"Come back here, Potter!" he heard the man yell behind him, even angrier than he'd sounded when he first found Harry in his storeroom, but Harry put on another burst of speed. He wasn't stupid. The scary man in black knew who he was, and that couldn't mean good things. It certainly never had before.

It's not like he'd meant to end up in a strange man's storage closet. He hadn't meant to end up anywhere! But Uncle was going to hurt him more as soon as he came back from work, and he already hurt quite enough, especially with the bruises on his face and his back, and so he'd ended up huddled in the middle of his cot, in the cupboard under the stairs, rocking back and forth and whispering how much he wanted to be somewhere safe, he just wanted a refuge.

And look at how that had turned up, ending up in a place that smelled rotten, worse than the rubbish bin, and a man who looked scarier than Uncle and Aunt combined. In only his night-shirt, because he'd been too frightened to change.

A flight of stairs loomed up, and Harry took it, his bare feet pounding against the dusty stones. He didn't know where it led, but anywhere had to be better than the darkness with the scary man, didn't it?

He swiftly revised that opinion when he saw another man step out of a room just ahead, back thankfully turned. This man had greasy hair and a pronounced hunch and was murmuring something vile-sounding to a rather scruffy cat twining around his ankles.

Sod that, Harry thought and desperately dived down a side corridor before the greasy-looking man could finish turning around. This one was dustier, and he desperately held in a sneeze. He had to get somewhere cleaner, somewhere his footprints in the dust wouldn't point to his location like a beacon.

The scary man's shouts had long since faded, and he heard nothing from the man with the cat, so Harry finally, gradually slowed down, his breathing still laboured and raspy, but manageable. Now he could take in more details about the strange, massive building he'd landed himself in. There were statues and suits of armour at nearly every corner, and so many portraits and tapestries, he couldn't count them. They must be a nightmare to clean, he thought with a weary snort. His legs ached, and his right elbow still stung from where he'd banged it on a statue three halls back, and he felt like he'd been running for miles. Maybe he had.

"Where am I?" Harry muttered aloud, feeling exhaustion crash over him like a tidal wave.

"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," a voice from nowhere said, in a brisk tone. Harry's head swiveled around, mouth gaping open, but found no one.

"Who said that?" he gasped.

"Up here," the voice said patiently. Harry's eyes finally lit upon a smiling woman in a very yellow dress in a picture frame. "Yes, that's right," the woman in the portrait said, smiling.

"But...people in pictures can't talk," Harry said, feeling rather stupid.

"They can at Hogwarts," the woman said, fixing her hair. "Because of the magic."

Harry's mouth fell further open, hearing the m-word so casually bandied about.

"You-don't say that!" he hissed frantically. "They-you'll get in trouble, it's for freaks only, you-you're not a freak," he bit his lip, cheeks flushing in shame. Certain that the woman in the portrait would know now.

But all she said, quite calmly, was, "And neither are you."

If it wasn't for the scary man in black's arrival just then, Harry didn't know what he would have said.