The Running Away

Shit that hurt. Despite his young age, Harry James Potter knew many different swear words due to the fact his relations had used them on numerous occasions. From what little he had been told of his life, Harry's parents had been killed in a car crash and he had ended up living with his Aunt, Uncle and Cousin in Surrey. Since he was about three, he had been a slave to the every whim and desire of his relatives who bossed him about. One of the few things he hadn't done until the age of five was the cooking, but that was only making breakfast and lunch. Aunt Petunia would take care of dinner. He lived in a cupboard under the stairs which was dark and had no light. The Dursleys said he was grateful that they had taken him in, but said he shouldn't expect anything else in the way of kindness from them. His clothes were Dudley's old ones, but they hung off him like a liberated prisoner from a Death Camp. The only clothes he did have were those he wore when they went out in public so he didn't show the Dursleys up when they went on trips out. He had only been allowed to go to school when they understood they could face court cases should they keep him at home – home schooling was not an option for them.

"SO YOU COME BACK WITH CHEATING RESULTS?" roared his Uncle Vernon, and the whale of a man punched Harry again.

"But I didn't cheat" Harry whimpered through the tears and pain. "The teacher said I did really well" but this seemed to upset Vernon more.

"You must have switched your name for Dudley's" Vernon fumed. Dudley was well known for being bottom of the class in terms of intelligence. The only thing he was good at was being a fat kid and a complete bully. Before Harry could reply, Vernon picked him up by the front of his uniform and slammed him heavily into the wall over and over again. Then he dropped him so Harry fell a good four feet, and then let his son take over the ritual beating. When it was done, he was thrown into his cupboard and left to suffer in pain.

# # # # #

'Here we go again' thought Hermione Jane Granger as she heard her mother come up the steps. No doubt she was drunk as was her father who was currently lying in a stupor on the floor in the living room. She turned to see the door open and her mother enter what passed for her bedroom.

"You little bitch! You stupid slag. I know what you've done. You think that you are so clever for those teachers of yours, don't you?" her mother slurred her words through the copious amounts of drink. Hermione had recently come top of her class in the end of year tests, but her parents had been angry – and drunk – when she had come home to tell them. Hermione had thought that they might give up the drink if they saw how good she had been at school. But they hadn't been, and had started on her from about three seconds after the girl had stopped talking. This had been going on for over two years – around the same time the adult Grangers had lost their Dental Practice in a lawsuit about an operation that went wrong. They never did anything for themselves but sit around, drink and watch telly all day. All the cooking had to be done by Hermione, and she had to do the cleaning around the house and make sure her parents didn't die from choking on their own sick when she found them passed out. Her only escape was the school or the books she had been allowed to bring back from the library there. For the next fifteen minutes Hermione Granger was subjected to a torturous barrage of verbal abuse by her mother. Hermione often wondered how she had been conceived because, even at her age, she knew that there had to be love involved to get a baby. – minus rapes of course. Then the question arose about how her parents had ever gotten married in the first place. She assumed that they had loved one another before the accidental death. After her mother was finished shouting all kinds of horrid things about her, she was told to clear out the cupboards, take some of the last remaining money and go shopping for more food.

# # # # #

As a still painful Harry walked along the street, the girl a little way ahead of him tripped and fell with the shopping bag she held splitting. Luckily the contents where in packets so nothing was broken. Harry sped up to her and offered his help. The brown and bushy haired girl looked up, smiled and thanked him. Together they picked up the contents and went over to a nearby bench to sort everything out.

"My name is Hermione" said the girl.

"My name is Harry" Harry said.

"Thank you for helping me" Hermione said with another smile.

"That's alright" Harry replied. They looked at each other before Hermione asked Harry if he would like to be her friend. Harry had been amazed about the question, but said that he wouldn't mind being Hermione's friend. When she asked him why he had hesitated, he had said that not many people had wanted to be his friend. Those that had wanted to be one had been 'warned off' by Dudley and his gang. They talked for a while before they split off to their respective homes. They promised to talk to each other the next time they saw each other. They did this for some months until neither of them could take it much longer.

# # # # #

Harry was limping with a sprained ankle, a slightly damaged wrist and a headache the size of China. He had managed to get out of the Dursley's house for a while as they had told him that several important people were coming round and so they didn't want him and his freakishness anywhere near them. Harry had always been puzzled by his relations use of the word. He met Hermione in a quiet corner of the park and was sad to see she was crying.

"What's wrong?" asked Harry.

"Mummy and Daddy said they are going to live abroad" sniffed the girl. "They said they didn't want to keep me around so they are going to sell me to a man I don't know" she added. Harry put his arms around the girl and gave her a hug.

"Why don't you run away from home?" he asked her. "You're smart enough to live on your own. And when you are grown up you can get a nice job and be really, really happy" and Hermione pulled away and looked at him.

"But I'd be all on my own" she said.

"I'll come with you" Harry said at once. "My relatives don't like me very much, and I've always wanted to run away from them. We can do it together as friends" and Hermione stopped crying, sniffed once and then hugged him tightly around the waist.

"But how can we do this?" she asked when Hermione had pulled away. "We don't have any money or anything to take with us" and Harry thought about it for a moment.

"Well we have a month" he said at last. "We can take little bits of food and money and go hide out in the big forest. Then when all the grown ups have forgotten about us, we can get a job" and Hermione agreed that it was a good plan.

"The only problem is that we have to wait at least nine years before we can get a job" Hermione said.

"Well we can even better friends" Harry reasoned.

"Oh yay" Hermione beamed. "We can look after each other" and the two friends split up to start plotting.

# # # # #

Most of Harry's possessions took some time to move out of Privet Drive due to the rain, but it was done well before the time limit was reached when Hermione was going to be sold. From what she had been told, her parents had already had several offers for the girl. Hermione was left in no uncertain detail exactly what she would be doing after being sold.

"Are you nearly done yet?" she asked Harry as they met up at the park that afternoon.

"Yes" Harry replied, nodded his head. "I'm excited about running away" he added.

"I don't know if I feel the same" said Hermione. "I've never run away from home before" and Harry giggled.

"First time for me as well" he told her. They arranged to run away from their homes that night after buying lots of tinned food. Hermione remembered reading about that in a book about outdoor survival. Money had been a problem because Harry felt guilty about Hermione paying for it all. She had replied that he could pay her back when he grown up.

# # # # #

Harry was shoved into his cupboard as normal, but he didn't attempt to sleep. He waited in the pitch black darkness until he was sure his relatives were asleep before unpicking the door and going out. Because of the fact it was the end of October and the beginning of November, Harry put on two sets of Dudley's old clothes to keep him warm. He checked that he had everything that Hermione had written down in tiny script. He was about to leave the house for the final time before he thought about food, so he went to the kitchen and made a large pile of sandwiches. He ate some of them because he didn't know when he would next eat, and then put the rest in an airtight container so he could share them with Hermione later on. Harry wondered where to put the note. Hermione said it had to be somewhere they would notice. Harry put it with the crisps. One last look around the kitchen, and Harry undid the locks on the door and then went out into the night.

# # # # #

Hermione dressed in her warmest clothing as she waited for her parents to go to sleep. They had awoken several hours before and started drinking, and so Hermione was forced to delay her planed escape until she was sure that it was safe. When she was, Hermione opened the door to her room and was about to leave before she rushed to the bed and grabbed something off it. She held on to the item as she went out the house and towards the forest that was a good ten minutes walk away. They would face this together: Harry, herself… and Mr Cuddle Bug. She made her way through the dark streets, slightly frightened by the slightest noise she heard. She managed to get to the forest without a single person spotting her. She shone the torch around as she made her way to the spot she and Harry had agreed upon, and indeed found the boy sitting on a log waiting for her.

"Hermione!" he cried happily. He went over and hugged her tightly as if they had never seen each other for a long time.

"Hello, Harry" Hermione said in return.

"I found the most coolest thing ever" Harry said. Before Hermione could protest, she was being dragged along behind him deeper into the forest. She was about to say something to her friend when she saw what Harry was on about. A tent was set up in a clearing in the deepest part of the forest, and the girl frowned when she saw nobody around. Surely the tent would have been left guarded by someone.

"We can't go in there" she told Harry.

"But we have permission" Harry grinned, and he took her inside and watched her reaction. The tent was bigger on the inside then it looked from the outside, and to Hermoine's prospective looked like a small bungerlow. The size of the tent though made this impossible. Hermione briefly wondered if this was something from the government.

"We do you mean we have permission?" she asked Harry whilst looking round what appeared to be a sitting room.

"I found this on a table" Harry said, and he gave her a scribbled note.

To Whomever Finds This Note,

I, Ronald McDonald, hereby leave this tent and all of its positions to the person or persons finding it first. I've not been able to take this with me where I am going, but hope that it will be of some use to you.

Best Wishes

Ronald McDonald

PS: I think the milk is off

Sure enough it was.

"So what do you think?" asked Harry. Hermione thought for a while before agreeing that the tent could be considered theirs. They looked around the tent more and found two nicely sized bedrooms, a small library which made Hermione happy, a kitchen and a combined toilet and bathroom. They came back and sat in an armchair together because it was a bit cold in the tent – it being well after midnight after all.

"Well at least we have our own house" Hermione said.

"And we can live together for ever and ever and ever" Harry grinned. Then he remembered the things he had brought with him when he had left his relatives' house. He told Hermione about the sandwiches that he had made, and Hermione was glad he had made the. She hadn't much to eat before she had left her now former home either. The pair of them crept out into the darkness again and made their way to where they had stored all of their possessions. Knowing more then most what it was like to go without food, Harry told Hermione to have as many as she wanted, and the girl ended up eating most of them. When she had finished, they talked for a while in the middle of the forest and under the moonlight and stars. They decided to get their things and bring them to the tent, and they did this before dawn started to appear on the horizon. Harry was polite and allowed Hermione to have the first choice of bedroom, and she picked the one nearest the small library which made Harry smile. He was surprised that Hermione hadn't decided to live in the place. Harry's possessions took the shortest time to move in, so he gave Hermione a hand to move her things inside. The first thing she did was to ensure that Mr Cuddlebug was snug inside the bed as he had had a very tiring day as well. Harry asked Hermione if she minded if he went to bed then on account of him feeling tired and just plain worn out. They dressed for bed, or at least in Harry's case took off Dudley's old clothes, got under the covers and then fell into a deep sleep which lasted for several hours.

# # # # #

Harry woke sometime in the early afternoon, dressed and went of his first ever bedroom and found Hermione curled up in one of the comfy armchairs. She was deep into a large book she had brought with her, but saw Harry and greeted him with a hug before pulling away quickly.

"What?" asked Harry.

"You need a bath" Hermione said with a wrinkled nose. Harry laughed and asked Hermione if it was alright if he ate first and then had the bath. She nodded and made him some sandwiches which Harry ate before going to the bathroom. He stuck his head out to check the coast was clear before running to his room and putting on another pair of Dudley's old clothes. When he returned smelling all nice and clean, Hermione asked Harry what he would like to do. Harry was stunned as he had never been asked what he wanted before. Hermione had asked him something like that when they had been in the park together, but that was a different situation altogether. Eventually he decided it might be best if they put their things away in their new rooms to which Hermione agreed. When they had done that, the pair of them put all of the tinned food away in the kitchen before Harry thought of something.

"Did you bring some matches?" he asked Hermione.

"Yes, though we have to be really, really careful with them" she replied. They both knew of the uses of fire, and both were well aware of the dangers as well.

"That's good" Harry said. "Just so we can have a fire in here at night when it is really cold" and Hermione agreed. She put the matches in a place where they could not be lit accidentally. They spent the rest of the afternoon outside in the forest picking up twigs and small branches which had come off the trees, and these they stored in the sitting room and the pantry Hermione had found off the kitchen. When they had finished, they sat down and thought about what to do next. The excitement of running away from home was still running through them, and both of them thought that they could do anything in the world. Knowing that Hermione had been dying to look in the library, Harry led Hermione into it and marvelled in its vastness.

"There must be hundreds and hundreds of books in here" Hermione said in awe. Harry was young, but he knew that different people worshiped different things. Maybe Hermione's religion was that she worshiped books. He had a brief thought of a librarian as her god which made him laugh. Hermione did too when he told her about it. They went over to a random bookcase and pulled out one of the books and dusted off the cover. "Potions Most Foul" Harry looked at Hermione when she read the title.

"Potions?" he asked his friend. They looked at many different books there, and found books that involved more potions making, mythical creatures and stories about witchcraft and wizardry.

"The person that owned this must have forgotten to take the books with him" Hermione said. "I expect he'll come back for them" and they left the library and read the books that Hermione had brought with her. Even though her parents had been drunk most of the time, they had been too drunk at times to realise what money they had. Hermione had siphoned some away and bought books like the Famous Five, Swallows and Amazons and Practical and Handy Housekeeping Tips. The last one she had found useful when tiding around her former home. She had also brought along a copy of Medical Mayhem – A Guide To First Aid and Other Medical Issues on thinking that either herself or Harry might need medical attention. When it came to dinner, Harry studied the kitchen layout closely and then made some soup up on the basis that it was easy to make and needed very few items. As he came back, he noticed that Hermione was looking at him with an odd stare.

"Have I done something wrong?" he asked. Harry didn't want to upset his only friend in anyway.

"Oh no" Hermione replied quickly. "I was just thinking that we could go to the shops and buy you some clothes. Then again we could both get some clothes that we will have to grow into later. It will save lots and lots of money" and Harry wondered – not for the first time – how his friend was so smart. Over the next few days and weeks, nobody bothered to tell anyone that they had gone missing, so both children assumed that they were safely away from their respective relatives. They somehow managed to live together through the next few years with not a single person noticing or finding them. Luckily they had few causes to venture out, and in fact only did so when they needed to purchase supplies and things for their first aid kit. They lived together in peace and harmony until a few days after Harry's eleventh birthday.

Then things happened…

A/N:

Hope you like this first chapter. Only person to have known about it was XRaiderV1.

Normally my fics start with nice kind words – NOT THIS ONE! Thought I'd start the entire story with a healthy bit of cursing! I bet that surprised some of you.

Second chapter already being written, but this may take some time to complete due to other stuff taking priority. To give you some sort of guide as to what happens, the next chapter will involve them discovering the magical world, discovering lost heritages and living at Hogwarts in the most unusual way ever devised.

Oh, did I mention anything about Multi-Bashing? (I coined that word so I claim first dibs on it!).

Hope you like this

Regards:

Pixel

Coming to a monitor near you