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Harry Potter sat on the swing in the park down the street from his relatives’ house. Most of the neighborhood was merrily burning, and there were dozens of emergency vehicles and fire brigades on the street, frantically trying to put out the fires. Many lives were lost that day, not the least of which was his aunt, uncle, cousin, and Marge. Ripper had even succumbed to smoke inhalation and laid at the foot of the Dursleys’ front stairs. Pops from behind him didn’t even make him flinch; he’d been waiting for someone from the magical world to make an appearance since early that morning.He was awakened by glass breaking and had sprung out of his bed to look out the window at the front walk. There, standing in a loose half circle, were several Death Eaters, dressed in their robes and masks, and they were throwing Molotov cocktails at the front of the Dursleys’ house. Knowing he was in danger, he quickly grabbed his treasures and, releasing Hedwig, told her to find a tree whilst he apparated to the back yard. He’d done the same thing when he was a child and desperate to get away from his fat cousin and the whale’s psychotic friends, and though he didn’t understand the mechanics of the magic, he remembered the squeezing feeling, and just instinctively used that to leave his prison.He hunkered down in the overgrown shrubs and brambles near the back fence and slowed his breathing, trying not to make a single sound as he watched Voldemort’s minions continue to firebomb Vernon’s house. Lights started coming on all up and down the street, since it was just before dawn, and doors were thrown open as the neighbors peered out to see what all the noise was about. Many of them, spying the strange men committing arson, ducked back into their homes and started frantically dialing 999, whilst others stepped out on their front stoops with their hunting rifles. They fired in the air, the concussive explosion startling the Death Eaters who turned to confront the muggles that dared to interfere. The leader, a man by the name of Lucius Malfoy, took a menacing step toward the muggle with the gun, and paid for his arrogant stupidity with a giant hole in the middle of his chest. As the muggle cracked the barrel and started to reload, the rest of the group, which included the Lestranges, Rookwood, Mulciber, Macnair, Rowle, and Rosier, raised their wands and started firing explosive and destructive curses at the muggles.With body parts exploding and wounds opening up in necks and chests, the muggles either fell where they stood or fled back into their houses, slamming and locking their doors as they, too, dialed emergency services. “The boy’s gone,” one of them rasped as they watched the roof collapse at number four, and they turned and walked down the middle of the street, shooting fireballs into living rooms and setting the entire neighborhood ablaze. Once the Death Eaters apparated away, Harry walked down to the park down the street and sat, his owl fluttering down to his shoulder to comfort him as he waited for the ‘cavalry’.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~From first year, Harry Potter had begged the headmaster of Hogwarts to send him anywhere else. That his relatives starved and abused him, and often made him slave for them. He was lucky to get five hours of sleep between the time he finished his chores and the time he had to get up to start all over again. Most of the time, he’d barely had anything to eat, and had dipped into energy reserves he needed to survive, to complete his tasks. Often, he worked with broken bones and dislocated joints, caused by his uncle and cousin, or mild concussions when his aunt would take a cast iron frying pan to his head if he messed up the food.Always, Dumbledore would insist that the Dursleys’ home was the safest place for him. That the wards that surrounded the house would protect him from anyone with ill intent. At least, anyone outside the house. They did nothing to protect him from the hatred constantly spilled upon him from the occupants. That as long as he stayed behind the wards, he would be secure. When Harry told the headmaster that he rarely remained in the home; that he’d had chores outside the house and things to pick up at the local shop, the old man waved a negligent hand and reassured Harry that he was safe. When the boy tried to explain that he’d gone to primary school before he came to Hogwarts, and that strange people frequently came up to him when he was with his aunt, Albus just told the boy that everything was okay. Harry was safe.So, the last Potter heir decided that he’d bide his time and prepare for the moment when Voldemort’s forces would find out where he was and come attack his home. Sure, no one could get inside the house who had ill intent, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t stand outside and bring the home down on top of them. His precaution was warranted, and the attack that left one wizard dead in the middle of the street and several muggle corpses in the yards, had finally proved something to Harry that he didn’t want to acknowledge. No one in the wizarding world ever really cared for him. Oh, they made all the right noises when he tried to talk about what was going on at home, but no one lifted a finger to offer him somewhere to get away from the abuse. In fact, he was frequently shunned, rejected, harassed, bullied, attacked and treated worse than he was at Privet Drive. At least here, he knew why his relatives hated him. There, everyone treated him like he was the second coming of Merlin when they wanted rescuing, and the rest of the time they ignored him, except when something happened over which he had no control, and then he was once again thrown into the spotlight to be revered or reviled, depending on which way the wind blew.“My boy,” a familiar elderly voice said from behind him. “Are you all right?”“I’m still kicking, if that’s what you want to know,” the brunet replied flatly.“What happened here, Potter?” snarled another familiar voice, and Harry turned to the man, emerald eyes burning with hatred and rage. Snape flinched back at that look; he’d never seen Lily’s eyes that incandescent before, and he was starting to question whether or not he should have treated the child so harshly.“You have eyes,” the teen replied. “Use them.”“I’m picking up a lot of spell activity, Albus,” Moody said, his wand flicking all over the place. “A lot of Dark spells and curses were used here.”“I’m familiar with muggles, Albus,” came a voice that caused a throb of pain in Harry’s heart. “I’ll go talk to some of the emergency responders and get some information.” Remus rounded them and made his slow way to an ambulance sitting near the park. He didn’t even look at his honorary godson, and the brunet figured the werewolf still blamed him for Sirius’ death.“We’ll need to get you somewhere safe, Harry,” Dumbledore said as he moved closer to the teen, who still sat on the swing, staring at the neighborhood in flames. “We can take you to headquarters. It still has a fidelius on it, and you can be with your friends.”“No,” the sixteen year old replied harshly. “I’m not going there. I’m not going to let you imprison me anymore.”“You have no say in the matter, you arrogant whelp,” Severus snarled harshly, reaching out a hand to grab the boy’s arm. Harry jumped away from both men and glared murder at them, teeth bared in an animalistic snarl. Magic was building up around the boy, and white eyebrows fled into his hairline as Albus felt the power cycling around the teen. Severus had no problem with using violence against Potter; he still wanted James to pay for Snape’s humiliation, and Harry would make an excellent substitute. As soon as the man’s fingers got within inches of the boy’s arm, the Potions Master started screaming as his fingers crisped off, leaving burnt stumps behind. The potions professor staggered back, hand held up before his eyes as he continued to wail. Moody, who hadn't seen magick like that in too many years to count, jumped at the former Death Eater's screams of pain, and he rushed toward the other man, his leg impeding him enough that he didn't make it before the teen cast a spell.“Stupefy,” Harry hissed, giving a feral grin when the other man dropped to the grass, the scream abruptly cut off as he passed out.“Harry, you mustn’t let your anger and hatred control you,” Dumbledore said rather worriedly. He wanted to regain his influence over the teen, but he wasn’t about to risk his own safety to touch the boy. Emerald eyes turned to him, and he felt scoured by those verdant flames.“Too late, old man,” the Potter heir-lord hissed vehemently. “I’d been oppressed from the moment my parents died, and no one in that fucking world cared. In fact, they gleefully jumped on the bandwagon when the Prophet decided I was going Dark and just compounded all the torture and abuse I’d endured all my life. No one in your fucking school or your fucking society gave two shites for me, as long as I was there to do my sacred duty to them. I lost my parents to that madness, and Sirius.“You refused to give me the tools necessary to keep myself safe; to keep those I loved safe, and I’ve lost everything because of you. The only man left who could tell me anything about my parents now ignores me, and I’m sure he’s blaming me for Sirius’ death. That mess, however, can be laid at your feet, old man. Yours and your pet Death Eater’s. If you had told me from the outset why Voldemort was after me… Hell, if you’d told me what the war was really about, I could have worked to prepare myself for it. Instead, you kept the prophecy secret from me until Sirius died, and then expected me to roll over and show belly.“And then, to add insult to injury, you had that vindictive bastard,” Harry gestured violently toward Snape’s body, which flinched at the gesture, in pain even in unconsciousness, “attempt to teach me occlumency to keep Moldyshorts out of my head. The only thing that freak," still pointing at Severus, "did was repeatedly mind rape me, leaving me vulnerable to any visions the Dark Doofus sent me, which resulted in Sirius’ murder. I’m done. I’m no one’s puppet, nor am I a wind-up toy soldier, to be brought out when needed and then shoved into a corner and ignored when I was no longer necessary.“You and Voldemort took everything from me, and now I don’t feel like doing anything to fix the problems you and your society made for yourselves. Tell me, old man, what in your skewed world view makes it all right to abandon abused children with their abusers? What makes it okay to ignore the pain and suffering of kids who have nowhere to turn, and nowhere to go to escape the mistreatment? Who made you god, getting to decide who deserves rescue and who doesn’t? What right do you have to decide, all on your own, who is worthy of a hand up, and who isn’t even fit to spit upon?”"I told you, Albus," Moody growled as he, too, watched the last Potter heir cautiously. "I told you it would be a mistake to let that vindictive man have unfettered access to the boy's mind. Occlumency training requires trust, and neither the boy nor that idiot on the ground trust each other. You expect the boy to control his quite justifiable anger and hatred at the circumstances into which he's been dragged since his return to our world, but you didn't ask the same of your pet Death Eater." There was silence after Alistor's pronouncement, broken when Lupin finally started back to them with information.“There was a dead wizard in the middle of the street,” Remus reported as he returned to the park. He could sense the tension between his Alpha and his honorary godson, but, being the instinctive coward that he was, he deferred to his Alpha, ignoring the pain that radiated off the last member of his pack. “I claimed that I had relatives living here, and I was allowed to see his face. It was Lucius Malfoy, and from the looks of it, something powerful put a hole through his chest. From the looks of the wound, and the burnt edges, it wasn’t spell fire.“He took a...what did the paramedic say? Oh, yes, he took a twelve-gauge shotgun round to the chest, which blew apart his heart and most of his left lung. From the other information I was able to gather, the surviving Death Eaters were able to retaliate, and that chased most of the residents back into their homes. I think He Who Must Not Be Named’s minions then walked along the street and shot fire-based spells into the homes, setting them on fire before they left; most likely in retaliation for shooting at them in the first place. You know how little they think of muggles.”“Thank you, Remus,” Dumbledore whispered, eyes closed in sorrow at the great loss of life this day. Sighing heavily, he opened his cerulean orbs and looked at the obviously hurting young man before him, regretting, perhaps for the first time, his role in subjecting the teen to the unrelenting victimization from both the muggle and magical worlds. “Harry,” the headmaster said quietly, trying not to push the boy into a corner, but afraid that he had no choice if he were to be able to salvage something from this horrific day. “You must reconsider. We need to get you to safety before Tom’s forces come back here to make sure that you didn’t survive this attack. Grimmauld Place is the only truly secure home we have to which to take you. Please, let us get you to safety before it’s too late.”“It’s already too late, professor,” the raven haired sixteen year old remarked with very little regret. “There’s no one in your world to whom I’m willing to give my trust. No one reached out a hand to me in all the years since my mum and dad were murdered. No one bothered to check up on me as I grew in these oppressive conditions. No one offered to step forward once I returned to your world; to give me a place I could call my own where I could eat whenever I wanted and not be locked up in a cupboard underneath someone’s front stairs. Where I could actually be a kid, and not someone’s badly mistreated house elf. Everyone saw how I came to school that first year, but no one put up a fuss. I’ve no doubt you’d convinced them to overlook my emaciated appearance and the way I shied away from loud voices, sudden movements and people looming over me. You probably explained it away as ‘growth spurts’ or ‘overenthusiastic rough-housing.“Even after people knew how I was treated here, no one bothered to lift a finger to fight for the right for me to stay in a safer environment, with my own people. Mrs. Weasley tried to mitigate my starvation with food on my birthdays, but that was very small comfort considering the long stretches of days before and after that when I had barely enough sustenance to feed a house fly. Sure, the Order threatened the Dursleys at the end of last term, but all that did was make them beat me more frequently for telling tales out of school. They knew,” here Harry turned and pinned Lupin with a hateful glare, “and thought the best way to handle it was to threaten people upon whom they couldn’t keep a close eye.“I know your spies were out there at all hours, watching for any activity, and I’m quite sure they heard me cry out when the beatings got too bad, but no one came to interfere, also most likely on your orders. So where were they tonight? Why wasn’t anyone out there tonight, keeping an eye on me for my own protection?” The raven haired teen’s voice was full of scorn as he continued to grill the headmaster. “Why didn’t they try to protect me, or the rest of the neighborhood? How did they get past my minders?”“All good questions, my boy, and ones we’ll endeavor to answer at headquarters,” Albus replied, voice full of worry at the time it was taking for them to convince the teen to go to Grimmauld. “Please, come with us so we can get you safely under the wards and the fidelius.”“No,” Harry replied flatly. “I’m done being your poster child for the Greater Good. No one in that blighted, backward world has earned my loyalty, and I don’t feel like pandering to the masses anymore just so you can bask in the glory of mentoring the Chosen One. I’ll be going now, and if I have anything to say about it, you’ll never see me again.” The sixteen year old disappeared, stunning the old man and his werewolf second. Moody gave a raspy chuckle, shaking his head at the moxy the kid had just shown. The other two looked at him in astonishment, but he just shrugged and turned on his heel, apparating away and leaving behind confusion in his wake.“Where’d he go, Albus?” Remus queried a little frantically, smarting from the dressing down he’d received at the hands of his honorary godson. Much of what the boy had said was true, and it shamed Lupin that he’d once again failed his best friends by ignoring his responsibilities.“I don’t know, Remus,” the old man sighed out tiredly as he bent down to put a portkey on the Potions Master's still unconscious form. “We, as a people, have done so much to that boy. It’s a wonder he didn’t disappear long before now, and I thought that forgiving nature would live on despite the hardships he’d had to face. I guess everyone has their limits, and I’m afraid that Harry has finally reached his. Let’s go to Grimmauld and see if we can somehow find a way out of this mess.”