Stick With Me, Kid, and We'll Go Places

HP x TWD

Characters: TWD cast + Harry

Summary: Harry Potter knew very little about America, so of course his 'family' had to take a vacation there right when the zombie apocalypse hit. He's only ten and he's already fighting for his life. Joy.

Chapter 1 Word Count: 2,570

Harry Potter really hated Halloween. This latest incident may have been the biggest, but it was only one in a long strand of incidents since his first birthday. Most were relatively small, like a broken bone or a particularly horrid punishment from his Aunt and Uncle, but something always happened.

This year, fate decided that a zombie apocalypse was a good idea. It also dictated that it happened around the time that his Aunt and Uncle and Dudley were out of their hotel room.

Joy. He was on his own. Again.

Harry leaned out the hotel window, peering down at the pure chaotic destruction happening down below. A hidden part of him hoped his 'family' had been caught in the mess. If nothing else, he hoped they were stuck in traffic. Served them right. They may not have beat them, but in the best of cases, they neglected him, and borderline abused him; he knew at least that much from all the crime shows that his uncle loved to watch late at night while he tried to sleep in his cubby.

Children are to be loved unconditionally, and not shunned because of something they couldn't help. Especially because of who their parents were or how they came to be on their doorstep. Aunt Petunia never quite explained that event to him, but he had heard her once whispering about it to his uncle. Something about 'his kind' or whatever.

Either way, they were gone. Probably for good. Oh, he hoped. He wasn't religious, as his relatives never entertained the idea, but he was close to praying for them to never come back. Not necessarily die, just… disappear from his life.

Far below his fifth story viewpoint, the street was littered with corpses (some dead, and some… not so dead) and abandoned vehicles. Several car alarms blared, providing background noise as the city was completely ravaged by the undead.

Harry glanced at the electric clock provided for their room. 12:30. Hmm… so maybe Atlanta was having a lunch rush for the undead? Oh, sue him. It's been several hours of this carnage, which really isn't as exciting as you make think, so he had a right to start making jokes. Maybe there was something to be said, considering a ten-year-old like him had already become desensitized to the carnage after only a few hours.

And yes, the town below was Atlanta, Georgia.

Unfortunately, his Uncle had won a trip to the Six Flags in Atlanta, and when he revealed this news to the family—of course, Dudley, the spoiled pig he is—demanded that they go. The stay lasted two weeks, so Ms. Figg couldn't look after him, not to mention it would be extremely suspicious. Therefore, he was brought along, under the orders that he act as normal as possible, no freakish stuff.

So now, Harry Potter was over four thousand miles from England. He was in a completely different country without any viable knowledge of the surroundings, during an apocalypse, without supplies or anyone else he could rely on. He really loved the sound of that.

The only pro he could see would be the unlikelihood he would ever see his 'family' again.

Far below, someone screamed.

Two weeks passed by rather uneventfully. In order to keep himself safe, he slept in the bathtub with the bathroom door closed, as a second protection to keep the undead from getting to him. He also kept several of his cousin's snacks with him, eating them when he was hungry. For entertainment, he stared out the window. Once, he even tried to hit a few undead with the really expensive pens the hotel provided. Also the bible - that one actually managed to knock off one's head. Hmmm… wrath of God indeed, the bloody wanker.

He ran out of food on day seven. Dudley had mostly packed chips and the like, but thankfully his Uncle had won an expensive trip, and with its expensive hotel room also came a mini-fridge packed with water bottles, a loaf of bread, and some packaged lunch meat (the last two items were actually stored by the Dursleys). While the pipes ran, electricity did not, so the meat spoiled completely by day two, and only half the loaf was left behind anyway. Even being conservative, the food did not last long.

While Harry was rather accustomed to going without food, seven days pushed past his limit.

The streets were still flooded with the undead, but there wasn't near the same amount of carnage as the first day, and those that were moving around were far more vicious when it came to finding food.

Once, near dawn, when he had chanced a look outside, a woman had just darted out of an alleyway, probably escaping from an apartment building. She was bitten in seconds, and the undead spared her no mercy as they ruthlessly tore her open and spilled her innards. That had been day five after running out of food. He had, for once, been glad that his stomach was empty.

Also, the undead had begun to gather around his door, if the groans were anything to go by. He could distinguish at least five different pitches, and that honestly freaked him out.

He had to get out of here, preferably soon.

He didn't even consider the door, as surrounded by undead as it was. Instead, he leaned out the window, farther than he had a week ago, to peer around for an escape route. On his right, a fancy office building stood, sharing an alleyway with the hotel. On the first day, he had heard a large crash of glass come from that direction, so his hopes laid on the possibility of there being a broken window. Unfortunately, the hotel room Harry was in faced the street, and not the alleyway, so he had no way of making sure. He didn't even have a safe way to reach said hypothetical window.

When he looked down, stretching his small body over the windowsill, he saw chaos and destruction and dozens of the undead, but before that, he saw the ledges that wrapped around the building, connecting each level of windows and leaving him a possible, if very, very narrow pathway. He grimaced and continued to search for options, but when he found none, his thoughts returned to the ledges.

The thought of becoming a human pancake did not appeal to him, but he had little option besides waiting for it all to blow over in a relatively dingy hotel room, and he did not have the supplies for that.

He looked back out the window and down at the street. The groans from behind the door echoed in his ears, inciting a spark of instinctual terror within him. He grimaced, and reluctantly decided his next course of action. With as much energy as he could muster, he hopped back into the room and rushed to the double beds (of course he had to sleep on the floor because poor Duddykins shouldn't have to share a bed with a freak), tearing off their sheets and blankets with several hard pulls. With weak but nimble hands, he set to work.

About an hour later, he had created a, hastily made but well knotted, long rope made of bedsheets and blankets, tying one end to the bed closest to the window. After another thirty minutes where he filled up three water bottles with the running (albeit slightly dirty) water from the bathroom sink and packed a small carry-on his 'family' had brought with soap, a couple shirts and pants (which took up too much room, if he was to be honest), and a first aid kit he had found while rooting around in the bathroom, he finally started his grand escape.

Being the quickest and most street-smart person of the group (he had been a pizza delivery boy, after all), Glenn had, of course, volunteered to do runs into Atlanta. Therefore, he found himself two hours later crawling through downtown Atlanta like it was a dungeon in an MMORPG, packing three empty duffel bags for the items he ran across.

However, he did not volunteer to risk his life for anything but supplies. This run was to be an in-and-out job, with very little walker interaction. But then he ran down an alleyway, and barely avoided being sent tumbling by a boy falling from the sky. He only just managed to duck out of the way, slamming himself against the other side of the alley in his panicked haste. His left shoulder throbbed at the impact, and he clenched his jaw to avoid making any noise.

When he came over his surprise and pain, he looked on in astonishment at the scene in front of him. The boy couldn't have been older than maybe eight - nine if he was pushing it - with dark locks and emerald eyes the color of Starfire's magic, and he was suspended three feet off the ground with what looked like hastily knotted together bedsheets.

"Hi!" The boy cheekily said, smiling widely and slightly swinging on his improvised rope. "M' names Harry… um… Could you please get me down?"

Glenn blinked a couple times, pinching his arm when that didn't dispel the crazy scene in front of him. The kid smiled nervously.

After a second, Glenn finally snapped to.

"Oh! Um, right." Glenn stuttered out, hastily climbing to his feet. It looked like a couple of walkers had noticed them, and they were slowly ambling their way, jaws flexing at the prospect of a meal. Thankfully, they were still several meters off. With jittery movements, he untied the kid's messy knot (he really just ended up grabbing his knife to cut it off) and helped him down.

When he looked up, he noticed the bedsheets trailed off around the building, and it looked like the only thing keeping Harry from being walker food had been a cracked window ledge, where one bed sheet had caught and saved his life. Man, looking at what that kid must have done… he had guts.

"Look out, mister!" the kid whispered, tugging the man's arms. "They're getting really close!"

Oh right, that.

Glenn snatched the kid up (he was really light, and if they were in any other situation he might be suspicious) and began to book it to the other end of the alleyway, stepping as lightly as he could so that he didn't disturb the broken glass littering the pavement. Once he began to actually move, the walkers who had taken notice started their pursuit, jaws snapping hungrily and groans growing in sound and frequency. The noise, in turn, attracted more walkers, several more of the nasty undead shuffling into the alley.

Feeling cold sweat beginning to bead down his back, he took a crooked step and swerved right, shimmying into a tighter alleyway between two opposite facing buildings. The walkers, being a far cry from precise coordination, had a much harder time crawling in after them, so by the time they exited into a larger alleyway, only a couple of the undead were following them, and these were quickly lost when he slipped into another small alleyway.

By the time Glenn decided that they were secure enough, they were nearly five blocks from the hotel and the two were sequestered away into an abandoned shopping mall via a back door. On a previous run, he had cleared out this place, so it made a very convenient hideaway and supplier. Once inside, he carefully set the kid down amongst several racks of clothing before plopping down himself.

"Okay, kid -"

"It's Harry. Harry Potter… Sir."

"Okay, Harry," Glenn huffed, giving the kid an unamused stare. "The name's Glenn. You mind telling me what exactly happened back there?"

Harry squirmed, a blush dusting his cheeks. "Well, uh… G-Glenn… My relatives and I won a trip to Six Flags, so we were staying in a hotel. My relatives were out when this all happened, so I was kinda… trapped in that room. I ran out of food several days ago, so I was pretty desperate, sir. I'm sorry for dropping in on you -" He chuckled when Glenn intensified his previous unamused stare. "- but I really am grateful! If you weren't there… I'm not sure what would have happened to me."

Glenn looked over the kid's grimy appearance, noting the too-big clothes and the too-thin frame. Even if he hadn't eaten for a few days, no kid should be that skinny if they had been a healthy weight beforehand, not to mention if they were stuck in a hotel room for those days. The kid's use of the word "relative" also gave him some seriously suspicious vibes.

"Wait, you've been in that hotel room since the world went to shit?" He was so surprised that he didn't even try to hide or apologize for the curse that slipped from his mouth. Although the boy flinched, he didn't seem upset at the curse word itself.

"Uh… u-uh… yes…"

Glenn whistled, his eyes focusing on the small duffel bag hanging across the boy's chest. "And you thought ahead to bring supplies. I'm impressed, kid. How old are you?"

"T-ten."

He raised his eyebrows and scrutinized the kid a little harder. "Huh. Really?"

Harry's face scrunched up and he narrowed his eyes. The kid was probably trying to intimidate him or something, but Glenn just thought it cute. "Yes, I'm ten! My birthday is July 31, 2000, and I've been ten for three months!"

"Okay! Okay! D-Don't cry!" Glenn quickly backpedaled when Harry's green eyes began to shine, and he tried to give the kid a reassuring grin. "Aaaanyway… um… since you're all alone, you want to help me?"

"Why do you need my help?" Harry tilted his head slightly, furrowing his brows in confusion.

Glenn sat up properly and grabbed the bags from his shoulders. "Well, I'm doing a supply run for my group, and I figure that four hands are better than two, right? You can help pack some canned goods - as many as you can fit in this here duffel - also grab you some proper clothes while you're at it - and I'll handle the rest of the items in this shop. Then I need to check and see if the closest pharmacy has supplies, and grab at least some disinfectant cream, bandages, and the like. After that, we can go back to where my group is hiding out... What about it?"

Glenn carefully held out his hand to the younger boy, who stared at it for a long while. Eventually, after several seconds of awkward silence, Harry looked into his eyes and delivered a blinding smile. "Sure!" Hands were shaken and the deal was made.

"Stick with me, kid, we'll go places." And boy did he feel cheeky making jokes, but what were you to do when the undead are rising? Play dead? Fat chance.

"My name is Harry!"

Glenn laughed. Things were going to get interesting, he could just tell.

If only he knew just how interesting.

A/N: Okay! Hello! This is my first official crossover that I will be writing, and hoooo boy am I excited! This little plot bunny burrowed into my mind and since it hasn't moved out in the last few months, I've decided to take a chance and write it down. Be aware that at this first chapter posting, very little has actually been put down in terms of plot. I have a few stakes, but I need to gather the rest of the tent if it's going to be any good, especially for protection against walkers, so please be patient with me.

Anywho, I decided to mix up the formula a bit when it comes to TWD x HP crossovers. This will not have ANY romance in it. It will mostly be fluff with some action and plot blanketed over it. Also, I wanted to write a young Harry, and while I do not believe I succeeded in ANY form of the word, I hope it's acceptable. Also, Glenn, who in my mind has to be at least a little nerdy. I mean, c'mon. It's adorable.

Happy Writing~!

_-*Doodling Shadows

EDITED 2/17/2019