take my hoodie ✓

thirteen | halloween

~no pov

It had been a while since the party, and a text went around talking about someone staining the bathroom floor in the giant house. But no one realised it was Harry, and he thanked god for that.

He was in a particularly bad mood recently, because Halloween was coming up. Barely anyone remembered the awful event that happened that day for The Boy Who Lived. They just talked about sexy cat costumes and god knows what else.

It was torture for Harry, listening to everyone go on and on about it. How Lisa was going to have a party or how Ryan was planning to have sex with Alice on the rooftop. He didn't care about it, any of it, but it was all he heard.

He just wanted peace. And to be with his parents. But he couldn't do that, so he sat and questioned life and why he survived the stupid accident.

And even worse, Snape paired him up with Malfoy in science. He'd have to do the entire chemistry unit with the second smartest student in school. Hermione was a nice know-it-all. Malfoy was a snob.

Harry zoned out in most of his science lessons and let Malfoy do most of the work. Honestly, Malfoy screamed at him every time he tried to help so he eventually stayed away.

It was fine, though. Harry didn't need science to become a self-defence teacher. He had researched it. They make decent money and change lives.

Harry knew self-defence. He just never acted on it. The school had self-defence classes twice a week at lunch on Mondays and Wednesday, and Harry always went. Since year nine. In year ten, it got a bit harder for him because his body was trying to give up on him.

But Harry always managed to stay healthy somehow. What he did, did not give him abs, but he was slightly toned and his stomach stayed flat. And though his arms weren't muscly, he was able to throw a good punch now and then.

Slowly, he was getting weaker, but he didn't care. He just wanted to leave the Dursleys. He didn't realise maybe he'd need to be strong and able to fight to move out. 

"Potter, oi, wake up." the blond nudged Harry awake.

when did i fall asleep?

He lifted his head off the desk to see his angry science teacher towering over him in his very colourful outfit consisting of black, black and black.

"Is my class too boring for you, Potter? Too tiring?" Snape asked. He was about two minutes away from a full-blown temper tantrum.

"No, I've just-" not been sleeping well because i'm afraid the people from my attempted murderer's gang are gonna kill me. "I just put my head down for a minute."

"Not in my class. Detention, Friday, after school." 

"But sir, it's Halloween, I-"

"You think some stupid holiday is going to get you out of detention?" Snape scoffed. "That's ten points off Gryffindor."

Harry's hands balled into fists, and he realised if he didn't get out of the classroom, he was going to hit the man. And then he'd be expelled. And he'd never leave the Dursleys.

"Sir, my parents-"

"Are gonna yell at you? Not my problem."

Harry slammed his hands down onto the desk. "My parents are dead. I need to visit their grave on Friday. Because they died on Halloween. Not so I can go to a party."

Snape's eyes softened: something he'd never seen him do in his five years at this school. No way this man was feeling sympathy for his least favourite student ever.

It was just impossible.

"Potter," the entire class was listening. Harry caught everyone's attention when he hit the table. "There is still no excuse for sleeping in my lesson. You can visit them after your detention."

Harry's jaw tightened; he was clenching his teeth. His knuckles were white again. For a moment, Snape looked almost afraid.

Because he knew how dangerous a Potter can be.

leave. i need to leave before i do or say something i'll regret.

And so, the shaking boy walked out of his science classroom and into the bathrooms where he punched a mirror until his knuckles bled.

Halloween was two days later. Harry had skipped double science on Thursday and didn't even turn up to school on Friday. Instead, he took a two-hour long bus ride to Godric's Hollow. It cost him a large amount of money, but for the sake of his parents, he didn't care.

He just stole a bunch of cash from Vernon's safe and hoped he wouldn't notice. There was a scary amount of money inside the safe, and Harry wondered how he acquired it.

The safe code was easy to figure out as well. His only son's birthday. Imagine being so stupid.

He arrived in Godric's Hollow, Wiltshire, around ten, after leaving when he should've been in school. The first place he visited was the grave. And even after fourteen years, people still respected the grave. 

People still dropped off flowers, and took away the old ones. Someone even managed to create a flowerbed around the two headstones in the year Harry had been gone. It was beautiful.

Every year, he found the cottage he should've grown up in and went in. The key to the house was the only thing he had left of his parents.

The house was dusty, since it was only ever visited once a year, but each time, Harry would clean it as much as he could. And he would go into the nursery and sit in front of the cot, imagining his mother telling how much she loved him.

It was a repetitive dream he had: her saying how proud she was, how he should be brave, how he was loved. And then it would change and he would remember the accident. The accident where his mother held his hand whilst she died.

How the car flipped over and Lily used her body to cover the car seat, making sure Harry wouldn't be hurt. And she did a damn-good job. Sometimes, when Harry felt like he should've died with them, he remembers how his mother sacrificed herself for him.

And sometimes, his mother's love for him was the only reason he kept on going.

In that very same room, Harry fell asleep peacefully for the first time in a few weeks. He fell asleep crying, but still slept dreamlessly. He was completely, utterly relaxed, despite being in an abandoned house.

He never noticed the man standing outside the house, crying with him.

bittersweet chapter