"Get up, get up, hurry up!"
Bang bang bang bang…
The urgent, heavy pounding on the door exploded right by Harry's ears, jolting him out of sleep.
Nobody would call that kind of knocking friendly. If it had been the bad-tempered Dudley being woken like this, he'd probably already be hollering at Aunt Petunia, demanding justice on his behalf.
But Harry was long used to it, and he didn't have the right to argue anyway. He switched on the light, got dressed in the cramped cupboard under the stairs, then reached back to the little cabinet behind him, picked up his cracked glasses and put them on.
Bang bang bang bang bang…
He had just sat up when he heard heavy footsteps thudding down the stairs above his head.
Whoever it was was clearly doing it on purpose, even bouncing up and down on the steps. Dust shook loose in clouds, raining from the staircase above—some settling in Harry's messy hair, some drifting down onto the already dust-covered blanket.
"Wake up, cousin! We're going to the zoo!"
The rough, unmistakably bratty voice belonged to Dudley, Harry's cousin.
Dudley liked to bully him in every way he could think of. Harry had tried to fight back, but Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia always took Dudley's side, and Harry was nowhere near as strong as Dudley, so in the end he could only be pushed around.
At moments like this, Harry would imagine he had the sort of magic you read about in fairy tales, so he could turn Dudley into a little pig and use magic to teach him a lesson.
Unlike other children, for Harry this wasn't pure fantasy. When he was younger, all sorts of strange things had happened—like the time he imagined Dudley tripping over, and Dudley actually did.
It hadn't only happened once, either, and Harry didn't believe it was just a coincidence.
Those were the rare moments when, in the "battle" between him and Dudley, he actually came out on top.
Harry finished dressing and got up, ready to leave the cupboard.
He knew perfectly well that the moment he pushed the door open, Dudley would do what he always did—shove him straight back inside and slam the door on him.
But even so, he still had to go out. If he didn't, Dudley could stand there all day, tormenting him without getting bored.
And when Aunt Petunia eventually found out, she would never scold Dudley for it; she would only give Harry a good telling-off. Harry would end up the one who suffered, no matter what.
So, even knowing exactly what was going to happen, Harry still pushed the door open and played along with Dudley's daily prank.
But today… something was different.
Harry stared blankly at what lay before his eyes. The sky was dark; only the dim glow of streetlamps lit the area. It was very obviously night.
A desolate street, the stench of rotting rubbish piled by the kerb, a few scattered people loitering along the roadside—everything told Harry that this was not the familiar Dursley house.
Where was this place? What had just happened?
All he'd done was push open the cupboard door. How had that turned into him standing in a strange street like this?
And the time was wrong too. Why was it night? It had been morning just a second ago.
For as long as he could remember, Harry had longed for a change. But now that change had come so suddenly, he felt a stab of fear—especially because this new place did not look safe at all.
He was on a remote, deserted street. The adults staggering along it, shambling like zombies, didn't look like respectable people in the slightest.
Harry was terrified. Keeping as close as he could to the side of the road, he walked carefully forward, hoping he could reach a busy main street soon. Surely it would be safer there than here.
But what he was most afraid of still happened.
He turned a corner—and the streetlamp's dim light was suddenly blocked by a tall figure. A shadow fell over Harry and swallowed him up.
The tall figure was a middle-aged man with greasy hair and a rank smell, like he hadn't bathed in a very long time.
What truly froze Harry's blood was the black, gleaming gun in the man's hand, pointing straight at him. The man grinned viciously.
"Ha ha, my luck's not bad at all. Look what I've found—some little brat wandering a back street in the middle of the night.
"Perfect. I'll trade you in for a bit of cash and live it up for a few weeks."
The dark hole of the gun's barrel seemed to swallow the world. Fear closed over Harry like the deepest of shadows.
He tried to resist, but terror shackled his limbs. No matter how he struggled, he couldn't make them move. All he could do was let the man's rough hand grab him by the collar, just like Uncle Vernon used to do when he dragged Harry back and threw him into the cupboard.
Only this time, there was a crucial difference. Uncle Vernon might be cruel, but he'd never kill him. The man in front of him, though, clearly wouldn't think twice about breaking his arms and legs.
Change had come—but it hadn't made Harry's life any better. If anything, it had made everything much, much worse.
For a moment, Harry thought about his old life. Before anything changed, he'd been bullied by the Dursleys and lived unhappily.
But now that change had arrived… was he only going to fall even further?
No.
No, it couldn't be like this.
A fierce refusal to accept his fate flared up in Harry's chest like fire.
He didn't know where the courage came from, but the eleven-year-old boy suddenly twisted and sank his teeth hard into the man's hand. As the man howled in pain, Harry tore himself free and bolted.
"You little brat! I'll kill you!"
The middle-aged man's furious roar echoed behind him. Harry had no doubt that if he was caught again, the outcome would be very bad indeed.
Faster. He had to run faster.
Normally, a child's body couldn't possibly outrun a grown man's—he should have been caught in just a few strides.
But for some reason, Harry felt power surging up from inside him, wave after wave. The strength in his body grew and grew, and for the moment, it was enough to keep the man from grabbing him.
The middle-aged man, for his part, wanted to sell Harry for as high a price as possible, so he didn't pull the trigger. He just went after him at full speed.
Like that, the two of them drew closer and closer to a livelier, more crowded part of town.
Suddenly, Harry saw a couple ahead of him.
They were nothing like the zombie-like adults shuffling around them. The man was handsome, the woman beautiful, and the smiles on their faces seemed to light up the darkness nearby.
Harry had a gut feeling that they were kind—this was a good couple, and they could help him.
He sprinted the last few steps, ducked behind the sturdier man, and clutched tight at the hem of his coat. His voice shook and wobbled with tears as he pleaded:
"Please, sir, help me… please, help me!"
For a moment, the couple clearly didn't understand what was going on. Then they saw the middle-aged man pounding after Harry, and realisation dawned.
Harry couldn't help worrying that they might not help him. The thug chasing him looked like the worst kind of criminal, and, more importantly, he had a gun.
But to Harry's surprise, once the couple understood what was happening, they didn't hesitate at all. They immediately stepped in front of him.
The woman wrapped her arms around Harry, pulling him protectively behind her.
She was obviously scared herself, but she still forced her voice to steady as she tried to comfort him.
"Don't be afraid, child. Ben will stop the bad man."
It sounded like she was comforting him—and also, just a little, comforting herself.
The man, whose name was Ben, placed himself in front of them and faced the thug bravely.
"Sir," Ben said, "I don't know how our child might have offended you, but I apologise for him. Please, forgive him and let this go."
The man with the gun bared his teeth in a snarl.
"Drop the act and get out of my way. You don't even know him. Don't stick your noses into other people's business, or I won't mind killing two more along the way."
The woman's gentle reassurance still echoed in Harry's ears. Watching Ben's back as he shielded them, Harry suddenly felt a warmth he had never known before.
Back at the Dursleys', nobody had ever cared about him. He never had a birthday party like Dudley's, and there was no affection from his aunt and uncle.
There was only endless work to do, Dudley's cast-off clothes to wear, and the cramped cupboard under the stairs to sleep in.
That had been his life—utterly alone. No one had ever cared for him like this, throwing themselves in harm's way for his sake. Whenever he quarrelled with other children, no matter who was actually in the wrong, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon always made him apologise.
To them, he was nothing but a burden, never their beloved son.
But now, from this pair of complete strangers, he felt that warmth at last. They were even willing to risk their lives to help him, patiently soothing his fear.
It was a feeling Harry had never experienced.
In a daze, it was as if a beam of light pierced the darkness and shone into Harry's life. Suddenly, he felt that maybe today's change wasn't as terrible as it had first seemed.
Bang bang bang bang bang…
A string of sharp gunshots shattered the air in front of them.
Harry felt a sudden heat on his cheek. Instinctively he raised a hand to his face, then looked down to see flecks of bright red blood on his fingers.
The next second, the beautiful, gentle woman let out a heartrending scream.
"Ben!"
Harry looked up. At some point, Ben had fallen to the ground, lying in a spreading pool of blood, while the gentle woman cradled him in her arms, sobbing in anguish.
The thug's face twisted into something even more monstrous, his teeth clenched, his expression like some demon crawling up from the depths.
"I warned you," he snarled. "That's what you get for meddling in other people's business.
"Ha ha… and this chick's pretty enough. If I sell you too, I'll get an even better price. That'll keep me comfortable for months."
Crack.
As the woman's sobbing filled Harry's ears, he suddenly heard a sharp sound in his mind, like glass shattering—like something inside him that had already been pushed to its limit had finally broken.
Time seemed to slow around him.
Ever since he'd arrived in this place, there had been a vague power lurking in his body, and now it erupted like a volcano.
Maybe it was because this power had never been in a world with such a dense, potent energy before. It swelled and swelled, and with that swelling came an indescribable strength.
The thug's filthy hand was just about to seize the gentle woman by the hair when the power inside Harry hit its peak—and burst.
"How dare you?!"
An endless tide of black mist erupted from Harry's body, wrapping around him in an instant.
In just a heartbeat, the thick, almost solid dark fog had smothered the space around him completely.
In the wizarding world, this dark force was known as an Obscurus, something that terrified witches and wizards. But here, it exploded with power far beyond anything it had ever shown there—and Harry found he could control it with ease.
The black mist carefully flowed around Ben and the gentle woman, leaving them untouched, then lashed out to bind the thug, whose face was now twisted with sheer terror.
Wreathed in the dark fog, Harry walked slowly toward him. Behind him, the mist boiled and roared, shot through with streaks of deep crimson lightning.
With a flicker of thought, Harry lifted the man into the air, the black fog tightening around him like invisible ropes.
Harry's face was filled with fury. He knew he could still cling to his reason—but he didn't want to.
So he only repeated, softly and coldly:
"How dare you?"