At last, the familiar numberplate appeared right in front of Harry. He had walked past it at least three times without noticing.

Harry opened the back door and slipped inside. Carefully, he pulled the photograph out and placed it on the seat next to him.

The man didn’t seem shaken by the journey.

He did, however, look very angry. It was like he was yelling at Harry, only Harry didn’t hear anything.

“I’m sorry, I thought it was better to take you with me so you could tell me more. The circus won’t stay here, and I would have no idea how to find you.” Not to mention Harry had no way of getting here again.

That did seem to calm the man down a bit. He sat down to write: “IF HE ASKS” the wiped that out “YOU DO NOT THINK I AM REAL”

“But I do!” It was obviously real. Magic was real!

“NEVER TELL ANYONE” The man wiped it out. “YOU STOLE IT TO SHOW FRIENDS.”

“I, um, don’t actually have any friends. But okay. I will hide you from the Dursleys anyway. They hate anything that isn’t normal.”


“THE MAN WHO DID THIS TO ME”

Harry nodded to indicate he had read it. So it had been done on purpose? Well, figured. How else would someone know so exactly how it worked? When reading the description, he hadn’t wondered, but now ... He shivered.

The man wiped it out. “HE WILL FIND YOU”.

“He might, but I don’t think you have to worry much, there were lots of people in that tent.”

“MAGIC”

Harry had not considered that. Obviously. The man knew his name by magic, so this other guy could likely find out where he was. “What do I do, then? If I lie to him, he will still take you back.”

“WRITE LETTER TO” The man waited a while, then wiped it out. “ALBUS DUMBLEDORE.”

“Can you give me an address?”

“NO NEED. FIND AN OWL.”

It was all very strange, but Harry still had a lot of time to kill and writing a letter did seem harmless, so he took the Grunnings ballpen Uncle Vernon kept in the car and wrote a letter on the now rather greasy paper of the bag his sandwich had been in.

“To Albus Dumbledore:

The Head of Snakes is being held by a Richard Smith of Smith Circus.
Contact me.

James Evans.”


“Isn’t that identity fraud or something?” Harry asked when he had signed with the fake name.

“SAFETY”, the man wrote. “NOW USE YOUR SLEEVE!!!”

Harry nodded.

“AND HIDE ME, THEN”

“Yes?”

“GIVE LETTER TO AN OWL.”

Harry was about to tell the man that owls weren’t that common when he remembered that, in fact, he did see a lot of owls in the rare cases when he was in the countryside.

“I can try to find an owl, but I can’t promise I will.”

When he wanted to use his sleeve to hide the photo again, Harry noticed he was still wearing his sweater under his t-shirt. He took off the shirt, then the sweater, but them back on in the right order, and reached for the photo.

Only the man’s upset waving reminded him to use his sleeve.

He could easily wrap the the lower part of the sweater around the photo – Dudley wasn’t as much taller than Harry as he was fatter, but it was plenty enough.

Across the street was a small wood. Harry carefully looked in both directions to make sure no car would suddenly emerge from the fog, crossed the road, and walked into the forest.

“Hello? Any owls here?”

He wasn’t sure if he felt scared or stupid, or both. He was following the instructions of a photo!

Or of a man trapped inside a cursed photo. Harry really hoped he wasn’t falling for a really, really elaborate prank. The only one he could think of who would want to prank him was Dudley, anyway, and Dudley was much too stupid to pull something like this off.

An owl cried.

Harry jumped.

“Owl? Uh.... do you understand me?”

The owl cried again.

“I need to get a letter to one Albus Dumbledore. Could you, uh, help me?”

God, this felt so incredibly silly! Harry waved the letter he had rolled up and held in his left hand around.

Suddenly, in a whirl of feathers, the letter was ripped out of his hand, and Harry landed on his behind.

Damn! He just hoped he hadn’t harmed the man. Who still hadn’t told Harry his name, obsessed as he had been with aliases.

Harry decided to call him Snake from now on.

Fortunately, he had let go of his makeshift letter just in time so it hadn’t been damaged, or so he hoped.

When he got back to the car, Harry realized he had another problem. The bottom of his trousers was only wet, he had checked that, but his shoes had left mud all over the car floor when he had gotten back into the car before.

To make things worse, the noise from the circus tent indicated that the show was now over for good.

If Uncle Vernon pulled him out of the car to shake him, the photo might fall down into his trousers ...

Harry decided to just sit in the car and hope the Dursleys didn’t notice anything in the fog.


He was lucky. Dudley and Piers had so much mud on their shoes that Uncle Vernon might not even notice some of the mud was from Harry.

“I want that skull”, Dudley said in that tone he always used if he didn’t get what he wanted immediately.

“No!”, Aunt Petunia shrieked. “How about a new pet instead? You wanted a tortoise, didn’t you, Dudders?”

He couldn’t have really wanted it, Harry figured, as Dudley always got everything he wanted – except for creepy skulls, apparently – but perhaps Dudley had said something positive about a tortoise at the zoo once.

“Why can’t I have a skull?”

“Because your mother does not want one in the house”, Uncle Vernon boomed, in a tone that he usually reserved for Harry.

Dudley wisely decided to shut up.


Back in Privet Drive number four, Harry thought he had gotten away with everything, when Aunt Petunia suddenly shrieked: “Boy! What did you do to your shoes!”

Damn!

“I, uh ...” Harry thought feverishly. At last, he had an idea. “I had to leave the car to go to the toilet.” She couldn’t argue with that.

“Go clean them, then. Take Dudder’s shoes, too, while you are at it.”

Whew. That had been close.

Fortunately, it was was now raining, so the Dursleys would stay inside. Not even Dudley would go outside to make fun of him in that weather.

Harry took off his shoes, carried them to the back garden and carefully placed the photo on the ground before he started cleaning the shoes with the garden hose and a brush.



It was properly night by the time Harry was done and could slip into his cupboard to hide the photo.

Snake seemed to be alright, or as much alright as he ever was. He sat on the beach and glumly stared at Harry. Or perhaps at no one in particular.

He made to get up, but Harry shook his head and placed the photo on a shelf deep inside the cupboard.

“Are you done? Come here!” Aunt Petunia called.

Harry trudged to the kitchen to help with dinner.

This time, he wasn’t angry or disappointed that he didn’t get a steak while Dudley and Uncle Vernon got two each and Aunt Petunia elegantly nibbled on a tiny one she had specially prepared because of her diet.

In fact, he was glad he only got some potatoes and vegetable, as he was too excited to eat much, anyway.

Back in his cupboard he wanted to wait for the Dursleys to go to bed so he could switch the light on, but it turned out that wasn’t necessary.

There was a faint light coming from the cursed photograph.

Harry reached for it, again remembering just in time not to touch it with his bare hands.

He angled under his bed for Aunt Petunia’s rubber gloves, which she sometimes used for cleaning, and which in reality were more often used by Harry now that he was old enough to handle the dangerous chemicals.

Those should work with cursed photos, too.

Snake seemed to have magically conjured a faint light that illuminated his beach.

“SAFE?”

“The Dursleys are watching TV, they won’t ...” Only you could never be sure. When Harry wanted to be alone was most often when Dudley got it into his head to annoy him.

But Harry had thought of a solution for that long ago. He placed a mop over the door in such a way that it would take a while to get the door open.

“REMEMBER?”

Snake must be tired of writing in the sand. “I think I remember everything you told me. Albus Dumbledore was the name, right?”

“WHAT TO SAY TO RICHARD”

“Oh. I am to tell him I just stole the photo for showing off, right? That needs a bit of work, I mean, he might believe it, but the Dursleys won’t, they know I don’t have friends. How about I just say I wanted to have it because it is spooky and all?”

Snake seemed content with that, he nodded. “NO FRIENDS?”


“I wear weird clothes and am a bit strange, and ... some children still wanted to be friends with me, but then Dudley beat them up, and ... yeah, I’m not very popular. Sorry about that. You probably hoped I could give you to a friend for safekeeping or something, but ... there is no one.”

“I SEE.”

“What about you? You must know more people than just this Dumbledore guy. Perhaps even ones who are in the telephone book? If I could just phone them, that would make things much easier.”

“NONE I CAN TRUST.”

“Oh. How sad.”

Snake only raised an eyebrow.

“That’s different. I’m just a child. When I grow up, I can move out and get a job and buy decent clothes, and then I’ll have friends.” Harry hesitated. “I hope.”

“PEOPLE WHO MIND YOUR CLOTHES” was the answer “ARE NO FRIENDS”

Harry pondered that for a moment. “I guess you’re right. But I can’t blame people for not wanting to be beaten up by Dudley. And then there’s the thing that strange things happen around me.”

“STRANGE THINGS?”

“There was this one time my hair grew back overnight ...” Harry told Snake a couple of stories. “I swear I didn’t do anything.”

“YOU DID MAGIC.”

“But that’s impossible. I mean, I know nothing about magic.”

As Snake explained to him, that was exactly why he made things happen without meaning to, and would change once he went to a school to learn how to control his magic.

“But the Dursleys will never pay for that!”

“NO MATTER. ENOUGH QUESTIONS.” Snake wiped the sand. “BEDTIME FOR YOU.”

“Bedtime? You aren’t my dad or anything.” And unlike the Dursleys, a man imprisoned in a photo couldn’t exactly force him to do anything.

Snake just looked sternly at him, and Harry realized he wouldn’t get any more answers tonight, no matter whether he slept or not.

“You are tired from writing in the sand so much, aren’t you? You could just have said that.” Harry placed the photo carefully on the shelf.


“Good night!” Harry yawned and didn’t even think to take off his jeans before he fell asleep.


When he woke in the morning from Aunt Petunia’s pounding on the cupboard door, Harry was glad he had decided to not be stubborn and actually sleep.

He felt tired enough as it was.

Before leaving the cupboard, he checked the photo. Snake was already up. Could he even sleep in there?

“I have to go make breakfast. I’ll be back as soon as I can”, Harry promised.

Snake made a gesture as if shooing him away.

Didn’t he want to talk to Harry? After having been trapped in the photo for so long ... and it had not looked like he often wrote in the sand. Surely, someone else would have freed him before? Or at least tried?

How long, exactly, had he been trapped? It could have happened recently, but somehow, Harry didn’t think it had been only a week or so. Snake looked like he had been unhappy for years.

Distracted as he was, Harry burnt the bacon, and Aunt Petunia scolded him loudly.

This time, Harry hardly listened, already distracted with thoughts of the cursed photo again.

Some time later, after Harry had had some time to nibble on a dry piece of toast, the doorbell rang.

Uncle Vernon looked up from his full plate. “Do you expect anyone, Pet?”

“No – probably someone begging for donations.”

The doorbell rang again.

Aunt Petunia looked at Harry. “Go tell them to leave.”

Harry got up. At least he would get to talk to someone other than the Dursleys. That was always nice.

The man at the door was dressed in a nice suit, like one of those people who wanted to advertise their religion. He smiled, showing perfectly white teeth. “Good morning! My name is Albus Dumbledore. I am here on account of the letter.”

It had worked! Harry stared at the man. With his tidy suit, wheat-blond, short hair and cleanly shaven face, the young man looked much less like a wizard than lots of people Harry had met.

He must be very good at staying incognito.