Pierce paced nervously in front oft he little opening in the wall, every now and then freezing when a shadow lingered, throwing him and the little alcove he was hiding in into complete darkness. This was not how they had planned all of this to happen, this was not right! Harry and him were never supposed to get separated, they had promised to stay together, forever! And now harry wasn’t returning and he was alone, was it because of the letter that had found him here? Was Harry after all upset?

 Harry stood speechless glancing at the black owl who stood before him, just as still as him, he dared not move, lest he startle the bird and have her take off with the letter that just had to be his! He knew it had to be his! If Pierce got one, then he had to get one too! They had said that they would never leave each other! The bird bristled slightly and stretched her leg out even further, snapping her beak as if to tell him just how displeased she was.

“Okay,” harry mumbled nervously, creeping forwards carefully before extending his hand carefully, almost afraid to touch it, praying that she the beautiful bird would not vanish from right before his eyes, leaving him with nothing. 

To Mr. Harry James Potter,

West haven Alley

The front of his envelope read in much the same style that Pierces had been written in, the red wax stamp making it look official and important. He unclasped the envelope from the birds leg, before extending one dirty hand carefully. The bird held perfectly still as he carefully closed the distance between his dirty fingers and her shiny feathers. He held his breath as his figners brushed over her beautiful coat of feathers, surprised at the silkiness of it.

“I got one too!” Harry cried out quietly the moment he squeezed himself into the small gap in the wall, finding his friend sitting against the wall in almost complete darkness now.

“where were you? I waited for hours!” Pierce growled before his eyes fell on the letter, the joy that almost instantaneously came to his face was as quickly overshadowed by doubt and then trepidation.

“Harry, what if someone is playing us? What if someone found us? What if they want us to go to Kings Cross soon, only to bring us back?”

Harry found his excitement at the letter stop dead in its tracks, much like he did, when he considered his friends words.

“what does it say?” Pierce asked, crawling closer.

“They know where we are staying!” Harry whispered nervously.

“And Magic Harry? Do you really think there are actually schools for that? Why doesn’t anyone know about it then?”

“Well,” Harry said, wanting to cling to the letter, not wanting to give up this little feeling of hope, this feeling of some sort of belonging he experienced by only holding the letter.

“And even if it were real we could never afford it!” Pierce added pulling the crumbled up letter from his backpocket. “If this really is a school and not just a stupid joke, then it’s gotta be real expensive.”

Harry sighed as he glanced at the still sealed envelope.

“So what should we do?”

“I say we go on, it’s not that much farther until Scottland and we still have some money left, and then we can go see my cousin, he always promised me to get me out when he was done with school and earned some money.”

“When is he done?”

“I’m not sure, I think this or next summer. But maybe he can hide us away in his flat, or his rooms.”

“Won’t he get in trouble though?”

“I don’t know, we never thought about that, but he promised, he just promised me again when he called during spring break, he said he wouldn’t forget me! And he’ll help you too, I promise. He is older, he knows what to do.”

They walked through the entire night, flinching once in a while when a car hit the breaks anywhere close, jumping even further away from the street whenever they heard a police siren, talking quietly, walking down at the side of the highway, every now and then climbing up the little ditch to make sure that a sign still read edinburough.

“Do you know where he lives exactly?”

“No, but we’ll find him. We could look through the registers when we get to Scottland, I know that he lives with other boys, he doesn’t live with adults, only one, Snape something, I think. There can’t be that many Snapes!”  Pierce said urgently, rubbing his cold hand against each other. Even though it was the beginning of June it got terribly cold during the nights.

“I think we should wash up again the restrooms here, and maybe buy another snack,” Harry said as a new gasstation sign came up not to far from them.

They walked for almost another hour, both still, both their minds thinking of the letter they had on them, the letter that promised either the chance of a new life, or the return to their old life, lifes both of them had fled.

“We only have thirty pounds left,” Pierce observed when he pulled out the crumbled bills.

“And a couple of coins,” Harry added pulling the coins from his pocket when they saw the restrooms close up the road.

“Have you ever thought of maybe climbing into the back of a truck, or something like that to get there faster?”

“No, but we could climb onto a train,” Harry said eying the cars distrustfully.

“with cars you never know where they are going, trains can’t change their mind in the middle of it, or turn around because they forgot something at home,” Harry added when he thought of the many times they had to turn around an hour into the drive because Dudley threw a fit since he forgot a toy or something of the sorts.

“Is there a trainstation close by?” Pierce asked, looking around, as if one would just materialize out of nowhere.

“No, but there’s gotta be one really close. London is not far away, and the largest trainstation is right there.”

It wasn’t until they had left the trainstation a few minutes later, having stilled their thirst and washed up in the restroom and walked for almost two more hours that they heard the unmistakable sound of a train rushing by. Both of them almost broke into a sprint following their ears, calling to each other every once in a while, fighting over where best to run to, urging each other on. They ran for almost five minutes until neither of them could take another step.

“We need to sleep,” Pierce said yawning with his mouth wide open.

“Yeah, maybe. But if we climb a train, then we could sleep in there.”

“What if we get caught though?” Pierce asked, all of a sudden fear in his eyes.

“Then we jump and run as fast as we can. But we have been walking for days now and are still in England!” Harry said scratching his dirty and itchy face. He had not bathed since shortly before he left the Dursleys and that was at least twenty days ago, he thought, he hadn’t really been counting.

“But what if we fall off?” Pierce asked again, even as Harry continued walking towards the direction he had last heard the loud roar of the trainengine from.

“We won’t,” Harry said stubbornly before yelping, as he stumbled over the rails falling to his knees and hitting both them and his hands open on the gravel.

“Are you okay?” Pierce asked fearfully a few seconds later having located his friends a few yards of on his hands and knees.

Harry took several deep breaths before he wiped his eyes with the back of his hands, ignoring the mean sting in his hands, the throb in his knees, he got back up.

“Yes, I’m fine, let’s walk by the rails for a few minutes, we should get to a station at some point, and then we can check how much a ticket to Scotland costs. If need be then we’ll just buy a small ticket and ride the rest hiding in the restroom or so.”

“You think that’ll work?”

“Yes, I saw people do that in the telly, and no matter even if we buy tickets, its important that we get as far away as possible. Even if my uncle didn’t inform the police, the teachers will have surely begun to notice now.”

“They’ll just make up a story, like that you are ill or moved away, I know that my stepfather will!” pierce growled, trying to mask the hurt with anger.

It was only another hour later, with the sun slowly beginning to come up that Harry and Pierce were barely able to take another step. Both their feet were already painfully sore and blistered and thus it didn’t take much talking for both of them to agree that perhaps it was best to hide away and rest for a few hours and continue when they both got enough sleep.

Harry didn’t say a word when Pierce wrapped his hands tightly around him again, like he had done after the third night on the road, the close contact keeping the both of them warm and keeping the nightmares away. It was only though when the boys breathing from behind him evened out that he finally restlessly found some sleep as well.