Chapter 1
“You’re a monster, a freak! Nobody will ever love you.”
A car door slams shut. An engine revs. Then like that, the Durselys are gone.
The boy blankly watches them go.
He should be running after them, he thinks. Chasing the dust left by their van. Calling out for them. But his body remains a statue. For some reason, he just can’t will his feet to move.
Idly, in the back of his mind, he tries to process what just happened.
Did that- did they- just leave him? Like… never coming back, leave him?
Surely not.
It must be a prank, he thinks. A very hurtful prank, but a joke nonetheless. His cousin was never really good at distinguishing that fine line between hurtful and funny.
Any second now, the car would return. His aunt would open the door and usher him inside. His cousin will laugh about how, “Oh Harry really thought they were going to leave him- look he’s crying!” His uncle will tell him to man up.
A second passes. A minute.
The car doesn’t turn around.
Harry toes the gravel underneath his feet. There’s a lot of gravel around the hiking paths in the woods. (Harry had been so excited that his family was taking him camping with them. Now he kinda wishes he had just stayed in his cupboard-)
Three minutes. Ten. They’re taking quite a while, he thinks.
Twenty minutes. Forty. It’s not that funny anymore. Come on, the joke is over. They won. He’s scared.
Finally, an hour hits. And with it the realization:
They aren’t coming back.
This isn’t like the time Petunia left him in the marketplace.
“Stay in this aisle! I’ll come and get you when I’m done shopping.” She had left him then. Forgot him. Only to come pick him back up when the superintendent of the store calls their house phone.
Now there’s no other adults to phone Privet Drive. Nobody to remind them that, yes, Harry exists too. That he lives with them. That he needs their food and care.
There’s just him. Just Harry.
Suddenly his eyes burn.
Harry may be six, but he’s not an idiot. His teachers always tell him he’s very intelli-gent. Or er- that he’s quite smart. And he doesn’t need to be told that this isn’t a prank after all. That he needs to go. That waiting here will not result in what he wishes.
As the sun starts to lower Harry looks back at the road his caretakers drove down. His aunt always told him to stay put wherever she places him.
But his aunt isn’t here anymore.
She had left him. Like she always warned she would.
The six-year-old sighs, wrapping his arms around himself, and then Harry proceeds to break one of Aunt Petunia’s many, many, many rules.
He takes a step.
- - - - -
The woods aren’t too bad, Harry decides.
Once he got over the initial panic of being lost the actual forest itself was very pleasant.
(Harry had meant to stay on the path. He really did. But the gravel road led on forever and ever. And he thought he could take a shortcut, and well..)
He gets the freedom he didn’t get from his cupboard. Walking where he chooses and doing as he pleases. Plus, there were no adults ordering him around! No, “Get that Harry!” “Do this Harry!” “Go into your cupboard Harry!”
The boy finds he quite likes the silence. He also likes the cool shade that shields him from the sun. And the pleasant smells of pine needles and moss that fills his nose.
The absolute bestest thing ever though is when he sees an animal. Woodland critters never really went near Privet Drive. But here he can see things like a squirrel- or a rabbit- Or a deer-
Harry stops.
The deer doesn’t notice him. Or if it does, it doesn’t seem to care. It chomps away at grass across the clearing. Harry’s never seen a deer before- not in real life. They didn’t quite look how they did in the picture books. Were they always that big?
Harry takes a step forward.
The deer pauses. And slowly, ever-so-slowly, raises its head to stare at him. For a second, the world stops.
Then it moves.
The child fully expects it to bolt. To run away like most wild creatures. It surprises him though, by slowly trotting across the grass. Focused on him, the deer approaches with upmost caution. When it reaches him, the boy realizes it’ s even bigger than it had appeared.
It towers over him. Regal, gigantic, and elegant. Harry can tell its a male by the twisting antlers sprawled on its forehead. It snorts, a warm breath brushing against Harry’s face.
Harry can distinctly remember his teacher warning his class that wild animals were dangerous. But he thinks that this deer might be the exception. It nuzzles its wet nose against his face and Harry laughs.
When it leans back, it looks Harry in the eyes like it knows him. Like he’s an old friend who has been away for far too long. Which is very weird since he is pretty sure he hasn’t met a deer before.
“Imma name you Prongs,” Harry laughs as he pets the muzzle of the strange deer. The deer snorts again as if it agrees with the name.
He could stay here forever. Perfectly content just petting his new friend and enjoying the woods. But the moment is over faster than he wishes, because the deer backs away and runs across the clearing.
“Wait!” He calls out, his hand reaching after his new friend. The deer stops and looks back at him with a tilt of his head.
Well- are you coming? It seems to ask.
Yes. I’m coming along! With a grin, Harry runs after Prongs. And by doing so, seals his fate.
- - - - -
It was a game. The deer kept just within sight most of the time. Too far ahead for the child to catch him, but not so far that he lost sight.
He couldn’t tell you how long he chased Prongs. Or that he was going up, up, up the mountain. All he could think of was his new friend and what they were going to do when he caught up to him.
( Sometimes if he focused really hard, he could have swore he heard a man’s laughter and the sound of bells.)
Every few minutes, Harry had to stop and catch his breath. His small form wasn’t the most healthy. Living in a cupboard for most your life didn’t really make you an athlete. And he was thin from missing so many meals.
Prongs never abandoned him though, sometimes even coming close and letting the boy lean against him. As soon as he was fully rested though, the deer would dash away like before.
The chase continued.
Harry didn’t know how much time had passed until the orange golden rays of the sunset came filtering through the trees. Night was going to come soon. And Harry was getting tired, tired. His eyes could barely keep open, and his run had dwindled to a clumsy walk. Prongs was slowly walking in front of him.
Blink. He rubbed his eyes drowsily. Blink. The world was slowing done. Blink. The deer was gone.
“W-wait!” Harry cried out, tears springing to his eyes. “Don’t leave me alone!”
Fear encased his heart. Had his new friend abandoned him too? He ambled closer to where he last saw Prongs, but he wasn’t watching where he was going. Roots sprung up from seemingly nowhere, his left foot roughly catching on one.
Suddenly he was falling.
Except there was no ground to catch him.
A large black gaping hole lays in front of him. And there’s nothing he can do to stop himself from entering it’s clutches. Spreading his arms out wide, he tries to grab ahold of something.
Anything.
His fingers find nothing but open air.
And Mount Ebott swallows him whole.