Harry Potter, The Boy Who... Wrote?

Chapter Three: Punch and Run

For a whole minute, Harry wasn't aware of anything except the extremely strong grip on his upper arm. The hand the grip belonged to held him firmly, tight enough for Harry to wince as he fell behind the policeman holding him and felt the thick fingers digging harder into his bicep. He felt slightly cold; it had been warm when he left the house but now night had set in and he wished he even had a thin shirt to cover up his old and ratty t-shirt- apart from blocking out the cold, it would have been a barrier between the police officer's fingers and his skin. The fingers themselves were rough and Harry tried not to think how they could have gotten that way.

For a whole minute, Harry had no idea what he could even try to do.

A whimper from Dudley caught his attention. He was lagging behind, two officers trying to frog-march him down the road but failing as Dudley dragged his feet, slowing them down. Harry wasn't sure if Dudley was actually too drunk to walk properly or if he was doing it on purpose to delay the inevitable questioning they would get when they got... when they got wherever they were going, as it didn't seem like they were headed for the police station. As it was, the two officers on either side of Dudley wore faces that Harry himself had made too many times when faced with what vaguely resembled a tub of lard on two wobbly excuses for legs, and he couldn't imagine them putting up with Dudley for the entire walk to the station.

Once again, he looked forward, defiantly keeping his head up and staring straight ahead, refusing to look down.

'Only criminals look down... I'm not a criminal, I haven't done anything wrong...'

But even as he tried to comfort himself with these thoughts, he knew that it was no use. He might have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but there was no way for him to prove it to the police, and to ask Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon to stick up for him... Harry was very sure that even if he did manage to edge in a word during the shouting match that was bound to occur when he appeared at the door with a policeman accusing him of vandalism, neither his aunt, nor his uncle, would even try to get Harry off. Most likely they would use his defense to save Dudley, and then watch in glee as he was taken away to prison, where they had often said he rightly belonged.

'I wonder if they give you the option of bail... not that I could afford it,' he thought dully. The next moment, he heard a loud bang somewhere to his left, a bang that sounded like a gun going off dreadfully close to them, and he stiffened as the arm holding him let go. Another bang sounded, now slightly further away, and Harry flung himself to the ground instinctively, ignoring the sharp pain in his knee as he slammed himself down. Next to him, he could see three pairs of feet, one of them unmistakably belonging to Dudley as they wore bright orange sneakers that were now more than ruined with vomit clinging to the garishly colored shoe. He tugged at Dudley's pants as another bang echoed in his ears, sounding very odd and hollow from his point on the ground... definitely less frightening than the first time. Dudley glanced at him, first in annoyance, and then, as a fourth bang sounded unnervingly close to them, he followed Harry's lead and sunk down to the ground. The two policemen that had been holding him seemed to take no notice as they took off in the direction of the sound, and as Harry raised his head off the ground he saw most of the officers running down the road, including the one who had been marching him down the road only a minute before.

'Stay down,' a voice commanded him, and Harry groaned inwardly. He had hoped that whatever had been making the noise had drawn away all the policemen surrounding them and he and Dudley could have made a run for it. Still, there was only one officer guarding them as compared to the six or seven there had been before and the expression on his face wasn't one that suggested he was too eager to be guarding two teenage boys, one of whom was very drunk and could have taken him out with a few well placed punches. In fact, he was looking at Dudley as if he were afraid of the boy, covering him so that if he made any sudden movement, the officer was ready with fists already curled. He wasn't looking at Harry at all... scuttling along on his stomach like a grotesque crab, Harry inched his way backwards, glancing back so that he could get a view of the lone policeman.

The policeman glanced to his side nervously, mistaking the sound of Harry's clothes scraping along the tarmac as coming from somewhere on his left. His hands fumbled at his belt. Next to him, Dudley noticed that he was moving, and tried to shift himself so that he could follow Harry.

'No, you stupid oaf!' Harry hissed, glancing back at the officer behind them and noticing the light that seemed to be glinting off something in his hands. He held his breath, only daring to keep his head up as long as what he thought looked like a gun was pointed away from his and Dudley's general direction. There was a soft click, and Harry had to bite down on his lip to stop himself from exclaiming loudly with relief as a sharp beam of light shone out instead of the gunshot he had been fully expecting. The policeman was still staring off distractedly to the left, and Harry decided to take a chance.

He prodded Dudley in the side, receiving a snarl for a response.

'Dudley?'

An unintelligible grunt came from the general direction of his cousin. Harry clicked his tongue impatiently.

'Dudley, you've got to take this guy out while he's not paying attention.'

He held his breath. He expected another sound from Dudley, hopefully of assent, but nothing came. He prodded Dudley again.

'What, Potter?' Dudley's words were slurred slightly, but Harry was sure that he could at least understand what Harry was saying.

'Dudley, I said, you're going to have to take him out.'

'Who?'

'The bloody copper!'

A pause in which Harry dared to look over his shoulder again and saw that, thankfully, the officer had turned his back to them and was now shining his flashlight back the way they had come. He looked towards Dudley, opening his mouth to speak but shutting it again as Dudley was staring right at him with a very nasty look on his face.

'Why?'

'Why what?' Harry said quietly, although he felt a deep-seated panic rising within him as he looked at Dudley, now sitting up and massaging the knuckles of his right hand with a malicious grin on his face.

'Why should I take him out... vandal?'

'Because, it's BOTH our arses on the line if you don't, git!' Harry snarled as quietly as he could manage. 'I don't particularly care if they throw me into some cell, because...' He stopped. He was sorely tempted to say, 'Because living in your damn house isn't much better!' but knew that he had to get Dudley on his side so he remained quiet.

'Because what, eh?'

'Because... because nothing. But what about you?' Harry whispered, an idea coming to him. 'Your mother probably has no idea what her... Diddy Dumpkins,' he spat out in the most simpering voice he could manage without making too much noise, pausing to see how the words had taken effect on Dudley before going on recklessly. 'She doesn't know what her Duddykins has been up to, drinking and smoking and beating up little boys like Mark Evans just because he's a big bully-'

THWACK!

Harry had been trying to sit up when Dudley's fist came flying out of nowhere and hit him on the jaw. He had half-expected that Dudley would get riled up and lash out at him, but he had hoped that maybe the policeman would be on the receiving end of one of Dudley's punches. Through the haze that came with having been punched twice in the space of the same thirty minutes, Harry could barely make out Dudley's form, his vision suddenly deteriorating even further as his glasses slid off his face. He grabbed at them, clutching them tightly but not bothering to put them on as he rolled to the side, another blow coming at him... then rolled back as the flashlight shone full in his face out of nowhere and the policeman's voice could be heard over the sound of Dudley swearing in a sickeningly high voice at Harry. What the officer was saying, however, Harry didn't even hear in his distracted state as he watched Dudley scramble to his feet, his arms outstretched as he lumbered towards Harry. Harry tried to scramble back, never taking his eyes off Dudley's fuzzy form, almost crushing his glasses in his fist, his mind refusing to work, his body almost paralyzed and his head beginning to ache from the blow he had received.

'OI!'

The policeman shone his flashlight at Harry, sprawled on the ground, then at Dudley. As the light shone in his face, Dudley roared, turning to face the policeman, his eyes narrowed and his fists in front of him in a protective stance. The officer shone his flashlight back at Harry, who squinted in the light that was assaulting his eyes and making his head hurt even worse than it did- then the flashlight went spinning, its beam weaving in the air erratically before it crashed to the ground, the tinkle of glass breaking lost completely in the muffled grunts and groans that mingled with the sound of something... someone... being hit repeatedly. Harry jammed his glasses onto his face, ignoring the fresh crack that had appeared in one of the lenses, gaping in horror as he saw Dudley struggling against the policeman as the latter seemed to forget his place as a keeper of the law and instead was engaged with Dudley in a ding dong scrap. Harry watched the two of them, his fingers digging into his palms as he tried to force himself to come up with a way out of this. He heard a shout from the other end of the street, and his insides turned to ice as he realized that the rest of the patrol were coming back from investigating whatever had made the odd bangs in the first place.

'Think, damn it, Potter, think!'

Harry moved to the side, edging around the fight. The policeman had Dudley in a chokehold, against which Dudley was struggling ferociously but was unable to break free. Harry foot hit against something and it began to clatter away, but Harry had already reached down to grab it without thinking as soon as he realized there was something there. He raised it above his head, letting out a shout without even realizing what he was doing... or even, what he was trying to do... and rushed at the officer. Dudley slid to the ground in a heap as the policeman let go of him in surprise. He surveyed the boy who stood before him, breathless, holding something above his head in his right hand... and laughed.

'Come on, Potter. Surely you don't want to add attacking a police officer to the list of your felonies?' he mocked, and Harry felt his mind beginning to numb itself again as the policeman began to walk towards him. He still had his hand raised, his fingers curled tightly around the object he had picked up, the sounds of the returning patrol in his ears. Dudley groaned from somewhere behind the officer.

The policeman turned, and Harry took a deep breath. Everything seemed like one big clichéd movie.

He didn't really care, though, about how clichéd it was. He hurled the object at the police officer's head, hoping that it would hit.

The cliché would dictate that it hit the policeman's head, and he would grab Dudley and run. Unfortunately, Harry's aim was horrible and the object clattered away, way to the right of the officer. Harry froze. He had nothing now that he could use, and by the sounds of it, the rest of the officers were almost back, for their voices were loud enough for Harry to hear exactly what they were saying.

Apparently, they were also loud enough for the lone officer to hear, for he stopped, distracted, to stare in their general direction. He didn't see Dudley's arms wrapping around his legs until they yanked him off his feet and he fell heavily onto the tarmac, letting out a sharp yelp that was definitely heard by the rest of the returning men as they went silent for a second.

Harry rushed over, not even bothering to check on the fallen officer as he quickly untangled Dudley's arms from around the policeman's legs. It didn't help that both of them seemed to have passed out, the policeman from his fall and Dudley from... from all his exertions. His eyes flickered open as Harry dragged him up, placing one chubby arm around his shoulders so that he could support his cousin, and he groaned. Harry said nothing. He glanced back grimly at the policeman behind him, fancying that he saw the man move slightly... and gave him a good kick in the jaw with the heel of his battered old sneakers. When the man moaned, he knew that he had seen him move, and confident that he hadn't killed anyone... yet... he began to drag Dudley up the street and around the corner, disappearing right before the rest of the patrol got back.

As he shuffled along, Dudley's weight slowing him down intensely, Harry thought he could hear angry voices and footsteps, but he ignored them and concentrated instead on getting Dudley to move. Now that they seemed to be relatively safe, Harry was aware of the sharp smell of vomit that still permeated from the two of them as he had wiped his dirty hand on his t-shirt before, and the feel of the thin cloth, damp against his skin and sticking to him. Small beads of perspiration sat on his forehead. The night around them was dark except for little silhouettes in curtained windows, and the streetlamps that Harry would have normally been too glad to walk under seemed a little dangerous so he skirted past each of them.

The incident with the police weighed heavily on Harry's mind. He was shaking, trying his best to keep his knocking knees steady as he half-dragged Dudley down the walk, wondering if he hadn't just imagined everything that just happened. It seemed a little too out of place, a little too exciting for him to take it seriously.

It seemed too much like something he would write, something that he made up completely and that never existed. He shook his head.

'Gotta get back. Aunt Petunia's going to be furious,' he thought to himself.

He only had a few minutes walk until he was back in Privet Drive, but with Dudley slowing him down, it took the better part of half-an-hour. He was almost unaware, though, of the weight of his cousin, his own mind wandering. Subconsciously, he found himself planning out how to write down the night's events, muttering descriptions and thoughts under his breath until he turned onto Privet Drive. Everything seemed so... unreal... now that he was back in well-lit, normal Privet Drive, that he was tempted to think he was just in a very exciting and odd dream that he was going to wake up and write about.

A door opening to his left made him snap his head up, his free arm moving protectively in front of him as he subconsciously tried to move in front of Dudley. Even if he tried to dismiss it as a dream, whatever had just happened was definitely real as he found his muscles tensing and the little drops of sweat on his brow growing at this small sound that would have ordinarily not bothered him. He stared into the little rectangle of light that was made by the open door, breathing through clenched teeth as he kept on reminding himself, 'Calm down, calm down, you need to use your head.'

When Mrs. Figg came out, Harry breathed an audible sigh of relief. For a second he had actually been afraid that maybe the police knew where he lived, as well as his name (although he realized that it was odd that they even knew that, as it were) and had been lying in wait for him to return, and even if tottering, batty old Mrs. Figg wasn't the person he wanted to see right then, even she was a welcome sight to him. She stood on her front step in her carpet slippers, and her voice was high and squeaky when she spoke to Harry.

He stopped. He wasn't so surprised that she was talking to him, or even that she was standing in her doorway at this hour calling for him to stop. What actually made him stop was her words, kind, fussy words that he had never heard spoken to him before and made him really wonder if this wasn't just a strange and cruel dream he was having.

'Oh! Harry, are you alright? I mean, of course you're not alright, I saw what those officers were doing, what a shame it is that even they can attack one nowadays, but I saw what you were doing, I was so afraid you were hurt and I wanted to come out there and beat them with my umbrella, but-' and she tottered down her steps, the bag on her wrist making such a racket that Harry wondered that no one noticed and walked ahead of him.

'Er, excuse me, Mrs. Figg, but-'

'But nothing!' she said crisply as she turned to face him. 'I can't let you two boys walk alone at all along here, not after what I've seen, so I'm taking you two home, oh, they'll surely get it from old Arabella Figg, what is the law coming to...'

Harry stared after her, still struggling to hold Dudley up before he followed, shaking his head. She walked them down the street, talking the whole way about how she was so proud of Harry for being able to look after himself and how the policemen were surely going to get it when she filed an official complaint and how she was going to complain to everyone, from the Prime minister to the headmaster of his school at the treatment he had gotten at the hands of the police, until they had reached Number Four.

'Well, Harry, this is where I leave you, make sure that you take care of yourself, of course, I shall be looking out from now on, it's not safe anymore, indeed, even when the police are-'

'Er, thank you Mrs. Figg!' Harry interrupted as he looked around uneasily. As much as Mrs. Figg talked about setting the police straight, he doubted that even her non-stop talking, something that was completely new to him as she never talked to him much before, could help if they suddenly appeared. She stared at him, then broke out into a smile, a strange, knowing smile.

'Look after yourself, Harry Potter,' she said softly before she turned around and shuffled off, leaving a very confused Harry and a groaning Dudley on the doorstep of Number Four, Privet Drive. Harry opened his mouth to call after her, to say something, but then decided against it as Dudley dry heaved uncomfortably close to him.

He shook his head.

'It's been a weird, weird night,' he thought, turning around slowly with Dudley still half-draped over him. 'A very weird night.'

And with that one thought stuck in his head, he reached out and pressed the doorbell, too tired to even wonder what was going to happen when Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon opened the door.