed and crept up to the loose floorboard where he stored his most important treasure, a necklace he was wearing when he was left on the doorstep of the castle; it fit him better as a bracelet now. It was a plain silver chain with 4 charms: a wolf, a rat, a dog and a stag. He wore it whenever he was especially anxious and his heart was currently racing.
Harry was very aware of the punishment for criticising their decisions. He was 16 now, this was the last straw. Of course the normal way they got rid of people they didn’t like would have to be changed for the prince. A public execution wouldn't work, they'd tell the public he had died of a sickness. He had realised in hindsight that the outburst was dangerous, but he was so angry.
He had been called to dinner whilst comforting one of the castle servants, Dot, whose newborn had died that morning. The baby had been sick for weeks Harry knew, but was left to be taken care of by her older brother. Their mother was barely even paid enough money to buy food for both her and her two kids, so even taking a day off to take care of her child would be impossible. Even working 7 days a week she had to work overtime to afford medicine for the baby. Harry also knew that because of this she wasn't able to eat anything some days, and had taken to sneaking food from the table when he ate meals so she could eat.
So when he found Dot sobbing uncontrollably on the floor of the corridor, he knew just what had happened and he'd had half a mind to go confront the Dursleys right then and there, but instead he lowered himself to the floor next to her and held her whilst she cried.
Thoughts like these sent him spiralling into a fitful sleep.
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Harry was woken by the shaking. He was blindfolded and his hands were tied together, the same thing done to his ankles. He could feel he was being carried over someone's shoulder, he wasn't bound at the mouth but he didn't scream, knowing it would only lead to his being knocked out again. He heard a door being pushed open and felt the cool air on his brown skin, after a while of walking he heard another gate being pushed open. A while later he was unceremoniously dumped on the floor. The guard untied his hands. He took off the blindfold and ties around his feet.
“Get a good head start prince, they are coming,” he took a key out of his pocket and used it to unlock the gate back into the village and when he closed the gate behind him Harry heard the distinct sound of a door being locked. The sky was dark and he was still tired, there was no way he’d survive in the forest. He resolved to just sleep, the situation would have to wait until morning.
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Wednesday, 19 August 1592
“Wake up!” A tall brunette man shouted at her, he sounded urgent, maybe even a little scared. The sun was up now and Harry could see the gryphon that was standing on its hind legs, in position to attack the strange man. He threw a sword at Harry and gestured for him to sneak behind it and stab the gryphon. He snuck around while it was focused on a man who was obviously from the outer town (judging by the clothes he wore and the scars that criss crossed his body) and stabbed the beast in the neck, allowing the man to shoot it in the chest with his bow.
“Keep that, you'll need it if we're going to survive,” he looked him up and down, at the torn bed clothes he wore, and his messy black hair, which was unbrushed and stuck up at the ends even when he had brushed it .
“What do you mean,” Harry was confused, he didn't even know the guy.
“Well I'm not going to leave you out here alone.” His hazel eyes betrayed no lies, but there was a hint of something deeper. He turned his back to Harry and started walking into the forest, when he noticed he wasn't following he turned around and gestured with his fingers for him to come.
“May Merlin protect me on my way,” Harry whispered under his breath and followed him into the depths of the dark forest.
The forest gleamed in various hues of greens, blues, pinks and browns. As warm as the sun was on his neck, Harry felt chills run down his spine every time he stepped on a twig that scratched at his bare feet or rustled some dry leaves on the floor.
Aside from the unsettling feelings the forest prompted, it was beautiful. They walked through sections covered in luminescent moss, sections where the birds would chirp so loud he couldn't hear either of their footsteps.
The man was wearing a stone coloured cape, a torn, ube shirt and chocolate coloured pants that had patches roughly sewn over the knees. His shoes were leather and sturdy looking, weather worn as they were, you could tell that they had been in use for many a year.
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After a while of walking in silence other than the natural sounds the forest made, the tall man spoke.
“People don't leave the walls of the village where you're from very often now, what's your story my dear?” The man seemed innocently curious but Harry didn't even know his name. He wasn't going to spill history, especially not if people were after him.
“First tell me your name, then maybe I'll give you mine,” Harry retorted with his own question.
“Ohhh, it completely slipped my mind. I'm Remus. Unusual name, I know but I never got to ask my parents why they gave it to me before they died,” he spoke slowly, and with his hands. He seemed nervous.
“You're an orphan?” Harry inquired. He'd never met another orphan. Of course, he hadn't met many other people at all, other than his aunt, uncle and cousin he’d only met a couple of the people who worked in the palace and friends of the Dursleys. The most memorable of which were King and Queen Mason, the rulers of the kingdom just next to Privet, and Marge, Prince Vernon's sister and possibly the rudest person Harry had ever met.
“Yes.” Remus didn't seem to want to talk about it anymore so Harry opted to ask questions later.
“Alright then Remus. I’m Harry,” he tested the unusual name on his tongue and hoped desperately that the scarred man wasn't up to date with the royals and that he wasn't a bounty hunter leading him to his doom. He decided to avoid giving out as much personal information as he possibly could.
“Well Harry , my friend is waiting in his boat,” He smiled. “He’ll be pretty surprised to see you, we don't often see people in these parts,” His skin was very pale, probably from years under the cruelty of his aunt and uncle and their undernourishment of the poor.
He pushed some greenery away and bright sunlight stung his eyes. A short man in a black leather jerkin was standing on the deck of a small boat, one hand on his hip and the other on his guitar. He was standing facing out into the forest, obviously waiting for something. He smiled when he saw Remus but his expression immediately changed to confusion when he saw Harry.
“You might want to stay here while I go talk to him. He can be pretty unwelcoming, but he is actually a sweetheart,” Remus walked towards the man. He was far enough away that Harry couldn't hear them but he could see fast and erratic hand movements, it looked as though they were arguing.
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Remus came back to him and led him onto the boat, then proceeded to go back to standing and arguing with the shorter man just quiet enough that he couldn't hear.
Harry looked around the boat and noticed a discarded pile of tarot cards lying on a table. The ruling family hated magic, said it was unsuitable for anyone, let alone someone under their roof. He’d been caught playing with a discarded set of tarot cards from one of the servants and he wasn't fed for 3 days.
No one had ever taught him what the cards meant, but he knew from a glance what the cards were. The Prince, The Bard, and The Wolf. Harry didn't believe in magic. He was 11 and believing in magic was for babies, but nonetheless he felt shivers down his spine as he saw the three cards lined up.
Someone must have said something that prompted the raising of voices, not to yelling levels but their conversation was now loud enough for Harry to hear.
“This is not a good idea, Moony.” The gorgeous man with black hair no longer spoke in whispers, with his hand still on his guitar.
“Sirius, he needs us, please,” Remus looked at him when he said this and then looked back into Sirius's deep grey eyes and gently took his calloused and unmanicured hands away from his guitar and into his own, but they were interrupted by Harry.
“It's okay, I'll only be here for a couple of days and I'm used to making no noise and pretending that I’m not there. You won’t even know that I'm here.” Harry said hopefully. he needed somewhere to stay for a few days to figure out what to do but he'd be fine on his own.
“ Harry-” Remus was cut off by Harry once again.
“I can cook and clean as well, I promise to stay out of your way” he was desperate.
Remus looked at Sirius with something in his eyes Harry couldn't decifere, a type of look that comes from knowing everything about someone, enough so that you didn't need words. Sirius’s eyes began to soften, as he turned to Harry as though seeing something (or someone) that wasn't truly there.
“He looks just like him, but he has her eyes” Sirius mumbled as he clutched desperately at Remus’s hand as though it were the only thing tethering him to this universe. Harry stood there confusedly, he looked like who?
“I know Padfoot. I promise, I know,” he muttered, squeezing Sirius's hand in return. Their laments were quiet but not quiet enough that Harry couldn't hear the sadness in both their tones.
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