Yo guys! You must be thinking; damn Sarah at it again, with a new story. Hahaha, yup! This just kinda came to me, sank it's claws in my brain and wouldn't let me go until I wrote it down.

I'm not very sure if this kinda story has been done before, but *shrugs* Mehhh Who cares?

Leave a review! It's always nice for a writer to read about what you think about their story.
Don't be afraid to leave any constructive criticism or what you expect to happen in the future chapters. It can help a writer to get motivated to write, or give them inspiration. So don't worry, I won't bite.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of it's characters. I only own this story and my creativity.

Warnings: Slash (not until some time though), time travel, cussing, violence, plotting, blood, (mild) gore, OC's and Mute!Harry

Beta: Beta-ed by my lovely friend: Anki! Please thank her for taking the time and always doing such a wonderful job at helping me by pointing out any mistakes I made.

~*~WithoutSilence~*~

Prologue

"Endings that are muted, but which echo longer in the memory than louder, more explosive denouements." ~ Diane Setterfield

~*~WithoutSilence~*~

It was a bright sunny afternoon on October 31st. The normally tidy and rather boring streets of Little Whinging were decorated in bright lanterns and colourful decorations. Bright orange pumpkins lay on the front-lawns of the many rows of houses, various faces carved into them, pronouncing the holiday atmosphere a little more. A couple of children were already donned out in varying costumes, running around in excitement for the trick-or-treating they would be doing that night.

Petunia Dursley was sitting on one of the benches in the playground, conversing with Karen Polkiss* as their children were playing with a ball together. Although many a person would probably call it 'gossiping' rather than idle chatter. But what could one expect, when two house-wives were left alone to entertain themselves whilst their children are off causing mayhem on their own.

Meanwhile, little four-year-old Harry Potter sat on one of the swings situated on the outskirts of the rather small playground. Bright green eyes watched the other children forlornly, knowing that he wouldn't be invited to play with any of them even if he asked them. He was a Freak after all. He wasn't allowed to have fun. He kicked his legs back and forth, not even close to reaching the dusty ground below. The swing swung softly, squeaking in protest at every small movement it made. It was an old swing; rust had taken the place of the original paint coat some time ago. But Harry liked it all the same. None of the other kids wanted to play with the swings, so he had them all to himself.

Harry watched Dudley and his best-friend Piers kicking at a ball. It was bright red, the same colour as a fire truck. The rubber was still shining, not a single sign of wear to be seen on it. It looked as if it was bought only yesterday.

Which it actually was.

Dudley had been throwing a tamper-tantrum, screaming that his old ball was too old and too ugly for him to use. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had quickly indulged the spoilt toddler and proceeded to buy the best one they could find for their 'Ickle Diddykins', and gave him an ice-cone afterwards (even if it was already autumn) for good measure. Dudley had proceeded to flaunt off his brand-new ball to his smaller cousin, licking at his melting ice-cream even as it dripped over his meaty hand and on to the carpet below. Harry had been forced to clean up the mess his cousin had made.

He continued to watch the two boys, wondering not for the first time how it would be like if he had a friend of his own. A best friend. Someone to share his secrets with, and play and laugh and joke around with. Someone who understood. Someone who loved him for who he is.

Harry secretly hoped that he would be able to gain a friend once he had started primary school next year. Sadly, he wasn't about to get his hopes up. Dudley would be in the same class as him and would probably influence the other children's opinion on him as he always does when meeting new people. Just like his aunt and uncle, when they tell those lies about him to their neighbours when asked about him.

Harry wasn't stupid. He knew what they were doing was bad and that how they treated him wasn't in the norm of things. He's great at observing people, as it's one of the few things he could do without being berated or punished. He'd seen the differences in upbringing between himself and other children (Dudley not included.) It wasn't normal to ask a four-year-old to cook their breakfast, or hit him over the head when he asked his family questions that had been floating around in his head. It also wasn't normal that his bedroom was a small cupboard under the stairs.

Whereas other children got showered with love and affection, their owies kissed away and receiving fitting clothes instead of shirts you could probably use to sail with and pants a little too big to be called a fashion statement.

But Harry had also observed that he wasn't very normal compared to other children, because he could do things that others could not. Strange things always happened around him. Abnormal things. Things that shouldn't be possible and which made his family very upset with him when they saw it happening.

The four-year-old was brought out of his inner-musings as a ball flew past his face, missing him by mere inches. Harry startled, jerking so far back that he lost his balance on the swing-seat and fell to the ground below. He yelped, sucking in a sharp breath. Harry lay there for a few seconds, gasping as the air had been knocked out of his lungs. Dudley and Piers were laughing (more like giggling) from their place further down the playground.

Harry slowly sat up, wincing at the stinging on his hands from the scrapes he'd gotten on them. He brushed off the dust from his clothes as he got up, knowing his aunt wouldn't be too happy with him for making them dirty in the first place. Not like it was his fault or anything.

"Get back my ball, Freak!" Dudley called out. Piers snickered, spurring Dudley on as he continued to yell, "and don't dirty it with your dirty- uh… freakishness!" They continued to chortle as they send random insults after his back.

Harry scowled, muttering under his breath about the Pig in A Wig and his rat-faced friend. He stopped at the end of the playground, looking around for Dudley's ball. He spotted it on the road where an intersection started. Harry ran towards it, swiftly reaching the ball. He picked it up, feeling the smooth surface under his small hands. Harry wished he could play with it; see how good it will bounce off the ground. He wanted to try out how hard he could kick it, watch as it sailed through the air.

Harry was so distracted by his thoughts that he hadn't noticed that he was still standing in the middle of the street.

The sound of tires screeching, a person yelling and two bright lights were the only warning the four-year-old received. Bright green eyes widened in horror at the oncoming car, before he shut them tight and could only wait for the inevitable collision. He wished he would be safe. Somewhere. Anywhere!

There was a crash, a lot of pain and a searing in his forehead. For a second the small toddler felt weightless, an odd feeling washing through him- as if he could feel his blood rushing through his veins, but not quite. Everything was tingling, but the pain in his forehead increased beyond anything the small boy had ever felt before. He crashed into the ground, faintly aware of screams and yelling and a muffled voice telling him to stay awake and that everything would be okay because help was on the way- before he let himself fall into unconsciousness and the world went dark around him.

In an entirely different time (more than 50 years into the future) a driver was panicking, yelling about hitting a small black-haired kid. Petunia Dursley was ushering her son away to the comforts of home, her face ashen and weary.

A bright red ball rolled over the pavement until it finally came to a halt at the sidewalk.

~*~WithoutSilence~*~

"-lost a lot of blood-"

…

"-blood pressure dangerously low-"

…

"-heart rate is increasing-"

…

"-Quickly! We're losing-"

…

Sounds and voices came and went. Green eyes fluttered open, before he shut them tightly again at the onslaught of light invading his senses. Harry waited a few seconds, squinting up at the bright lights and slowly let his eyes get used to them. He was faintly aware of someone talking, but was too tired to make out the words being said to him. He drowned them all out, calming his too hard beating heart by taking deep, steadying breaths. He knew he should be panicking. But he felt oddly at ease for now.

It felt like an eternity until he was finally able to open his eyes again (at least it felt like that to him.) The first thing he saw was a bright, white ceiling overhead. Then slowly the details became clear. A fan hung in the middle, turned off as it wasn't all that warm outside. Light-bulbs were turned on, giving the room a bit of extra artificial light together with the sunlight streaming from inside the window to the far left of the room.

His fingers twitched, becoming aware of a thin sheet covering him from the chest down. He looked down at himself, seeing bandages covering his chest, arms and if what he felt was right, a bandage was also covering his head. Harry brought up his right arm to feel at his head but stopped when he saw a needle sticking out of his arm, a tube attached to it which led to a drip.

He slowly sat up, wincing at the pain shooting up his arms and torso and started to fiddle with the needle stuck in his arm, trying to pull it out.

"I would leave that there, if I were you dear."

Harry startled, shuffling back into his pillow as panic gripped at his heart. He stared, wide-eyed at the nurse smiling at him from the doorway. The thumping in his chest slowly started to calm down again and the shaking in his limbs was starting to recede a little.

The nurse started to walk towards his bed, before pulling out a little light and held his head with the other. Harry, petrified, could only watch as she shone it in his eyes before nodding and writing something on a clipboard which hung from the foot of his bed.

"Your pupillary light reflex seems to be reacting a little slow, I'll tell the doctor to take a look at it once he's here." Harry didn't understand what she was talking about and started to wiggle around under the sheets. The nurse smiled at him again; harry giving a tentative one back. "I'll warn the doctor that you're awake now dear, I'll be back in a jiffy." And she was out the door the next instance.

Harry looked around the room again in curiosity. It was a spacey room, with a bedside table next to his bed and two chairs and a small table next to the window on the left. There was only one door which presumably led to the hallway of the hospital. And that was where Harry was at the moment, a hospital. If the nurse wasn't any indication, it would be all the whiteness around him and the smell of antiseptics permeating the air.

Harry was starting to get bored just sitting there when the door suddenly opened and a middle-aged man walked in.

"Good day young man, I hope you are feeling well. My name is Robert Akers, but you may call me Doctor or Dr. Aker and I'll be your doctor while you recover here in the Royal London Hospital." The doctor was telling him whilst checking Harry's vitals and shining another light inside his eyes. Harry blinked a couple of times, trying to clear the white spots from his vision. "You came in with some very serious injuries, little man. You've been asleep for almost a week."

"Can you tell me your name?" Harry shook his head, placing his small shaking hands inside his lap. "You don't remember your name?" Harry shook his head again. He remembered his name just fine. He placed a hand on his throat, hoping the man would understand what he meant by that gesture.

The doctor frowned slightly, writing something on his clipboard again. "Can you open your mouth very wide for me? Yes, exactly like that." He shone a light down his throat and placed a stick on his tongue to push it a little more out of the way. After a while he put the light and the stick away and felt around Harry's neck and throat with his fingers. Harry sat patiently while this happened, looking at the window over the man's left shoulder.

"There doesn't seem to be any problems with your vocal cords, no swells or lacerations." He looked at Harry, before glancing at the white gauze wrapped around the toddler's head. Something seemed to click within the man's mind because he was grabbing a blank piece of paper and started to quickly write something.

"Do you know how to write letters?" Harry looked up from his hands which he'd been twiddling with, before tentatively nodding his head. He'd spied on aunt Petunia when she was trying to teach Dudley how to read and write letters. "Good, good. Can you point the letters out in your name? That would be very great of you."

And so Harry did, pointing first to the letter H and then the A. He tapped twice on what he knew to be the letter R and finished on the Y. Harry looked uncertainly up at the doctor, wondering if he did something wrong but the doctor simply gave him a small smile. "So your name is Harry?" A small nod and the doctor was scribbling it down on the top of a piece of paper clipped to the clipboard. "Can you do the same with your last name, Harry?"

And Harry did. Spelling out "Potter" the same way as he'd done with his name. The nurse came by again, bringing some food with her and a glass of water before leaving the room again to presumably help other patients.

"Would we be able to contact your parents, Harry?" Harry swallowed the mashed potato with some difficulty, before shaking his head sadly. He stared glumly at the food on his lap, not feeling so hungry anymore.

"Ah…" Doctor Aker sighed, sending an understanding and sympathetic look the toddler's way. "Are there any other guardians we would be able to contact? Maybe a grandparent or an aunt or uncle perhaps?" Harry looked away from the man's face, not wanting to see the pity in the mans eyes as he shook his head a little unsurely. If the doctor didn't know about his aunt or uncle, then they had probably left him here on his own accords. He remembered that the accident had happened near the playground in Little Whinging after all.

They sat in silence for a small while, Harry not daring to look up and the doctor scrutinizing Harry closely. "Do you remember what happened to you?" Harry's eyes shot up to the doctor's face for a split second before going back to watching his hands again. He started to wring them in the sheets nervously, before giving a quick and miniscule nod. If Robert hadn't been watching the boy so closely, he would've likely missed it.

"Alright Harry, I have to go to my other patients. If you need anything, just call for Amanda- the nurse who you'd met earlier this day. She'll help you." He waited for the child to nod before taking his leave.

Five minutes of utter silence in the darkening room, before a strangled sound tore through a small throat. Harry shook with the force of his sobs, and slowly curled up in a tight ball under the sheets.

He cried himself to sleep that night.

~*~WithoutSilence~*~

*Yeah, it wasn't really revealed what Mrs Polkiss name was, so I decided to just give her one.

So…. What do you guys think of it? Good? Bad? Just plain awful? Or maybe even fantastic? I'm very curious of your opinions.
Chapter 1 is already in the making and will hopefully be up soon, so be on the look-out!

Anyways! Leave some love by pressing the button down below! Come on, don't be shy. I won't bite! Much… (ʃƪ¬‿¬)