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Harry was rushing as quietly as he could - he absolutely could not risk getting caught yet. He was under his cloak, but knew it wasn’t infallible, his only real hope was that no-one would expect him to be doing what he was.
What was it he was doing?
He was running.
Away from Hogwarts, away from the expectations and fickle wizards, and most importantly away FROM THE NESTING FUCKING MOTHER DRAGONS.
He’d been getting fed up with the fickle nature of wizards in general already, especially when even his supposed best friend turned on him. Then he found out he had to get past a dragon. When he talked to Sirius through the fire after finding that little piece of information he had asked Sirius if he had any problem with Harry simply running away. When Harry added that they could probably get Sirius some form of trial and exoneration in another country, and then they could just live their lives, Sirius was actually quite keen on that option.
The only problem with the plan was the magically binding part of the contract, but Harry had pointed out that he had lived as a muggle for more of his life than not, and so far his experience of the magical world wasn’t that great - certainly not great enough to risk his live over, so as long as Sirius was ok with it, that was Harry’s preference.
They had hashed out a plan, with help from Hermione who was on board with Harry remaining alive but a muggle, and he and Sirius had flights booked for later today. Today being the day of the first task.
All Harry had to do was gather his belongings and make it to The Leaky Cauldron in secret.
Simple, right?
Well, so far, actually so simple - he had got up early and got breakfast straight from the kitchens, and had then waited for his dorm-mates to wake and leave. Then he packed his trunk, cast a lightweight charm that would hopefully last until he met up with Sirius in London at least.
Now he was running through the halls, watching the Marauders’ map to get to the Humpback Witch and into the passageway to Hogsmeade. He could see McGonagal in Gryffindor tower so knew he had to hurry as they were probably already looking for him.
He made it to the passageway, made it through the shop without bumping anyone - at least not conspicuously - and into the floo in The Three Broomsticks. There were some suspicious looks at The Leaky when he arrived, but with no obvious attack people seemed to accept someone just wanted their privacy.
He made it to the meeting point with Sirius (an alley in muggle London near The Leaky).
“Pup! I’m so glad you made it!” Sirius grabbed him into a crushing hug. He was looking pretty gaunt, but not quite as bad as he had last time they’d seen each other in person.
“It was easier than I expected to be honest, although I think getting up early and eating in the kitchens probably made all the difference,” Harry said with a big smile. “You do have some way to disguise yourself, right? That will last without additional magic until the flight is over?” He added with concern - Sirius was known to the muggle police, afterall.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it, I’ve got a little charm or two for that. We’ll just have to hope we can fast talk our way to a proper trial at our destination,” Sirius replied, doing his best to look unworried.
“Ok then, let’s do this - I definitely don’t want to miss our booked flight as I want to be in the air on our way when the task starts!”
“Wait! One last thing before we go,” Sirius said, and handed Harry some bright red paper. An evil smirk spread over Harry’s face as he realised what Sirius wanted to do.
***
Harry would love to say that getting to New York had gone completely smoothly, and in fairness the important bits had. However, while for their safety it was important to be in the air when the First Task was scheduled, the downside was that they were cooped up in an airplane, surrounded by muggles, when Harry felt a magical weight descend upon him, like he was being judged. It appeared he was deemed forfeit to the magically binding contract.
Fortunately Sirius was a fast talker and convinced everyone he had a long term health issue they were flying to the States to get looked at, and while his screams of pain were blood curdling, they didn’t last more than a minute and the rest of the flight was plain sailing.
On arrival, Harry was pleased to note that he was the one who spotted the sign saying ‘Wizarding arrivals this way’ - did that mean he still had magic, despite the pain?
Sirius did as they had planned and immediately surrendered himself to the authorities, asking for asylum and volunteering to take veritaserum or whatever way they used to divine the truth to confirm his innocence. It took a little while, but having the boy he was supposed to have been trying to hurt at his side and in vociferous support of him certainly didn’t hurt.
They were taken to a house in the middle of nowhere, where Sirius was given magic inhibiting cuffs and they had a team of people keeping their eye on them while they worked out the asylum and trial details.
They discovered Harry had been squibbed, rather than turned completely muggle. This suited Harry, as it meant he could still interact with the wizarding world, just would be unable to cast magic. In fact, the American security personnel watching them pointed out that in America, squibs could get decent jobs in potion making or even low level support for rune crafters (they could carve runes fine, they just couldn’t power up the arrays themselves).
Harry could tell Sirius was disappointed, but did a great job of hiding it for the most part, and made it very clear he still fully supported Harry’s decision, especially when news that two out of the 3 of age contestants had been burned by dragon fire reached them. What hope would a fourteen year old Harry have had when they couldn’t keep themselves safe?
***
In an unusual event, to add on top of an unusual day, a solitary owl arrived at dinner the night of the First Task. It wasn’t so unusual compared to the events of the day, so a lot of students didn’t pay it much mind at first. Given the fact one of the champions had vanished, followed by one of their professors losing his magic, before being revealed to be an imposter using polyjuice, they could maybe be forgiven for having what felt like more interesting things to talk about.
Everyone paid attention, however, when the Howler the owl had dropped high in the air before fleeing at speed started with a bang. Literally.
“I HOPE YOU’RE ALL HAPPY WITH YOURSELVES - JUST LIKE MY SECOND YEAR YOU ALL ASSUMED THE WORST BASED ON NOTHING MORE THAN CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. WHAT DO YOU KNOW, WHEN YOU TREAT SOMEONE LIKE CRAP THEY DON’T TEND TO WANT TO DO WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO.
I’M OFF, LEAVING WIZARDING BRITAIN BEHIND ME BEFORE I GET KILLED BY A
DRAGON (OR WORSE, AS I NEARLY WAS AT THE END OF MY SECOND YEAR). I KNOW IT MIGHT COST ME MY MAGIC, BUT I’VE SPENT MORE TIME LIVING AS A MUGGLE THAN A WIZARD SO I’M NOT TO WORRIED ABOUT THAT.
IT ALSO GIVES ME A CHANCE TO GET MY INNOCENT GODFATHER A TRIAL IN AN UNBIASED COURT SO I CAN LIVE WITH HIM RATHER THAN MY MUGGLE RELATIVES, SO I DON’T KNOW WHY I DIDN’T DO THIS SOONER, MIGHT HAVE AVOIDED THE WHOLE TOURNAMENT DEBACLE ENTIRELY THAT WAY.
BY THE TIME YOU ALL HEAR THIS I’LL BE LONG GONE, AND DOUBT VERY MUCH I’LL BE COMING BACK, AS WIZARDING BRITAIN HAS PROVEN ITSELF TO BE UTTERLY WITHOUT INTELLIGENCE.
SO LONG, TURNCOATS!
With a final explosion of coloured confetti (the twins were very excited to find the confetti said ‘a final hurrah from the marauders’), the Howler was finally done.
There was silence as everyone processed what had been said.
Then a great hubbub broke out as it was confirmed Harry had voluntarily run from the Tournament.
There was no consensus about his character, as having seen the of age participants struggle a lot of people were suddenly very aware of the danger involved and couldn’t really blame the boy for running.
Others, of course, were not so kind, but that was to be expected.
Professor Dumbledore was very confused. It seemed like Harry had managed to complete the prophecy in a most unorthodox way. Albus had managed to interrogate Barty Jr. and learned where Lord Voldemort was hiding in his homunculous form. He sent Severus to investigate, with the excuse that Barty had failed and Severus wanted to help in his stead.
What he found was a squibbed Peter Pettigrew cowering in a corner, an agitated snake writhing in what might be agony, and a clearly dying homunculus. Dragging the cowering wreck of a man out of the room, and then back to Hogwarts for interrogation revealed that it appeared as though the cup had squibbed everyone involved in the plot to put Potter in the tournament.
Had it still squibbed Harry? Or had Harry escaped the judgement? Albus realised he may never find out either way. Especially as with the Dark Lord reduced to a squib, he was hardly a threat, even if his spirit was tied to this plane of existence still. Although, the fact Severus’ Dark MArk had been getting steadily lighter and lighter ever since Harry's failure to compete suggested Voldemort had lost enough magic that he didn't have enough for his Horcruxes to hold him to this plane any longer.
Albus hurried to the Department of Mysteries after dinner to check on the prophecy orb. He found it dark, indicating completion.
Suddenly, Albus wasn’t quite sure what to do. He had been preparing the boy for his part in the prophecy, based on his own assumptions of how it must come about, and now it was all for naught. Guilt crept up on him as he realised he’d fallen for the oldest trap in the world - trying to force a prophecy to completion.
Albus realised he had made some major mistakes, and maybe he was doing too much - he had clearly let the prophecy cloud his judgement in regards to Harry, who else had he neglected? Sirius, for a start, the poor man. Alastor as well for the last month - how long would that have continued if not for Harry’s action?
Maybe it was time to step back a bit, before he was pushed to. Which of his 3 posts would he drop? Albus had much to consider, and all of it in a direction he had not seen coming in a million years.
***
Hermione was proud, devastated, annoyed and more.
She was so glad Harry had escaped the fate that likely awaited him versus the dragon. So glad he had made it to Sirius, and given the fact he hadn’t been brought back to school yet, presumably made it to America. Proud of him for standing up for himself and escaping the insanity of the wizarding world in Britain.
But she was also absolutely gutted, Ron’s reaction to confirmation that Harry had run away confirmed that he was not friendship material, which left Hermione with only the few acquaintances she had from Runes and Arithmancy as anything close to friends in school. Well, there was Ginny, but they weren’t that close, and if it ever came out that Hermione hadn’t tried to stop Harry leaving Hermione wouldn't bet on them staying friendly. After the joy of having friends for the last couple of years, Hermione was very aware of what she was missing. Luckily her friendless years from before Hogwarts helped, but it wasn’t easy.
She would have to talk to her parents about their options over Christmas break.
What she wished most of all right now, though, was that people would stop asking her about Harry! Admittedly she was the only person in the school he was likely to contact anytime soon, but that would be via muggle mail, so she wouldn’t read that until Christmas! Not that she admitted that to anyone asking, of course.
It was going to be a long few weeks until break. Especially when it inevitably came out she’d turned down Viktor Krum’s invitation to the Yule Ball!
***
The Daily Prophet did their best to slander Harry for running away, but the fact he completely ignored them, and had vanished without apparent trace meant they ran out of steam after a while. The Quibbler managing to get some quotes from him about his time at Hogwarts helped get some of the more reasonable to see his side, especially as by the time that happened (after Hermione returned from her Christmas break, and a not-so-chance meeting with a certain blonde haired third year), The Prophet had moved on to slandering Hagrid and the French contestant for being ‘half-breeds’.
In the Wizengamot, there was a notable swing as certain people with a more neutral leaning realised that Harry had chosen to leave for more than just the danger of the first task, and took a good look at the state of Wizarding Britain. They didn’t like what they saw. It wasn’t an immediate change, or even that noticeable for a few years, but Fudge didn’t win another term in office, and certain laws that had previously been thought surefire things failed to pass. It would take a while but they were moving in the right direction at last.
***
Hermione opted to leave Britain after her Owls. With her exceptional grades she had an easy time getting into an American school, and her parents’ found their dental skills could fairly easily be transferred.
They moved to New England, and it turned out Harry and Sirius just so happened to live in the same town, who’da thunk it?
***
Despite his lack of magic, Harry was very happy with his lot. His scar suddenly started healing a day or so after they flew to America, which he was very happy with. He was also able to enjoy a lot of the peripheral aspects of magical life, and he actually found potions fun once Snape wasn’t involved. Runes was a bit above him really, but carving them was tolerable, and he could help Sirius (and Remus once they got back in touch and he moved to join them,) with stocking the American arm of the prank store the two marauders started with the Weasley twins.
He never moved back to England, although he did visit after he’d grown. He did note that things had improved a bit back home, but felt moving away was the best choice he’d ever made.