"Happy birthday, Harry."
Sean slipped his wand into the Wizard's Book.
The Dursleys would have sworn they had never seen such a bizarre book—it actually reached out with a slender hand of its own.
That hand snapped its fingers, and a beautifully wrapped, brightly colored gift box appeared out of thin air.
Harry held the box, biting his lip, saying nothing.
But the Dursleys were on the verge of panic.
"You've got to turn her back! Fix her!"
Vernon didn't dare shout at Sean, so he bellowed at Harry instead.
"You promised me she'd speak politely!"
Harry shot back without backing down.
Vernon was shaking with rage, but he didn't deny it.
"It's your birthday today, is it, boy? Then forget celebrating it! And that damned Hogsmeade—forget that too! None of us is signing that blasted form!"
Vernon was practically hopping with fury.
Harry stared at his plate, his ears ringing.
But what was he supposed to do? He couldn't think. Uncle Vernon's voice was like a drill, boring straight into his skull.
Then a figure stepped in front of him.
"Harry, do you want to leave this place?"
the young wizard asked.
"I…"
Harry didn't know.
"That's all right. You have plenty of time to decide."
Sean didn't sound the least bit rushed. His voice seemed to drift over from somewhere far away.
"Among all the things human language can say, besides crying and asking for help, there ought to be one word for I don't know.
If you feel lost, then come with me."
At that moment, Uncle Vernon was grabbing one of Marge's legs, trying to haul her back down, only to nearly get dragged off the ground himself. Then Ripper launched himself forward and sank his teeth into Vernon's leg.
"I… I'm coming with you."
Harry finally made up his mind.
He didn't want to know how much Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon had changed. He didn't want to know whether he was doing the right thing.
And he definitely did not want to hear another word out of Aunt Marge's mouth.
He wanted to leave.
He wanted to go with Sean.
No one managed to stop him. Harry bolted out of the dining room and ran straight for the cupboard under the stairs.
The moment he reached it, the door swung open by itself.
He turned back. Sean was smiling at him.
And so, within seconds, Harry got his trunk out to the front door. Then he raced upstairs, dove under the bed, pried up the loose floorboard, and yanked out the pillowcase stuffed with textbooks and birthday presents.
He crawled back out, grabbed Hedwig's empty cage, thundered down the stairs, and ran toward his trunk.
Just then, Uncle Vernon burst out of the dining room, one trouser leg ripped to shreds and streaked with blood.
"Get back here! Fix her!"
he roared.
But Harry was too angry to care anymore. He kicked the trunk lid open.
"She deserves it,"
Harry said, breathing hard.
"She brought it on herself. Get out of my way."
He still had to grab the books he'd stashed in the cupboard.
The television in the living room was still on, the newsreader talking away:
"…reminding the public that Black is armed and extremely dangerous.
A special hotline has now been opened, and anyone who sees Black should report it immediately."
Hearing that, Vernon glared viciously at the television and shouted,
"When are they going to understand? The only way to deal with these people is to hang them!"
When he finished, he didn't even dare look toward the door.
Even though the wind had already slammed it shut.
Night seemed to fall all at once.
Sean felt a strange prickling at the back of his neck, the sensation of being watched. And yet the street lay completely empty, and not one of those square little houses showed the slightest trace of light.
It wasn't so much that he heard something as that he felt there was someone—or something—back there, in the narrow alley between the garage and the fence behind him.
Sean fixed his gaze naturally on the dark little alley.
He didn't need the thing to move to know what it was.
He raised a finger, and a little orb of light floated at its tip.
It was Lumos, cast both wandlessly and nonverbally.
A moment later, the garage door set into Number Two Privet Drive's pebble-dashed wall flashed with reflected light.
Between the wall and the garage, Sean saw it clearly—a huge dark shape, with a pair of brilliant, gleaming eyes.
He walked toward it.
The thing had looked as though it was about to bolt, but in the end, for some reason, it didn't.
Now Sean could make it out—a gaunt, skeletal black dog, filthy and matted, with only its eyes still bright and alive.
The dog let out a low growl as Sean approached.
"I don't speak dog. That's inconvenient."
Sean muttered to himself.
"Then could I trouble you, Sirius Black, to turn into a wizard and speak to me instead?"
The black dog looked like it had been provoked and lunged at him—
only to be stopped by a small creature in a butler's uniform.
"You'd better keep your distance from my master, you rude brute!"
The Pukwudgie butler pinned the black dog to the wall, bow drawn tight in his hands.
The dog stared fixedly at the young wizard—at those green eyes.
"Do as my master says. Don't make me force your true form out of you."
said the small creature, goblin-like, but not quite a goblin.
In the end, Sirius changed.
He had no idea how he had been discovered, and no idea what the painfully young wizard in front of him intended.
But he knew Harry was about to leave with him, and for Harry's sake, he had to understand what this wizard was after.
A moment later, a haggard man stood before Sean.
He wore ragged clothes. His skin was waxy-pale and stretched tight over his cheekbones, making him look like a corpse. His filthy, tangled hair hung all the way to his elbows.
If not for the fierce brightness still burning in the deep sockets of his eyes, he might have passed for a dead man.
Now he glared at Sean, savage and suspicious.
"Who are you? Who do you work for?"
he demanded.
"I'm Sean Green. I work for myself."
Sean answered.
"Don't play games with me! What do you want? Where are you taking Harry?!"
Sirius hissed in a hoarse voice, constantly searching for some possible opening to break free.
"The Leaky Cauldron."
Sean said.
Sirius was even more confused now. He couldn't tell whether the wizard in front of him was pretending not to know—or genuinely didn't.
He was a fugitive. A crazed murderer in the eyes of the wizarding world.
So why was this child showing him not the slightest respect? Not even fear?
And if he wasn't one of Voldemort's people, and he wasn't here to arrest him on behalf of the magical world—
then what did he want?
"Heh, heh, heh…"
The gaunt man in front of him laughed, and it sounded deeply unsettling.
But the point of an arrow pressed against his face cut that short.
"Show some respect to my master, escaped convict!"
the small creature snarled.
Its anger was rising fast.
~~~
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