Shoes
The students in the hallway parted around him as he exited his last class of the day, carefully not leaving their eyes on him for longer than strictly necessary.
Harry was distinctly glad that his classmates had learned from experience.
When he had first arrived at Stonewall High, he had been scared- full on terrified. Dudley had gone on and on about how they would eat him alive; the older students shoving his face in toilets until he drank, chased until he was out of breath and had to take the beating, the teachers not turning a blind eye, but actively encouraging the treatment. School had always been his safe space – his refuge.
Private Drive had his uncle and aunt, beatings and sharp words, Dudley who tried to copy his parents in his actions. School- it had Dudley, but by some stroke of miracle he had never been in the same class, always almost free to learn, if he could ignore recesses where he had to run from his cousin and his gang. Though, even then that wasn’t much, by his second year he had taken to bunkering down in the library, somewhere Dudley seemed to be physically repulsed by.
Dudley had made it clear that Stonewall wouldn’t be that refuge, every student a Dudley, every teacher an Aunt or Uncle. And he was right. Those first few months had been his worst, though if he could remember the time before he began school, when he never left the house, that may have been worse. With his cousin’s hand-me-downs dyed grey as a poor imitation of the school’s uniform, he was marked for the slaughter. By Christmas, he had stopped bothering to take his beaten backpack, shoving a pencil into his shoe and hoping that they had no work that would require a notebook.
He broke when they tried to take his shoes.
-----
He’d found them on the walk home after school; the Dursleys had found the worst, most crowded school they could find for him, cracked brick walls, floors that looked like they had never been cleaned, teachers who out right hated the students. The problem was, there was no school like that in average, quiet Little Whinging, so they looked farther, eventually finding Stonewall in Greater Whinging, if anything, they thought the hour-long walk was a bonus.
He pretended he was flying, staring upwards at the sky covered in a single sheet of grey that a book he read once called ‘stratus’, imagining what it would feel like dive down and break up through the thin layer, sometimes it was with a fighter jet, sometimes he simply flew like superman, sometimes he used a motorcycle. He was always brought back to reality eventually, usually his aching feet would become too hard to ignore. They were not only too small, had been for a year now, but the soles had withered away to a thin layer making every rock feel like it was cutting right into his feet. He turned back up, trying to return to that light head space he had been moments before when he stopped, right above him hung a pair bright red shoes tied by their laces from a power line.
Looking around showed him the street was barren, the few single-family houses littered about seeming to be empty. Looking back up, he saw that the shoes were only about a foot from the pole. They weren’t being used by anyone, were they? He looked around again, then back at the shoes. He refused to be thief, his aunt had made sure anyone who would speak to her thought he was, and he refused to make those lies true, even retroactively. But… were they really anyone’s, if they were just hanging there, not being used?
One last anxious look around, he decided that no, having a decent pair of shoes wouldn’t be stealing. So, he untied the cord he had been using as a makeshift belt to hold up Dudley’s hand-me-down pants, silently praying that his pants wouldn’t fall down, and hooked it around the pole. He had seen while cleaning the kitchen it on one of Dudley’s shows and hoped it would work in real life. He pulled both sides, testing the ropes strength, before he jumped up, feet pushing against the pole and his grip on both sides of the rope kept him from falling backwards. With a small laugh, he shimmied upwards, muscles beginning to strain the longer he kept on. Finally, mercifully, he reached the power lines and then froze.
He would need a hand to untie them.
Breathing deeply, he thought for a moment, before looking further up. Just a foot above him was the top. If he could reach it, he could sit on it and have all the time in the world to untie his new shoes.
He shimmied up, then in a burst of movement launched himself up, hands dropping the cord and catching onto the top, using the last of his strength, he forced himself up, chest landing on it before he carefully maneuvered himself until he was sitting. He breathed for a moment, looking out at the long street below him, further the houses and trees lining it, then the signs of civilization further then even that, clusters of houses, towns, he could even see the beginnings of London proper from there. A gust of wind made him grip his perch tighter, though he wasn’t scared. Heights had never scared him, though, admittedly, he had never been very high. His eyes fell on the shoes, the thing that had started this journey.
He reached down and methodically untied them; a closer look told him that they were a little big on him. He could just wear another layer of socks, he decided. Gleefully, he untied the ones he was wearing and threw them as far as he could, unbalancing himself slightly in the process, making him quickly right himself. He shoved them onto their rightful places, tying the slightly grimy laces together nice and tight. Smiling, he dangled them down, feeling like he was on top of the world. Then a thought struck him.
How was he going to get down?
He could see the blurry shape if his cord down bellow where he had idiotically dropped it. A little bit of panic started up in his chest, before he crushed it down. That wouldn’t help, now would it? Okey, so – he got up here by copying a movie -or was it a show?- so maybe if he did it again, it would work for getting down. He searched his memory until the thought struck him, firefighters! They slid down poles all the time, granted they were much thinner, and metal, but the same principle should apply, right? He lowered himself, legs wrapping as much as they could around the pole before he moved his hands to follow- his grip slipped and started falling backwards, his had shot out in an attempt to grab a power line but came up short, he flipped. His hand angled downwards and-
-CRACK-
The crack of his right arm shocked him, instinctively tears began to well up before he fought them back. He blinked, and breathed for a long moment, the shock of his fall freezing him. He pushed with his left arm back, faintly cataloguing the many scrapes the gravel beside the road gave him, the bruises that he could feel developing. His eyes found those bright red shoes, scraped a little from the fall, but still shining.
All he could think was, ‘I got the shoes, didn’t I?’
A smile came to his face, he pushed up, wincing at the pain that shot up from his right arm, he recognized it easily, the same arm had been broken before when his uncle got too angry, it was one of the few times the Dursley’s were forced to take him to the hospital. It had forced him to become artificially ambidextrous, something that he would need again, he decided.
He began the long, long trek back to Private Drive, knowing that while the hospital trip itself would make his relatives furious, asking for help from any adult, and therefore tempting a rumor to form, would make it all the worse.
-----
Victor Bering’s had cornered him, three years older and a full head and a half taller, he didn’t need any goons to back him up, and he knew it.
He pushed him into the small space under the side stairway. One thing that he had over Dudley, was that he had a brain. Victor saw that the skinny kid with a broken arm seemed a little too happy looking down at his new shoes, and he knew how to stop it.
“Give em, shit-stain.”
“What?”
“Your shoes. I want em, so give em.”
He looked at them, even crouched in the dark space they still glowed. He felt the dread start to fall onto his shoulders at the thought that this- this thing he had earned, too, would be taken away from him-
“No.”
He looked back at Victor, the towering figure lit up in parts by the hallways lighting. He looked shocked for a moment; Harry almost wanted to laugh. With his aunt and uncle, he had found the best – the only way – to get by, was to nod his head and keep quiet as he was reprimanded, and he had copied that method here – to this school. It finally dawned on him, it wouldn’t work here, would it? They saw him as dirt, something they can push around, knowing that he wouldn’t- couldn’t. do anything about it.
Victor crouched a little, looming over him. That would have made his heart rate spike yesterday- heck, a few minutes ago. But now? It made him get angry. Angry at the unfairness.
“I said. Give. Them.” Victor grabbed his leg and bulled it towards him, other hand already gripping the shoe on it, working to pull it off, not bothering with the laces.
Harry threw himself forward- they were his. Truly his. He threw a weak punch at Victor’s face, not even seeming to phase him before he returned the favor, this time aiming for his gut and using his hold on Harry’s leg for leverage. It felt like the wind was nocked out of him and he wheezed.
Victor grinned, “I told you; I wanted em. You should’ve just given them to me. I wouldn’t have to do this.”
Victor slipped his hand into his own shoe, sliding it around before taking it back out and Harry gagged at the stench.
“Haven’t cleaned these socks in a while, wonder how they taste.”
As Harry gasped for air Victor shoved a finger into his mouth. The taste hit him, sweat, dirt, and what he imagined mold tasted like. He gagged, body reflexively trying to rid itself of the poisoned food it thought Harry had given it. Viktor swirled it around for a few seconds, and Harry’s brain finally came back to him, the anger overwhelming the shock from the punch-
-Crunch-
His teeth clamped down, the wet sound of the finger’s flesh pulling away and the taste of iron filling his mouth making him turn and gag, watching as the digit fell out his mouth and onto the floor with a soft thud. He vaguely recognized the Victor’s screaming as he staired at the finger.
-----
They couldn’t reattach it, the filth of the corner below the stairs meaning that attempting to would be taking the risk of infecting him with God knew what. Harry had been horrified, he had not only hurt someone, but he had taken a part from him permanently. The Dursleys made sure to hammer in how horrible it was, made sure he knew he was even more of a freak. But – but he was left alone.
He was left alone.
Sure, there were still whispers, ‘That’s the maniac!’, ‘I heard he got expelled from his last school,’ ‘I heard he murdered his own parents!’, but that was leagues better then what it was like before. And when, sometimes, a new person would transfer, or someone forgot, all it took was a bite or two, or waving around an old knife he found in the basement for them to remember exactly what happened.
So, he smiled, pushing the small smile that was natural to him into the half-manic one that got the results he wanted.
It hadn’t taken long for him to expand the act. If it worked so well at school, what made Private Drive any different? They both had their Petunias, Vernons and Dudleys, though they were called teachers and classmates. A little bit of growling, making sure Petunia saw him examining her knife set a little too closely, smiling that little bit further then was natural, it all made them a little bit wearier. Just enough to decide that ignoring him, withholding food, was better than provoking him.
So, he was left alone.
It was a little lonely, he could admit. But, considering that he had never really had a friend, closest he had got was his crazy cat lady neighbor, Ms. Figg, and that didn’t really count. The point was, he was used to it.
So when, mentally preparing himself for the journey back to Private Drive, he felt a steel grip on his shoulder and the sickening sensation of his body being fed through a straw, he was not prepared.