Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Once Upon a Boy Who Lived in a Cupboard Under the Stairs
July 16th, 1991
“Get out here, boy!” Uncle Vernon’s bellow reverberated through the hall, rattling the door of the cupboard. Ten-year old Harry nibbled his lower lip and flinched at the harsh sound but moved nonetheless, knowing if he didn’t it would only get worse.
“Yes, Sir?” he murmured once he stood in the opening to the kitchen and small dining alcove, his eyes glued to the floor.
“You thought you’d get out of cooking lunch by being late to the kitchen? I think not! Get to work,” he instructed forcefully. Even without looking at him, Harry noted the purplish hue to his uncle's pudgy face.
He nodded and quickly got to work, avoiding the gazes of his ‘family’ so they didn’t pick up on the mix of worry and anger simmering in Harry’s eyes. It wasn’t fair, he thought to himself in frustration. His parents died when he was little by some stupid drunk driver—he refused to believe they were the ones who had been drinking no matter how much his Aunt and Uncle said otherwise—and now he was practically free labor for them to use as they pleased.
Grinding his teeth, he started preparing their meal with a knife and cutting board. Despite his smaller stature, he wielded the sharp instrument expertly. Years of practice makes perfect, he grumbled bitterly as he finished slicing the vegetables for the sandwiches. As he shifted the ingredients to a separate plate, his gaze trailed out to the quaint and well-tended back yard. It was such a beautiful day, not that he’d realised that while hiding away in his tiny makeshift bedroom, and he made a note to escape 4 Privet Drive and go to the park after the dishes and kitchen were cleaned.
The rest of preparing and tidying after lunch went quickly, blurring together in a wave of hunger and silent irritation at being grounded earlier that week which kept him from eating, and before Harry knew it, everything was sparkling. Allowing a tiny smile at his handiwork, he nodded subconsciously before turning and snatching up his worn plaid shirt from the cupboard. It may have been the second half of July, but for whatever reason, Harry liked to have the clearly over-sized article of clothing on hand. Once the sleeves were knotted securely around his thin hips, he headed out. No one within the Dursley residence mentioned his hasty escape.
It was even nicer out than Harry realised once he was standing in the sun. The breeze was soft and cool, countering the hot beams beating down on his messy curls that seemed to defy gravity. Shielding his eyes briefly against a bright ray of light, Harry crossed the road to head to the nearby park, taking shade under the large leaves in the thicket of trees. It may have hurt slightly to be out in the sun when it was as bright as it was, but anything was preferable to being home so Harry managed.
He noted the park was empty, knowing most of the families in the neighbourhood were out and about for the holiday. As he sank into the swing, he was happy that he was alone and now all he had to hope for was that his cousin and his friends found something else to do today. Nothing like a good bullying to ruin one’s day, Harry thought glumly as he kicked his feet back and forth.
The squeak of the old swing mixed with the rustling of the leaves in the wind and Harry let his eyes fall closed, letting his hearing and sense of touch become his main focus. The swing was warm under him from hours in the daylight, the chains nearly burning his palm until he became used to the heat, and the peaceful symphony of sounds calmed him. He was content for that moment, away from the Dursley’s and all of their cruelty.
A loud pop sounded from behind the boy and he shifted to glance over his shoulder at the tree line, praying it wasn’t his cousin. It couldn’t be, he realised, Dudley and his friends were never quiet enough to not alert him to their approach. They laughed and practically shouted at one another as they walked around the neighbourhood, while currently, there was just a set of soft footsteps. Clamouring off the swing, Harry turned fully to face whoever was coming closer.
Harry’s throat closed when he finally saw the man. He was limping and sickly pale, blood covering his shirt, chest, and hands. He didn’t hesitate, running toward him with his plaid button-up bundled in his hand to use as a makeshift bandage.
“Where are you hurt?” he questioned, worry growing thick in his words as the man stumbled to his knees.
“Here,” he sputtered, coughing up some blood in the process. His hand shifted to show a hole in his side, Harry’s brain stopped working and he focused on trying to remember the first-aid he’d been taught at school.
“This is going to hurt,” he warned, pressing the plaid shirt to the man’s wound, hoping it would be enough to stabilise until someone came by. “What happened?”
“Att-attacked,” he coughed mid-word, more rich red liquid flicked out of his mouth as he turned his head, thankfully coughing on the grass instead of Harry. “What...your...n-name?”
“Harry, Harry Potter,” the boy told the man, his voice trembling. The man’s bloodshot and red-rimmed eyes widened, but Harry wasn’t sure if he was truly seeing the remorse amongst the fear in his brown gaze or if he was imagining things. “Yours?” he tried to keep the man conscious.
“Doesn’t...matter...but...‘m sorry.”
Harry’s brows knitted together, wondering why he was apologising. Harry thought he should be the one saying sorry, knowing it was a losing battle trying to save the man.
“For what?” he found himself asking in surprise.
“E’rything. Th-thank you,” he struggled to talk, his words becoming more garbled as blood filled his mouth. “For...b-being...here. Don’t wanna die...a-alone.”
“Hey, hey,” Harry tried to counter in a slight panic, “we don’t know that. Come on, stay with me.”
“Yes...’e do,” he murmured, his soft statement barely audible and Harry had to strain to make out what he was saying. Harry didn’t even realise he was crying until he saw a few tears drip off his face onto the man’s ruined shirt. “Fo’give me...’arry...”
“No, no, no,” Harry cried out, pressing even further onto the man’s chest but he knew it was too late. The man’s eyes were lifeless as they stared to the side, his neck warm as Harry pressed a trembling hand to his vein. He choked back a sob when he found it still.
Stumbling to standing, Harry turned in a numb haze and ran as fast as he could to the closest home. He didn’t realise he’d even reached the door or rang the bell until there was a worried looking woman on the other side of the threshold.
“Call 999, please,” he breathed, pointing to the park just down the road before his knees gave out and darkness pressed down on him.
~*~*~
It was a quiet afternoon so far, the newspaper crinkling from where it was currently clutched in John Watson’s hands and the soft sounds of his and Sherlock’s breathing filled 221B. It was nice, though he knew Sherlock would no doubt be growing restless if it continued for more than a day. Thankfully though, his roommate was lying supine on the couch, fingers steepled in front of him indicating he was deep within his Mind Palace.
Good, John thought, it would keep him busy and distinctly not conducting some dangerous experiment or purposely creating havoc within their shared space. Not that John minded really, but sometimes being able to finish the paper in peace was nice.
At least until the sound of Sherlock’s mobile dinging with a text filled the room and he sighed, already folding the paper neatly and setting it on the cluttered coffee table. He moved to put his shoes on, hearing Sherlock hop from the couch.
“It seems rather dull,” Sherlock stated after a moment of quiet hesitation, “but we’ve been requested nonetheless.”
“I figured as much,” John countered with a tiny smirk, already ready to leave. “Fill me in on the way?”
John followed suit, pulling his own shoes on and grabbing his jacket, though he didn't pull it on like Sherlock did his. They were out the door in less than a minute, flagging down a cab before being whisked away to the scene.
“Best get comfortable, it’s a crime outside of London. Little Whinging, Surrey to be exact,” Sherlock explained when we were both settled, his eyes never leaving his phone. “Man was found shot to death at a neighbourhood park after stumbling out of the wooded area surrounding it. No known identification, no one recognised him, no real clues that they could see. It didn’t look like he’d been roughed up outside of the bullet.”
“Hm,” was all John responded with, recognising there was more of the story to be told.
“There was also a young boy who was there, attempted to help save the man,” Sherlock tacked on. “Unfortunately, despite his best attempts, failed. He went to the nearest home and requested the owners to phone the police. Had a final conversation with the victim, but the man refused to explain who his name was. He also kept apologising to the child though from what I’m being told, the kid doesn’t know why.”
“And we’re being brought in?” John questioned. With the location of the scene being in Surrey, he was curious as to why they were being brought in since it wasn’t an area the Met serviced.
“Yes, the Surrey police department has been in contact with Lestrade, wanting our assistance. They’re concerned the boy might be in danger from being a witness to the man’s death even though the kid doesn’t know much. So, Lestrade will be meeting us out there.” John’s brow rose in surprise, the move earning him a scoff from the surly detective. “Yes, yes, we apparently will be requiring a babysitter.”
“Might be useful,” the doctor noted when his own phone dinged. “Apparently the man resided in London so coordinating with his home and loved ones might be easier.”
Sherlock only harrumphed and pouted slightly, clearly not liking the idea of working with a ‘middle man’ even if it was someone they frequently worked with here within London. The rest of the drive was silent outside of Sherlock’s typing back and forth to Lestrade in an attempt to garnish more information but finally after a long twenty minutes, the cab pulled up to the edge of the scene where police cars and a coroner van were all lined on the street.
“Thanks,” John offered the cabbie as he passed over a wad of money to the driver and slipped out after Sherlock’s dramatic exit. Just inside the perimeter of the scene stood Lestrade and a man dressed in a typical police uniform, both shifting to face us fully when they realised we had arrived. Sherlock continued on, but John started to scan the area surrounding us. It was easy enough to spot the kid who’d been the one with the man before he died, he was curled under a safety blanket at the back of an ambulance, a trembling bloody hand clutching a bottle of water as he stared aimlessly at the ground.
“John!” Sherlock called out before he could go over and speak to the boy or be introduced to the Surrey copper standing with Lestrade. Focusing on the scene in front of me, John scanned the body and surrounding areas, feeling Sherlock’s piercing gaze track every movement.
“Clearly gunshot wound that nicked the lungs, though it went through and through. The fact he was able to talk to the kid at all was a miracle, but based on the amount of blood pooling in his mouth, it would have been quite painful,” John started rattling observations off. “There’s an odd stain on his fingers, but there’s nothing under his nails which tells me he consistently works with some kind of material but hadn’t before he died.”
“Any idea what it could be?” Lestrade asked, crouching to look at the fingers.
“I don’t,” John told him, both looking at Sherlock who shook his head.
“Unfortunately there’s no scent lingering and the colouring is too vague to know the origins. I won’t know until there has been some tests run.”
“Plaid shirt belongs to the kid?” John asked, looking at Officer Seth Otto, the head policeman assigned to the case, who nodded.
“Why do you ask?” Sherlock prompted, a glimmer of something in his gaze as he watched John. The doctor elected to ignore it and focused on the case before him.
“It’s way bigger than him and worn significantly in areas that wouldn’t really line up with a boy of such a thin stature was all,” he explained, shrugging. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the victim, I was just wondering.”
“Hm, must have some sort of family where he gets his hand-me-downs from then,” Lestrade noted with an absent nod of his head. John envisioned the child from where he’d seen him on the back of the ambulance, remembering the disheveled appearance, shallow face, dark circles, and ratty trainers and agreed with Greg’s ‘some sort’ addition to his statement.
“Do you have anything Sherlock?” John prompted.
“I need to see where he came from,” Sherlock immediately stated, jumping up and whirling toward the trees. The three men followed quickly behind, curious to know what he had picked up on.
John looked around them as they slipped into the wooded area, he easily picked up on the few broken branches and trail of blood left behind by the victim. Only it stopped a few feet past the edge of the trees, and John’s frown mimicked the one Sherlock wore.
No footprints, no blood, no trail except leading from this point out to where he died.
“Where’s the rest?” John finally spoke up as Sherlock was combing more frantically around the trees and greenery. “It just starts right here but that’s not really possible.”
“That is what I wanted to investigate,” Sherlock stated. “I noted the soles of his shoes only had a tiny bit of mud stuck to the bottom and barely any damage from the surrounding shrubbery.”
“Meaning he hadn’t been in the forest or walked through it completely,” John finished for him, earning a pleased grin from his partner.
“Exactly. Excellent work, John. Now, the question is...where did he come from? Unless he flew or magically appeared, which is utterly ridiculous, but it’s clear he wasn’t shot here within the woods.”
“How?” Seth asked, but John’s chest squeezed, his thoughts now whirling in a completely new direction. One of which Sherlock most likely wouldn’t be able to pick up on because he didn’t know it existed, but John didn’t say anything, not in front of Greg and Seth.
Sherlock didn’t withhold the frustrated huff or eye roll before explaining in his usual ‘you are a complete idiot for making me explain this’ tone. “There was no sound of a gunshot, if the boy explained hearing footsteps in the woods then he very well would have heard such a loud noise. Furthermore, there’s not enough blood to signify someone was shot. Blood trail from him bleeding, yes. Blood spatter and general loss from the initial trauma? No.” The words grew sharper and his jaw tensed as he ground his teeth rhythmically, and John stepped forward, hoping his presence would help the detective keep a cool head.
“Why don’t we go talk to the kid?” Greg offered realising quickly that Sherlock was slowly becoming more frustrated with each passing moment. “He might live in the area and have more idea of where he could have come from, or have more information that you could use.”
With one final frustrated sigh, Sherlock nodded, sweeping dramatically away from the set of footprints that signified the starting point of the deadman’s journey with the others quickly following behind.