Hi all! I'm back! I know I've left Fortune's Wheel on a cliffhanger and an unintentional hiatus for way too long, and now here I am with a brand-new story and brand-new fandom. In my defense, I moved to a different country and started grad school last September, and unfortunately I wasn't able to write much of anything the whole first term. And then I got bit in the butt with a brand-new hyperfixation and this story was born! I've spent almost literally every waking moment on it when I haven't been in class or doing homework. I promise I have not forgotten about Fortune's Wheel. It will be finished! But my focus now is on my dissertation and fleshing out this story's universe, so it will be a while before I get back to it. But I've been doing so much writing lately that there shouldn't be any delays in updating this particular story for quite some time. So, as a special treat, here are the first two chapters, and I'll try to update once a week from now on until this story, at least, is done. Then we'll move on to posting Harry's Hogwarts years!

As always, feedback and constructive criticism is more than welcome. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1: Alone In the Big City

Two weeks. It had been two weeks. Or at least, Harry was pretty sure it had been two weeks. He hadn't really been able to look at a calendar lately, and he might have lost track of how many days had passed. But he was pretty sure it had been two weeks since the Dursleys "forgot" him at that diner. They were just finishing their meal and Aunt Petunia suggested everyone use the bathroom before they left, since it was a long drive to the hotel. They made Harry go last, and when he came out…well, they were gone. Long gone.

But Harry had always been good at taking care of himself. He was almost eight, after all! He could cook, and clean, and he was no stranger to taking scraps of food wherever he could get them when Uncle Vernon "forgot" to feed him on the nights the rest of the family ate out. Which, since it was summer vacation, was at least four days a week. And Harry was very fast, so when someone had called after him on the way out of the diner, he'd taken off running, darting around parked cars and pedestrians, ducking through alleyways until he could no longer hear anyone behind him.

The first night was scary, though. Harry had slept outside before, when Uncle Vernon got mad at him for coming home late after a whole afternoon avoiding Dudley and his friends. But at least he'd had the shed to sleep in, then. But here...this city—Gotham, Harry was pretty sure it was called—was really, really big. Maybe not as big as London, but it was still really big. Definitely way, way bigger than Little Whinging. And somehow, in running away from that guy at the diner, he'd found himself in a place where the buildings loomed over him, dark and grimy and menacing, half of them with shattered windows, and where broken glass and brick shards and needles littered the street. And it smelled, like cigarette smoke and rotting garbage and like the time the upstairs toilet got blocked and overflowed.

That first night, Harry had found the tiniest crevice he could wedge himself into and barely slept a wink. At least it was summer, so he wasn't cold. Then, the next day, he watched. Harry had learned the hard way that the best way to find out what was expected in any given situation was to watch everyone else. It didn't always help Harry know what was expected of him, since the Dursleys seemed to expect different things from Harry than from Dudley. Dudley was expected and allowed to be loud, whiny, and petulant. But the Dursleys had only ever expected one thing out of Harry: to do his chores and to fade into the background, to be so quiet and unobtrusive that it was like he didn't exist.

Harry assumed that was why they had him sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs. Normal boys got bedrooms and toys and new clothes. Harry got a worn-out crib mattress in a space that was nearly too small for him and Dudley's tattered hand-me-downs. Normal boys were allowed to cry and get hugs. Harry wasn't allowed to cry, and he couldn't remember ever being hugged. (When he was smaller, and didn't know better, he'd once asked Aunt Petunia for a hug. She'd slapped him instead, and then sent him to bed without dinner. He didn't ask again.)

So Harry watched the people, and listened. It was amazing what you could learn when no one realized you were there.

He learned this part of the city was formally called Park Row, but everyone called it Crime Alley. And it only took one day for Harry to recognize why. In just twelve hours, he witnessed three muggings, one knife fight, and a near-kidnapping before the kid got a lucky hit and ran away. Through some of the open windows, he heard shouting and a meaty smack that meant someone got hit. When Harry got hungry and decided to try his luck in a convenience store trash, he saw another kid (or was it the same one?) run out with his arms full of snacks while being shouted at and chased by the owner. As Harry watched the pedestrian traffic more carefully, he also saw at least a dozen people get pick-pocketed.

But it seemed like these petty crimes were expected. Not exactly tolerated, but it seemed that the majority of people around preferred to keep their heads down and not get involved. Harry understood that. All his teachers at school did the same when Dudley and his friends picked on him. And the people on the street that saw him running away from them—sometimes with a visible injury—either cooed at how they were playing so nicely, or got out of the way. And the neighbors never said anything when Harry spent long hours in the hot summer sun, painting the fence or weeding the flower beds or mowing the lawn—a new job he'd started just this year, since he was now, apparently, tall enough and strong enough to push the mower.

But scary as this Crime Alley seemed, Harry quickly learned how to blend in, and more importantly, he learned how to survive. No one went out at night, except for people who looked like they were up to no good. The shouting and gunshots(!) that Harry heard on the third night only confirmed that. The few other street kids he saw took care of themselves and no one else, and everyone looked suspiciously at anyone who didn't seem to belong there.

For the first time, Harry was glad of Dudley's worn-out, oversized hand-me-downs. Everyone else wore worn, ill-fitting clothes, too. He fit right in, and no one really gave him a second look.

So Harry adapted. He didn't feel right stealing, but by day four of eating scraps out of the trash cans outside restaurants and convenience stores, he realized he didn't have a choice, unless he wanted to pass out from hunger. (It had happened once, last year. He was on day four of being punished with no meals, and his P.E. class was doing fitness tests. He'd fainted halfway through their mile run. He was fed at least once a day after that, even if it was only a piece of bread and a slice of cheese or a wrinkled apple, but he'd spent the next two weeks in his cupboard every hour he wasn't at school.)

Harry remembered how that other kid had run out carrying things in his arms, and determined to do the opposite. Harry was good at hiding things. He had to be, if he didn't want Dudley to steal his things or break them. So Harry tucked his baggy shirt in, creating a little pouch at his waist. He kept to the edges of the convenience store—not the same one he'd been hanging around, because he'd been starting to get some looks—and looked for the cameras. They always did that in Dudley's spy movies. Harry could pretend to be a spy. He wasn't just stealing crisps—no, they were called chips here—and beef jerky; he was stealing secret government plans that could save the world. He had to get them and get away so the bad guys couldn't blow anything up.

Finding a blind spot in the cameras, and with his back to them just in case, Harry pulled a package of jerky off the rack and held it up to his face, pretending to read the label (he had to pretend, because he'd lost his glasses on his third day in the streets and couldn't make out anything except the large print on billboards and shop fronts). Then… he dropped the package down his stretched-out collar, catching it in the pouch against his stomach. His heart pounding, Harry dared take a second bag, then slipped out the door behind a mom and young kid as if he were part of their family. (He was used to that, too, always trailing behind Dudley and Aunt Petunia, part of their group but never quite belonging.)

Harry's heart raced, expecting at any instant to hear someone call after him, to be chased out, maybe beaten up like the kid who had failed at pick-pocketing the other day and got hit a bunch of times by his would-be victim. Everything in Harry screamed to run, to escape.

But running made you look suspicious.

He didn't let himself run until he had walked a full block away, with still no sign of pursuit. Then, flushed with triumph, he turned a corner and broke into a run.

He didn't have the energy to run more than a few meters, but his success still buoyed him up until he reached the hide-out he'd found for himself. It was beside a dumpster tucked deep in an empty alleyway. The space between the dumpster and the building beside it was just big enough for Harry to stretch out his legs and arms, which was slightly bigger than his cupboard had been. He could even raise his arms above his head! (though only while sitting). A huge, flat cardboard box stuck out of the dumpster like a roof, and with a little rearranging, Harry managed to close the gaps. Which was good, because if it wasn't raining, the sun was beating down on him, and the big piece of cardboard gave him shade.

Still flushed with triumph, Harry removed his prizes—two big bags of beef jerky that, if he was careful, would last him weeks. And the bags were resealable, so the jerky would stay fresh. Opening one, Harry reverently removed a single, large piece of jerky and tucked it into his mouth. He sucked on it first, savoring the faintly spicy, salty taste, and resealed the bag. Then he tucked both bags into the torn duffel bag he'd found beside a different dumpster in the same alley two days ago, where he was keeping the few other things he'd collected.

There were only a few other things inside the duffel bag. First was a badly dented reusable water bottle with a leaky lid, and three normal, plastic bottles he'd washed and refilled in a gas station bathroom. He already knew the dangers of dehydration. That hadn't been a fun lesson to learn, the summer he was five and first set to work in the yard in the heat of summer. So the very next day after finding himself alone (abandoned), Harry had made finding water his first priority. Gas station and convenience store bathrooms made that pretty easy. No one blinked at you if you just walked in, used the restroom, and walked out (though there were a few dirty looks).

The reusable bottle he brought with him most of the time; his pockets were big enough to fit it, and that way it stayed upright and didn't leak. The opening was big enough that he could stash things inside, too. The other three bottles were for emergencies. He also had some bruised apples and a dented can of beans that had rolled away from an older lady's bags while she was loading groceries into her car.

By day seven, Harry thought he was doing pretty well. He was slowly building up a stash of food, so he didn't have to take risks stealing all the time (though sometimes he went inside a store just for the air conditioning). He had a safe place to sleep at night. He was doing really well at blending in and not getting caught. He hadn't been beaten up or picked up by the police—because Uncle Vernon always said that if he tried to run away, the police would just bring him right back to them. And Harry didn't want to go back, so he stayed away from the police. Things were going really well! He thought he just might have cracked the whole living on the streets thing!

On day twelve, though, Harry quickly and abruptly realized that this was not a game.

He'd already gone to ground for the night. He'd fashioned a door out of another cardboard box, and piled trash bags on top of his reinforced cardboard roof, so his hideout looked like just another pile of trash. This was after someone came a little too close to his hideout a few days ago. So Harry sat contentedly in his little space, the door pulled over the opening, his stomach no longer growling at him after another piece of jerky (though he didn't feel full—he couldn't remember when he last felt full). He was laying back, entertaining himself by imagining scenes of great daring and excitement, when he heard noise in his alleyway. Voices.

Angry voices.

Harry's breath hitched, because angry voices—especially loud, deep, angry male voices—usually meant he was about to get smacked. Horrified at the tiny sound that escaped him, Harry clapped both hands over his mouth, scarcely daring to breathe. Because if he made a noise, the angry man would find him, and then—Harry shook his head. He didn't want to think about that. He wouldn't think about that!

But he was forced to listen.

"—a deal, kid! You thought you could run away from me?"

"I didn't—ow! That hurt, you bastard!"

"It was supposed to! No one walks away from a deal with Big Ben without punishment!"

There were several meaty thwacks, followed by yelps of pain and curses spat through gritted teeth.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself not to cry, not to make a sound, scarcely daring to breathe, while just twenty feet away, a kid that didn't sound much older than himself was brutally beaten.

Finally, the voices and the thuds stopped, and a single pair of heavy footsteps receded. Harry kept holding his breath, expecting at any moment for the man to return. But instead, after several long, heavy moments of silence, he heard a new sound: quiet whimpering.

Harry exhaled shakily. What was he supposed to do now?

Harry warred with himself. On the one hand, he knew the other kid was only crying now because he thought he was alone. But the fact that he was crying at all and hadn't gotten up to leave yet meant he was hurt pretty badly. Harry didn't have any first aid supplies except for a banged-up box of band-aids featuring some heroes called the Justice League. It had been left on an empty shelf, clearly out of place, and after Harry had scraped his hand pretty badly moving things around his hideout, it had seemed like a good idea to just…slip the box into his pocket and walk out. It would be better than a torn-off strip from his shirt wrapped around the injury.

But some injuries were too big for a handful of band-aids.

On the other hand, though, Harry knew how lonely it was to be hurt with no one coming to help. He couldn't do much, but…maybe he could offer company? At least until the boy—Harry thought it was a boy, anyway; it had sounded like a boy—decided to leave.

Steeling himself, Harry took a deep, quiet breath and wiped his face, then carefully shifted his makeshift door so he could crawl out.

The other boy's whimpers abruptly cut off at the quiet scraping noise the cardboard made against the concrete, and Harry cringed, but he pressed on.

The alley was dark, as Harry had expected. But there was enough light from the street lamp at the far end for him to make out the boy's shape as he scrabbled backward, gasping sharply in pain.

"G-go away. I ain't got nothin' for ya!"

"I—" Harry coughed, realizing all of a sudden that he'd barely spoken to anyone for nearly two weeks. There was no one to talk to, and his accent would draw attention anyway. "I'm here to help."

"Nu-uh. Nobody 'round here helps outta the goodness of their hearts. Everyone wants somethin'."

Harry had sort of expected that. "Then…then consider it payback for making—makin' me listen to you get beat." He tried to copy the boy's accent.

"Shit, you—you're just a kid." The other boy relaxed, slightly.

"So are you," Harry countered.

The boy chuckled darkly. "Yeah, I guess. But you're even younger'n I am. How are you gonna help?"

Harry hesitated. "Uh…are you bleeding? I—I've got…band-aids." He held up the box as an offering.

The boy snorted. "You really are just a kid. Shoot, all right. I scraped up my elbow pretty bad when that bastard threw me to the ground. Lay one on me." He held up his left arm, where Harry could just make out the gravel-encrusted scrape that was slowly oozing blood.

Hesitating, Harry moved closer, and when he was sitting right beside the other boy, he pulled a full water bottle from his other pocket. The boy watched him, bemused, as Harry poured a bit of water over the scrape to clean out the gravel. Then he pulled two of the biggest band-aids out of the package, one of them featuring a man in a blue and red outfit with an S on his chest, and the other wearing a green jacket carrying a bow and arrow. Harry peeled off the plastic and carefully stuck the band-aids over the worst of the cut.

"A-anywhere else?" Harry asked. He really had no idea what he was doing. Just…it would have been nice to have someone help him bandage his injuries, before.

"Not that a band-aid can fix," the boy said darkly. He shifted against the alley wall, pain flashing across his face.

"C-can I help? You—you can share my hideout, i-if you want."

The boy raised an eyebrow. "That's not a good idea, kid. If people know where your hideout is, they can snatch your stuff, or worse, snatch you."

"But…" Harry took a deep breath. "I don't think you can walk, or you would have left already."

The boy grimaced.

Harry pressed on. "And it-it's not safe out—out in the open. Es-especially if…if that guy decides to come back. With friends maybe, next time."

"Why're you helping me?" the boy asked sharply. "Really. If this was actual payback, I'd be doing somethin' for you. So why bother?"

Harry shrunk back from the boy's tone. "B-because I know what it's like, to be beaten up and left alone in the dark," he said quietly. "I always wished…that someone would help me, the way I helped you. So...that's why."

The boy shifted again, his face dark. "Who beat you up and left you alone?"

Harry blinked, surprised at the sudden anger in his voice. "It doesn't—"

"Yeah, it does. Kids…kids shouldn't be beaten up. It ain't fair. 'Specially kids as little as you."

"I'm not little!" Harry protested.

"You have Justice League band-aids. Those are for little kids. So yeah, you are." The boy hesitated, then reached out and ruffled Harry's hair, grinning.

Harry froze, his brain short-circuiting.

The boy quickly lowered his hand. "Shit, sorry, kid. I didn't mean—"

"No-no one's ever done that to me before," Harry said in wonder. He'd seen people do it, of course—Uncle Vernon did it to Dudley a lot, and he'd seen other parents do it when they picked up their kids from school. It was always accompanied by smiles and laughter. And he'd always secretly wished for it, too.

"What do you mean, no one's—but—" The boy was staring at him, his eyes wide. "Shit, kid. My dad beat me, but even he still sometimes ruffled my hair when he was in a good mood."

Harry curled in on himself. "My uncle does it to my cousin all the time, but never me. He didn't like to touch me unless he was pushing me around."

"Then I'll do it all the time. I'll do it so much you'll get sick of it."

Harry blinked and looked up. "But…why? You—"

"You were right, kid." The boy grimaced, shifting against the wall and wrapping an arm around his ribs. "I could walk, if I had to. Run, even. But it would hurt, a lot. And prob'ly make it worse. So if you've got a safe spot nearby, and ya don't mind a guest for a few days…a little company wouldn' go amiss."

Harry lit up. "You mean it?"

The boy smiled and ruffled Harry's hair again. "Yeah, kid. You won me over with your stupid band-aids."

Harry grinned—the first true smile he could remember in far too long—and beckoned. "Right over here!" He led the way to his corner and shifted the makeshift door a little more so the bigger boy could fit through. The other boy crawled after Harry, grunting at the movement.

"It's a little small, but I never needed much space anyway," Harry admitted as he fixed the door. The last of the light was blocked out as he pulled the cardboard across the opening, leaving them in complete darkness.

"I'm impressed. I never woulda suspected there was anything more'n trash in this corner."

Harry smiled, his cheeks getting a little warm. "Y-you can stay until your ribs feel better."

There was silence, then some shuffling (and a few grunts) as the other boy got comfortable. "How'd you know it was my ribs?"

Harry shrugged, even though the other boy wouldn't see it. "I've broken half the bones in my body. Well, my cousin did, or his friends. They liked to kick me when I fell."

"Well, that little bastard had better stay far away, or I'll kick him when he's down," the boy grumbled.

Harry surprised himself by giggling a little at the image of the skinny boy next to him kicking Dudley's pig-sized bulk.

"See? You're just a little kid."

"I'm not little," Harry grumbled in protest.

The boy laughed and ruffled Harry's hair (again!). "Sure. Whatever you say, little hero."