Chapter Text
A/N: Hello, people!
I don't own Hannibal or Harry Potter.
I have no beta.
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~.O.~
Harry picked at the meat n his hands, finding himself a bit disgusted by the squishy feeling of it, but knowing that he was so hungry he couldn't think of what else to do. The tissue caved under the pressure of his nails but didn't separate. It was wet and made a loud squelch when he twisted and pulled at it, but it was tough.
Red dyed his hands and even part of his wrists. His bare feet, which were bare because he wasn't allowed to have socks like Diddy Dums was, were also soaked in red.
There was a foul odor coming from what was left of Uncle Vernon, but Harry had smelled worse.
Uncle Vernon lasted longer than Aunt Petunia and Dudley did, but he had more meat.
The power was out. There was no electricity. No water.
No one had been by the house in ages. Harry wondered if the neighbors simply forgot them.
He did try to get help on the first night, but no one listened. His aunt and uncle had made everyone hate Harry, so there was no way they'd trust anything he said.
It had been a fight, he recalled as he shoved the squishy meat between his teeth and forced himself to try and tear through it.
A fight because Uncle Vernon lost his job and he was blaming Harry for it. Harry couldn't understand how it was possibly his fault when he had been at home all day. He had been locked inside his cupboard the moment he was finished with his chores.
It happened right before all the bills had to be paid, and Harry had to wonder how there was no money left in savings. Surely his aunt and uncle were saving money on the side for Dudley so he could go to university? They always talked about how much they loved him and wanted what was best for him so shouldn't there be a secret fund somewhere? Something to use in case of an emergency?
But no.
There was no fund.
Every time they got money, they spent it immediately, wasting everything they had after the bills were paid, so there was no money to pay the current bills, and there was no money to buy food.
Both Vernon and Dudley worked like a team in clearing the house of any food there was left. Aunt Petunia always ate like a bird because she wanted to watch her figure. And that left Harry, who already got the least amount of food out of everybody, with nothing.
An entire week of no work, of no money, of bills coming in the post and even something called a 'debt collector' stopping by and roughing Uncle Vernon up a bit on the front stoop.
It was like everything just piled on together at once and Uncle Vernon simply exploded. His own actions got him to this point because his boss fired him for doing something with the secretary which was against the rules. It was his fault that they were all in this situation, but he decided to take it out on Harry because Harry was an easy target.
Harry was sick of being the target. Whenever Uncle Vernon was angry, it was always Harry who suffered. Either with purple markings on his arms from where he was grabbed or an entire week without food, where it felt like his tummy was digesting itself.
Everything was always blamed on Harry, no matter how much he tried to behave, and he was so tired of the bruises and the hunger. He was so tired of being too tired to move. He was tired of hearing Dudley whinge about how he can't watch the telly. He was tired of hearing Aunt Petunia whinge about the looks the neighbors were giving them. He was tired of hearing about how they wouldn't be able to stay in Little Whinging if Uncle Vernon didn't get another job soon.
It was just complaints and pain from every angle and Harry was so tired.
So the night that Uncle Vernon decided to take it all out on Harry, was the night that Harry decided that it was enough.
No more would he stand by as Uncle Vernon throttled him within an inch of his life. No more would he let himself be the punching bag.
When the telltale feeling of Uncle Verdun's meaty fist closing around his throat happened, Harry's mind just sort of went blank and the entire house shook. All he remembered was a bright flash of light and a loud noise, and when he was finally able to see clear enough, it was to find pieces of his relatives scattered around the lounge.
Harry laid on the floor amidst the chunks of flesh and the pools of blood seeping out from the largest pieces, and wondered how it happened, and how nobody had heard it.
There was no water. No electricity. No heat. No food beyond some flour Aunt Petunia had been using to make flat bread to tide them all over.
And Uncle Vernon was in debt with someone important, so even if there was money Harry didn't know where it should go first. He didn't know how adult things were supposed to go.
And now there were no adults at all.
And no one wanted to listen when Harry trudged on over to a few neighbors to ask for help. No one believed him. Wouldn't even look at the mess he covered in.
He had said that his aunt and uncle needed help. But no one cared. Or maybe they didn't care because it was Harry who was asking, and nobody cared about Harry.
There was no food and no water, and he was so thirsty and so hungry.
And that was when he remembered that one time Dudley got in trouble. The one time that it couldn't be blamed on Harry because Harry was locked in his cupboard at the time.
Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't want Dudley watching certain films because they felt they were abnormal, but Dudley didn't care about being normal. He wanted to blend in with his friends and he wanted to know what they were talking about when they made jokes, so he would sneak telly time and watch shows and films he wasn't allowed to.
Uncle Vernon had still been at work and Aunt Petunia was at some garden party down the street, so it was just Dudley in the lounge watching a horror film that he was not supposed to be watching, and Harry locked in his cupboard, forced to listen to the screams of the victims on the screen.
Someone was locked in a cage with other people and when they all got too hungry they tried to eat each other. Because people could eat people, because people were also meat. That was why some animals would eat people, because people were just meat. It just so happened that people were usually the strongest meat around in places like towns and cities.
When Aunt Petunia got home and found out what Dudley was watching, she had been super angry. He had been forbidden to watch the telly for an entire week. She even started quoting Bible verses at him, which was ironic because she never really cared to uphold the Bible at all.
But the thing that stuck out the most to Harry that day wasn't even that Dudley finally got punished for something. It was the fact that people were meat, and people could technically eat people if they didn't have food on hand.
And when he did a basic Google search on the school computer in the library, it was in fact true.
He didn't know all of the words, but he could see that people ate people all over the world.
At the time, he thought it was gross. He couldn't ever think of a time where someone would be so hungry that they would eat another person. And now, after a few days of sitting among his family's remains, picking pieces and chunks out that he was sure were safe to eat, he realized that he had fallen pretty far.
He didn't really know what to do. He couldn't call for help, and no one would give him any help if he tried because nobody cared. Nobody had been over in days to figure out why no one had left the house. There was no power, so he couldn't refrigerate anything. There was no water, so he couldn't have anything to drink or shower with. And it was an electric stove, so it couldn't be used now.
The last bit of water was in the toilets, but he'd already ruined it because he still had to pee now and then.
The one good thing out of all of this was that all of his bruises were now starting to turn green! They didn't hurt as much now.
Maybe if Harry dragged the long stringy bits out into the middle of the pavement, someone would finally do something. He was pretty sure they were called the intestines and he knew enough that those shouldn't be eaten.
Liver could be eaten, but he had never had it when it wasn't cooked. He also didn't know if it was supposed to be cooked before it was safe to be eaten. Technically, if humans were meat, and most meat should be cooked before it's eaten, then he was eating raw meat and possibly getting sick.
But Harry already felt sick before all of this started, so he wasn't actually sure where the sick feeling was coming from. He hadn't eaten in a week prior to the explosion. His stomach felt heavy, and his mouth tasted of copper and something foul. And no amount of meaty bits filled him.
And maybe the worst part about eating meat made from humans was that Aunt Petunia didn't like seasoning. There was no garlic in the house. No salt or black pepper left. It was just coppery and squishy and got stuck between his tiny teeth.
The walls were covered in flecks of red. During the daytime, all of the details are really easy to see. The Dursley family photos were completely covered. At night it was creepy, being surrounded by lumps of flesh in the silence.
Part of what he was sure was Dudley was still on the sofa. Propped up a bit as if he was still sitting there and watching his programmes like always. Like he was able to demand his mum get him a snack.
How long did it take for human meat to go bad if it wasn't refrigerated, Harry had to wonder.
The smell was definitely bad but he couldn't tell if the meat was bad as well.
He knew you couldn't leave things like beef and chicken out for a few hours because they would turn bad really quickly.
How had there been no bugs yet? Bugs liked to hang around dead bodies, right? That's what it was like on all those crime shows. Or in all those horror games that Dudley wanted to play but wasn't allowed to.
Flies and roaches and probably other things.
Aunt Petunia would never suffer a filthy house. Harry cleaned every single day because he was supposed to. There was no way for Harry to clean now, but surely with all the pieces of his family scattered about the bugs would come sooner or later?
If that happened, what was he supposed to do?
He couldn't remember how many days had passed when the back door, connected to the greenhouse, suddenly opened.
It had to be somewhere past midnight, considering how dark it was. The streetlamps from out front barely illuminated anything in the house. Usually, Harry was good at picking up the slightest changes in the environment, but he was so tired and so hungry that he should be forgiven for not being as aware as he should be.
A dark figure stood over him, a flashlight shining a bright, blueish light in his face. He couldn't see the person beyond the light and his eyes burned too much for him to look at it straight on.
"Well…" an accepted voice said softly, "what an unexpected surprise."
Any response Harry could have had didn't even get the chance to come out, before everything went totally dark.
Hannibal Lecter hadn't expected this to happen when he decided to pursue an issue he had with a specific pig he'd encountered. The man had been quite rude and Hannibal did not tolerate such behavior.
His dear Will decided to stay behind because he wasn't feeling interested in hunting tonight. And maybe Will had had the right idea, because this was not what Hannibal had intended to walk in on.
An elaborate plan had been devised for this particular outing, involving setting up a spit and roasting said pig in his own home, and none of it could happen because his target was already dead.
In pieces, in fact.
Many pieces.
The entire lounge of the house was a mess. There was a hole in the floor, like an explosive went off. Pieces of wood scattered in every direction, embedded into the walls and the furniture. Pieces of bodies scattered every which way. Blood spattered on the walls, and it had even soaked into the once-beige throw rug.
And in the middle of the mess was a child covered in blood, eating pieces of rotting meat by hand, trying desperately to tear through the sinew of a crushed human heart with his teeth.
Based upon the state of decay, the explosion happened several days ago. There was no water and there was no power. There was no food. The cupboards were empty. The refrigerator was empty. There was nothing but a single bag of white flour left.
Despite it looking like there was an explosion, there were no remnants of explosives around. And he was very surprised that things were allowed to reach this state and no one was aware.
And furthermore, how did this one child somehow escape the danger and end up stuck here for several days without food and water?
With unnatural green eyes hidden behind a hideous pair of spectacles typically found on elderly men, the child hadn't even seemed phased by Hannibal's sudden presence.
The bruises all over his body exposed by the abnormally large shirt hanging from his small frame, told a story of abuse. Vernon Dursley was truly a louse parading about in the skin of a man.
Hannibal's presence now was rather pointless. There was nothing discernible enough left behind. Perhaps something that could be loosely described as a human torso resting on the sofa, but that was it.
He didn't feel comfortable leaving the child here. Perhaps… it was time for him to be a better person for once. His good deed for the year.
Since he couldn't set up an elaborate scene like he had been planning to, he instead left a small message stuffed inside the chunk of torso on the sofa. With a piece of paper and pen found in the house, he wrote a quick note in a script he'd imitated from one of his university professors back in the day and left an elaborately carved symbol behind to trick law enforcement into thinking it was the work of some established group.
Also, the thought of inconveniencing the police was amusing enough. Let them run around under the impression that there is some kind of terrorist organization or crime syndicate that they now had to be aware of.
The child was secreted away in the dead of night, and it wasn't until a few days later that news would break out about the deaths of the Dursleys.
Privet Drive learned of what happened over two weeks after the fact.
People awoke to the sound of sirens filling the streets as several cars surrounded the Dursley property on all sides. Yellow tape was placed around the perimeter, and no one could get any answers to their questions. Why were there cops there? Why did it smell so awful?
There were officers going door to door asking when the last time anybody had seen any of the Dursleys. Or anyone in the household. When was the last time the car had moved?
Suddenly, people remembered that boy, the one that everyone knew was a troublemaker, had gone door to door asking for help for his aunt and uncle. No one had taken him seriously at the time because he was always causing trouble and always destroying things. He had a horrible attitude and a horrible reputation in the neighborhood, so of course nobody believed him when he said there was a debt collector who came to threaten his uncle!
He was a known liar!
Unfortunately, the fact that no one had grown concerned over the fact that their neighbors hadn't left their house in two weeks, made them lose face in the eyes of the law.
This resulted in the entire neighborhood turning on each other. Mrs. Winston's row with Mrs. Dursley over rose bushes became a hot topic. And the way the children of the street bullied the Dursley's now-kidnapped nephew. Also, Mrs. Figg, the blasted old hag that she clearly was at heart, had to go blabbing about how Vernon Dursley got into a fist fight with Mr. Bobbins at the end of the road, over money recently!
The peace was broken!
It would never return.
The shame would forever haunt their corner of the world!
LOCAL FAMILY TARGETED BY DEBT COLLECTORS? OR MAYBE A TERRORIST GROUP HAS DESCENDED UPON SURREY!
ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD OBLIVIOUS TO THE DEATHS OF THEIR MOST DEVOTED ASSOCIATION MEMBERS!
HOW DID A NEIGHBORHOOD IN SURREY COMPLETELY FAIL TO ACCOUNT FOR THEIR MISSING NEIGHBORS FOR TWO WEEKS!?
WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED FOR SUCH AN UPSTANDING FAMILY TO BE TARGETED BY SUCH EVIL?
DEATH! TERRORISTS ARE AMONG US HERE IN SURREY! BEWARE!
SURREY DECLARED UNSAFE AS FAMILY FOUND IN THE RUINS OF THEIR OWN HOME SHOW SIGNS OF TERRORIST ACTIVITY!
CHILD MISSING IN SURREY! NOTE LEFT ON THE HIS COUSIN'S REMAINS SUGGESTS HE WAS TAKEN BY HUMAN TRAFFIKERS!
CONTROLLED EXPLOSION KILLS FAMILY IN LITTLE WHINGING! POLICE ARE BAFFLED AT HOW IT WAS POSSIBLE!
HAS THE ORGANISATION BEHIND THE STRING OF GAS LEAKS IN RECENT HISTORY STARTED ACTING AGAIN? HERE'S WHAT WE KNOW!
BODIES FOUND IN SURREY SHOW SIGNS OF BEING EATEN! BY HUMANS!
KILLER CANNIBALS EAT FAMILY FOR UNTOLD CRIMES! CHILD KIDNAPPED IN THE PROCESS!
WHAT DOES A RISE IN CRIME MEAN FOR GREAT BRITAIN AS A WHOLE?
HOW TO KEEP YOUR FAMILY SAFE DURING THESE DARK TIMES!
~.O.~
A/N: The first is done!
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