Sucks
Harry had the best day.
It started at breakfast, where all of his favorite foods were sent up to the Slytherin table. There weren’t usually desserts at breakfast, Harry didn’t question it.
“Harry, guess what?” Theo was beaming at him, always happy to see Harry.
“What?” Harry asked, a little distracted with loading his plate with as much treacle tart as he could before someone realized they made a mistake.
“Draco’s sick!” Theo said happily. “And so is Professor Snape! They both have Dragon Pox and have to stay in the Hospital Wing for a month!”
“No way!” Harry cried, delighted. First it was treacle tart for breakfast then Dragon Pox took away the worst two parts of Hogwarts? It was like Christmas all over again!
“Potter!” Marcus Flint, the quidditch captain for Slytherin, barked Harry’s name down the table. Harry leaned forward to see him and saw that Flint was doing a strange thing… he was smiling.
“Since potion classes are canceled for the month, we’re making today a practice day,” Flint said. “Gryffindor said they’d practice with us so you and Girl Potter can get some real practice in.”
“Theo…” Harry’s eyes glazed over and he put the back of his hand on his forehead. “You’re going to have to catch me, because I’m going to faint.”
It wound up being the best day.
Harry and Sirianna were able to fly for hours on the pitch. Sirianna took seeking very seriously, which meant she won most of their seeker battles. Harry just had a good time flying and knew in the back of his mind that when a real match rolled around, he’d know how to beat Sirianna because she was a show-off and wanted to show him every trick she had during their practice.
The Slytherin and Gryffindor teams ate lunch on the sunny field, both teams too worn out from practice to do any sort of fighting. Ron sat with Sirianna, Theo joined Harry, and it was just like a huge picnic.
It was like that, all day. There was something magic in the air that made everything good that could happen - did happen.
Harry received an O on his transfiguration essay, earning fifty points for his perfect score. There was no Draco Malfoy which meant that all the Slytherin first years were able to sit around the common room and trade books around. There was no Professor Snape which - didn’t really change anything, it was just a happy side note.
By the time Harry went to bed, his face actually ached from smiling so much.
“Today was perfect,” Harry mumbled to Theo, sleepy but still happy.
Theo’s bed was right beside Harry’s, they had scooted them as close as they could get on their second night - it made it easier to read at night without bothering the other boys. Theo lifted his head up so that he could grin at Harry, just as happy with the day as Harry was.
“Subject zero-seven waking,” Theo said, his voice sharp and authoritative.
Harry’s stomach dropped, like he was falling off his broom slowly at first then all at once. Just before he thought he should hit the ground —
“Test it.”
There was a wand on Harry’s forehead and a curse that flowed through it, sending electric fire through Harry’s brain, burning all the edges. Harry went rigid in the chair, his fingers scrambled beneath their straps to find something to clutch.
It wasn’t real, none of it. Maybe it never had been.
Sirianna was there when Harry was taken back to the cage they called a room. Harry must have done well, they were put in the same room as a reward sometimes.
And Sirianna was real, she was real and she was all that Harry had ever needed really.
When things were too much - too loud, too many eyes, too much - Harry could crawl back in those happy memories. Harry could remember the perfect day at Hogwarts, the one that could have happened if Harry had been there. Harry could crawl in the dark and cozy corner of his mind where he laid with his head on Sirianna’s lap, her fingers stroking his hair, and the two of them took turns creating a story.
That was where Harry crawled when he was arrested. Not arrested, not arrested, but taken to a police station and asked too many questions.
It wasn’t fair - it wasn’t fair that Siri had cared about Benny. It wasn’t fair that one of the police men tried to stick him in a room and only changed his mind after Harry blew the lightbulbs out. It wasn’t fair that They killed Benny and Harry couldn’t say so.
Siri stopped crying when they sat together in an office that smelled warm, like smoke. The police officer, the one who looked at Harry like he was a puzzle without enough pieces, sat on one side of the desk and Harry and Sirianna sat on the other side.
Someone offered them drinks, food, a blanket to fix the way Siri was shaking. Harry wasn’t going to eat a thing, nothing they offered him. If they would stop bothering Siri then Harry could pull away, hide out until he could go… go…
Where? Where was Harry meant to go? Where would Siri go?
Siri didn’t want to go to Hogwarts, Harry didn’t want to go anywhere without her. They couldn’t go to Benny's house, not with Them knowing who Benny was and where he had lived.
There was a note in Harry’s pocket with an address on it, if he needed anything. If Siri needed a place to sleep before they…
What? Before they went where and did what?
Harry gazed ahead unseeingly while he tried to make himself figure anything out. Would they have to run? Run and never stop? Should - would Siri be safer if Harry left? Harry was the finished experiment; Siri had always been the one who was miserable because of Harry.
“Harry?”
Harry blinked and it was nearly dark outside, the office they were in was lit by soft lamps that gave a hazy and unreal feeling to the room. Siri was staring at Harry and he needed to try, needed to do better.
Do better.
“I think whoever killed Benny might - might be one of the men from Albany,” Siri said slowly, staring hard at Harry like she was forcing him to understand her. Harry understood, he agreed. It was one of Them who had killed Benny, Harry would have said that if anyone asked him.
“Right,” Harry agreed. He glanced from Siri to the man watching them with dark eyes - dark eyes that seemed too knowing, like he could see right inside Harry’s mind.
Maybe he could. Maybe he’d seen the shadows and the darkness and knew what Harry had seen and done.
“What can you tell me about the men?” he asked - looking directly at Harry. “Any details could help here, kid.”
They wore white coats, They were powerful, and They were going to kill Harry and Sirianna both when They found them.
Harry felt like his tongue was swelling up, choking him. Who would believe him? Who would believe Harry if he said They were insane, brilliant, too powerful to be stopped? Siri would, that was it.
Harry shook his head - too much. It - Harry didn’t want to talk about Them. They killed Benny and They couldn’t be stopped. Benny couldn’t come back to life, it was over.
“Look.” The man leaned his elbows on his desk, leaning toward Harry and Siri. “Your sister here has a pretty wild story. Kidnapping, torture, government experiments on children? That’s a hard sell. Are you following?”
How was the truth a ‘hard sell’? They weren’t selling their story, nobody needed to purchase it.
Harry nodded uncertainly.
“Anything you can tell me, any shred of evidence to support this, would be a help,” the man said. “You corroborate any part of this story and I’ll make sure these people don’t bother you ever again.”
That was a hard sell. They couldn’t be stopped, definitely not by a muggle with only a gun. And he was only a muggle, Harry was as certain of that as he was that it had been a witch or wizard who killed Benny.
It was still the first time anyone said they would try - try to keep Siri safe.
“Har.” Siri took Harry’s hand and squeezed it while Harry was still stuck staring at the man. Her voice sounded so sad, almost as sad as her eyes were. Siri cared about Benny so much, Harry didn’t want him to die.
“Show him the proof,” Siri whispered.
Show him? Show him - what? Harry didn’t even know what Siri had said to him, he - he had been hiding when she talked herself to exhaustion.
Proof? The man would try to protect Siri if Harry proved they weren’t liars?
“Okay.” Harry looked at the cigarette in the man’s fingers, the one that had soft grey smoke lazily flying above it.
It took nothing at all for Harry to blink and make the cigarette disappear - though apparently that wasn’t what Siri had wanted.
“Bubby…” Siri’s voice was tight when the man jumped in his seat and held his hand up to stare at the blank space where the cigarette had once been.
“I meant that you should show him your arm.”
Oh.
Harry should have done that. The little tattoo right above the crease of his elbow - zero-seven, subject zero-seven - might have been enough proof too.
“Okay…” The man took a deep breath and settled right back down in his chair. He pulled a cup toward him, coffee Harry thought, and then added a splash of something clear he got from his desk.
After he seemed to drink the entire mug at once, he refocused on Siri.
“Now, why don’t you restart your story and don’t leave anything out, huh?”
Siri shifted and Harry was relieved she still had his hand because it was going to be a long night when she cleared her throat nervously.
“I guess it started on Halloween then, fourteen years ago…”
Harry didn’t need to listen to Siri… he lived through it all once, there was no reason to listen to the worst story in the world again.
Siri’s voice washed over Harry, only parts of it filtered through though —
“… called him the Boy-Who-Lived…”
“They wore white coats, the ones who took us had robes on…”
“… everything shut down, all at once, and we just ran.”
“… Benny was kind, I - I didn’t want to lie to him…”
When Siri couldn’t talk anymore, when there was nothing left to say, Harry blinked and then squinted in the sunrise that blinded him in the windows.
The man scrubbed his face with both hands for what felt like an eternity.
“Magic,” he mumbled. “Fucking - fucking magic…”
It seemed like Siri had broken him. The man for all his muscle and his swear to protect Siri… he was broken by the idea of magic. If anything was funny at all, Harry would have smiled.
“What the fuck do I do…?” The man dropped his hands and blinked heavily at Harry and Siri. “There’s nobody, not a soul in the world, that can help you kids?”
Harry’s eyebrows twitched in a sense of anger that was dulled, fuzzy, muted under the weight of everything else. He said - he said that if they sold their story that he - he said he would protect her!
“You lied,” Harry said, glaring at the man and hating him. He made Siri tell him all those things so he could pass her along? He lied and Harry wasn’t surprised, but he was angry.
“Me? What did I lie about?” he asked Harry.
Harry needed to shut up, he did. But Benny was dead and Siri’s pain was bleeding through Harry’s chest and it made everything raw and too much.
“You said that you’d - you’d keep Them from bothering us!” Harry yelled. Something exploded, something that sounded like the glass fracturing in Harry’s head. “YOU SAID YOU WOULD KEEP HER SAFE!”
Because Harry couldn’t. It was all Harry wanted - more than Hogwarts, more than the best memory that had never been true - more than anything, Harry wanted Siri to be safe. And Harry could try… he could try until his lungs froze and his heart stopped, but…
Harry was tired, useless, needed to do better.
And the man said that he would help.
The man and Harry stared at one another, they stared while Siri whispered assurances to Harry - the same way she said she was fine and never was.
“Yeah, okay.” He pulled another cigarette from the nearly empty box to slip between his lips. He gestured at his desk, where Harry saw a smoldering spot with shattered bits of metal littering it.
“You mind?”
It took Harry a moment to understand what he wanted, but it was simple to create a small flame, just enough to light the end of the cigarette.
“You two don’t mind sharing a room, do you? I’ve only got the one extra,” he said once he settled back in his seat and his gaze turned less assessing, less sharp. It softened him and Harry let his own jaw unclench.
Did they mind sharing a room? Harry wouldn’t mind sharing a room with Siri for the rest of his life. It was Siri who needed space, needed more, needed things to be better.
“We don’t,” Siri said, squeezing Harry’s hand tight.
Siri was too tired, too sick with misery, for Harry to do anything except nod. It was just…
They didn’t used to lie, not to each other.
The man - his name was ‘Hop’, someone called him that as they left, “Hop, Joyce Byers called, said Will never returned home.” - directed Harry and Sirianna back through the station. They weren’t being arrested, locked up, they were being taken to his house.
Harry didn’t mind that, muggles didn’t scare him as much as they once had. It was the best place for Siri to be if Hop thought that there was any chance he could keep Siri safe.
And Siri liked Hawkins. Siri liked going to school and riding in cars, she liked to talk to other people their age and she wanted to wear makeup and pretty clothes. Siri liked the other students, she wanted them to like her.
They didn’t like her, because they didn’t like Harry and Harry embarrassed her, made her uncomfortable.
“Will? Will Byers?” Siri was exhausted, dragging her feet and slurring like she did when she was too tired to stay alert. That was when Harry had to be twice as alert, especially then.
It made Harry sick to think of what could have happened if Siri had been there instead of Benny. Harry didn’t - he didn’t like Benny, didn’t trust him, as much as Siri had… but he had probably died because of Harry and that - it made Harry sick.
“You know him?” Hop asked. There was a brown car outside - Hawkins Police Chief - and Hop opened the back door of it for them.
“That’s Jonathan’s brother.” Siri climbed in first and Harry looked around the lot once more, carefully poking around the shadows for anyone who shouldn’t be there, before he followed Siri in the car.
It wasn’t a great car, not as comfortable or clean as Steve’s. There wasn’t room for Harry’s legs with all the rubbish so Harry pulled them up to his chest and wrapped a loose arm around them.
It hadn’t been the worst day of Harry’s life, not by a long shot, but Harry could still feel the raw edges of Siri’s pain in his chest.
Siri’s screams, Siri’s tears, Siri’s pain.
Hop didn’t talk on the drive to wherever he lived, which Harry was thankful for. Harry didn’t want to answer questions, he didn’t want to try anymore. All he wanted was to stay with Siri…
It was too quiet for Siri though, Hop’s car was much quieter than Benny’s truck, so Harry hummed. Harry hummed until Hop pulled up to a house and Siri’s head had lolled over on Harry’s shoulder.
Hop opened the door and huffed quietly.
“I can carry her, she’s had a day,” he offered.
Harry was going to tell him no, he was going to tell him not to touch his sister. Siri wouldn’t like it, even if she was tired. But the raw edges in Harry’s chest had eased, been dulled by a deep sleep.
Which was worse? Waking her up and bringing that pain back or letting someone carry her inside a house so she could sleep?
Harry nodded and watched closely as Hop reached out for Siri, hefted her easily up in his arms. Hop wasn’t pinching her, he wasn’t clawing her skin. Siri’s head flopped backward and Hop let it rest on his shoulder.
Benny was dead and Siri cared about him, she deserved to have a shoulder to lay on.
“Go open the door,” Hop told Harry. “It’s unlocked.”
Harry walked quickly to the front door and opened it - how could Hop keep Siri safe if he couldn’t lock a door? - so Hop could carry Siri in. The inside of the house was… messy. Not cluttered, like Benny’s house had been, but… dirty. It smelled stale.
There were cans littered all around the sitting room, dirty clothes on a sofa. Harry carefully didn’t crinkle his nose at the plates of dishes that had food gone old on them and flies buzzing around. There was also an old chair that had stuffing poking out and a blanket bundled haphazardly in the seat.
“You good if I put her here?” Hop tilted his head toward the chair. “That bedroom might not be habitable.”
Harry nodded and moved the blanket so Hop could carefully place Siri down on the chair. Once she was curled up, Harry laid the blanket on her and tucked in the edges, making sure she wouldn’t get cold.
“I’m going to crash for a couple of hours,” Hop said, watching Harry watch Siri. “I have a missing kid, dead man, and fucking wizards. I need sleep.”
Harry nodded again - that was a lot. He wondered what kid was missing, if it was someone he knew.
“There might be some food in the fridge, help yourself. Blankets in the closet, remote on the TV, kid. Wake me if you need me.”
Did Harry need him? Siri was asleep, Benny was dead. Harry probably didn’t need him. Harry could watch the door, keep an eye on Siri. First he had to lock it, even if it wouldn’t keep Them out, it was stupid to keep the door unlocked.
Hop went to bed and left Harry alone… in a house that smelled bad… with his sister sound asleep on a chair.
Benny was dead. Siri was asleep.
Harry didn’t know what to do with that information so he started cleaning.
There were plenty of things that needed cleaning, Hop’s house was filthy. Harry hoped that Hop took protecting Siri more seriously than he took hygiene.
Harry checked on Siri as he methodically went from task to task… The dishes couldn’t go in the sink until the sink was clean… Siri was still sleeping… The sink couldn’t be properly cleaned until he had a the rubbish bagged up… Steve had been crying - Harry didn’t even know he knew Benny… The bottles and cans in the sitting room needed pitched… Benny was dead…
There was a phone attached to the wall and Harry… Harry had Steve’s phone number. Steve had said he didn’t have parents at his house, he was going to be there alone. Harry would like to be alone, if Siri were with him.
But Harry was a freak, everyone said so. Everyone called Harry a freak and he told Siri he would try harder and Benny was dead and maybe Steve would be like Siri, maybe he wouldn’t want to be alone.
Harry couldn’t leave Siri, but there was a phone.
It wasn’t difficult to dial the number, even if Harry wasn’t sure what he was going to say if Steve answered. He carefully put until phone against his ear and shifted until his back was against the wall and he could see Siri, see the front door.
“Hello?”
Harry should have practiced. It was better when he practiced - when Benny wasn’t dead, there weren’t wizards in Hawkins, and he practiced.
“Hello?” It sounded like Steve on the phone. “Look, it’s a bad time for a prank, okay?”
“Hello.” Harry closed his eyes for a second and wished he was more like Siri, he wished people didn’t laugh when they saw him, he wished he didn’t embarrass his sister.
“Who…? Is this Harry?”
“Yes.” Harry hesitated, his eyes on where Siri was curled up, her hair tangled up in her face and soft snores spilling from her mouth. What would she say? If Siri called Harry - what would she say?
“Are you okay?”
There was a silence long enough that Harry wondered if he had once again said the wrong thing, done the wrong thing.
“Am I… okay? I - are you okay?”
Was he…? Harry wasn’t hurt, he was tired. Siri was curled up sleeping. Benny was dead. There were wizards in Hawkins.
“I’m fine,” Harry said, thinking of how Siri would respond. “Thank you.”
Steve sighed in the phone, which was a terrible noise for Harry’s ear.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said in a sudden rush. “I mean - he was dead. And that’s crazy, right? Because - I - he was just dead. So I tried to sleep and I just kept seeing the blood and the way his eyes were so empty. God. Your sister too, is she okay? I thought I was going to freaking cry when she started.”
“Siri’s asleep,” Harry told him, answering the only real question Steve asked. And Steve had been crying, Harry had seen him.
“She’s sleeping? Oh, good. Cool. Wait - where are you guys? You’re not like at that house, right?”
“No.” Harry didn’t think there was any reason to not tell Steve where they were - he wasn’t a wizard and he wasn’t dangerous. “We’re at Hop’s.”
“Hop? Who - the police chief? Chief Hopper?”
“Yes.”
“I guess that makes sense…”
Harry nodded and shifted again, changed the phone to his other ear when Steve breathed too loudly. Everything had a staticky sound to it that Harry didn’t like.
“I’m sorry about your uncle,” Steve said. “It sucks.”
“It does suck,” Harry agreed, trying the word out slowly. It felt right, the right way to describe how Siri had been smiling more and Harry knew it was over. “It sucks,” he said again.
“Yeah.” Steve chuckled quietly, more fuzzy static in Harry’s ear. “I’m guessing you two won’t be at school, huh?”
Harry looked at the clock on Hop’s stove, tried to remember what time Jonathan usually picked them up. It was after eight, Jonathan didn’t know where they were, Siri was asleep.
“No,” Harry said. “We’re not going.”
“Me neither. I thought about it, thought maybe I should go, but… I dunno. I’m not going.”
“Okay.” Harry was tired, he was sick of talking. Steve was okay, Siri was asleep, Benny was dead.
“Thanks.” Steve cleared his throat and Harry cringed from the phone - it was the worst sound yet. “You know, for calling or whatever.”
“You’re welcome.”
“If you want, I - I can pick you guys up tomorrow. Unless you’re skipping, nobody would blame you. I could bring homework by if you need it.”
“I’ll ask Siri,” Harry said. “Er… thanks.”
“Yeah, no problem. Later.”
Harry tried that word out too and decided it was another one that he liked, “Later.”
Siri was asleep. Benny was dead. There were wizards in Hawkins.
But Harry had done all he could do. All that was left was to watch over Siri until she woke up.
It sucked.