"Up! Get up! Now!"
Smack, smack, smack...
Urgent, heavy knocks echoed in his ears, jolting Harry awake.
This was by no means a friendly way to wake someone. Only the hot-tempered Dudley would do it like this, and Aunt Petunia would never scold him for it.
But Harry was used to it, and he had no right to argue. He sat up in the cramped cupboard under the stairs, turned on the light, pulled on his clothes, and grabbed the broken glasses from the shelf behind him.
Thump, thump, thump...
A flurry of heavy footsteps pounded on the stairs directly overhead.
Obviously, the owner of those footsteps was doing it on purpose, even jumping back and forth on the stairs. The violent vibrations shook loose a large amount of dust, which sprinkled onto Harry's head and onto his perpetually dust-covered blanket.
"Wake up, cousin! We're going to the zoo!"
The rough voice of a typical brat belonged to Dudley, Harry's cousin.
Dudley bullied him in every way he could think of, and never needed a legitimate reason. Perhaps it didn't help that his parents were the chief perpetrators of violence against their nephew. Harry had tried to resist, but his aunt and uncle always took Dudley's side, and he was nowhere near as strong as his cousin, so he could only endure it.
Every time this happened, Harry would fantasize about having magic from fairy tales, turning Dudley into a pig and teaching him a lesson.
Unlike other children, for Harry it wasn't pure fantasy. Throughout his childhood, he had encountered many mysterious incidents. When he imagined Dudley tripping, for example, Dudley actually tripped.
This had happened more than once, and Harry didn't think it was a coincidence.
Those were also his few moments of gaining the upper hand in his "battles" with Dudley.
Harry stood up, ready to step out of the cupboard.
He knew that the moment he pushed the door open, Dudley would shove him right back inside, just like usual, and slam the door shut.
But he had to go out anyway. If he didn't, Dudley could drag this out all day.
And if Aunt Petunia found out, she absolutely wouldn't scold Dudley. She would punish Harry severely instead. Either way, he was the one who would suffer.
So, even knowing what was about to happen, Harry pushed the door open and played along with Dudley's daily prank.
But today, something was different...
Harry stared at everything in front of him in bewilderment. The sky was dim, lit only by the faint glow of streetlamps. It was nighttime.
The desolate street, the stench of rotting garbage by the roadside, the scattered people shuffling past: all of it told Harry that this was not the Dursley house he knew. It wasn't even Privet Drive.
Where was this place? What had happened?
He had only pushed open the door to the cupboard under the stairs. How had he ended up somewhere so unfamiliar? And the time was wrong too. It was supposed to be morning.
In the past, Harry had always yearned for change. Now that it had suddenly arrived, he felt afraid, especially since his surroundings didn't look safe.
He was standing on a secluded street. The adults wandering along it, shambling like zombies, didn't look like decent people at all.
Terrified, Harry carefully made his way along one side of the road, hoping to reach a crowded main street as soon as possible. It would be much safer there.
But his biggest fear became reality. As he turned a corner, the dim light of the streetlamp was blocked by a tall man, and Harry was cast into shadow.
The man was middle-aged, with greasy hair and a foul stench, as if he hadn't bathed in a long time.
What truly terrified Harry was the gleaming black handgun the man pointed at him as he sneered:
"Hahaha, my luck is pretty good tonight. Look what I found! A little rascal wandering the streets in the middle of the night!"
"Just enough to trade for some cash. I'll be set for a few weeks!"
Facing the dark muzzle of the gun, Harry felt fear engulf him like the deepest darkness.
He tried to resist, but fear bound his limbs. No matter how he struggled, he couldn't move them an inch. He could only let a rough hand grab his collar, just as Uncle Vernon would drag him and throw him into the cupboard.
But although Uncle Vernon was mean, and sometimes broke one of his bones, he would never kill him. The man in front of him wouldn't think twice about putting a bullet in his skull.
Change had come, but it hadn't made Harry's life better. It had made it drastically worse.
In that moment, Harry thought of his short life. Before this incident, he had been bullied by his aunt's family and lived an unhappy life.
But at least he had been alive. Was he really going to die from a kidnapping in what could only be another world?
No.
It couldn't end like this.
A fierce refusal to die ignited in Harry's heart.
With a surge of courage, the eleven-year-old bit down hard on the hand holding him and bolted while the man cried out in pain.
"Damn little beast, I'll kill you!"
The man's furious roar came from right behind him. If he was caught again, the outcome would be terrible.
Faster. Run faster!
Normally, a child's body is far too weak compared to an adult's, and he would have been caught within a few steps.
But for some unknown reason, Harry felt a steady stream of power surging through his body. It kept growing, strengthening his legs and keeping the man from catching him, at least for now.
The man, wanting to sell Harry for a higher price, didn't shoot. He pursued him with all his might.
Like that, the two of them gradually approached a bustling area.
Suddenly, Harry saw a couple up ahead. Unlike the walking-dead adults around them, this couple was different. The man's coat was worn thin at the elbows but neatly mended, and the woman's hand rested in the crook of his arm. Their faces beamed with smiles that lit up the darkness around them.
Harry had a strong intuition that they could help him.
He ran behind the sturdier gentleman, gripped his coat tightly, and said in a trembling, tearful voice:
"Sir, please help me... you have to help me!"
At first, the couple clearly didn't understand what was happening. They looked in confusion at a lost child who shouldn't be out alone this late at night. Then they saw the middle-aged man chasing close behind, and they understood immediately.
Harry had worried that the couple might not actually help. The fierce-looking man was obviously a ruthless thug, and more importantly, he had a gun.
But to his surprise, once they realized the situation, they shielded him without any hesitation.
The lady gently embraced him, shielding him with her body, his face pressed against her shoulder.
She was clearly very scared as well, but she still comforted him in a trembling voice:
"Don't be afraid, child. Ben will stop the bad guy!"
She seemed to be comforting him and herself at the same time.
The gentleman named Ben placed himself between them and the thug, bravely facing the vicious man:
"Sir, I apologize if our child offended you. I beg for your forgiveness."
The man with the gun looked extremely ferocious:
"Cut the crap and step aside! You don't even know him! Don't play hero, or I won't mind killing two more people tonight!"
The lady's comforting words still echoed in his ears. Staring at Mr. Ben's back, Harry felt a sudden surge of warmth.
In his short life, no one had ever cared about him. Not the Dursleys, who had never even wished him a happy birthday, and not his teachers at school.
There had only been an endless amount of chores, Dudley's hand-me-downs, and that cramped cupboard under the stairs.
Because to his aunt and uncle, he was only a burden, never a beloved son.
But now he felt a warmth he had always longed for, and it came from a pair of complete strangers. They were willing to risk their lives to help him, and they were patiently soothing his fear.
Harry had never felt anything like it.
He was in a daze, as if a beam of light had pierced the darkness and shone into his life. Maybe today wasn't as bad as he had thought, if he could stay with such kind people.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!...
Suddenly, a series of ear-piercing sounds rang out from where Mr. Ben stood.
Harry felt a sudden warmth on his cheek. He instinctively reached up to touch his face and looked down at his fingers. They were speckled with a crimson liquid.
The next moment, the lady let out a tragic, sorrowful scream:
"Ben!"
Harry looked ahead. Mr. Ben had fallen into a pool of that same liquid.
"I warned you! This is what happens when you stick your nose where it doesn't belong!"
"Hahaha, this chick is quite pretty too. Selling her should fetch an even higher price. Now I won't have to worry for months!"
Crack!
The lady's anguished cries kept echoing in his ears. In Harry's mind came the crisp sound of glass shattering, as if something that had already reached its limit had finally broken.
Time seemed to slow. Ever since arriving in this place, the faint power inside his body had been rising, and now it pressed against his skin like a volcano about to erupt. His ears rang, his skin burned, and the air tasted of metal.
Perhaps because this world had a far higher energy level, the power, never before exposed to such an energy-rich environment, kept swelling and swelling, bringing with it unparalleled strength.
The thug was about to roughly grab the lady's hair. When the power inside Harry reached its absolute limit, he exploded.
"How dare you?!"
Endless black mist erupted from Harry's body and instantly enveloped him.
In a mere instant, the thick, tangible mist covered the area around him.
It carefully avoided Mr. Ben and the lady, and bound the terrified thug where he stood.
Surrounded by the black mist, with dark red energy flashing through it like lightning, Harry slowly walked toward the man.
He stopped in front of the immobilized thug. With a slight thought, the mist hoisted the man into the air.
Harry's face was full of fury.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?"