Chapter 2: Boxes
Harry's eyes screwed up tight against the insistent morning sun. At once he felt too weary to wake up, but also unwilling to let himself return to the realm of sleep where only nightmares waited for him. If only he could have one night's sleep that was not filled with screams and blood and...
He groaned audibly as he rolled over. The sun was up, which meant that he would have to get up soon anyway. Gingerly he pried his eyelids open, grimacing in anticipation of the violent sting they were sure to receive from the flood of daylight.
"OH BOLLOCKS!" he cried as his eyes fell open upon the image of the four flashing zeros from his alarm clock. No longer caring about dreams or sleep or the pain that bright light brings to unready eyes, Harry shot out of bed, wide awake. He grabbed a white t-shirt from the floor and started pulling it on as he lurched his way towards the closet.
"BUGGER!" he yelped as he barked his pinky toe against the leg of his small bed. Hopping on one foot while clutching the other in pain, he clumsily collided with the door to his closet, and yanked it open. Tenderly testing his hurt foot against the hard, worn rug of his bedroom, he ripped a pair of jeans off of a hanger, and fell back on his bed as he frantically pulled them on.
Socks, socks, socks, he thought in a panic as he dropped to the floor and futilely darted his arm under the bed searching for the least dirty pair of socks he could find. Only then realizing that his search was greatly hampered by the absence of his glasses, he let one hand fumble around for them on the nightstand while the other continued its frenzied search.
Finding only one sock, Harry was about to try the closet again when the phone rang. "Hullo?" he asked, hoping for all he was worth it wasn't Mr. Jacobs.
"Potter, you planning on making it in today?" It was Mr. Jacobs.
"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. My alarm clock... I think we had a power outage last night."
"Well, get in here as quick as you can, we got a large shipment coming in this morning."
"Yes, sir. What time is it anyway?"
"Bloody hell, Potter. It's only half past. You're not too late... yet."
"Yes, sir. I'll be there right away."
**
After running from his flat to the underground, and then from the tube to the warehouse, by the time Harry showed up for work, he could do little but wheeze and clutch at the stitch in his chest.
"Oi, looks like sleepin' beauty decided to grace us with 'is presence." It was only Ernie, a tall, slim, blond kid not much older than Harry. He clapped Harry a little too hard on the back and chuckled. "Figured you'd 'ave a bit of a lie in, did you?"
Harry took a few gulps of air before trying to straighten up and answer. "No... I... my... power... out... alarm... never... went... off." Ernie gave him a half sympathetic look as Harry caught his breath and continued on a little more in control of himself. "Is the shipment here yet?"
"Nope," Ernie said, lighting a cigarette. "Won't be 'ere for another twenty minutes, I expect. But you never mind that now. Old man Jacobs wants to see you, mate."
Harry sighed as he made his way over to the shabby metal stairs. Jacobs' office was perched high atop a catwalk overlooking the entire warehouse, and Harry hated going up there. The stairs leading up to it were old, rusty, and creaked a little too loudly on more of the steps than he cared to think about. It wasn't that he was afraid of heights. That would be almost unheard of considering he was quite at home hovering mid air on a broomstick. Still, he thought. It's not like I can ride one of the handrails to safety if this thing collapses.
After a very anxious climb, Harry finally reached the office, and tentatively knocked on the door.
"Come in," came the muffled voice of the foreman, and Harry stepped inside. The office was very much like the rest of the warehouse, old and worn, smelling faintly of dried wood and oil. Reddish tendrils of time curled threateningly from the corners and the walls were void of decoration. The only evidence that people inhabited this space, and not some soulless automatons, were a few small faded photographs perched on Jacobs' desk in shabby frames.
Jacobs himself seemed as though he was a part of the place, as though he was never born, or enjoyed a childhood. Instead it was as if he were created in this very office, made of old crate bits and industrial plastic wrap and nails. His iron gray hair was always combed a little too perfectly, the pale skin of his sagging jowls shaved clean to the point where one would think hair couldn't grow there. Even when he talked it sounded more like the voice of a machine, gravelly and flat.
"Good, Potter. I was hoping you would get here before the shipment." Harry rubbed the back of his head nervously, hoping that Jacobs wasn't going to get too upset about this. "I've been thinking... that is to say... I was wondering why you were late?"
"Sir? I told you over the phone. Power outage," he replied nervously, unsure as to why his employer would seem so nervous to ask such a straightforward question.
"Right. Yes, I know that. What I mean is that, I know you don't go out and get pissed at the pub with the rest of the lads. Got no girlfriend or wife to speak of. So, and I know this is none of my business, but, what kept you up?"
"Uh," Harry started, caught completely off guard. "Television. There was a television program on last night, and I guess I lost track of time." He couldn't tell Jacobs about the nightmares, about how little sleep they afforded him, or about how much he had grown to hate sleep.
"Uh-huh," Mr. Jacobs said, giving Harry a look that let him know that Harry wasn't the only man in the room that knew that television didn't keep him up last night. "Look, Harry. You're a good kid. You show up for work on time... normally," at this Harry gave a guilty start. "You do good work, and while you may not throw in with the rest of the boys, you don't cause trouble with them neither. Still, something’s not right. A young lad like you should have a girlfriend, or any type of friend for that matter. London's a big place, Harry, and you can lose more than just your way around here."
"Yes, sir," Harry said a little warily. What's he playing at? he thought, instantly very keen to see if the shipment had arrived yet.
"My wife, Tabby, she's making pot roast tonight. It's about the best meal she knocks up, and I think you should give it a try, tonight. If you can make it."
"Sir?"
"I'm inviting you over for dinner, Harry. Get you out of that flat of yours. What do you say?"
"Well, I uh... I did have something to do early tomorrow, but if I can... I'll see if I can make it, sir. Thanks."
When Harry met back up with Ernie, Ernie asked him, "So, did old man Jacobs lay into ya?"
"No," Harry replied still a little taken aback. "He didn't."
"Ah Jacobs," Ernie started to explain, shaking his head with a wry grin on his face. "Tries so 'ard to be a real 'ard case, 'e do. Still, got a right 'eart o' gold. Oi, look, shipment's 'ere."
**
Harry felt his muscles tauten and tense for just a quick moment as he popped open the top of the wooden crate. This was the only part of his new life that he had grown to like. Work. Simple, mind-numbing, menial work. He liked the feel of his muscles burning with the strain of hauling countless anonymous parts to and fro, the feel of sweat rolling down his labor-hardened back, the way that after a good day's work his shirt would stick to his skin and the first breeze that met him outside the warehouse would chill him enough to raise goose bumps even in record highs.
He liked, in particular, how much he didn't have to think. In fact, thinking too much on the job was dangerous. If you let yourself get too taken in by your own thoughts, you stopped paying attention, and that's how accidents happened. So it was all too easy to let yourself idly dwell on the television show you watched last night, or the song they played on the radio as you brushed your teeth, and in the most blissful of moments, on absolutely nothing at all. Never, while he was really working, did Harry have time to think about his old life.
Feeling his arms charge with the effort, Harry pushed through the last few groaning nails trying desperately to keep the lid in place, and then, with an echoing clatter, the wooden top hit the deck. This was his prize; straw colored packing and nondescript boxes begging to be shelved in precious order. He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow as he took a moment to look up.
Ernie was guiding the forklift driver into the bay, staring fixatedly at the pallet slowly advancing on him. Idiot, Harry thought. You're staring at the bottom. Don't you know you always watch the top of the stack? I thought you've been doing this longer than me. Shaking his head, he was about to get to work unloading the crate when he saw it. The operator of the forklift had grinded gears, and the machine lurched. This wasn't an uncommon occurrence, but then the pallet was uncommonly loaded, and had Ernie been keeping his eyes at the top like he should have been, he would have noticed the shift in the weight.
It's gonna drop! Harry had time to think before he dashed toward him. No, he didn't even have that much time. Cursing himself the, only thing he could think as his legs pounded him across the warehouse floor was that he wasn't going to make it. He saw the top box lose its balance. He saw Ernie finally look up, and his eyes go horrifically wide. The box was in mid air and damn it he wasn't going to make it.
Harry screwed his eyes shut and willed his legs to pump harder and faster. They weren't going to get him there, and he decided to just leave the ground and hope for the best. He felt his shoulder collide with Ernie's bony hip and his arms latched around him, tightening in a steely grip. They were both in the air, and he heard Ernie curse violently. Then they were on the ground, the dull thud of their collision with the floor drowned out by the deafening crash that exploded behind them. Panting and wheezing, Harry opened his eyes and looked behind him. The crate, as big as a doghouse, lay partially shattered on the concrete not five feet away, it's innards spilled indiscriminately before it. So many strange bits of metal and stuffing. When Harry caught his breath he turned to Ernie and asked, "Alright?"
Ernie was pale, and his eyes were still as wide as they could go. His breaths came in great heaving gasps until he was finally able to relax. His eyes returned to their normal size, and his goldfish mouth curled into a nervous half smile. "Oi, Potter. You may never take us up on a night on the town, but you got a sixer and a lift comin' from me tonight whether you want it or not. Lucky you saw everything and got there in time, I am."
"Yeah," Harry said quietly as his brow furrowed. "Lucky."
**
This was the end of Harry's third week at the warehouse. He was thankful for the job, but then, he would have been thankful for any means of employment. Having not even finished his magical education, let alone any proper type of Muggle education, Harry was afraid that he would find no job at all, and would therefore be reduced to begging on the streets. To his surprise, however, Mr. Jacobs had hired him on the spot after only a cursory interview.
Of course, he nearly quit ten minutes later when he learnt that one of his co-workers would be none other than Piers Polkis, Dudley's old school chum, and one of his more enthusiastic assistants in the game of "Beating Up Harry." But Piers had changed. He grew up.
In a conversation that was all too uncomfortable for Harry, Piers had actually apologized for the way he had treated Harry when they were kids. "That's what we did back then. Followed Dudley. Of course no one really understood how big of an idiot and a prat he was. I didn't until we were nearly done with school. Your aunt and uncle could afford to buy his way into university even though his marks were terrible. Mine weren't so bad, but my mum and dad had no money. Well, when Dudley learnt I wasn't going off to university with him, and why I wasn't going, he started in on me. Guess I can't know how you felt back then, Potter, but you should know that after about the fifth time he took the mickey out of me for being too poor to go to school, I laid his fat arse right out on the floor. Boxing titles or not, he dropped. Stupid git."
After that came the first time Harry got invited out for a weekend of drinking, but it wasn't the last. As he sat in the passenger seat of Ernie's rustic little Peugeot, he fiddled with the beers in his lap and tried to suppress a grimace as he anticipated yet another invitation that he knew he would have to refuse.
“This it?” Ernie asked him as they pulled in front of a tired looking complex.
“Yeah,” Harry replied, reaching for the door handle with the sincere hopes that he could make his escape before the invite came. He was almost home when he felt Ernie’s calloused hand grip his shoulder.
“Listen,” he started, a sober expression on his face. “You really ought ter join us tomorrow night. It’s not like we’re criminals or nothin’. We jus’ ‘ave a few, tie one on, commiserate.”
Harry sighed. “I’d like to, but…”
“You got plans,” Ernie sighed back and let Harry go. “Well, try an’ open a weekend sometime, yeah?”
Harry nodded and thanked Ernie for the lift before making his way back up to his flat.
Opening his icebox, he frowned at the emptiness of it. Like the entire apartment, it was cold, and barren, and dreadful. He placed the six-pack in the fridge, lifting a bottle for himself before closing the door on the ice colored light inside.
Cracking the bottle open and searching for a packet of noodles, he dwelled on what had become his home. Home didn’t seem hardly a word for it. Living place was hardly better. It was a box, void and lifeless like so many of the boxes he unloaded and stacked at work. There were no Chudley Cannon posters on the wall. No pictures with smiling faces waving back at him. Nothing except a pathetic collection of second hand furniture that barely survived the trip up the lift.
Finding what would be his dinner tonight, he took the first swig of his beer and grimaced. He didn’t care for the bitterness, or it’s dead warmth, but he drank anyway. All of a sudden the noodles didn’t seem so enticing, and lay abandoned on the counter as he walked to the television room.
The television popped on with a faint hum, and Harry found absolutely no interest in what was on. He couldn’t find the will to drag his mind away from his thoughts. Bloody, useless magic, he thought. Why’s it got to be so damn confusing?
The bad joke that his life had become was all the result of magic. His parents dying, Sirius, Dumbledore, Voldemort. All because of stupid, pathetic magic. And yet, the moment he felt Ernie gasping for breath out of harms way, he knew it was magic that let Harry save him. Magic like he did as a boy when much of his life was trying to prevent his own pummeling at the hands of Dudley.
How can it be that way? Why can’t it be good OR evil? Not both.
Nothing made a lick of sense anymore, and he closed his eyes as he took another pull off of his beer. Instantly the image of a fifteen-year-old Hermione Granger flitted in his head. She smiled and chided him about his, “saving people thing.”
“Fat lot of good it did me,” Harry scoffed into the hollow room. As he continued to nurse his beer, Hermione’s image began to change. Her bushy chestnut hair began to darken until it was jet black, shortening as it did so until it clung to her skull in neatly combed locks. With her hair, she too shortened, her face puffing slightly at the cheeks, her eyes hardening until Harry could recognize the face of the eleven-year-old Tom Riddle.
Tom scowled at him. “Saving people thing. Where was your saving people thing when it came to me, Harry? Why couldn’t you save me?”
“SHUT UP!” Harry bellowed, hurling his beer bottle at the wall. He wanted it to break. He wanted it to shatter into a million pieces, letting the jagged bits of glass spray him and cut him. Maybe, if he could bleed, he could feel alive, if only for a moment. He wanted the sting, but it never came as the bottle only thudded against the wall clumsily before finally coming to rest on the carpet, white foam oozing out of it erratically.
Harry watched the beer spill out onto the carpet as the foam gradually returned to its amber color. A dark patch spread among the flattened rug, and only when the flow had reduced itself to a slow drip did Harry realize he was crying.
The air inside his apartment was beginning to suffocate him. The walls seemed made of cardboard and likely to collapse in at any second, smothering him in a pile of pointlessness. He needed to get out, and diving for the phone as if it were a life ring, he dialed and tried desperately to get his tears under control before he heard the other end say, “Hello.”
“Yes, Mr. Jacobs?”
**
“Harry! So glad you could make it. Come in, come in. Don’t dawdle.” Mr. Jacobs frog marched Harry into the living room with a surprisingly strong arm and a warm gesture. The living room filled Harry with a sense of warmth and comfort he hadn’t felt since the last time he had been to the… but he didn’t want to think of that place yet. When he tried to thank his boss for the invitation, all Mr. Jacobs said was, “Don’t mention it. And call me Simon. You’re in my home now. There’s no need for formalities. TABBY!”
Simon introduced Harry to a short stocky woman with hair as iron gray as her husband’s. Her eyes twinkled above a pair of plump rosy cheeks, and her smile was naturally heart-warming. “Oh, hello Harry. Excellent timing, supper’s just been laid out. I hope your feeling more than just a touch peckish.”
Harry hadn’t felt truly hungry in a long time, but the moment he clapped an eye at the set table, he felt his stomach growl in anticipation. The scent of pot roast filled his nostrils as he surveyed the rest of the meal. Mashed potatoes, chick peas, and much to Harry’s surprise, treacle tart sat their beckoning to him. Without needing to be told he took a seat, and had to repress licking his lips as Mrs. Jacobs started to fill his plate.
“So, Harry, where did you go to school?” she asked as she ladled out a heaping of the steaming, garlicky smelling chickpeas.
“St. Brutus’,” Harry replied and immediately regretted it. Mrs. Jacobs paused for a moment, and her face darkened, and in a desperate attempt to explain, Harry added, “It’s not like I did anything wrong, Mrs. Jacobs. It’s just that my aunt and uncle weren’t particularly fond of me.”
“You’re aunt and uncle? But where were your parents?”
“Tabitha!” Mr. Jacobs warned but Harry gestured to let him know it was all right.
“They died. It was a car crash when I was one, and I’m the only one that survived. That’s how I got this scar.” Harry motioned to the lightening shaped scar on his forehead, and he hated himself for telling the same lies the Dursley’s told him as a child. Mrs. Jacobs face, however, shifted from a look of apprehension, to one of sympathy.
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry,” she said seating herself. That had stopped all conversation, and for the first time since entering their home, Harry felt uncomfortable. Can’t do anything right, can I? he thought darkly.
Seeking to lighten the mood again, Mr. Jacobs said, “Tabby, this young man saved a life today, it was incredible.” He then told the tale of how Harry had saved Ernie’s life. At least, he told what he knew from Piers’ account as he didn’t actually see it. Harry was grateful that Piers himself had only seen the tackle and not the flying leap that allowed Harry to clear half the warehouse in less than a second.
Chuckling, Mrs. Jacobs said, “Well, Ernie’s a nice boy, but he’s a little…”
“Dim?” Harry offered, and they all laughed. The mood lightened considerably, Harry began to eat with gusto.
“Mmph. This is really good, Mrs. Jacobs,” Harry said, forgetting that it was rude to speak with his mouth full. “I’ve been eating out of packages for weeks. I almost forgot that you can actually like eating.”
Mrs. Jacobs took the compliment graciously. “Please, dear, call me Tabby.”
The evening unfolded contentedly, and for the first time since Harry left, he felt actually happy. He felt like a person again, capable of laughter, and warmth. The conversation was light, and they all laughed as Mr. Jacobs told tales about when he was Harry’s age working in the warehouse. As they moved on to the treacle tart, however, Mr. Jacobs redirected the subject of conversation to Harry.
“So, my boy, what’re you planning on doing when you leave the warehouse?”
“Sir?”
“Come now. You’re obviously a bright, hard working young lad. You know you’ve got no business wasting your entire life hauling boxes. Where do you go from here?”
Harry shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He had the distinct impression that the warehouse was exactly where you ended up when you lost your way, so how was he to know where he would end up? It wasn’t that bad really, and while Harry could picture himself doing a million other things, it became decreasingly difficult to imagine himself jockeying crates for the rest of his life. He shrugged, “I suppose I haven’t given it much thought,” he finally said staring down at his dessert.
“Well, you think on it,” Mr. Jacobs said in a fatherly tone. “You’re no Ernie or Piers or Martin. They’re all good kids, but they belong there. You don’t, and I think you know that, son.”
“Yes sir,” Harry mumbled, still refusing to look Mr. Jacobs in the eye. He didn’t deserve their faith in him this soon. He didn’t deserve it at all.
“Simon, Harry. Simon.”
Harry forced his lips into a half smile as he repeated, “Simon.”
Eventually Simon had reminded the little party that Harry was supposed to get up early in the morning, and offered him a lift that Harry gratefully accepted. Before the two men could leave, though, Mrs. Jacobs came padding after them.
“Harry,” she called after him, a somewhat sad look on her face. “I’m afraid I’m not that great in the kitchen after all. I tried to make a treacle tart, but it was horrible, so I got this one at the bakers. You seemed to like it, so please, take it with you.”
She was holding a clear plastic box with the rest of the tart still inside. Harry took it, and thanked her, offering his hand, but instead of taking it, she pulled him into a quick hug before pushing both men out the door.
Later that night, as Simon and Tabby lay in bed, Tabby whispered sleepily into the dark, “He’s a good boy.”
“Yes, he is.”
“But he’s not happy.”
“No, he’s not.”
“I hope he finds his way soon, Simon.”
Rolling over to hide the look of concern on his face, Simon whispered back, “So do I.”
**
Harry placed the box of treacle tart in the icebox next to the remaining five beers. Skirting around the still damp beer stain on the floor he made his way to the bedroom, neglecting to undress himself before collapsing into his Spartan bed.
The image of the two gifts in the fridge haunted his sleepy mind. Three weeks in, people were heaping gifts on him he didn’t feel like he deserved, and trying to make him feel welcome when all he felt capable of feeling was alone. The last thought that crossed his mind before he once again faced his nightmares was that he would never again partake in either gift given him today, and he should probably remember to throw them away in the morning.
Epilogues, Part I: Shadows by Grimmrook
Chapter Notes: Okay, now the story really begins. The last chapter was more like a prologue than anything else, but I didn’t want to get too ironic naming the first chapter of an epilogue, “prologue”. The last chapter was probably also the most controversial, and almost didn’t make the cut. Here is where we really begin, and I hope you enjoy it. Oh yeah, that musical selection that I encourage you to contribute to in your REVIEWS! You’ll find that Staind’s “Everything Changes” will work throughout the entire story, so this will be the last time I mention it. Now for this one, it’s hard to pick a good song because of the particular mood I was going for, but Nine Inch Nails’ “Everyday Is Exactly The Same” works just fine. Staying on the NIN track, we can throw in Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt,” also. Counting Crows fans could throw “Round Here.” And for those of you who know real good music, let’s tie in Jim Croce’s “New York’s Not My Home. Alright, that’s all I have to say, I really hope you enjoy the story, and again, I would like to thank my betas, Rosebeth, Critmo, and hpmaniac666.
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