The Boy I Love -HEDRIC (2)

1.(HC) I shouldn't have done that

HARRY

I

A man was walking inside a dark and dirty house. He wasn't sure if it was himself looking up from the ground until a slight sound made him realize it was nothing less than a lurking snake. The man didn't even see it coming when he was attacked from behind. Then the creature went into a room only lit by the dim light of the fire, where another stranger was standing, talking to someone sitting in an armchair in what seemed like an argument.

Just as he was about to see the second man's face, Harry woke up.

The scar on his forehead burned as if it had just been inflicted on his skin.

He lay still on his bed, frowning in confusion at such a strange dream. So out of the ordinary. And it had felt so real, as if he could swear that somewhere that man had died now. His mind flew straight to the name he had been trying not to think of for a long time. The one who was still around, despite the fact that last year he had not come to try to kill him -again.

Harry drifted back to sleep with a silent certainty he couldn't ignore.

Voldemort would go after him.

Maybe not so soon, he consoled himself, but someday he will.

Whenever it was, it wouldn't be as late as he wanted.

II

Not counting that nightmare and the very hard-to-ignore daily existence of his uncle, aunt and cousin, this was going to be the best summer of his life.

All Harry had to do was survive two long months.

He could do it. He had already done it for years.

It was getting more and more difficult for him to understand how he had managed to grow up in that place that he had never felt like his own. He belonged at Hogwarts in a way that he would never do in that house.

God, anywhere would be better.

The wizarding world. Muggle streets.

Okay, it hadn't been such a pleasant experience to sneak out and wander the dark neighborhood so late at night last year, after that accidental magic he didn't regret. He now knew how to summon the Knight Bus. Harry considered leaving several times, even before coming back. The problem was that no organization in the muggle world would let him disappear for most of the year to go to a School of Witchcraft and Wizardry... And as for the wizarding world, well, they had decided to leave him there in the first place.

When he turned sixteen he would emancipate and fend for himself.

III

At least they had given him a proper room.

Crowded with things that didn't belong to him in one of the corners, because his uncle used the space for other purposes during the months he wasn't there. Several boxes on the floor with who knew what. Harry didn't have much, and it all fit inside his suitcase. One that he never fully unpacked, leaving it ready for the day he left again.

He spent his time writing in a journal.

Reading one of the books Hermione had lent him.

This year his uncle had stopped refusing him the owl post. His plan to kind-of-threaten Vernon with his godfather had worked, and he was no longer on the lookout for any neighborhood owls. Hedwig used to let Harry know when one was approaching, so that he could open the window to receive it before they even knocked. Ron, Hermione and Hagrid's were easy to recognize. Sirius would send a different one each time, and Harry looked forward to the day when one of them would be Cedric's owl.