Deadly Love

Wanda: Hey everyone! I'm here with a new Two Shot, maaaaybe three shot - definitely a short story. Tyene's off fighting writer's block, so I've got Harry here with me!

Harry: I'm scared. Don't leave me here with her.

Wanda: Oh come on! Don't be like that, I'm very nice! I prefer happy endings!

Harry: You're also CRAZY. JK Rowling owns the Harry Potter series.

Fatal Meeting

Harry was nervous when he got on the train. Hagrid had shown him how to get on the train, but the sheer number of people – other witches and wizards – left him feeling terribly out of place and, if he was honest, rather scared of the new world he was being thrust into.

He had never felt so alone. All these other kids were being helped onto the ship with family and friends. Even here, he felt like a stranger here. An outsider.

His arm still hurt a lot from the still-healing fracture he had received curtsy of Dudley and his gang a month ago – they had dogpiled him on the concrete and he had landed badly. Petunia had no choice but to take him to the hospital.

While the bone had indeed healed properly, it still strained easily and his supplies could hardly be described as light. Instead of going as far back in the train as he could, he instead went looking for a compartment closer to the front in order to avoid dragging it much further.

Had he gone further back, his first friend would have been someone from a stable, happy life, someone Harry could draw strength from and shake off the affects of living with his cruel relatives. However, support can come from dangerous places.

Harry nudged the fourth compartment open and stepped inside. It wasn't until he shut the door that he heard the sniffling and turned around to see the compartment's other passenger.

She was a girl about his height and age. She was already wearing her Hogwarts robes; which was odd considering that almost no one else was dressed in them already. She had wavy heather brown hair that reached her shoulders; it was wild and tangled as though she didn't often care for it. She had darker skin than him; it was a warm, toasted brown sheen. Her head jerked up when the door opened; red rimmed green/blue eyes stared at him in confusion and alarm.

Harry took a step backwards, abashed. "I'm so sorry," He said hastily. "I didn't mean to disturb you – I – I was just – my arm was hurting and I was hoping to sit down."

The girl didn't say anything. She just stared for a moment, her eyes flicking.

"Is-is that okay? I-I can leave if you want to be alone." Harry said earnestly, shifting his trunk so he could turn and leave.

"Oh." The girl said quietly, looking down at her hands. "It's okay. You can stay if you want."

Harry smiled nervously but gratefully; he pushed his trunk to the edge of the sofa – he wasn't strong enough to lift it to the overhead railing. He slid down into the seat across from the girl and stared down at his hands, not wanting her to feel uncomfortable under his stare.

"Lock the door, please." The girl said suddenly.

Harry looked at her in mild confusion. "Please." The girl repeated. She blinked, and Harry swore that she looked rather scared.

Harry nodded, feeling compelled to help her feel better. He locked the door and said, "You don't have to tell me anything, if you don't want, but are you okay?"

The girl paused for a moment and nodded slowly. "Yes."

"...You sure?"

The girl looked away, and then back at him. Her brow furrowed and her eyes flickered up to his forehead. "Is that...? the scar. Are you Harry Potter?"

Harry immediately raised his hand to the scar he'd gotten that night ten years ago. His heart burned whenever someone had pointed it out to him. "Yes, I am." He said, offering her his hand. "What's your name?"

The girl tilted her head slightly to the right, surprise flashing through her eyes. After a moment, she tentatively reached out and took it. "...I'm Tracey. Davis." She said quietly.

"Nice to meet you Tracey." Harry said with a smile. Tracey gave him a small smile in return.

"Are you excited for Hogwarts?" She asked him.

"Yeah, really excited." Harry answered happily. "It's probably going to be the best thing I've ever done so far. What about you? Oh, but I suppose it wouldn't seem that amazing to you if you grew up around magic."

"No, I think you're right." Tracey said. "I did grow up here, but I'm glad to be away from my home. It opens up a lot of new opportunities, doesn't it?"

Harry looked curiously at her; wondering what she meant by that. Tracey's eyes were sad; he could tell these sort of things after watching his reflection.

"It does," He agreed. The opportunity to get away from his uncle, aunt and cousin – to get away from the cupboard, to get away from the beatings and the injuries and the fear and the anger. He wanted to get away from all that more than anything.

"Your owl's very well behaved." Tracey said, glancing at Hedwig. The snowy owl, after hooting irritably a few times while getting on the train, had settled down very comfortably.

"She's my best friend." Harry said, ruffling her feathers gently through the cage. Hedwig hooted and nipped at him, causing him to laugh. Tracey giggled slightly at the sight. The two's eyes met and they quieted, gazing into each other and trying to see past the protective walls that they had put up between themselves.

"Don't you have other friends?" Tracey asked.

"Not really." Harry said with a shrug, looking down.

"Me neither." Tracey admitted.

Harry met her eyes and said, "That's too bad. I get lonely a lot." When Tracey nodded in agreement, he shyly offered, "I could be your friend, if you want."

Tracey's eyes grew a bit brighter at this, and she nodded. "I think I'd like that. Friends."

She shook his hand again, and moved across the compartment so she was sitting beside him.

%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&

"Davis, Tracey!" Tracey walked up to the chair with her shoulders squared and her head held high, taking the hat upon her head. "SLYTHERIN!"

The house of green and silver cheered and clapped politely as the young girl walked over to join them. Tracey was nervous, but hides that under a facade of confidence.

Harry waited nervously as the rest of the students before him were slowly sorted into the various houses.

"Potter, Harry!" He could feel everyone staring at him. It bothered him, the attention everyone had been giving him since Hagrid brought him to the Leaky Cauldron. He didn't like it; it sent chills down his spine. None of these people knew him, but they acted like they did...

The hat talked straight to him, as a voice inside his head. The mental magic caused a horrible pin prick like feeling around Harry's scar. "Hm...what should I do with you? There's courage, loyalty, and some cunning as well. Where shall you go?"

Harry gripped the sides of the stool. "I want to stay with my friend. I want to be with Tracey."

"Ah..." The hat hummed knowingly. "Very well, then...SLYTHERIN!"

Harry ignored the stunned silence from 3 thirds of the school; he didn't notice that the Slytherin table merely clapped politely and didn't cheer. He headed directly over to Tracey and sat down next to her. She smiled at him and squeezed his hand.

Neither sees Dumbledore watching them with alarm and concern on his face, nor the stunned look of two of the four professors.

"I'm glad," Tracey told Harry as the food was moved about. "To be honest, I thought for sure you'd be sent to Gryffindor."

"Why's that?" Harry asked.

"Both your parents were Gryffindors, and all the Potters have been in that house for the last ten generations."

"Really?"

"You didn't know that?"

"No. I...I don't know much about my parents."

Tracey blinked. "Why not? Hasn't your aunt told you all about her sister?"

"No." Harry's eyes narrowed when he recalled what his aunt had said in the shack where he met Hagrid. I was the only one who saw her for what she was – a freak! "I don't think she liked my mum much. Called her a freak."

Tracey's eyes widened. Harry, feeling as if he'd said to much, began quickly scarfing down food. To his surprise and gratitude, his friend didn't push the subject at the dinner table.

&&&&&%&%&%&%&%

"Watch your step, Potter. You've got no friends here."

Harry didn't understand why – yet – but none of the Slytherins were friendly. Or, at least, if there were friendly ones they were too intimidated to approach him. He didn't blame them for that.

Marcus Flint, the prefect, ran the dorm rooms with an iron fist. All of the older kids were glaring at Harry, and a pug faced girl darted out of nowhere to drag Tracey away when they entered together.

Harry was new to the magical world, but he recognized an ambush when he saw one – it was just like the time another boy had been talking to him at their grade school. Dudley had two of his gang members drag the boy away and beat him up, saying that no one was allowed to be friends with Harry. After that, everyone at school avoided him.

Boys couldn't go into the girl's dorms, so Harry couldn't dart after her when he was surrounded by fifth and sixth years.

"The Boy Who Lived," Flint laughed nastily. "You probably think you're so special, after everyone's been propping you up."

Harry said nothing. However much he didn't believe that, he also knew that Flint and his friends weren't interested in anything he might have to say to them.

"I'm glad you weren't sorted into Gryffindor." One of his friends added darkly. "Everyone knows that Dumbledore doesn't give a rat's ass about Slytherins. So no one will look closely enough to see what any of us do."

Flint seemed disappointed that Harry didn't show visible fear at that. Harry was more than familiar with these sorts of tactics; at this point he couldn't imagine how they could commit violence that he hadn't already experienced.

"Slytherin is a proud house. It's our job to ensure that no one disgraces it. Especially a half blood spawn." The third added.

One of the eldest students kicked Harry, knocking him to the floor. Harry grunted but didn't cry out or even flinch too terribly.

"We can't hurt you – yet. Not on the first day...it would be too suspicious. But painful accidents happen all the time around magic." Flint gave Harry one final kick, and then the group dispersed.

Harry remained where he was for a moment, before standing up and staring down the doorway. "Kick me all you want." He muttered. "It won't change anything. It won't make blood purer, it won't bring back your father's master."

Eyes closed, he muttered to himself. "And sometime, some way, I'll kick back."

**~An Hour Later~**

Tracey ran down the stairs and into the middle of the room, her expression taught with worry. She, too, had expected the worst once they had entered the common room.

Her heart was pounding, experiencing a new kind of fear – fear, not for herself, but for someone she cared about. "Harry? Harry, are you here?"

"I'm right here." Harry said, his voice low and somewhat urgent. Tracey spun around; Harry had moved over to a couch in front of the fireplace. He was a little bruised but seemed rather calm. "C'mon, you don't want to wake anyone up."

Tracey let out a sigh of relief and scrambled over to him, collapsing on the couch and giving him a quick once over. Finding no serious wounds, she smiled warmly at him and whispered, "They didn't hurt you...thank god."

"They threatened me, and I'm not entirely sure I understood why." Harry said with a slight shake of his head. "I mean, I know that I defeated Voldemort-"

Tracey's eyes widened. "You can say his name?"

"Well, yeah." Harry said with a slight shrug. "I mean, it's just a name, right?"

Tracey nodded slowly in response, looking pleased. "I've always used it, but I think that's because of my dad." Her eyes flashed at that. "The people here...a lot of them have parents who followed him, served him. And they taught them to be just as nasty, cruel and self centered as they are. Harry, you have to be careful..."

Harry felt a small part of something inside him turn cold and shatter into dust. He had expected it, but it hurt none the less to realize he was no safer here than he was at Privet Drive. "It's fine. I've been running from gangs my whole life."

"You have...?" Tracey asked quietly.

Harry rested his head against the couch's back. "Freak." He muttered. "That's what I thought my name was, for four years...yet all this time people were telling bedtime stories about Harry Potter. How is that? How can everyone know my name except for me?"

"Harry...?"

"I've spent years running from my cousin and his gang. I guess I'll just have to keep at it." Harry said.

"They hurt you?" Tracey asked, her voice incredulous and sad...but also knowing, and familiar, as if she had almost expected it.

"They're not like most muggles. Most people." Harry said quickly. He didn't want Tracey to think that all magicals were like his relatives; he felt more muggle than magical, even now.

After a pause, he bitterly noted, "They're not like them in all the worst ways. Aunt Petunia hated my mum and hated magic. Uncle Vernon hates anything he considers 'abnormal'. Dudley could commit murder and they'd think it's absolutely wonderful. There are a bunch of mean and stupid kids in our neighbourhood, but he's the biggest and the stupidest, so he's the leader."

Harry would look back and wonder what made him talk, what made him spill out all those terrible and dreadful things that happened back in that house, in the darkness, where no one had ever cared before.

But he had seen Tracey crying, and he felt like he could trust her. That he could trust her to care. No real reason; just gut feeling.

"They've always been awful." Harry said. "Usually they just don't feed me and lock me in the boot cupboard. But sometimes when Uncle Vernon's drunk, he hits me. Dudley hits all the time – he and his gang broke my arm a month ago. That's why my arm was tired before."

Tracey impulsively leaned over and hugged Harry.

The touch was jarring for both of them; Harry felt his friend flinch when he hesitantly placed his hands on her shoulders.

After a moment, the shock melted away and a warmth spread through them, something neither were familiar with. Something that would bind them for the rest of their lives.

For a while, they just stayed like that.

Then Tracey pulled back slightly, brushing his hair away from his ear, and said, "I thought – I suspected it. When we were on the train and you said you didn't have any friends. It might sound silly, but – but it was in your eyes. You had such sad eyes."

"...So did you."

"Yeah."

"...Someone's hurt you? Your cousin? Your uncle?"

Tracey seemed to become inflamed at this.

"I hate my father." She snarled. "I hate him, I hate mother and I hate my uncle. They're all awful. I wish I never knew them. They're going to make me marry him, Harry. Him! That dirty old man!" She shuddered and pulled her legs closer towards her chest.

"Marry?" Harry echoed dully, stunned.

Tracey nodded, her face twisting into bitter, impotent anger. "The blood runs pure. That's the family saying, that's been rammed down my throat ever since I was old enough to understand it. Y'see Harry, some people think that if you've got muggles in your family, that means your blood is 'impure'. They think that only people born to two wizards deserve to use magic."

"...Well that sounds stupid. How can you even tell if blood is 'pure' or not? Doesn't it all look the same?"

Tracey snorted. "There's about as much rationality in them as there was in the old slavers. All they care about is staying in this 'pearl of purity'. About four generations ago, my family started marrying brother to sister."

Harry gagged. "Seriously!?"

Tracey nodded gravely. "My mother is also my aunt. But something's wrong with her; after she gave birth to me the doctors said she couldn't have any more children. Like something inside her went dead. That leaves me without a brother to be wedded to. It leaves my father's brother. His wife died a few years back; he's looking for a new one."

Harry looked at her in horror. "But...but...but that's sick! That's sick and wrong!"

"They don't care." Tracey said dully. "Mum and dad agreed with it. They're planning to have us marry in a private ceremony after my fifteenth birthday – that's when I'll be old enough to safely have kids of my own. Hopefully lots, especially if my mum gives me fertility potions."

At Harry's sickened and confused expression, she said, "Fertility potions are supposed to help give birth to more children, but they're illegal. Stories about twins being born fused together, horrific miscarriages...I've heard all of it from my cousin, Daphne Greengrass."

Tracey ran her fingers through her hair, a mix of sadness and anger in her eyes. "She's lucky. Her father's not a sick madman, like mine. She'll probably get to marry someone her age – maybe even someone she likes."

"B-But...why would they do that to you?" Harry, even after his experiences with the Dursleys, could hardly comprehend such blatant cruelty.

"To keep the blood pure. That's more important than anything." Tracey responded helplessly.

Harry was the one to hug her this time. Tracey cringed a bit – her father was occasionally violent as well. Incest and gene decay tended to do that to you. "I won't let that happen to you."

"You can't stop it."

"Yes I can. I'm not gonna let them hurt you. Friends don't let that happen."

Tracey sat for a moment before burrowing her head in his shoulders. "I want to believe you. I do. But I'm scared."

"So am I. But I promise."

&&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&%&

Harry loyally stuck to his word when he and Tracey were attacked by a troll on Halloween.

They had gone out for a walk during the feast – Draco Malfoy was insulting them, hurtling names and other bile at them until they left. No one was willing to sit near them either way, so no one noticed they were missing.

The troll cornered them in the hallway and attacked with its club.

Harry pushed Tracey out of the way of the approaching monster and got backhanded into a wall. He saw stars and passed out.

When the brunette saw her friend collapse, she used the levitation charm they learned in Charms just a day before to yank the creature's weapon away.

This caused the troll to turn back towards her. Tracey brought the club down on its head with all her anger behind it, and bashed it into paste. When the teachers arrived, they found Tracey kneeling next to Harry, sobbing in panic, with a huge troll corpse next to her.

The head was unrecognizable mush; upon seeing what she'd done to it Professor Quirrel outright passed out.

Harry woke up an hour later, and was released the next morning. Tracey was ecstatic and hugged him tightly; babbling about being afraid he had died.

"Never, ever do that again!" She ordered him tearfully.

"I said I'd keep you safe, didn't I?" Harry asked with a smile.

Tracey hit her head against his chest and growled incoherently, but now she was smiling too.

%&%&%&%&%%&%&%&

"This is a terrible idea."

"You didn't have to come with me."

"Like I'm letting you go down there by yourself!"

Harry and Tracey hovered around the entrance to the forbidden room on the third floor. Throughout the year, they had picked up pieces of evidence that someone was trying to steal something deep inside the school. Harry figured it was whatever Hagrid had picked up the day he took him to Diagon Alley.

This caused Tracey to give him a weird look. She asked him why Hagrid removed a very valuable object from Gringotts with an impressionable eleven year old in toe. Harry couldn't give her an answer that made sense to either of them.

But now, now they were certain that it was Voldemort trying to steal the stone, the Headmaster was gone, and none of the Professors believed them when appealed to.

Given how the same Professors hadn't noticed the dog – eats – dog world of Slytherin, which had left many first years (not just Harry, who unquestioningly got the worst of it) in need of medical and psychological treatment, that wasn't too surprising.

Tracey put the three headed dog to sleep with the flute Harry had gotten from Hagrid as a Christmas gift – one of two he'd received, the first of his life.

(The second one had been from her – Quidditch through the Ages. He loved the sport and she knew he appreciated it.)

Harry got them past the Devil's Snare. He and Tracey were bent on learning as much magic as they could as quickly as possible, in order to better protect themselves. Tracey had a house elf named Missy who would get her restricted books they could learn from. So Harry knew how to get by the plant on his own.

Tracey froze all the bird-keys in place with a simple immobilize spell; making Harry's job of retrieving it much easier. The chess board was probably the worst of the challenges, but they managed to get by it as well. The final one was a riddle they puzzled out together.

Harry had just pulled the stone from the mirror when Tracey gasped and pulled him behind it. They weren't alone anymore.

"Master, I can't find it!"

It was Quirrel!? Harry wondered in disbelief. Tracey was shivering. He was a little scared himself. Quirrel, cowardly, stuttering Quirrel, was the servant of Lord Voldemort?

"It's gone, it's not here-!"

Quirrel screamed in agony as Voldemort's soul wrought pain on him, all the pain fuelled by his rage at this failure. The man fell to the ground, clutching his head and rocking back and forth as the face on the back of his head screamed obscenities and curses.

Tracey shuddered at the sound of the voice of man who controlled her father. The man had always spoken so reverently of the lunatic...but now his daughter was seeing something different. She saw a pathetic shell of a man, struggling to even keep himself alive.

Harry saw the change in her eyes and nodded slightly. Seeing Voldemort like this took away the fear that had been cultivated by his legend.

"Use the boy...use the boy! You fool, the boy is here!"

Tracey's reaction to Quirrel finding Harry was to throw herself and him and tackle him to the ground. Few wizards knew wandless magic, and even fewer remembered to use it whenever they are disarmed by their opponents.

Harry moved to help her. When he touched Quirrel/Voldemort, the man's flesh burned and erupted into flames.

The two students managed to get back to their dorm rooms before the Headmaster returned. When Quirrel was reported murdered, neither first year said a thing. When the Philosopher Stone was reported missing, they still said nothing.

Harry had it in his pocket.

He knew that money could be power. He planned to use it to rescue Tracey from her monster of a family...so they could run away together, to another country, far away from the Dursleys and the Ministry and everything.

%&%&%&%&%&%&

"I'm not going to let them hurt you anymore." Tracey said quietly.

She and Harry were curled up in each other's arms, listening to the train roar over the tracks as it careened back towards the mundane world.

"But Dumbledore insists." Harry said with a sigh.

"To bloody hell with what Dumbledore insists! He's not your guardian, he's a school headmaster. He has no legal authority to make you do anything." Tracey said angrily.

"Everyone I've tried to talk to hasn't believed me. They think that no one in a 'respected' neighbourhood would do stuff like that. So they talk to my aunt and uncle, and then Vernon gets madder..." Harry closed his eyes.

"Then we do something no one will ignore." Tracey responded, her eyes gleaming with thought.

"We?"

Tracey nodded. "We can make it look like they did something. We can make people believe it. Then they'll go someplace they'll never hurt you again."

"...Like what?" Harry wondered.

He wished that the Dursleys would be made to stop hurting him. He wished they would pay for tormenting him. But they never did.

Tracey looked like she had an idea – an idea that excited her, that she'd be able to pull off. "Something that will make the community revile them, something everyone will know, so even if they're released they'll be shunned."

"How?" Harry asked curiously.

"There's something I can buy in Knockturn Alley that simulates death." Tracey explained. "There's a synthetic blood sold in joke shops that people always think is real. I'm gonna buy these things, then I'm going to your house."

"You're not going to hurt anyone, are you?"

"No, 'course not." Tracey promised. "I'm going to make people think that they hurt me. I'm gonna tell everyone your uncle raped me then killed me."

Harry's eyes widened. Tracey nodded, her eyes serious and dark. "Let's say someone gets him off the hook. Child rapers get lynched all the time. He'll be begging to go to jail. Him and his wife."

%&%&%&%&%&

Tracey got out of the house with the aide of Missy. Her house elf was loyal only to her unless her parents gave contradicting orders – Missy could choose which to obey in that case. She always chose Tracey, no matter how much she had to punish herself afterwards.

She collected the Draught of the Living Dead, the joke blood, and the plaster on injuries. Now she would need the right kind of clothes...

Tracey determinedly wandered through London until she came across a clothes store. She looked for the shortest pair of shorts available, a low cut haltor top she could knot at the stomach, and high heels.

The look would be important, after all.

She bought a small, second hand purse that had sustained some wear and tear already. She collected some crumpled notes from the muggle streets to put in it.

Once she'd done that, she looked in a mirror. She was naturally slender, but she didn't look quite skinny enough to pass for a street girl...yet. A half dozen puking pastries later, however, she did.

Of course, it made her very hungry, but she would manage for the day.

Next, she went out to a park and ran some mud through her hair. She cut up and tattered her new shirt, just enough to look like she'd been on the side of the road for a long time.

Finally prepared, Tracey had her house elf apparate her to Number 4 Privet Drive.

Knocking on Harry's window in the night to get his attention, Tracey told him her plan and what he would need to do.

%&%&%&%%&%&%&%&%&

The police received an anonymous caller regarding a number of destitute children in the area.

The caller was afraid that they were being pressed into prostitution - "There's this one girl, pretty little brown haired thing, who left the park with this huge whale of a man and never came back – they can't be related, they don't look alike at all. Please look into it."

Now, once again this was assumed to be a 'respectable' neighbourhood. But nothing put a match to a drum of gasoline faster than what that call implied. So the police swept Little Whining with plainclothes enforcers, seeking out the lost little ones.

Three were found alive and brought to the safety of an orphanage, but it wasn't until Privet Drive where the case exploded into country-wide news.

The two officers assigned to the area found young Harry Potter sobbing his eyes out on the sidewalk. "He's hurt her...he's hurt my only friend." The boy sobbed.

"Who? Who's done what?" The officer asked, alarm bells ringing in her mind.

"My uncle. He – we were just talking – and then he-he-" Harry seemed incapable of saying more, simply sobbing into the comforting arms of the officer's second.

The police knocked down the Dursley's door only ten minutes later. While Petunia and Dudley were downstairs, Vernon wasn't.

The investigation team that entered the man's bedroom were sickened by what they saw.

A small, skinny girl barely more than twelve was sprawled on the bed, blood covering her face and her lower legs. When the lead officer touched her, she was cold and she wasn't breathing.

Vernon was shackled and hauled into police custody. When Harry pointed at Petunia, saying she had hidden the bludgeon tool, she was dragged away as well. Dudley tried to attack Harry at that, but was deterred by the police.

Vernon Dursley was charged with rape, murder and pedophilia, Petunia charged as an accomplice. As the investigation went on, the star witness was Harry himself.

He talked a lot with the police about how his aunt and uncle had abused him, starving and confining him to the boot cupboard. He said that he wasn't allowed to have friends, so when he met Tracey Petunia got very angry. He even implied that they might have molested him instead, if he hadn't met her.

"I think she's trying to punish me," Harry said numbly, speaking of his aunt.

The judge and jury were sympathetic to Harry and Tracey's story. Vernon and Petunia are unanimously found guilty and sentenced to life in separate maximum security prisons without a chance for parole. Dudley, who participated in the bullying, was sent to an orphanage for troubled children.

%&%&%&%&%&%&%&

Tracey woke up in the morgue.

She spat the foul taste of the fake blood, grumbling all the while about how even magic couldn't disguise it. She got off the examination bed and stole a long trench coat from one of the empty rooms before running out of the building.

Harry was waiting for her on a nearby street corner, waiting for the bus. The two hugged and climbed aboard the next ride, heading for the airport.

End Chapter

Ah, love - getting in deep with troubled people. What do you think? How's this for a Harry/Tracey effort?

Read and Review please!