He jumped to his feet, his hands automatically going to his pocket even though he knew his wand was not there. He was about to run into the shop when the sprinting figure came into view, it was a girl. Harry chuckled to himself, feeling his cheeks heating up. He had practically had a heart attack because of a girl running his way?

He wasn’t chuckling a second later when she launched herself at him, at first he thought she was trying to attack him and he almost yelled to Snape but then he realised what the girl was doing. She wasn’t hitting him, kicking him or cursing him; she was just clinging on to him like a leech.

He stared down at her in total horror, feeling more like shouting to Snape for help now than when he thought she was attacking him; he would rather she had attacked him than…than…this. He would have shouted Snape, if he hadn’t been afraid of the man’s sneer and cruel comments about ‘Prince Potter and all of his girlfriends’.

“Please, please, you have to help me.” The girl spluttered.

Harry wrinkled up his nose, was she…was she crying on him?

He tried to detach himself gently.

“He’s gone to the pub.” The girl howled, allowing Harry to prise her fingers off his top and letting go of him.

“Well…erm…I’m sure he’ll be back.” Harry attempted to comfort her while backing away slowly.

She grabbed his arm and wrapped her slender fingers around it tightly, sobbing harder than ever. Harry’s comfort obviously making her feel a lot worse. “I know he’ll be back, and he’ll be drunk; again.”

“Erm…I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Harry attempted again, trying to free himself from the girl’s grasp.

“What if he goes after Toby again?” She sobbed.

“Who’s Toby?” Harry attempted to pry her fingers off again, how was she so strong?

“My litt…little…brother. He doesn’t normally go for Toby, just me and mum but…but…last time he hurt Toby too.” The girl used Harry’s sleeve to wipe her tears, much to Harry’s confusion and disgust. He wasn’t sure what was happening, or how he had managed to get caught up in it; all he knew was this girl had better not be still clinging to him when Snape returned or he would never live it down.

“Who’s he?” Harry attempted, giving up on comfort as everything he had tried so far had made her worse.

“My d-d-dad.” The girl spluttered.

“He’s like…abusive?” Harry asked, thinking of his own relatives and felt a stab of pity for the girl, the first he had felt in the time she had attached herself to him.

“That’s why we have to…run…run away. Me and Toby, to somewhere safe.”

Her tears stemmed and her face began to shine as she thought about how it would be, just her and her brother in a hot country somewhere…safe and together.

“We could stowaway…on a ferry.” The girl began.

“But-” Harry attempted to point out the mistakes in that plan but he was interrupted.

“And we will just get out wherever it ends up.”

“But-”

“and I will get a job.”

“But-”

“and we’ll make a shelter and I’ll make it so nice it’ll be just like a house.”

“What-”

“and we can live there for ever and ever.”

“But how are you going to do that, you’ll just be caught!” Harry protested, able to get a word in at last.

“That’s why we need someone to help, just to give us a few things and be an alibi to put the police off track for a while.”

“Who’s going to be stupid enough to do that?” Harry demanded, disliking the way the girl was suddenly looking at him.

“You can help me!” The girl exclaimed, as Harry had dreaded “Meet me here at midnight, okay?”

And before Harry could protest, or say anything at all really…she was gone.

He blinked in surprise, wondering just how he had managed to get himself into a situation. Why had he agreed to go along with this girl’s plan? Had he even agreed? He had pretty much just been told the plan and expected to go along with it. He leant against the yellow skip and closed his eyes, Snape would kill him if he went along with it.

Suddenly his emerald eyes shot open again, yellow skip? There was no yellow skip where Snape had told him to stay, he looked around frantically and then groaned as realisation hit him. They must have been walking as they had talked (or in Harry’s case, listened). He was no longer where Snape told him to stay. Snape really was going to kill him now, whether he went along with this girl’s plan or not he was already in trouble!

He ran back down the long road as fast as he could but he met with an unpleasant sight when the shop came into view at last. Severus Snape was standing outside of it, his robes billowing out in the wind making him look even more threatening than usual. A snarl was on his face and he looked extremely angry, Harry paused, debating whether he should carry on or run somewhere safe. He studied Snape’s expression, he looked livid…but there was something else in that expression too…it wasn’t a familiar emotion to Harry and he couldn’t work it out.

He decided to think about it later and was just about to carry on walking towards his irate guardian when Snape suddenly turned round and looked right at him, he was immediately right with him. Harry hadn’t even seen him walk or run over so he wasn’t sure if he had apparated, though he hadn’t heard the crack. He didn’t have much time to dwell on it though because the next second he found himself being yanked right off the floor, his scared emerald eyes found themselves staring into Snape’s livid onyx orbs.

“Where. Have. You. Been?” Snape demanded, each word spat out like a separate sentence.

“Ummm,” Harry wasn’t really sure what to say, he couldn’t tell him about the girl but he couldn’t not answer, Snape was angry enough already.

“Answer me!” Snape ordered, shaking the boy.

“I…ummm, really needed to go to the toilet.” Harry lied, spouting out the first thing that came into his head.

“You completely disobeyed me and wandered off in an unfamiliar town where anything could have happened to you just to suit your sanitary needs? When I would have been back in a couple of seconds anyway?” Snape snarled.

Harry gulped, still dangling in the air. At least no one he knew was around but it was still embarrassing and he didn’t like to be in such a vulnerable and helpless position. “Well…ummm, I didn’t know how long you would be and I didn’t think you would want me to wet myself.”

“And it didn’t cross your mind to tell me where you were going or ask me where it is or even, heaven forbid, ask me to come with you?” Snape snapped.

Harry was silent, unsure of what he was supposed to say.

“Do you realise what could have happened to you?” Snape realised that that sounded like he might actually have been worried so he quickly added “and how that would reflect on me as a guardian?”

Harry said nothing again, just stared rather hopelessly back at the man who dropped him back onto the floor, not altogether roughly but not as gently as he could have done either.

Then he gripped the boy’s ear and began to berate him some more.

Harry was looking at the floor, trying not to look into his guardian’s ebony eyes and trying to block out the harsh scolding’s. Suddenly, without warning, his arm was grabbed and a funny feeling filled him, his feet left the floor…he was flying through the air. He couldn’t breath, he couldn’t get free, he couldn’t stop the feeling of immense sickness that was rising within him. He knew this feeling, it was….apparating. Merlin, he hated it. Snape could have given him some warning.

Just as suddenly as it began, it was all over and Harry felt his feet collide with the floor with a bang which nearly knocked him over. He blinked as he realised that they were back in Snape’s house.

“Go to your room,” Snape growled, before turning on his heel and stalking into the kitchen, his black cloak billowing out behind him.

Harry stared after him, a strange feeling of guilt welling up inside of him. He fought it back down, why should he feel guilty? It wasn’t like Snape had never upset him.

“Now!” A sudden command shocked him out of his thoughts. How had Snape known he hadn’t moved yet? He wasn’t even in the same room! He quickly ran up the stairs before he riled Snape further, Snape was already angry, he didn’t want to see what the man could do.

His thoughts turned back to the girl, he knew he would have to meet her. If her dad was anything like the Dursleys than he had to help her. But how was he going to get there? He would need to get out of the house and into town, without Snape knowing. It was a long way, so he would need some sort of transport…

And that’s when realisation dawned on him, he was going to have to fly… which meant he was going to have to break into Snape’s room to get his broom back.

The door was suddenly thrown open, making Harry jump violently. He looked up at the man fearfully, wondering if he had somehow read his mind and had come to punish him for thinking about getting his broom back.

“What are you up to, Potter?” Snape frowned, he had noticed Harry’s jumpiness and taken it for a definite bad sign, he jumped to the conclusion that the boy had obviously done something else wrong.

“Nothing,” Harry answered quickly. His breathing evening out when he saw the tray in Snape’s hands. He was just bringing in something for him to eat.

“Hmmm,” Snape muttered suspiciously.

Harry glared up at him but took the tray off him gladly, he hadn’t had dinner and breakfast seemed such a long time ago.

“I’m going to be brewing for the next couple of hours and so I do not want to be disturbed, understand?” Snape asked snidely, obviously still angry about the shopping trip.

Harry nodded dumbly and watched his guardian sweep out of his room, dread settling in his stomach. He didn’t have an excuse anymore, now was the perfect time to get his broom back. He grabbed the meal and ate it as fast as he could, taking such big bites that he could feel them going into his stomach. He had wanted to delay going into Snape’s room but he certainly didn’t want the man to come back while he was in there. He only had a couple of hours, and for all he knew Snape could have put it in a ridiculously unlikely place. And so he fought the temptation to eat slowly and just gobbled it down.

Within seconds his plate was clean and it was time, time to either get away with it or be turned into a potion ingredient.

He stood up, his legs feeling wobbly, and staggered to the door. He opened it quietly almost expecting, and sort of hoping, that a furious Snape would descend on him immediately and ruin the plan. But the corridor remained silent, so Harry tiptoed down to the very room he was not supposed to go in unless it was an emergency and turned the handle.

He paused, waiting for sirens or hexes or booby-traps, he was sure Snape would have warded his room in some manner but once again everything was silent. Guilt gnawed Harry’s stomach, Snape had felt no need to ward his room, he obviously felt he could trust Harry to some extent and Harry…Harry was going to break that trust.

His stomach knotted even more when he saw the box of his possessions was simply in a corner of the room, Snape had made no attempt to hide them, he must have had no fear of Harry disobeying him. He padded over to the box and with shaking hands removed the broom. He lifted up his invisibility cloak and fingered it lovingly, he was so tempted to grab that too but he knew he couldn’t. The only way he could soothe his conscience was by telling himself he was only taking the broom because he really needed it, he couldn’t say the same for the invisibility cloak.

He laid it back in the box neatly and then, with the broom in one hand, hurried back out of the room with one lingering backwards glance to assess that nothing looked out of place.

Back in his own room, he just stared at his treasured broom his head spinning and his stomach ridden with knots. He wanted to go back to the room, to put the broom back and hope that Snape never noticed. But suddenly, he heard footsteps on the stairs and dived under his duvet, successfully concealing the fact that he was not wearing his pyjamas.

He had just screwed his eyes closed as the door was pushed open and the Dungeon Bat himself came into the room. He lay as still as he could, certain that the man would be able to hear how loudly his heart was beating, his nose began to itch but he fought the urge to wriggle it. Just go, he silently pleaded to the cloaked man that he was sure was standing unnervingly close to the bed.

After what felt like eternity Harry heard the click of the door and opened his eyes in relief, he had done it, he had fooled him. That had got to be the hardest part, right?

He rolled over on the bed to stare at the clock beside his bed. 11.30, only half an hour to go. The florescent numbers seemed to taunt him, he wondered whether he could back out…but in his heart he knew he couldn’t. He couldn’t let other people down.

He watched the clock hand’s creep closer and closer to the 12. His eyes kept closing and he kept having to shake himself back into reality. The click of the hand twitching to meet the 12 sounded loud in the night air and Harry stared at the clock as if willing it to turn back half an hour or so, just so he could put the inevitable off for a bit longer.

He wandered over to the window and opened it as slowly and carefully as he could, looking over his shoulder the whole time as if expecting Snape to come bursting in and demand to know what he was doing. But the door remained shut and so Harry sat on the window ledge and carefully put the broom in-between his legs. He steeled his nerves and then with one last glance at the clock he slipped off of the ledge and disappeared into the night sky…