Chapter Text
Harry was running again. He seemed to be doing that a lot more lately.
“Get back here, freak!”
Though it was hardly his fault. The blame for that fell squarely on the shoulders of his cousin, Dudley Dursley. For a boy who looked like he’d actually eaten the whole horse all those starving people were always talking about, Dudley could run surprisingly fast. At ten, almost eleven, Dudley already looked less like a child and more like someone had overinflated a bulldog and forced it into a school uniform two sizes too small. His pink face bounced with every heavy footstep while his thick blond fringe stuck damply to his forehead.
Harry, meanwhile, had the exact opposite problem. Thin to the point of concern and permanently dressed in Dudley’s oversized hand-me-downs, he looked more like a strong breeze might snap him in half than someone capable of outrunning an entire gang of boys. His baggy clothes flapped around him as he sprinted, trainers slapping unevenly against the pavement thanks to soles that were beginning to peel away. The only thing about Harry that people tended to remember were his startling green eyes and the messy black hair that stubbornly stuck up no matter how hard Aunt Petunia tried flattening it.
Harry ducked sharply as something whizzed past his head and shattered against the pavement in front of him. He didn’t even look back to see what his cousin had thrown this time. Although, judging by the sound, it was probably a bottle.
Dudley chased Harry to and from school and any other time he could manage during the weekends, which was practically whenever Harry wasn’t busy doing chores or being punished for supposedly doing them wrong. The worst part was that Dudley had put his pea-sized brain to work a few years ago and figured out he could throw things at Harry to slow him down or trip him up.
“Haha! I almost got ya!” Dudley taunted behind him.
Rocks, sticks, broken glass, random toys, objects pulled from backpacks or scooped off the ground. Anything Dudley could wrap his sausage-like fingers around was fair game. It had gotten so bad that Harry feared the random objects more than Uncle Vernon’s yelling, and that walrus in human skin could have made an air-raid siren jealous.
Another rock clipped a nearby fencepost with a loud crack, spraying splinters into the air. Harry flinched instinctively and veered sideways before forcing himself not to panic. Panicking made him sloppy, and sloppy meant getting caught. He vaulted over a low stone wall and made a sharp turn to avoid another flying textbook.
“At least it’s finally getting some use,” he thought dryly as he sprinted toward what he believed would be salvation.
Ahead of him, Harry spotted the wooded area near the park and hoped they wouldn’t be able to hit him as easily through the trees. He bolted for the treeline, dodging the barrage of thrown objects as best he could.
The moment Harry crossed beneath the branches, the world seemed to change. The sounds of the neighborhood dulled behind him, replaced by rustling leaves and snapping twigs beneath his shoes. Roots twisted through the ground like ropes, but Harry stepped over them almost automatically. He practically flew through the woods, stepping over twigs and ducking beneath low branches as though he instinctively knew where everything was.
If he had the time to think about it, Harry might have even pictured himself as a character in one of the action shows Dudley always watched.
Behind him came several loud crashes followed by swearing. Apparently, Dudley wasn’t nearly as graceful. Harry allowed himself a small smile at the thought. His crashing and swearing meant more distance between them.
When he spotted the far edge of the trees opening up ahead, he quickly changed direction and leapt for the nearest tree. His hands caught the branch easily. Before he could even think about it he was already climbing higher, feet finding sturdy footholds with practiced ease. Bark dug into his palms, leaves whipped at his face, but he barely noticed either in his determination and desperation to escape. Then, finally, he settled on a thicker branch and waited.
Below him, Dudley thundered past.
Harry pressed himself against the trunk, praying that Dudley was still too thick to think to look up.
He waited a beat, then another, and only when he was certain that Dudley was long gone did he allow himself to breathe freely.
For a few more seconds, Harry stayed as still as he could against the trunk, flinching whenever a branch shifted or leaves rustled too sharply nearby. Part of him still expected a rock or bottle to come flying through the trees after him.
Nothing did.
Slowly, the tightness in his chest eased.
Harry shifted higher onto the branch and peered through the leaves. Dudley was nowhere in sight now, probably still stomping around below and complaining about losing track of him.
Another small grin tugged at his face.
Dudley could never follow him properly once he got into the trees. Harry moved through the higher branches almost without thinking, moving easily where most people probably would've slipped and broken something. Climbing had always come naturally to him, though he wasn't really sure why.
The branch dipped slightly as he adjusted himself, but Harry leaned with it before it could throw him off balance. It felt... easy, somehow. Like his body already knew what the tree was going to do before it did.
The higher he climbed, the lighter he felt. Branches bent and swayed beneath him, but somehow that movement felt safer than solid ground ever had. Trees didn’t scream at him. Trees didn’t throw things. Trees didn’t grab him hard enough to leave bruises. Up here, hidden among the leaves with wind brushing against his face, Harry felt safer than he ever did on the ground. For a little while, he could almost forget things.
Unfortunately, he couldn't stay there forever.
With a sigh, Harry glanced at the sun slowly falling off the horizon before carefully starting his climb back down. If he got home too late, Uncle Vernon would start yelling, and Aunt Petunia would no doubt find some new chore to punish him for being “lazy.”
The walk back was always the worst part.
The tight knot that always seemed to live somewhere in his chest loosened whenever his feet left the ground. Privet Drive always brought it back.
Harry lingered near the edge of the park for a few extra minutes before finally starting his trek, reluctant to leave the feeling behind. Unfortunately, gravity and the Dursleys always caught up eventually.
Privet Drive itself looked like the sort of street people bragged about in estate agent brochures. Every lawn was trimmed within an inch of its life, every hedge perfectly squared, and every house looked nearly identical to the next. It was neat, quiet, and painfully ordinary. The Dursleys liked it that way.
By the time Number Four came into view, Harry somehow felt smaller.
He walked up the front steps slowly, trying in vain to delay the inevitable return to his personal hell while Dudley’s voice echoed loudly from somewhere inside the house, followed by Uncle Vernon’s booming laugh.
Sadly, he wasn’t quite fast enough.
“BOY!” Uncle Vernon roared from the sitting room. Even from there, Uncle Vernon’s voice somehow filled the entire house. He boomed through the walls like an angry foghorn. Harry suppressed a sigh, so much for sneaking in unnoticed. He reluctantly made his way toward the sitting room, already bracing himself for whatever fresh complaint Uncle Vernon had prepared.
The television blared loudly as he stepped inside. Dudley sprawled across the sofa like a beached whale while Vernon sat in his armchair with a newspaper folded across his stomach. Aunt Petunia was knitting stiffly in the corner, though Harry suspected she spent more time glaring at him over the needles than actually knitting anything useful.
Uncle Vernon was a large man in every possible sense of the word: broad, thick, loud, and seemingly always one minor inconvenience away from bursting a blood vessel.
Aunt Petunia was the exact opposite of her husband: tall, bony, and sharp in every possible way. Where Vernon blustered and shouted, Petunia preferred tight smiles, narrowed eyes, and the sort of stiff politeness that somehow felt more hostile than yelling ever could.
“There you are.” Uncle Vernon growled, “Thought you could just disappear all afternoon, did you?”
“No, Uncle Vernon,” Harry answered automatically.
“Dudley says you were causing trouble again.”
Harry blinked. That was rich, considering Dudley had spent the afternoon pelting him with half the neighbourhood.
“He ran off into the woods!” Dudley whined loudly. “I almost caught him this time too!”
“Probably hid up trees like one of Mrs.Figg's cats,” Vernon scoffed.
Dudley immediately burst into laughter as though this was the funniest thing anyone had ever said. Harry stayed quiet, eyes fixed firmly on the kitchen floor.
Unfortunately, silence rarely helped.
“Well?” Vernon snapped. “Got nothing to say for yourself?”
Harry considered several responses very briefly before deciding he rather liked being alive, “Sorry, Uncle Vernon,” he murmured.
“Hmph.” Vernon waved one thick hand dismissively. “Get into the kitchen and start dinner. And if you burn anything this time, you won’t eat at all tomorrow.”
Harry hurried away before the conversation could worsen.
Dinner passed in the usual miserable fashion. Harry served everyone first before finally sitting down with the smallest portion after the Dursleys had already started eating.
Dudley, meanwhile, seemed determined to relive the afternoon in exhaustive detail.
“I nearly hit him with a bottle!” Dudley announced proudly through a mouthful of sausage.
“You should’ve thrown harder,” Vernon replied with a booming laugh of his own, barely pausing his eating.
“I did throw hard!” Dudley insisted. He demonstrated by flinging a pea across the table.
Harry flinched before he could stop himself. The pea bouncing harmlessly off his shoulder.
Dudley noticed, and a slow grin spread across his face.
The next pea came faster. Harry’s body wanted to dodge. He forced himself to stay still instead. Experience had taught him that denying Dudley his fun usually led to far worse scenarios than a few vegetables on his shirt. The pea smacked against his chest.
“Oi!” Dudley cackled. “Did you see that?” Another pea hit Harry’s arm, then another.
Dudley dissolved into hysterical laughter with every hit while Harry sat rigidly in his chair, refusing to give him the satisfaction of reacting again.
Even Vernon looked entertained. “Boy freezes up like a frightened squirrel,” he snorted.
Petunia sighed dramatically. “Honestly, Harry, stop encouraging him.” As though Harry had somehow forced Dudley to start throwing food at him.
Much later that night, Harry lay awake in the cupboard beneath the stairs listening to the wind outside.
The walls felt tighter after being in the trees. Up there, surrounded by branches and sky, he’d almost felt free. Down here, the heavy air and cramped walls made that feeling seem impossibly far away. So Harry closed his eyes and imagined climbing again, higher this time and far beyond anyone’s reach, until exhaustion finally dragged him into sleep.
And he dreamed of wings.