The cold is something Harry is used to. In his cupboard, there are no fluffy woollen blankets like in Dudley's room, no space heaters like he sees on the telly, nothing. Harry deals with the cold in his own ways, swaddling himself in the mountains of fabric that make up Dudley's old clothes. Yes, the cold is something he is used to.

Or so he thinks, at least. It isn't until the golden star sticker he earned in Primary school, the one Dudley didn't get, earns him the punishment of sleeping outside in the garden that he thinks otherwise.

Because there is cold and then there is freezing.

Harry tries to warm up whatever way he can. Breathes on his hands, shoves them into the spaces between his arms and his torso. Nothing seems to work, and he resigns himself to the cold, sleeping so close to the hedge he is practically under it, but it keeps the sharp stinging wind at bay and buries himself under the few leaves he had raked up as part of his chores.

Curled up, he closes his eyes and shivers imagining that there was more. He pretends and pretends and pretends...

'Suppose that my clothes were soft and woolly and warm, suppose that I had a whole roast all to myself last night and not just a scrap of toast' he thinks to himself, 'Suppose that the glow that's keeping me awake was from a fireplace and not just a lamppost.'

For a moment, he can almost believe it. He feels a rush of warmth through him, a tingling thing that goes through him from his toes to his fingers, and he almost groans aloud at the feeling. For a moment he is almost certain that he did, but he realises that the noise had not come from him but it had come from somewhere, somewhere outside but close by.

Harry startles and is shaken forcibly out of his almost-sleep as that realisation rings through him. The warmth is gone, and he sits up, looking around cautiously for the source of that sound.

Trembling hands part the leaves of the hedge just enough that he could see outside on the road and he shakes at the sight in front of him. Behind the flickering light of the lamppost, he sees a shadowy figure dragging itself along the pavement, a red light near where the mouth would have been. He knows in his mind that it's just a man, a man who's smoking and probably drunk from the way he's stumbling, but his heart races as the thought of demon rushes through him. The burning red brightens, and he is taken aback, a long forgotten dream of green light and a woman screaming, of red eyes staring at him with hate, suddenly remembered.

The figure comes closer and when it steps into the light Harry sighs in relief, but does not let his vigilant stare go. Mr Wick may not be a stranger, not exactly, but that didn't make him harmless. In fact, judging by the red stains on his shirt, quite the opposite.

Harry's finger and toes crossed as he made the silent wish that he wouldn't be noticed, that Mr Wick would go away now, surely he had to go to the hospital?

And just as the silent plea was completed, the brown eyes turned swiftly to where Harry was hidden behind the hedge and step by step, he drew closer.

"What are you doing out here? It's cold and dangerous out here... Harry wasn't it?"

And Harry looks up at him with his eyes wide open and gasps.

No one had ever bothered remembering his name before.

Was he stupid to expect anything else? Stupid to expect that he'd left his old life behind in New York, that maybe his past wouldn't follow him here?

John Wick, Baba Yaga, had thought he'd burnt down all the remnants, all the connections tying him to his old job, anything that might reach out to pull him back when he killed Viggo Tarasov.

You got out once. You dip so much as a pinky back into this pond, you may well find something reaches out, and drags you back into its depths.

Maybe Winston was right, one chance was all they got and Wick had used his up. Barely two months since he'd moved to this suburb with its dull plain houses and its nosy neighbours and green yards, and already the depths had reached out.

He knew Viggo had family here on the continent, but he thought they'd have learnt not to make his mistakes. Instead, they'd sent out their teams out to kill him and forced his hand. Wick was tired, he didn't want to do this but he had no choice. He didn't have much, if anything at all, left to fight for, but that didn't mean he would just roll over for someone. The fight was in his bones, in his blood, in his soul, and he would do so to the very end.

If only the idiots would send somebody actually capable of taking him out.

So, here he was, outside his new house now filled to the brim with bodies that he didn't have any way of getting rid of anymore. Cleaning up after him was something he hadn't done in a long time. Charlie and his specialised waste disposal service had spoilt him, he supposed, and it wasn't a luxury he had here in England.

Wick didn't quite have the gentle touch that they did at the cleaning service. He simply loaded it up with explosives and set it to explode the next afternoon. He would have done it right then but there were families sleeping in the house next doors and he wouldn't do that to them. Penance he supposed, he hadn't quite paid his debt back to the world.

Tomorrow was good, in the afternoon the ladies in Number Six and Four, Magnolia Crescent, a Lisa Smith and Arabella Figg respectively would be out for sure then. They'd been kind enough to him to merit the consideration, even though Smith had been nosy, asking him a million questions he hadn't felt up to answering and Figg had ignored all his pleas to keep her cats away from him because of his allergies.

Wick sighed as he made his way down the pavement, following any twist or turn of the road he felt like. For a moment he'd almost believed he'd get his peaceful ever after here, here where he'd worried about allergies and neighbours instead of snipers and mobs.

But he supposed it just wasn't to be. He took another turn and ended up on Privet Drive. One arm, he tucked close to his ribs, the other he used to place the cigarette in his mouth and light up the end. Terrible habit, he knew, but it was all he had now. Another time and he would have held Daisy II, his sweet little pitbull, close and let her lick his face and calm him down but even she was gone, lost to the heart problems she'd inherited.

He stumbled down the road and paused suddenly. Wick felt eyes upon him and stilled, tense. The back of his neck pricked and he let his instincts take over, his eyes sweeping around, finally landing upon the hedge in the garden nearby. A pair of green eyes looked back at him and Wick wracked his brain to remember.

The numbers on the side of the house read 4 and he remembered then, the Dursleys.

Well, the Dursleys and their nephew, the one he was staring at. He seemed harmless but Wick remembered all the tales he'd heard about the boy and remained cautious. He knew first hand that looking harmless was a good disguise, not that Wick had anything to fear from a boy who had only just grown out of the toddler phase.

But the eyes staring back at him were scared and even Wick knew that six year old juvenile delinquents did not belong outside houses, sleeping in hedges on cold November nights. Wick considered it and then bracing himself he bends at the knees to get at eye level to the boy.

"What are you doing out here?" He tries to keep the gruffness that comes with being choked, out of his voice. "It's cold and dangerous out here... Harry wasn't it?"

The boy stands up, tentative and Wick frowns at the look on his face, shock and awe. His frown deepens as he takes a closer look, at the goose bumps all over the boy, the overlarge and raggedy thin clothes he's wearing, the lack of shoes and the alarming thinness of the pale and blueing wrists poking out from the shirt.

He expects a scream or something. Maybe the boy would run away, he doesn't know much about children. Instead Harry steps forward, his eyes narrowed to where Wick's arm is attempting to keep his ribs stable.

"You're hurt." He says instead.

"So it seems." Wick smiles even though the movement hurts him. He hopes it doesn't come out like the smile he gives his victims before gunning them down, but what is is, and what Wick is is always going to be a gun for hire. A retired one perhaps, but still.

"You should put something cold on it." Harry says in a soft voice and Wick knows that this is something he has dealt with before.

John cannot claim to know what it is like for this boy standing in front of him. By the time he was old enough, deep enough in the underworld to have cracked and bruised ribs on a regular basis, he also had Winston there to tell him to stop being an idiot and take better care of himself.

Did Harry have someone like that? He didn't think so, or he wouldn't be out here all alone.

"What are you doing out here, kid?"

Harry blinks a few times, his mouth twisting as his thoughts of tentative consideration play out over his face. The eyes dart to the red stain on Wick's shirt, and only then does he answer. "I was punished."

"What for?" Wick wonders what possible crime could have earned him such a punishment.

"I did well in a spelling test today." Harry answers. and Wick frowns.

"That doesn't sound like something you get punished for."

"I did well, but...Dudley didn't."

Wick doesn't know anything about children, but even he knows that a place that punishes a child for doing well by making him sleep outside in the cold isn't good. John sighs and looks around him. The sky has that bloody red tinge to it that means that dawn is coming and he needs to leave.

"I'm getting out of this place," Harry pouts, as if sad to see Wick go, and it makes him wonder, "You wanna come with?"

The almost leap that Harry makes trying to get out of the Dursleys' house and onto the pavement where Wick stood is all the answer he needs.

He only hopes his cursed luck doesn't extend to the kid as well.