As they stared at the broken-down sign, a harsher wind sprouted, rippling their clothes and making them shiver even harder. Spinner's End. Not even Tom knew where that was. They could have been to Wales by now, for all they knew. Blue kept making choked whimpering sounds inside that made Tom want to smack her. He restrained himself, though. That wouldn't help anything.

There was a rundown old park at the far end of the street, and so Jay made his way carefully towards it. Perhaps they could huddle in a bush or a tree for the night, keeping out of sight, and in the morning, they might have a better idea of what to do.

Or at least, that was the plan until a sallow-faced man wearing some sort of fanciful dark cloak around his shoulders (like it was even close to Halloween!) materialized out of the shadows and inquired in the coldest voice any of them had ever heard, where they thought they were going.

"Home," Jay lied, bolstering his show of bravado with a hesitant sneer. It shattered to pieces at their feet when the man only snorted in laughter.

"I know everyone who lives on this street," the man replied with a sneer that put Jay's to shame. "And you, little boy, are not one of them."

"I don't live on this street," Jay said with exaggerated patience. Apprehension clutched his spine with icy fingers. What if this man was one of the perverts Aunt Petunia was always warning him about? The grabby-handed men who would take you away and you'd never be seen again, save in the newspapers as a missing person, or perhaps your mutilated corpse? "Just trying a new shortcut, that's all."

"Oh? Then what street do you live on?" the man inquired. Jay's mind went blank. It didn't help that Blue and Freak were nearly incoherent in fear inside. Even Tom was at a loss.

"I don't tell that to strangers," Jay finally settled on. He felt overly hyped up, like he'd been injected somehow with a shot of pure adrenaline. He didn't like this man at all, this strange man with greasy black hair, who wore a cape like it was normal. It was freaky, that's what it was, and they knew freaky.

"Of course," the man just barely refrained from rolling his eyes. "Don't let me hinder you. This street is dangerous at night, though. If you happen to...lose your way, my home is that on the corner," he pointed at the most dilapidated-looking of the lot, a shabby two-story with peeling dark paint and a broken shutter in the front window. And with that, he was gone.

"The fuck, man," Jay whispered to himself, increasing his stride. That had been too close, and he could feel the effects in the quick thumping of his heart, not to mention the clammy feel of cold sweat sliding down between his shoulder blades. It felt like the man had to still be there, watching him, and he did not want him to see where they were going.

For once, I agree with you, Tom said, almost somberly, in his head. He hadn't seemed bad precisely. But still not a man they wished to have more than a moment's acquaintance with. Plus, he'd seemed strangely familiar to Tom, and he needed a private place to mull that over. Had he known him from before? When he was still part of Lord Voldemort?

Jay cut straight through the park and then circled back to an extra-large cluster of bushes. They looked half-dead in the steadily darkening twilight, but beggars couldn't be choosers. He pulled the hood of their sweatshirt up over his head and scooted right into the middle, holding his breath when a particularly pointy branch stabbed him briskly in the thigh.

"Fuck," he hissed aloud, glaring at the branch as if his anger was enough to light it on fire. Thankfully, it wasn't, or else they would have gone up in an almost cheery blaze of red and orange flames.

Outside their little hidey hole, they could now hear the night denizens of Spinner's End, and even Harry understood why the dark man had warned them. It sounded like it was a street full of sots. Violent sots. Like Uncle Vernon at his worst. Harry curled up extra tightly amongst the bushes, feeling fear and the cold wrack his body in a series of expanded shivers. This was not at all what he'd expected when he'd awoken that morning to Aunt Petunia's loud rap on the door. It felt almost like a dream.

Maybe...maybe it was a dream? Or, well, a nightmare? Harry could only hope it was and that when next he opened his eyes, he'd find himself on the bare cot that dwarfed the cupboard beneath the stairs, and that Aunt Petunia would be calling for him to get breakfast on and make it quick.

But of course, it couldn't be that easy. Nothing ever was, for Harry.