Hospital

The first day of school in January 1994, only one year after Sam had approached Harry and somehow become the friend he never expected to have, her absence was like an aching bruise. Her empty seat was always present in the corner of Harry's eye, and Mr Graham, taking register, paused at her name, and when Harry sat down at their table in the dinner hall alone, he could feel the eyes of the girls who she used to eat with on him, the rustling sounds of their whispers ringing in his ears.

He could hear the gossip, of course; the way they spoke about her when they thought he was out of earshot or didn't care or wanted to get a rise. The way they badmouthed her because of her mother, now that the story was out. The way they speculated that Will was abusive, too, tossing around the word like they knew what it meant. The way they scoffed at Harry, even if they couldn't remember his name when they tried to poke fun at him for being 'heartsick over his girlfriend'. He made note of who it was, because if Sam came back, he just knew she would be up for some revenge.

On his own, though, Harry was quick to revert to his old habits. Not the rituals—he was too out of practice, after a year, and they were superstitious nonsense, anyways. But he fell back on the tricks he knew worked. Pretending he didn't exist. Avoiding attention. Fading into the background. One year Sam did not negate thirteen years of the Dursleys, after all.

And after school, Sam's absence was even worse. Harry only worked twelve hours a week, which meant he had three weekday evenings to himself, without the usual drudgery to occupy himself with. He couldn't bring himself to go to the library for the first week, and when he did return, he worked on homework rather than delve into comics. What was the point, when he wasn't sharing them with someone?

Jones, the younger librarian who had introduced him to the comics collection to begin with, asked Harry about Sam the second week in. Harry had given a non-answer. He didn't want to talk about it. Talking about it was acknowledging it. Acknowledging that he'd been so stupid as to let himself believe that he could have a friend without it going wrong. And opening up to Jones wouldn't have made anything better. At best, it would have earned him pity, or scorn. At worst, it would tempt Harry with thoughts of letting someone else in.

Harry began to time his visits to the checkout desk around Jones, and disregarded the cheerful waves. He didn't want to lose the library, too.

And when Harry did have work, things were better. He got along well enough with his co-workers—or, at least, despite their initial skepticism about a thirteen-year-old doing the same job as the rest of them, they'd come to accept him and treat him decently—which was to say: to ignore him. As Harry preferred.

There were exceptions, of course. When he worked with Vanessa, she dragged him into conversations, which mostly consisted of her talking about whatever came to mind while he stocked the shelves. When he worked with Robbie, if Mrs Lindsay was in she'd always point to Harry as a positive example of work behavior. Not because it was warranted, really; Harry was prone to making stupid mistakes like filling the shelves with the wrong item or misreading labels as he typed them in. But the arguments between the two of them were years old and Harry was simply the newest weapon for them to wield. He was torn between gritting his teeth in annoyance at being brought in to their never-ending argument and letting his cheeks flush at the glimmer of pride the comments stirred in his gut.

Harry tried his best to dim that glimmer. With Dudley off at Smeltings, Mrs Lindsay didn't have much reason to talk to Petunia. If she had, she probably would have known to nitpick Harry's work as much as much as she did Robbie's. It was only a matter of time before she would turn on him—Robbie would quit or be fired, or maybe she'd talk to one of the other neighborhood parents and remember the old gossip about him, which had just slipped her mind momentarily.

It hadn't slipped from Harry's. He would be prepared.

-

The third week into 1994, Harry was leaning on the counter behind the cash register, trying to will someone to come into the store just to break up the monotony of an unusually quiet evening, when the phone rang.

That wasn't what he had wanted. He felt a flutter in his stomach. Not that he had ever had any bad experiences with phone calls, per say, it was just that the only time he ever spoke on the phone was for work, and whenever he did he became acutely aware of how inarticulately he spoke.

But it continued to ring, so he picked it up. It was his job, after all, and he figured it was probably Mrs Lindsay, anyways. She'd be annoyed if she had to call back. He wasn't going to risk his good standing over a bit of nerves.

It wasn't Mrs Lindsay, but the voice on the other end was familiar—achingly familiar.

"Harry? Oh, thank God—this is Will."

Harry blinked and glanced around the store. The others were out of sight, stocking, or pretending to, and the other cashier was on break, and there weren't any customers to ring up. "Hi?"

"Hi—look, have you heard from Sam?"

Harry winced. "Not since she left," he mumbled.

"You're absolutely certain?"

"Why?"

"She's—she's been missing for over a day. Lydia didn't—are you sure, Harry?"

"She's missing?" Harry echoed. Missing. "Did she—her mum didn't—"

"They checked on Maxine first thing," Will replied. "Look, Harry, I've got to go, but—if you hear from her, you have to tell me, alright? She could be—I should have known something like this would happen, when she didn't argue—it's not safe for her to be out there alone. You—you know that, right? I know you two are close, and you're both independent, but—this isn't something you should keep secret for her—"

"I'll tell you," Harry said. "I promise."

He wasn't completely insensitive. Sure, he'd lie to her Gran, and probably to the cops, if Sam asked him to, but there'd have to be one hell of a good reason for him to lie to Will.

There was a beat of silence. "Alright," Will said. "I'll—I'll keep you posted. I've got—I've got to go."

The call cut before Harry could reply.

-

The next day, Harry was called down to Mrs White's office. There was all the usual snickering from the other students, but it was accompanied by the whispers about his girlfriend, Sam, and after having spent the night tossing and turning, mind full of vague fears about Sam's disappearance, he did not want to hear them.

Worse, when he got to the office, waiting inside with Mrs White were two police officers, as well as Mr Graham—Harry's form tutor, who taught Biology and was looking exceptionally grim compared to how cheerful he had been this morning—and Aunt Petunia. Petunia glared at him, but Mrs White quickly offered Harry the seat next to his Aunt. The other adults were sitting on chairs that must have been brought in from the hallway, squeezed in around the ends of her desk.

"Harry," Mrs White said, her voice subdued. "We have some… news."

Harry's breath caught. "Is this about Sam?"

"You've already heard?" Mr Graham asked quickly.

Harry nodded slowly. "Will—Mr Ellis called yesterday, to ask… Has she been found? Is she alright?"

The adults exchanged glances, and Mrs White sighed. "No, Harry," she said. "Samantha is still missing. These officers are here to ask you some questions. Mr Graham and your aunt are here so you feel… comfortable."

She sounded about as skeptical of that as Petunia looked. She'd met Petunia before, at least twice, and Harry doubted either of those conferences had given her any indication of Petunia as a comforting individual. But Harry was more interested in the officers: a man and a woman. Unfamiliar faces. Looking at him with something like pity.

"I told Will already," Harry said, shrinking back into his chair. Sure, he'd had the thought he would lie to the cops if Sam asked him to, but she hadn't, and he didn't know anything to lie about, anyways. "I haven't heard from her."

"He told us already," the woman assured him. "We're just gathering as much information as we can, to help bring Ms Ellis home safe. Alright?"

Harry nodded again and listened as she asked her first question, but he had one of his own that he didn't dare ask. By home, did they mean here, or her Gran's? And if they didn't find her, what then?

-

Will called again a few days later, this time to Privet Drive.

Vernon, who'd been torn away from the nightly news to answer it, stood scowling while he stared down at Harry, tapping his foot.

"You still haven't heard from her?"

"They haven't found her yet?"

"No. Harry, are you sure she didn't mention anything before she left? Any… plans?"

"You think she ran away."

"It's… it's better than the alternative."

"The alternative?"

"That she was kidnapped, or is—"

He cut off, but Harry filled in the blank for him. Dead. That's what he was going to say, wasn't it.

He swallowed. "She's probably fine," he said, trying just as much to convince himself as console Will. Now that the idea was there, he couldn't shake it. "She'll turn up, Will, she's—"

"That's enough," Vernon suddenly barked, and he snatched the phone out of Harry's hand, ignoring his protests. "You don't call our house again, you hear?" he shouted into the receiver before he slammed it back into the phone dock.

"You can't just—his daughter's missing! She could be dead!" Harry said, furious.

Vernon jabbed a finger towards Harry's chest. "Never," he growled, "Never even think about telling me what to do in my own house."

Harry glared back at him, but spat out the regular words: "Yes, Uncle Vernon."

Vernon's eyes narrowed. "I will not have that—that pervert calling here," he sneered.

Harry's anger froze. So Vernon knew about Will. And yet… he had never tried to put a stop to Harry going over to the Ellis's…. So either he hadn't known then, and it was a recent development—maybe Petunia had found out from the officers—or he didn't care what Harry got up to, so long as it didn't come back to him, or… or he didn't know, and was referencing something else.

"He's not a pervert," said Harry quietly.

Vernon sneered. "That—so-called man—is a bleeding—homosexual," he spat. "People like that shouldn't be allowed to be within fifty feet of decent company, let alone children—God knows what sort of perverted thoughts he's had on you, boy. Freaks attract freaks, after all."

The pots and pans around them began to rattle, and in the next room the TV began to flicker, but Harry didn't notice. He was too angry. Calling him a freak was one thing—the label had been thrown in his face for so long it was practically a part of his name—but to call Will a freak? Sam's dad, the man who had welcomed Harry into his home and treated him like a human being, was not a freak. And—

"He is not a pervert!" Harry shouted. "And he's more of a man than you'll ever—"

And then Vernon's fist collided with Harry's face.

Harry was thrown back into the counters, his glasses flying off his head, but the motion was lost on Harry. His vision spotted with glimmering darkness. The chatter from the telly and whatever Vernon was snarling was like a radio losing reception: indecipherable, distant, static noise. The anger and nervous energy had been knocked out of him, too, and for a moment all Harry could do was raise a hand to his cheek. But the moment his fingers brushed the skin the world came rushing back in on him as his face burned—

"—WITH YOUR DISGUSTING, DISRESPECTFUL, FREAKISH ATTITUDE—"

He should run. He should—the kitchen was spotted and blurry but he could still see the dark shadow of Vernon's fist, poised in the air ahead of him—if another blow came, even if Harry wasn't wasting time shouting he wouldn't be able to dodge it—and where were his glasses—

"—WE SHOULD HAVE NEVER TAKEN YOU IN, SHOULD HAVE LEFT YOU ON THE STEP TO FREEZE AND STARVE—"

"Vernon!"

As his Uncle cut off, turning to face Petunia, who had suddenly appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, bile rose in Harry's throat, and he had just enough time to turn and brace himself over the sink before it was filled by the contents of his stomach. He hadn't eaten dinner yet, which was for the best, but that meant that as he leaned dizzily over the basin the vibrant red color was even more visible. For a moment he thought he was puking up blood—on top of everything else—but then he realized the inside of his lip had been torn open as Vernon drove it into his teeth. How did you fix a cut inside your mouth? he wondered blearily. You couldn't put a bandaid—

The thought was expelled with the rest of his lunch.

"Your medication, Vernon; the doctors said—"

"I DON'T GIVE A DAMN WHAT THE BLOODY DOCTOR SAID, THAT FREAK IS A MENACE!"

Shouting was good. Shouting wasn't punching, and since it was directed at Petunia, Harry had cover to squint around the kitchen, searching for his glasses. He needed to get out of here, but without being able to see, he'd not get far. He didn't see them. Not that he'd get far anyways, with blood dripping out his mouth like some horror movie nightmare, with the way the world spun when he tried to straighten up. His ear was ringing, too, but that might have been from the shouting, just as likely as it could have been from the punch.

"I knew it, Petunia—ever since he showed up—no, ever since that blasted wedding—"

"Vernon," Petunia said again, this time sharper and less frantic. But she took a steady breath. "Darling. Why don't you go sit down? I'll deal with the boy. You can enjoy the news." She didn't wait for him to reply before she snapped at Harry: "You, clean up that mess. Now."

Harry didn't risk looking in her direction, since that would also mean looking in the direction of Vernon. He managed to pry one of his hands away from the counter and turn the sink on, the noise of the running water drowning out the rest of what his uncle said.

Eventually Vernon went back to the telly, but Harry never got the sink clean. He tried, and he got the worst of the puke out of the way, but his mouth wouldn't stop bleeding, and then Petunia stomped over and grabbed him by the chin, ignoring Harry's gasp of pain as she squeezed his cheeks to pry his jaw open.

After a moment, she turned, grabbed an old washcloth out of the drawer, and pushed it into Harry's hand. "Get in the car," she hissed.

"What?" Harry tried to ask, and she quickly moved his hand so the cloth got between the dripping blood and her pristine kitchen floors.

"The car. And keep your mouth shut. If you get blood on the seats, you'll be paying to have them cleaned."

-

At first, Harry thought he was imagining things again.

"You shouldn't provoke him."

It was a strange thing to hear—a strange thing for Petunia to say.

A few weeks before, a girl had gotten into a shouting fight with Mr Khan in class, absolutely certain he had marked a test incorrectly. Mr Khan had refused to look at it, even when other students began to back her up, her growing outrage contagious. For once, the complex network of teenage politics, tensions between this group and that, had fallen away, and they'd all banded together against a common enemy: yet another adult who refused to listen. Petty drama was easy to set aside for the sake of that noble battle.

The next time they had maths, however, Mr Khan had opened by explaining that the girl had been right, and that he had made a mistake and should have given a higher mark than he had. He wasn't going to change it, however, because she had been disrespectful in how she raised the issue. Most of the students had seen through Mr Khan's bullshit, of course, because they'd all been there. They'd seen the way he had dismissed her from the start. The way he continued to do so with arrogant self-righteousness, rather than to bend and risk his pride. But a few had nodded along with his explanation, and it only took a few, and besides, the fire of the initial event had already begun to die by the machinations of time.

Just like that, the coalition fell. They would all remember, of course, and retain a new degree of distrust, but it was just another tick on the unending timeline of the war between the young and old.

Aunt Petunia, in Mr Khan's place, would never have admitted she had made an error. She had her beliefs and she stuck to them, and if she ever got close to acting against them, rather than admit her wrong she'd get a look like she'd just tasted moldy bread before swiftly altering her version of events so that anything conflicting with her vision of the world was made to comply.

So her comment, which in one sentence had not only acknowledged that Vernon had punched Harry (even though she'd told the hospital staff that he'd gotten hit in the face by a football) but also suggested she had some idea that Harry did not deserve to spend his entire life in pain, was unprecedented. But perhaps he had misheard. The doctors had given him pain medications and numbed half his mouth, and maybe the drugs had messed with his hearing. So instead of staying silent (the nurse had warned him to avoid talking, so as not to bite his tongue or disrupt the sutures lining the inside of his lip) he opened his mouth, and questioned—

"Sorry?"

"Vernon," Petunia clarified. "You shouldn't provoke him. You know he is not supposed to get worked up. It is bad for his heart."

Oh.

Harry stared at the blur of her profile, memory filling in the lines of her bony cheeks and sharp jaw, and wondered vaguely if Dudley looked like some sort of goblin too, underneath the layers of fat, or if he got everything from Vernon. The nurse at Smeltings had written that they should try to convince Dudley to take up boxing, both to try and deal with his weight and to work out his 'excess energy.' Apparently some kids needed physical exertion to channel their emotions, or something like that.

It figured that Dudley's emotional outlet would be beating up kids. Like father, like son.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Yes."

"Then acknowledge it, boy. Your Uncle's health is at risk."

"I didn't—" Harry started, but the thickness of his tongue discouraged him from any longer statements. Probably for the best.

"One would think you want him to get worse, you ungrateful brat."

Harry leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes so that when he rolled them it was hidden behind shut lids. Sure. He wanted his uncle to have a heart attack. Just like he wanted to know what it felt like to get stitches inside his mouth, to be lectured by a nurse as if he'd never had to deal with a concussion before. It was rare that Petunia took him to the doctors—she'd once waited a week, insisting that Harry was just being dramatic, only to be shown on the x-ray that he really did have a broken arm—and when she did, she always made Harry sound like a reckless idiot, and the nurses and doctors always lectured him on his bad behavior.

The only lecture he needed was one on holding his tongue—and not the one Petunia was giving him. The one that he gave himself, whenever something like this happened, and he gave Vernon an excuse to act. Or Petunia, for that matter—she might have taken him to the hospital now, but Harry knew she wasn't exactly 'on his side'. She'd once thrown a frying pan at him. He still had the scar.

The car shut off, and Harry opened his eyes again, squinting. Wherever they were, it was not Privet Drive. It was dark out already, but he could see windows filled with lights. A storefront of some sort, but the advertisements in the window were obscured to him. He swiveled his head over towards Petunia, hoping for explanation, but she pushed something into his hands—a sweater? One of her sweaters?—and all

she said was, "Out," before her door slammed shut behind her.

After a moment, he pulled the sweater over his head and followed her. Running around without his glasses was a generally terrifying and embarrassing experience, and usually quite painful, as he stubbed his toes on every ledge and tripped over every bump. He'd already scraped his hands on the way into the hospital.

But he managed to make it to the door without incident, and Petunia's claw-like hand dug into his shoulder, steering him forward to the counter. "My nephew," she announced, "has broken his glasses playing football, and will need a new pair."

A new pair of glasses! He hadn't expected that. Of course he needed them, but he had expected it to go the way his first pair had gone: Petunia raising a fuss about the cost and then appearing a few days later and tossing a pair to him.

"Oh dear," said the man seated behind the counter. "Well, you've come to the right place. Do you have a prescription—No? Will you be needing an exam, then? We can get you sorted right away."

Harry could feel Petunia's grip tighten. "I suppose that will be an extra fee."

"The exam? Yes, it will be fifteen pounds."

Petunia sighed. "Very well."

"Right this way, then." The man stood, and he must have beckoned for Harry to come with him, because Petunia steered Harry around the counter into another room, and pushed him towards a chair. "What's your name, son?"

"Harry."

"Alright, Harry. You can call me Michael, alright? Now, you've probably done this before, so go ahead and look this way…"

Harry hadn't had an eye exam before, not since he entered primary school. It was a rather frustrating experience, as the man kept switching between nearly identical options and asking which was better. By the end of it, his head was beginning to hurt again, and he thought maybe the pain meds were wearing off, because his tongue didn't feel as thick.

After, when the man directed him to the section of glasses advertised for teenagers, Harry heard him ask Petunia, "Have you considered contact lenses? They're much safer for playing sports in, far more convenient."

"And far more expensive in the long run," she said coolly, and she marched over to the display, snatched what was undoubtedly the cheapest pair, crammed them onto Harry's face, and said, "Perfect. We'll take these."

They were simple rectangles of black plastic. Leaning into the mirror, Harry was surprised to find he didn't mind them. Different from his old ones, which had been perfectly round, but she could have grabbed one of the chunkier frames, or something horribly nerdy. These were plain.

"Wouldn't you like to look around a bit?" the man asked. "We have some frames that are designed specifically with sports in mind—"

"These will be fine," Petunia said shortly, pulling them back off Harry's face and passing them over. "We've wasted enough time here already."

The man seemed at a loss for words. Harry was just glad there weren't any other customers in the shop, though perhaps she wouldn't have been so rude if there were.

"Well, I'll give you the prescription, if you'd like to come back," the man said. He took the frames from Petunia and went around the counter again. "We can have them ready for you to pick up on Sunday. Will that be fine?"

Harry quickly opened his mouth to protest—he had work on Saturday; he couldn't go to work without glasses—but then he realized between the state of his face and the concussion he'd have to call out sick anyways. The nurse had told Petunia not to send him to school tomorrow, after all.

"That's fine," Petunia said. "How much will it be?"

-

Harry got more comments about his face than his new glasses, of course, even after the swelling went down and the bruises began to fade, and he responded to them all with a short 'football to the face', but the glasses were to him the bigger change. He'd only ever had the one pair, after all, and apparently they'd never been quite the right prescription, because as he saw the world through the new lenses it was almost too sharp. The sheer amount of details he could see were enough to give him headaches, and sometimes when he tried to read signs from a distance even if the letters were clearer they seemed to swim in front of his eyes.

But he was getting used to them, and to him, they were the item of more importance. The bruising was simply painful and inconvenient, easily forgettable if people wouldn't keep mentioning it. Harry had fed Mr Graham the exact same story Petunia had given to the doctors, and while some of the other kids had snickered that he'd managed to get hit in the face without dodging, Sam had always been vocal enough about her love of football that everyone accepted he must love it too.

Worse than any comments the other students made about Harry, however, were the comments about Sam that they inevitably led to. Word had gotten out that she was missing; her school photo, apparently, had been shown on the evening news. The gossip was disgusting—some people apparently found it funny to think of terrible things that could have happened to her, never mind that she was a real person, and she was missing, and she could very well be in danger.

Harry had spent Saturday trying not to sleep for fear of the dreams where they'd find her dead. He didn't need to hear any more theories; every resting moment his brain was dreaming up his own.

There was whispering about him, too. About how he had probably killed her because she wouldn't go out with him, and how his face was really the result of her fighting back.

Harry had stood up and left the room without permission when he heard that one. Mr Graham had let him go.

A few of her old friends, the girls who Sam had eaten lunch with before she started to sit with Harry instead, finally approached him directly. "Do you know what happened to Samantha?" asked Genevieve Green. "No one will tell us anything."

"That's because no one knows," said Harry, not looking up as he arranged his books on his desks.

"You have to know something," one of the others said.

He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and ran his tongue along the stitches until his eyes watered before looking up. "I know that my best friend is missing, and you all think it's funny," he said, letting his voice wobble. "I know that none of you will just leave me well enough alone."

The bell rang, which was convenient, because half the class and Ms Morris were staring at him. Ms Morris cleared her throat, and Harry dropped his head again, rolling his eyes, biting down on his anger—and wincing as his teeth brushed the stitches. When Ms Morris was distracted, he dug in his bag and found the quarter. He might be out of practice, but whatever good the rituals would do him, he would take it.

Now that Sam was gone—missing, and though Will hadn't said it, presumed dead—he couldn't deny the urge to disappear himself.

-

That evening, Tesco was incredibly slow. Worse, Harry and Robbie were stuck working with Gina, a woman in her early fifties who spent every shift looking down her nose and complaining about Harry's appearance while getting next to nothing done herself. She'd worked in the store for ages, though, normally running opening shifts rather than closing, and so had seniority over both of them, even if she technically had the same position as Robbie did, and eventually she decided it wasn't worth the money to have three people running the store and ordered Harry home. Harry, who was already limited in hours by law, and had missed his weekend shifts recovering from the incident, tried to protest, hoping that someone else would want off instead, but he was only scheduled until seven, where the older employees worked all the way until nine or eleven, and the bruise still mottling his face had already earned comments from three separate customers, so he was stuck dragging his feet to the back to clock out and checking which foods were the most discounted as he went. He'd saved as much as he could over the holidays, but at this rate, it wasn't going to be enough.

"Oh," said Robbie a few minutes later, as he rung Harry up for a day-old cheesy roll, a nearly-expired pack of sliced ham, and a dented six-pack of chocolate pudding cups. "I almost forgot. Some friend of yours called while you were in the back, said to meet her in the usual place once you got off—oy! Potter!"

The usual place—the library, it had to be. Sam had often met him there if Will was working late, since it was open until eight. He dodged across the street, ignoring the honking of a turning car, and ran the whole way, up Magnolia Road and down Park Road across Queensway. He didn't even realize he'd left his dinner and his change behind until he skidded to a halt in front of the library steps, panting. It didn't matter. Sam—it had to be Sam, he didn't have any other friends and certainly none with a 'usual place'—Sam was more important.

He stared through the glowing windows, glancing over Jones, chatting with a man holding up a cookbook at the counter, scanning what he could see of the shelves. Would she be inside? But no—everyone knew her face, and if she had been found he would have heard of it—Will would have called—wouldn't he? Will said—So he started to turn, to search the dark car park—

"Harry?"

Harry spun around, but before he could make a sound a hand clamped over his mouth. Sam—it was Sam, whole and familiar and wearing her hood up but at least from what he could see uninjured—Sam held a finger up to her lips, and when Harry nodded and she pulled her hand away, her eyes widened at the sight of his bruise and opening her mouth like she was going to ignore her own warning, but Harry barely noticed the aching pain except as lingering proof that she was here, tangible and by all visible clues whole. After a moment, she seemed to snap out of it, and grabbed his arm, pulling him after her down the street at a run, towards the park on Queensway, which was closed after sunset but easy enough to sneak into from the side where the trees were thicker, to pick their way back towards an area less visible from the road, the only light the glow of the streetlamps filtered through the branches—

Sam hadn't said anything and Harry's mind was racing, trying to search her for injury as they ran, nearly tripping over a particularly gnarled bit of root in his distraction, and at last he was done with the chase, whyever she had wanted him to stay quiet surely didn't apply now—

Before he could speak, Sam spun around. The hood fell off her head, revealing that she'd lobbed off her plaits, shaping her thick brown hair into an uneven bob.

"What the hell happened to your face?" she demanded before he could comment. "And your glasses—you got new ones?"

But Harry wasn't listening. "Jesus, Sam!" he hissed. "Did you—Will thinks you're dead, you know that?"

"I couldn't tell him," she said. "He can't know where I am. It's a legal problem, if he does, and I wasn't about to call the Dursleys. I know you said not to if it wasn't a—"

"It was an emergency! You've been—where have you been? Did you—did she—?"

Sam scowled. "I told you I wasn't going to go with her," she said. "I've got a cousin—you can't tell Dad this, by the way—she's letting me use their extra room, until I can figure out what to do. It's only for a year, anyways, until I turn sixteen. Tell Dad not to throw away my stuff, okay?"

"You should tell him," Harry said. "You—he should hear it from you."

"He can't," she repeated. "I don't want to get him into legal trouble, Harry. Gran's fucking court battle was bad enough; he didn't say anything good enough, but he had to miss a bunch of work, and you know how important that is to him. Besides, I can look after myself."

"I know." Harry was beginning to calm down. "This… this cousin of yours. She's a good person?"

"As good as it gets, coming from mum's side of the family," Sam said.

"You're safe there? She won't…"

"She hasn't talked to Gran in years. Her choice. And… well, mum wouldn't know where to look for her, and Dad… I doubt he remembers her name, to be honest. When I was really little mum left me with my Uncle for a while, so she babysat me, and she's always sent me birthday cards and things since then, but she doesn't want anything to do with most of the family. I, well, I'm the same."

"You're going back," Harry said.

"Yeah."

"And you're not even going to tell Will where you're going?"

"He doesn't care."

"Doesn't care?" Harry echoed. For a moment, all that guilt he'd felt before vanished, and he was left only with hot anger. "Doesn't care? He's a mess, Sam; he hasn't—he called me at work, hoping that maybe you'd mentioned something about disappearing. Anything. He called me at the Dursleys."

"Is that what happened to your face?"

Harry scowled at her. "Don't change the subject, Sam. You can't just say something like 'he doesn't care' when it obviously isn't—"

"But it is true," Sam said. "I'm not cold enough to say he doesn't care whether I'm alive or not, but the specifics? He's not an idiot, Harry; he's a coward. He knew exactly what mum was—" She cut off abruptly. In the dim light, Harry could just make out her jaw working. "I've never told you what happened, have I. How I ended up with him."

"You said your Gran's building couldn't have kids."

"No, I mean. How I got away from Mum at all." She took a deep breath. "She was picked up by the cops one night—mum was, because she was pissed and walking around screaming nonsense on the street. They'd picked her up before, so she would have probably just gotten a fee and let off, same as ever, except she was high, too. She didn't have anything on her, but—well, I don't know the details of it. I just know that the cops showed up at school the next day—do you remember that? Right before holiday? I was called out of class."

Harry thought about it, but shook his head. He hadn't paid any attention to any of the other students until Sam had inserted herself into his life. He hadn't even known her name.

"Well, I was. They called me out, and called Gran to come get me, since she was my secondary contact even though Dad lives five minutes from the school, so that I didn't go home with mum. She got a hotel room. And then there were a bunch of meetings with cops, and social workers, and eventually they got ahold of Dad.

"Gran didn't want me with him, but she couldn't take me herself, and… Well… They'd seen the bruise. The one on my arm. It had only been a day, and—I think mum was trying to break my arm or something, I dunno, I don't— I can't— Gran had seen it, and told the social workers, and they had me go to the hospital because of… they were scared mum might have gotten me into drugs, and they wanted to do an X-ray on my arm. It was just sprained, but… they told me they were going to work on a non-molestation order against mum. And that if I wanted to testify, they could charge her with… abuse. If you want to call it that. Assault. But I couldn't…"

She paused again, a twig snapping underfoot as she shifted her weight. Harry studied her, the way her shoulders were hunched forward, almost up to her chin, the way she shook her head, trying to get some of the hair that had fallen out from behind her ears away from her face.

"Gran couldn't take me, so they got ahold of Dad. But he couldn't be there until Friday, because of work, and I was stuck in a hotel with her, listening to her go on and on about how he was just as bad as mum because he'd dared be more interested in men and never married her daughter, and how obvious it was that I was turning out a disappointment like mum had, since Gran wasn't around enough to raise me right, that sort of horseshit. She'd act all offended that I wanted to go with him, even though every time it even came up that she might take me instead she'd start going on about how difficult it was for her, because there were all these obstacles preventing her from giving me a proper home…"

She kicked at the dirt. "But you ended up with Will," Harry said.

"Yeah, well, we saw how that turned out," she said. "He said of course I was welcome to stay with him, he had a house with space and everything, I'd just have to look after myself a bit in the evenings because of his work schedule. Gran insisted that he couldn't be dating any men, except of course they didn't actually bring that up, and he asked me if I minded later, and if I'd keep Niall secret from Gran."

Harry waited a moment, but that seemed to be the end of her story.

"I don't get how that had anything to do with him not caring," he said. "He showed up. He gave you a safe place to go. Welcomed you in. Helped you with… with introducing you to Vanessa, and trying to help when your mum showed up."

"But he'd never tried, before," she said. "He knew, Harry, and he always thought it was horrible, of course, but it's easy enough to say that. He didn't actually do anything until they called him in and said 'Is this your kid; do you have an extra room?' He doesn't—I mean, I love him, but I guess… most people have a 'fun uncle' or something, someone who shows up a few times a year and takes you to a football match and is good to see then and leaves before anything too serious can happen and ruin their image, you know?"

Harry didn't know. He didn't have any 'fun' uncles, or aunts, for that matter—though he supposed that Aunt Marge would qualify as Dudley's 'fun aunt'... but the comparison between Will and Marge was too much for Harry's brain to try and reconcile.

"That's not what I've seen," he said.

"Well, you didn't know him or me, before I moved in with him," she replied. "Of course you think he does everything right; you only met him right after he made one big grand gesture of a good decision. And besides. Your standards are kind of… off."

So, Harry thought, were Sam's, but maybe she was right. He'd only known Will for a year. And having someone know but not do anything… someone who professed to care...

"You should at least tell him you're alright," he said.

"I—I was hoping you could. Not—I mean, I have this for him." She dug in the pocket of her hoodie, drawing out what looked like a crumpled, folded parchment. After a moment's hesitation, she passed it to Harry. An envelope. He could just make out the pencil marks on the front. Scribbled out: Will. Beside that: Dad.

"Does it tell him where you'll be?"

"It tells him I am safe," she said. "And that I don't want to be found. And that I'm not going back to Gran's."

Harry slipped it into his pocket. "I'll give it to him, but you should call him."

"Can't. It'd put everything at risk. And besides, once I'm sixteen…" she hesitated. "Well, maybe when I'm seventeen, just to be safe, if I can find a way to pay my cousin back, I'll come back."

There was no way this was going to work, Harry thought, but he didn't say that. "What are you going to do about school?" he asked instead.

Sam shrugged. "Honestly, it's the last thing on my mind. I suppose M—my cousin can get me the books from the library to follow the syllabi for the rest of the year, and I can work through the maths textbooks and things that I already have, but… You don't need to graduate to work in a shop."

"You can't, I dunno, register under a different name, or something?"

"I'd need things like a fake birth certificate and fake identification, Harry. I didn't have time to find where Gran had stashed mine before I left… not that the real ones would be any use. I don't think it would be something that could actually happen, getting a fake identity."

Harry had to admit it did sound a bit mystery novel. It wasn't that he didn't see the practical reasons for her to drop out, it was just… for Harry, school had become something of a haven. Since he was ahead a year and young anyways he'd be in lower sixth before he could legally leave school, so he'd figured that he had better get as many A-levels as he could handle, in hopes of finding a better job and getting as far away from the Dursleys as he could. Maybe he could even get into a university on scholarship. But Sam… she was pretty much shutting that door on herself. He had to wonder…

"Was living with your Gran that bad?" he asked, and then quickly backtracked. "I mean, I know she's awful, but she doesn't… She didn't hurt you, right?"

"Not physically," Sam said. "I'm faster than her, now."

Now. "But… uh… mentally? Emotionally?"

"She treats me like—she treats me like a girl." Sam scowled again, the shadows cutting sharply into her face. "Samantha, why don't you come have tea with Mrs Langley. Her daughter takes dance lessons at the Community Center, don't you think that must be so fun? Samantha, why are you wearing those God-awful trousers again? You're not a little child anymore, go change into something proper. Samantha, you can't play football in a skirt, I forbid it."

Harry frowned. He was beginning to feel like Sam was living in a completely different reality from him. She was a girl, wasn't she—did he treat her like that? And, not that it didn't sound demeaning to ask, but was 'being treated like a girl' really enough to give up the roof over her head? To give up school? To make Will so worried?

But… he doubted that was really it. There was something more, surely, something Sam did not want to talk about, and that was… well, her choice, really. He would… he would have to try to understand it, or just learn to live without her making sense.

"Is that why you cut your hair?" he asked.

"What? No, that was after I left and they put up my picture on the telly. It's what they always do in books, don't they? Change their looks so no one can find them, right?"

"Don't they normally just wear a wig and sunglasses?"

"That's the uncommitted route. Besides, I'd look really strange wearing sunglasses in this weather, and I don't own a wig," she said. "And I like it like this, anyways. Mum was always the one who made me grow out my hair and wear braids, and Gran was just the same. And..." She waved her hand over the hoodie and trousers, which were both loose, like she'd borrowed them from Will's closet. "If I dress right, people think I'm a boy, and don't look twice. I just have to kinda lower my voice..."

She tried to demonstrate, but Harry just ended up snickering as her pitch jumped everywhere. "I think you need practice before that convinces anyone," he said, but then the rest of the evening caught up to him and his humor was pushed aside.

"Why did you come all the way up here, if you're not going to stay?" Harry asked."Wasn't it a risk? I mean, if you're willing to go this far... everyone in Surrey knows to look out for you. The cops came in to ask me about you in school."

"Did you tell them anything?"

"Tell them what? You didn't tell me you were planning on running away. They asked if there was a chance and I said yes, of course, you couldn't stand your Gran."

"Oh," she said. She hesitated again. "Your face," she said, instead of answering. "Your… your uncle?"

"We're not talking about me," Harry said. "I'm not the one who ran away."

"I only meant," she started. "I meant." Stopped again.

He waited for her to think. Now that they'd stopped arguing he was feeling exhausted, and hungry, and—and he'd left his dinner at work, hadn't he? He'd have to go back, and make some excuse to Robbie, who hopefully hadn't thrown it away. And then try to sneak into the Dursleys, since it was probably close to seven by now and the library was only open until eight...

"I came back," said Sam at last, taking a deep breath, "because I had to ask if you wanted to come with me."

Harry blinked into the darkness. "Go with you?"

"Get out of Little Whining—out of Surrey, even. Away from the Dursleys. I asked my cousin, and she said... Well, if you want to come with me, we can find a way to make it work. And you won't have to go back there again, as long as we don't get caught."

Harry swallowed.

Leave the Dursleys? A few years back, he would have jumped at the chance, any chance, really. And you would think, with his face like this, he would still, but... Now he had work. Now he had school, and in sight was a future away from Privet Drive that he never could have imagined before he started at Stonewall. Not that Stonewall itself was responsible, but...

"I can't," he found himself saying.

"But," Sam said. "But... you hate the Dursleys."

"I..." He couldn't say he didn't, but it felt wrong to say he did. It was... too extreme. "I don't. I don't care about them enough to hate them," he decided. "But I've... I can't just leave."

"Your uncle hit you in the face, didn't he?"

Harry flinched before he could stop himself. Logically, yes, that is what had happened, but he'd repeated the story about the football enough that he half believed it, by now. Hearing something acknowledged out loud, by someone other than himself, voicing what very well could have been a stretch of his imagination, since he'd had a concussion...

"He did," she said. "Harry, you can't go back there."

"It's nothing worse than usual," he said. "Besides, I normally stay as far away from Uncle Vernon as I can. It's not going to happen again."

Most of all because Will seemed to have gotten the picture that Vernon didn't want him calling the house, and that the envelope in Harry's pocket... well, he hoped it would answer his questions better than Harry could. Sam didn't need to know about her or Will's part in it, though.

"But you want to stay in Little Whining?" she said.

"Want to?" he echoed. "Sam, if it were that easy I'd have left ages ago. But it's not. It's... bad, here, but it's getting better, and I don't have any other family or cousins that I can run off to. I'm saving up every extra pound I earn, so that when I get to be old enough, I can get my own place and never, ever come back here. But... now… I'm not going to make things any more complicated than they already are."

She sighed, shoulders slumping. "I guess I should have expected that. You're always so... cynical."

"I think 'practical' is the word you're looking for."

"You're sure you won't...?"

"Aren't you planning to come back, when you're sixteen?" he asked. "If I go with you, it'd be harder. I won't be sixteen for a year and a half and I won't have the money to get my own place, and I'm pretty certain the Dursleys would love the chance to get rid of me for good."

"Well... it might be longer than that," she admitted. "I don't... I'm not coming back until I'm absolutely certain they can't force me to live with Gran. And, well, except for you and Dad, there's not much left for me here, and there's the chance of running into mum..."

Harry frowned. "Those girls were asking about you," he said.

"Those girls?"

"You know. Gwendolyn. Um... Claire?"

"Cara?"

"The blonde one?"

"Yeah."

"They're you're friends too, right?"

"They were. Sort of." She frowned, rubbing her arms. "I'm surprised they asked. They never really cared before, when I was with mum."

Harry squinted at her. "I think maybe you're not good at seeing that people care about you, Sam."

Sam rolled her eyes, looking around. "And I think your idea of what caring about someone means are a bit messed up, after living with your relatives." She sat down on the protruding root of a tree. "Will you tell me what's gone on in school, the last few weeks? I've missed all the good holiday gossip."

Harry sighed. Of course that was what she wanted to know, and Harry hadn't been paying much attention. He moved to settle down next to her. "You sure you don't want to know what Ms Morris has to say about Hemingway?"

"Definitely not. I've read my schoolbooks twice this week, just to have something to do."

"Well..."

-

When Harry arrived at Privet Drive just over an hour later, Sam on a bus headed to catch a train back to her cousin's place, wherever that was, the envelope pushed through the mail slot in Will's door, Harry's bag of food retrieved and dangling from his arm, short two cups of pudding (one Robbie's fee for the trouble, the other to insure he didn't mention to anyone that Harry had run off to meet a girl) and a slice of ham that Harry had eaten on the way home to quiet his stomach, he found the lights of number four off. He stood out on the front step for a minute, trying to remember if Petunia had mentioned that they were going out for something, since they Dursleys didn't normally go to sleep until nine and Vernon's shows were over.

"They're not at home."

Harry jumped and turned around, spotting the neighbor's head protruding from the window that faced the gap between their houses, just visible around the fence.

"Sorry?" he said, stepping back.

The woman's face wrinkled into a grimace. "Oh," she said. "It's you." A pause, and then: "Didn't you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"Vernon went into cardiac arrest."

Harry blinked several times. "Cardiac arrest?"

"Heart attack. He had to be taken in to the hospital."

"Oh," said Harry, not sure what to make of this information. Aunt Petunia had gone on so much about his heart, and there'd been the time she'd had to get Harry from the Ellis's—from Will's place to take Vernon to the doctor's, and the pills, but... he'd never actually processed it as a possibility, that Vernon would actually have to deal with that. When he realized he was gaping, Harry asked: "Is he alright?"

"Of course he's not alright, he's had a heart attack," the neighbor snapped. "Good God, boy; I knew you were thick, but not to this extent."

Harry turned, so that she wouldn't be able to see when he rolled his eyes. He dug in his pocket, fishing for his key, and asked: "Did they say when they'd be back?"

"Whenever the hospital lets them out, I'd imagine," the woman said. "Aren't you going to say thank you?"

The lock clicked. "No," Harry said, and hurried inside before she could add anything else.