Harry teetered on the edge of waking and felt no urge to get up. He was tired, and had been for a few days now. With his cousin bullying Harry into taking on extra chores and his uncle turning a blind eye to everything, Harry felt heavy. Harry’s parents had left on a trip and never returned, but he held out hope that they were alive somewhere.

His cousin didn’t have that hope. Harry’s aunt had died last year, turning their pleasant little family into a mess. Harry wasn’t sure why his cousin blamed him for her death; he wasn’t a healer. Harry was a shield track. She’d needed a healer.

Summer would end soon and he could go back to school. There at least he had a buffer between him and his cousin. Harry’s friends were few, but they were the best. They even let him see their notes for classes he didn’t take.

Harry’s classes were always assigned for him. While everyone else got to pick theirs, Harry never even saw a counselor or adviser. The teachers all seemed especially hard on him, too. If his scores were less than perfect, he failed. He blamed the class choices on his parents - they probably had instructions in place, and he couldn’t change them because they were still his parents - and the hard instruction on his cousin. Kris Kingsley, named for their shared great grandfather, was Principal Kingsley’s golden boy. If he said Harry was lazy then every teacher believed it.

Strange dreams haunted him lately, and he hoped those stayed at the Kingsley household with his uncle. Between his cousin’s recent treatment and how hard he studied just to pass his classes, Harry’s time with his friends dwindled.

He’d had another one of those dreams last night, and it had lasted longer than usual. He could still feel the bruises from being bounced around, and the cold weight of that heavy ring. The ringing in his ears after falling. He felt the crusty remains of tears on his face and snuffled into his pillow to wipe them off. One particular bounce had hit his funny bone and left him a crying, whimpering mess that his abductor ignored.

Before his aunt’s death Harry had never even imagined leaving his relative’s home. Was it so bad now that he dreamed of being kidnapped? Was that really better?

No, it wasn’t. His cousin and his uncle were grieving in their own stupid ways, and in time it would get better. Harry had faith in that. So he had better get up and face the day.

Harry opened his eyes and felt the world shift under him. He almost lurched off the couch, his gut telling him the world was wrong. He must still be dreaming. His ears rang and his head swam for a moment. Disoriented, the first words he heard sounded like dull bells underwater.

“Good evening, young man,” the brown-haired stranger repeated from where he sat behind the principal’s desk. “It’s good to see you finally awake.”

He’d gone to bed at his uncle’s house and woken in Great Grandfather Kingsley’s office on a couch that shouldn’t be there, and with a man who was definitely not his great grandfather staring at him with a bright smile.

Harry leaned over the side of the couch and heaved.