The boy's face reddened beneath Sirius' hand; he was obviously embarrassed. His tiny nostrils were flaring, as if he couldn't breathe quite right. But Sirius just wanted to get them out of there, maybe with a few provisions first so they wouldn't have to steal anything to eat right away. So he hitched Harry a bit higher on his hip, tightened his grip so the boy couldn't wriggle away, and eased the two of them down the stairwell to the first floor. From there, he knew it was just a hop, skip and jump to the kitchen and then out the backdoor. They could get away before the Aurors came, before anyone knew they'd been there; it just had to be fast.
To Be Continued . . .
*Chapter 22*: Chapter 22
Whelp II -- The Wrath of Snape
Chapter Twenty-two
By jharad17
Warnings for: Language, descriptions of past abuse
Previously on "Whelp II -- the Wrath of Snape":
The boy's face reddened beneath Sirius' hand; he was obviously embarrassed. His tiny nostrils were flaring, as if he couldn't breathe quite right. But Sirius just wanted to get them out of there, maybe with a few provisions first so they wouldn't have to steal anything to eat right away. So he hitched Harry a bit higher on his hip, tightened his grip so the boy couldn't wriggle away, and eased the two of them down the stairwell to the first floor. From there, he knew it was just a hop, skip and jump to the kitchen and then out the backdoor. They could get away before the Aurors came, before anyone knew they'd been there; it just had to be fast.
The boy held perfectly still in the Black man's arms. He didn't want to be tied up or hit or anything. He'd already made the man threaten to do it, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the man was angry enough to follow through. Mean people hit, and adults hit, and he had been hit enough in his life to know that this Black man hit, too. That he could be as mean as Dudders.
While carrying the boy, the Black man took the stairs quietly -- he'd said they had to be quiet -- and his hand was heavy on the boy's mouth, so heavy the boy could hardly breathe. But he didn't need to breathe, so much, if the man didn't want him to. He'd proved it in the bathtub when She had hurt him before. Mostly, mean people didn't kill you, except this man had killed his parents. Or had he? He'd said he didn't, but was he lying?
In his head, the boy kept calling over and over, Please, Daddy; please, come help me. Daddy! Come help me, Daddy. PLEASE COME!
At the bottom of the stairs lay a long, dark hallway filled with dust and cobwebs, bigger than anything the boy had ever cleaned at the Dursleys'. The dust flew into his eyes as the Black man moved, stinging them and making them water. The two of them crept down a few more stairs into a large room with a table, and the Black man righted the boy and sat him firmly on a hard chair.
"Stay put, now," the man breathed in his ear, then pointed a long-nailed finger in his face. "I'm just going to get us some supplies."
The boy rubbed the dust from his eyes, then stared at the man who had gone to the cabinets on the walls of this . . . kitchen. The man opened each one and left them hanging open if they were empty, which most of them were. "Wanna go back to Sev'rus," he said quietly. "My Daddy."
"He's not your bloody Daddy, boy," the man snarled. "I told you, he didn't have permission to adopt you."
If that was true, would he have to go back to the Dursleys? He couldn't, not now. Not ever. They would kill him this time; he knew it. Uncle hated him so much. He had to make the man see, and even though he wasn't ever supposed to tell, he had to tell the Black man now. He slid forward to the edge of the chair, not daring to leave it, like he'd been told. "But he rescued me," he insisted. "They were mean and hurt me, and Sev'rus rescued me."
"Shush about him," the Black man said, rummaging through the cupboards nearest the floor now.
"They kept me in the cupboard, you know," he said.
"Unh-huh." It was like he wasn't listening, not really, just grabbing a sack from one cupboard and then heading back to the other cabinets to stuff things in.
The boy needed him to listen. "And they never fed me, not at the table. They just threw scraps on the floor afterwards, if the chores was done, and I'd been a good do-- a good boy," he stuttered over his near mistake. He wasn't a dog; he wasn't. No matter what He said, no matter what They tried to make him do or eat or say about himself. "Didn't eat the dog food like they wanted, even when they chained me to the shed. See?" he asked, lifting his chin and pointing to the scar on his neck that had not faded altogether, even with the special salves Sev'rus rubbed into the skin that smelled of mint, or sometimes jasmine. "Had to wear a collar when Uncle chained me up. Hurt, 'cause it was too tight. The metal cut in my neck and hurt a lot. Left awful scabs."
Finally the man was listening. He had stopped rummaging and was staring at the boy, gray eyes wide. "Those bastards chained you?"
"In the back yard," the boy agreed. "And Ma'am," he swallowed down the automatic fear he had of saying her name aloud and continued, while holding up his hands to show the man the scarred flesh on the backs of them and on his forearms, "Aunt P-p-petunia, I mean, she burnted me sometimes, with hot grease if the bacon got burnted, and she put my hands on the cooker when something got dropped on their floor. It hurt bad, too, and She didn't care, and neither did He."
"He?"
"U-u-uncle V-vernon," the boy whispered, as if telling a secret, feeling like he was choking. His vision swam, as if Uncle was choking him like the freak he was, but he went on, "He hates the freak. Calls him names, hits him and calls him . . ." He gulped a breath and pressed his hands into his eye sockets to hold his head together as he hunched over his stomach so no one could punch him or kick him there, and even if he couldn't recall his real name just now, he had to make the Black man understand. "Me, I mean. He called me a freak and useless and worthless and a gutless whelp who shoulda been put down with his foul, stinking parents. He kicked me and hit me with his belt and the stick he got from the Smellings school. He's the one what chained me in the backyard after he caught me . . . he caught me--"
"Doing what?" the Black man's voice was tight.
The boy squeezed his eyes tighter shut, ashamed. "Going through the bin, looking for food. Was hungry. Did all my chores, whitewashed the shed and pruned and swept and weeded all the beds, but Dudders messed up the patio again with his boots, and so He said th'whelp'd get nothing to eat." The boy looked up at the Black man again, and saw tears in the man's eyes, and wondered at it, even as he felt them streaming down his own cheeks. But no one was hitting him now, and maybe the man was listening. So he went on, telling the man about other things the Dursleys had done, but that he'd told no one: about the foul blue drink Ma'am had given him that burned his throat for days and made even his vomit hurt; about the weeks spent in the cupboard, with no more than a damp towel to suck on for sustenance, and his stomach stopped growling after a while, and he couldn't move anymore; about being beaten by Dudley and his gang until he puked all over himself on the first day of school, so the other kids called him "The Smelly Kid," from then on; about many other instances of hurt and wanting and need.
When he stopped speaking, it wasn't because he had run out of things to say; far from it. But the Black man had tears streaming down his cheeks, and was mumbling, "Harry, oh, Harry, I'm so sorry . . ." and the boy -- Harry -- wondered if the man had been telling the truth, not just about Sev'rus not really being his father without being given permission, but about not killing Harry's parents. Would someone so sorry about what happened afterwards have caused it to begin with?