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Soft noises can be heard echoing around the thin dusty walls of a thin cupboard. Warm sticky liquid slowly drips from various aching cracks in a weak boy's skin. A sharp pain shoots through his skull causing a groan to fall from his lips, the sounds luckily muffled by a hard cold surface against his face.
He breaths in and out, a soft whistle to it. There’s a thick fluid coating the back of his throat. He tenses and squeezes his eyes shut, just a little bit of sleep. Maybe just half an hour, if possible a little bit more would be nice.
He abruptly wakes up with a harsh cough, his body lurches forward and he shakes with each cough. Coughs wrack his ribs and thousands of lightning bolts shoot throughout his body. He forces down the urge to just curl up and wait for the pain to pass, instead he pulls his slack body up like it's a broken doll’s who’s strings have grown loose and weak with overuse.
Harry slowly settles down as his surroundings come into view. His eyes take a moment to adjust. The dirty walls that are too close for comfort that Potter expected to see don’t come into view, rather, the cool biting air and ragged brick walls greet him. His stomach lurched and he heaved at the smell. Rotten food mixed with whatever other disgusting things have been tossed out burns his nose. He brings a hand up to his mouth, feeling the bones press into his mouth.
He slowly blinks away his confusion and feels around the ground, the rough ground rubbing against his calloused fingertips. Harry finds what he’s looking for, cool round frames touch his skin. He thumbs over the weak glass and his lips twitch downwards slightly. A new crack. He jots that down in the back of his mind and slips the cool frames on.
His eyes drift to the inky sky that's seemingly devoid of stars. Still night.
Right, he’s in an alleyway…he was running from a homeless bloke who was attempting to steal his food. He cornered himself in this alley by accident, and let's just say he wasn’t a match for the older, stronger, and more experienced man. A chill goes down his spine, he’ll have to check over the injuries he sustained when he has the chance.
He mentally scolds himself for his lack of forethought, running into an area he has no knowledge of? Not the smartest thing he’s done. Potter supposes he should thank the gods that the man only wanted his food. That could have ended far worse.
He sighs softly and uses a nearby brick wall to help him stand. His legs feel like jelly, there's probably a few deepish cuts from the pocket knife the man was carrying. His stomach suddenly gurgles in protest to the movement, demanding food before he moves any further.
He runs his tongue over the back of his teeth while ignoring the slightly metallic flavor assaulting his taste buds. Food. Potter needs food. He glances at one of the dumpsters in the alleyway. His mind immediately protests at the thought, the food could be rotten, poisoned, moldy, just…dangerous! But he needs food.
He leans his back against the solid wall and internally debates with himself, throwing the pros and cons around his head. Eventually Harry decides that he doesn’t have a choice, being picky on the streets might as well be a death sentence. Potter takes a step towards the dumpster, a pain immediately overwhelming any thoughts as it shoots through his body like a firework. He crumbles to the ground, an involuntary noise escaping him.
He just sits there for a second getting his bearings again, he's hungrier than he thought he was. Or maybe he’s dehydrated, either way he needs sustenance.
He shoves that thought to the back of his head for a moment and looks down at his ankle instead. It's not twisted abnormally luckily, he experimentally shifts it and immediately an unbearable pain shoots through his leg again. Heavy breathing is the only sound coming from the alley after a moment.
It's not completely broken, that's all that matters to him. He reaches down and slowly lifts his pant leg and immediately notices its swollen purple state. His teeth grind together at the sighs, no wonder. “Shit.” he murmurs to himself. He looks around the alley hopelessly. There's a few empty tin cans, some paper, some food residence splatter on the concrete, and a multitude of other things that clearly came from the brick building he was leaning on a moment ago.
His dull green eyes eventually lands on an old dirty shirt, there's some holes and stains on it seemingly from some sort of heat. Maybe the owner was a smoker. Potter just shakes his head and reaches for it. His whole body reaches at the smell, Merlin, he's really getting tired of this disgusting alley. His teeth sink into his lip and he tugs rough at the thin fabric, luckily it doesn't take a lot of force before it rips. A relieved breath leaves his lips as he starts gently wrapping it around his swollen ankle.
He thanks Petunia mentally for teaching him how to do basic medicine on himself. After a moment he decidedly grumbles to himself, “I'm not that thankful actually.” He wraps it a final time before clumsily tying it. He winces at the dirty fabric on his skin, he’ll have to check on it frequently to make sure nothing is infected. He should look for a better ‘bandage’ when he has the chance.
He grunts softly and leans on the wall awkwardly to support himself as he slowly stands up. His legs slowly drag him over to the putrid dumpster making his stomach fight to expel its contents. Though, it’d just be stomach acid, what little amount he's eaten in the past week is long gone.
He groans and heaves his heavy body over the edge of the dumpster while throwing the lid up, of course he has to shove it a few more times before it properly opens. Harry eventually manages to get it open while panting softly; it took too much effort to open a dumpster.
Potter nearly falls back at the smell assaulting his nose now, it is so much worse with the dumpster open. He just fights back the urge to flee away from the whiff of rotten food. He leans into the dumpster a bit and starts digging around trying to find something that's either canned, wrapped, or at the very least not rotten or moldy. The food waste irritates him a bit, why throw away good food when they could give it out to homeless people or something?
He brushes off the thoughts as his hand brushes against some cool metal surfaces and drags them out of the sea of filth. Canned foods, there's a couple cans of green beans, a can of peaches, and a few cans of tomato soup. His lips twitch into a grin, “jackpot,” he says quietly.
He digs through the dumpster a bit more, only turning up with a few wrapped candy items. His heart stutters at his findings, he's never been allowed to have candy. His mind trails back to the one time Potter did ask for candy.
He was four years old, locked up in his filthy cupboard. His little hands were absentmindedly rubbing the uneven paint job on the walls while entertaining himself by imagining what it would be like to go outside and make friends. These musings are interrupted with a sharp bang in the door. “Get up boy! Come help put the groceries away!” An annoyingly loud voice bellows out. “Yes, Uncle Vernon!” His small squeaky voice yelped out. He’d recently been punished for taking too long to help pick up some trash Dudley had knocked off the counter.
His small body gently presses against the door to open it, the hinges creaking. He has to use a bit of force, the doors old and a bit broken so it doesn't open smoothly like it should. A bit of dust drops from the walls at the force, he sneezes as some gets into his nose. He quickly leaves his small room and shoves the door shut before hurrying outside as fast as his little legs will allow him to. A shrill voice calls for him. “Hurry, hurry, help get these quickly!” Aunt Petunia, she’s always been the nicer of the three people in the house, but she's still not very kind. She doesn’t like people seeing him or knowing that they’re looking after him.
He quickly grabs a bunch of bags of assorted items, he had childishly hoped that he’d be complimented for being able to bring in so many bags at once. Of course, nobody said a thing while he dragged in far too many bags for his little thin arms to handle. He manages to set the bags down gently without breaking anything luckily. Harry quickly scrambles back out to grab a few more bags from the back of the car. Dudley, of course ran inside to go tearing through the bags to find the few toys he got for being good– which just meant not throwing a tantrum at the store while they shopped for food.
He drags some more bags inside and Vernon and Petunia follow behind him with a few more bags in their own hands. He quickly settles his own bags beside the others and quickly cleans the mess left by Dudley as worry grips his heart. Luckily Vernon nor Petunia say a thing about the mess left by their precious ‘Dudkins.’
“Help put the groceries away then go clean the bathroom!” Vernon's sluggish voice barks. The large man just grabs a cold Carlsberg* from the fridge and settles down on the couch while searching for the remote. The small boy quickly obeyed his seemingly knackered uncle's demands, the thought of punishment looming over him. Vernon's especially mean when he's tired, even worse after he's drunk a beer.
Picking random things out of the bags and putting them away in their rightful spots is a slightly tedious task. He puts the cold stuff into the empty spaces in the fridge and makes sure to put the other stuff neatly organized into the cabinets. He weaves and moves around Petunia who's putting some stuff into the upper cabinets where the thin young boy can’t reach.
When the bags are emptied out and tossed into the bin the boys' eyes land on a nice bright bag on the counter top. Some sort of candy bag stuffed full of individually wrapped hard candies, cherry, watermelon, lemon, lime, orange, strawberry, blue raspberry, and a bunch of different flavors he didn't even know could be made into candy. He eyes the bag innocently, his childish tastebooks tingling at the thought of having one.
He shifts on his feet and glances back at Vernon who's now ripping up the couch cushions looking for the “pesky remote.” He looks back at the bag before he slowly looks up at the thin woman who has already begun making dinner. Her fancy clothes are still as prim and proper as if she just put them on. The frail boy begins fidgeting with his hands while working up the courage to speak.
He just quietly stands there staring at the blonde woman. A sharp voice eventually interrupted his nervous mental rambling to himself. “What do you want?” She says as abruptly turns her head to look into the boy's eyes. Her eyes don’t stay looking for long as they shift to look at the ‘unseemly’ scar on his forehead.
He jumps a bit at the sudden call out, he was so wrapped up in his thoughts he hadn’t even seen her glancing at him. He slowly works the courage up and squares his little shoulders as if trying to look confident and tough. “M-may I have a candy?”
His body immediately deflates and jerks when there's suddenly a sharp sting on his cheek and spots bloom in his vision. “Do not ask me such an absurd question again!” She hisses. He shrinks back and gently cradles his stinging cheek in the palm of his hand. He blinks a few times, tears welling in his innocent green eyes.
Aunt Petunia never hit hard, her thin, maintained body never held much of a bunch. It was more the emotional sting that came with her hits that hurt. The only thing that ever really hurt from her was when she smacked him with her hand that had her wedding ring. The sharp cold metal always hurt against his thin skin.
A whistle goes through the air as wind clashes against a nearby street light which draws him out his reflection. Right, it was getting too cold too quick, the chill was beginning to settle deeper into his bones making his body rattle. He takes a breath and drops the candies in one of the unripped pockets of his pants.
His feet hit the ground which reminds him of the painful state of his ankle making a soft grimace pass over his face. He needs to find a place to rest,but more importantly, he needs to find something to carry the cans he discovered. Harry’s eyes scan the alleyway again, of course there is nothing useful lying around. Not even a plastic grocery bag that's too thin with a few too many holes.
Harry's eyes land back on the torn shirt, it has holes and fabric missing but it can work as a temporary sack to carry his cans. He drops the cool metal tins onto the shirt and takes a few minutes to figure out how to tie it in a way that it can hold the cans while not unraveling after a few steps and not letting cans drop out the cracks.
Potter carefully peaks out the alley way to look at the empty street, he surveys to make sure nobody is passing by. There is the occasional passing car but this area is not active at night when everything is closed. He steals his nerves and slowly steps out the alley. He makes sure to stay in the shadowy areas as much as possible while concealing the fact that his ankle is injured. Limping around with an injured leg and a sack of canned foods would practically be begging to get robbed and beaten blind.
He doesn’t have a destination in mind, just anywhere but that putrid alley which is obviously a popular spot for homeless blokes to search while looking for food. He seems to have just gotten lucky that nobody wanted to fish through the disgusting dumpster, or maybe the cans were buried so deep that everyone simply missed them.
A loud crash interrupts his thought, the sound coming from a nearby alley. Potter quickly ducks inside of a nearby building that he hopes is empty. It's dark and run down so there's nobody in there that should be in there. He's more worried about there being someone that should not be in the building though.
A loud gruff voice, sounds like an older man, echoes from the alley “get lost you bloody pest! Get your barmy half-rate start up out of our territory unless you want to end up with your guts spilled!” Some more loud expletives are shared, there's clearly more than a couple people fighting. If he were to guess he'd have to say roughly ten or so, most of them being on the man's side.
A sharp bang sounds through the air, like something hard was slammed against a metal trash bin. Harry jerks at the sudden noise and sinks back further into the darkness of the empty building. ‘Bloody hell’ whispers in his mind, afraid they might notice him.
Harry eyes the alley way, he can’t see them, he's not sure if that is a good sign or not. On one hand that means they’re far enough back for him to not have to worry about them seeing him immediately if they happen to glance at the open doors of the building, but that also leaves him to worry about them popping out from behind the cracked dirty walls.
His fingers curl against the leg of his trousers and his uneven teeth sink into his battered bottom lip. He needs to hurry by, and maybe find a better area to stay in. This area is apparently crowded with gangs. Potter doesn’t fancy potentially stumbling along the wrong scene and being dealt with by them.
The men are still calmly threatening the possibly younger man– perhaps a teen. He doesn’t sound very old, maybe eighteen or nineteen. Voices can be deceiving though, and Harry doesn’t want to stay to find out. A pained groan fills his ears and footsteps begin approaching the front of the building much to Harry's dismay. ‘Shit.’
He quickly backs into the building, his eyes scanning the rundown beaten building. It looks as if it survived a tornado. There are papers scattered around the floor along with some suspicious looking fluids and pieces of trash scattered about. There's notably clothes splayed out along the floor, this building seems like a common place for homeless blokes to squat in.
Potter shoves his analysis to the back of his mind before quickly ducking down behind a beaten old up wooden desk. The legs are in horrible condition making the table tilt a bit to one side. The desk luckily has a back that allows leg room but covers the lower part of the body; Potter scoots his body into the gap under the chipped wooden surface.
Soft footsteps slowly walk ast the front of the building– but they stop right in front of the entrance. Potter sucks a silent breath in and holds it like his life depends on it, which it very well could. Who knows what they would do to him if they caught him.
A low growling voice escapes the man standing in the entrance. “Get lost if you know what’s bloody good for you.” A soft thud and a wheezy breath escapes presumably the younger man. “Wanker..” the younger’s voice comes out as a pained murmur. There’s another loud noise as something makes an impact, a sharp *crunch* and a loud scream erupts from one of the guys in front of the building.
Potter's body jerks and he instinctively covers his ears to block out the sound, after a short moment he catches himself and forces his hands back down. He has to hear if they step into the building. The younger's pained groans keep interrupting Potter's attempts to listen to the man's potential footsteps.
“You better watch what you say boy, you're lucky we let you off easy.” Another voice interrupts, another man that's clearly older but his voice is more wheezy like he's been smoking since he was young. Potter cringes at that thought, he used to have a neighbor that insisted on smoking outside her house. She was an older woman that looked as if she could drop dead at any moment. Frail, greying, and all elbows and knees. The smell from her cigarette would always make its way to the Dursleys' front yard. He could almost hear Aunt Petunia turning her nose up at the woman and whispering under her breath about the old woman being “uncouth” and “unfitting” in their nice upscale neighborhood.
“Stay off the road or you won't be walking off next time.” The threat slips from the wheezy man's mouth smoothly, well, as smoothly as it could. With a final thud the sound of multiple footsteps retreat. The thought makes Potter shiver, there were way more people than he thought there were. In his panic to hide he didn’t realize just how many footsteps there were. He could make out at least five.
Potters dragged from his frightening thoughts of what could have happened to him by the sounds of soft pained noises and shifting from the other. He's clearly not doing well, perhaps a broken bone? The haunting noise from just a few moments ago could have easily been the sound of a bone cracking. His stomach clenches weakly at the thought, the pain of broken bone is excruciating. Dealing with it all alone is agonizing, knowing that no ones coming to save you from the pain. You don’t even have someone to tell you you’ll be okay.
A sharp pang goes through his heart. He could have helped… It's an irrational thought. He’s ten, he's not even old enough to drive, yet he wants to believe he could have at least helped the teen get away before he could go through that. It's stupid, idiotic, utterly foolish, but he can’t help but feel responsible. A small sob comes from the other side of the desk where the man's restless body lays. He's clearly in pain, aching, cold, throbbing, destroying pain. ‘I should help, I could maybe help clean up the blood?’ his thoughts go through his head scrambled and uncertain. It’s dangerous.. But he feels guilty for not helping.
Suddenly there's quick feet approaching the front of the building again making the potter's breath hitch. Did they come back? Are they going to do worse to the teen?
“Noah! Noah– you're bleeding! Avery, grab his legs, don't jostle him too much!” A slightly panicked and very worried voice sounds. Another guy, Harry, assumes he's around the same age as the guy. There's some soft whispering that Harry can't quite make out from where he is and the now named “Noah” groans as he is lifted. He can hear soft coughing as they pick him up and start walking off somewhere, likely to get Noah some medical attention.
Potter decides to take this time to quickly head to the back of the run down building hoping there is a door he can escape from. To his luck there is, the lock on the door is broken so he easily slips out the back. He looks at the back alley cautiously hoping everyone that was here before is now long gone. He doesn't want to be caught and end up like the other guy.
Once he deems the walkway safe he starts quickly going through the back alleys, he nervously checks every corner and area before walking through it in case he stumbles across another territory fight or just some shady business he does not want to be a part of. He gets a bit lost, the back alleys are dark and windy in all sorts of directions, but he eventually manages to find an opening into a street with buildings on both sides like before.
He slips out of the alley way and holds his food stash close to his front once again. He glances around nervously and begins walking down the street. The soft sounds of crickets, some flickering street lights, and the general sounds of night time fills his ears. His footsteps fall soft in the concrete as if afraid to be caught by the men from before.
After another hour of tireless walking he manages to find a nice little part area, it's open and grassy and there is a nice bend along the far edge of the part right by a broken light that could provide a decent amount of cover. It is still very open but he is far enough away from the heavily populated areas and he is exhausted so he is willing to take his chances. Potter quickly sits on the bench and drops his ‘bag’ of food on the ground beside him. He swipes a can of green beans from his meager stash and opens them, he's glad they had the lids that could be opened without a can opener. He silently digs in, using his fingers.
‘I hope he's okay…” he thinks. His mind trails to a certain event at the Dursley's.
Harry was 5, his body frail and growing slowly. This was around the time they were starting to make him properly work, his list of chores was growing each day, Dishes, cleaning, learning to cook, weeding, planting, and on and on. It was a cool winter day, Harry was outside happily messing with a pile of snow. He was supposed to be cleaning out a shed they had in their backyard so Dudley could use it as a warm meeting spot for him and his friends.
This little hands reached out and he made a handprint in the sand beside a small little snowman he made out of snow balls, he was just about to add a few pebbles he found along the edges of the yard when he was roughly yanked by the back of the neck by a large hand. Potter yelps and looks back quickly as he's dragged into the house. “U-Uncle Vernon– that hurts..!” He says in a whimpery voice, Vernon just spit back viciously “shut your mouth you freak, and call me *sir.*”
Potter's big green eyes begin to tear up a bit, he wasn’t quite used to the Dursley's being so mean at that time. They were… decent enough when he was younger, probably feeling too guilty to actually hurt a four year old.
The boy's thin body is tossed to the floor and the door is slammed shut roughly behind him signaling that they are now alone and Vernon won’t hesitate to be mean– but nothing could have prepared the small boy for what was about to happen to him. “You wretched boy! I feed you, I give you a place to sleep, I even teach you how to work hard so you can survive on your own instead of being a little wuss!” The fat man goes on a tangent, his spit landing on Harry's face as he grabs his hair and brings his face close to his own. The man's face was turning a very angry shade of red, almost purple. Potter's face screws up in pain. “I-I didn’t do anything!” He protests weakly.
“Then you go and repay me by breaking my car window with a baseball!” He roughly yanks the boy's hair and shoves him against a wall to prevent him from wiggling out his grip. “Do you know how much that costs boy! Do you have any clue how much money I'll have to use to replace that window!” He punctuated his sentence by jabbing a finger roughly into his chest in the same spot a few times. Potter lets out soft cries at the pain.
“Not to mention you mucking about while your chores sit there gathering dust! You lazy incompetent whelp!” He ends his target with a sharp shove into the wall again. Harry lets out a yelp of pain, his little body not dealing with the rough handling well. “I-I didn't break it! Uncle Vernon– I didn't-!” He was roughly cut off with a smack.
“You disrespectful freak! Call me ‘sir,’ I am not your friend, you wouldn’t be in my house if I had a say in it!” He barks out. Potter lets out a cry, tears slipping down his cheeks. “I didn’t do it!” He yells which is received unwell, he's shoved to the floor. “Dudley told me what happened, you little fibber.” He insults, a violent kick aimed straight at Harry's little stomach. He whimpers and curls up, holding his stomach tightly. “S-stop! Please–"Of course, he was ignored. "You were having a laugh and playing with Dudley's baseball while you were supposed to be doing your chores! Not only did you take Dudley's toy but you used it to break my window!” He shouted.
Potter curls up in on himself and holds himself tightly to hide from his angry uncle, “please!” He bawled. His uncle just grew angrier at that, “You ungrateful brat! You want to cry and yell after breaking my car! I'll give you something to cry about!” Vernon's voice was harsh, those words still haunt Harry to this day because of what followed after them.
Harry's memory for the most part was blurred and scrambled, he just remembers pain blooming everywhere on his body from punches and a few well placed kicks. The pain was agonizing and overwhelming, his ears were ringing, his chest heaved and sobs escaped his body. He felt like he was being drowned by a flood that wouldn't stop till he stopped breathing, just as it felt like it was easing up, there was a horribly sickening crunch.
The next thing he knew his ears were filled with a deafening scream, he hadn't even recognized his own voice. His vision was white, the only thing he could feel was the overwhelming urge to vomit and/or to curl up and die. The pain was so sudden and violent he didn't even have time to brace himself.
Potter's memory is fuzzy after that, he only remembers opening his eyes and lying in his dusty cupboard. He blinks slowly, he feels like his body’s made of jelly, he can barely focus on anything. It’s like he's under a layer of goo, his body numb and weak. He can’t even bring himself to look down.
Potter shakes his head slowly, he's still not quite sure why he felt like that. He can only assume that the Dursley's drugged him up so much that he couldn't feel anything so they could avoid a trip to the hospital and so Harry wouldn’t go sobbing and screaming in excruciating pain. He supposes he just got lucky that his broken rib didn’t puncture a lung. Potter slowly ribs a hand over his right side where his rib got broken, it still protrudes out slightly from it healing in the wrong position over time.
Potter's lips slip into a frown, it still hurts sometimes. He's afraid it might be permanent. Potter blinks as his thoughts cut through by the soft flickering of a nearby light. He looks over at it for a long moment just… thinking. He should finish eating and get some rest. Potter eats the last bit of green beans he has left in the can and tosses the empty can into a nearby trash bin.
He really needs to focus on finding a proper place to stay tomorrow. Or at the very least find a decent bag and some more supplies. He really needs water, a source of light, and some medical supplies. A medkit and some pain killers would do the trick for long enough. His eyes trail down to his throbbing ankle, he seriously needs to treat it, at least a clean bandage.
Potter lays down on the bench and closes his eyes while throwing thoughts through his mind about what he needs that can be transported easily. His mind drifts to sleep on those thoughts.
*A Danish canned beer product popular in the UK.