When Harry woke up on his eleventh birthday, he felt a strange and unusual feeling of dread spreading through him. Somehow, he was sure, something will happen. Something bad. Never mind that it was his birthday, that he was becoming a teenager, and that his friends would have planned a whole day of fun. Something bad was going to happen.
His gut feeling never failed him. The first time he remembered it was when he was five years old. His family had driven to Piccadilly and, instead of going to the store, they took him to an alleyway and told him "Boy, you stay here." Stayed he had. And the worst feeling had spread through him. He knew it was going to end badly. He knew, when he spotted the policeman walking in his direction, that he would be in Big Trouble.
Thankfully, he already listened to his feelings even more than to adults. And when he felt himself attracted to a boy, barely older than himself, just as much as he was repulsed by the approaching policeman, he knew that he'd better follow the young boy.
Meeting Ankou was probably the best thing to happen to him in his now eleven years of living. It was Ankou who not only saved him from being caught by the police that first time, and probably escaping a life at an orphanage, he also introduced him to what he now considers to be his family.
After a few years spent living in the streets, learning what Ankou calls the Arts the Smarts (which comprises the Art of Surviving, the Art of Pickpocketing, the Art of Making Do, or even the Art of Escaping the Reach of Responsible Adults), they were saved by Ankou's own magical instincts. They were sleeping under the stairs of an almost-abandoned theater when Ankou suddenly woke him up. "Harry, today we're going to live with my cousin," he said, in lieu of the usual "good morning." And that was it.
In a surreal way, as if summoned by magic, they had gone on with their day and at midday, on the clock, appeared a young man, probably a university student, stumbling straight into Ankou. A short conversation later, Harry was called forward and introduced to one Peter Gallagher, student of English literature, cousin of Ankou. His first thought was that it was really, really shady. They looked nothing alike. Ankou sometimes seemed ethereal, with eyes so blue and shining they seemed alive. His skin was so white, no one would believe he ever saw the sun, never mind that he lived on the street. There was this whole air around him, this strange aura, that was calling, attracting. And this Peter was just… normal. A nice, random, boring bloke. There was also the fact that Ankou was a Morrigan, not a Gallagher, and had never ever spoken about any Gallagher. But one look at his friend and Harry simply shrugged, shook this guy's hand and introduced himself as Harry Morrigan.
From that day on, the friends lived at their cousin's flat. It was a ridiculously tiny space, in a shady street of Bethnal Green. It never saw the light, always protected by thick, dark, velvety curtains. There was only one room with an awfully small bed that no one ever wanted to leave and took to sharing—almost ending sleeping on each other. The kitchen looked like something that belonged to Communist Russia. And most of their neighbours were either Friendly Crazy or Hysterical Crazy. All in all, it was the best thing in the world.
Peter took time to teach them everything he knew. He took the habit of gifting them poetry books, or Shakespeare's plays. He taught them about history (because he liked to pretend to be Alexander the Great when drunk), maths (because he, too, liked to pickpocket and had to deal with a mingy father) or even theater (because one had to know how to talk their way out of any trouble).
It was really the best of times. Peter let them roam free. They took to cooking for him and cleaning most of the apartment. They followed him every time he went to the shops or on an adventure in what he called The Great London (which always ended up being a tour of shady places with obscure history that only Peter seemed to know about). They spent most of their days in the public library or going on their own adventures in the city (and learning that they could make a lot of money by creating mini shows and tricks to impress passerby and tourists). They even took on little jobs in their neighborhood (helping their neighbors, doing their shopping for a small fee, helping shopkeepers or even babysitting) and were then able to help Peter back.
They had no responsibility (except that every three months, like clockwork, Ankou had to convince Peter that no, he shouldn't drop out and become a rock star) and their lives seemed full of possibilities and potential.
They never went to school. In fact, Harry never really thought about all these logical things—there really seemed to be no place for such things in their little universe. He never wondered about his family, about the fact that no one had ever looked for him. He never questioned why Ankou seemed so sure that they needn't go to school, now that they had an adult looking after them. He never wondered what would become of him when he would need to go to college or get a job. It really seemed like they were living in another universe. A magical, dreamlike one. There were no need for real adults, no need for a future, all he had to think about was himself, and how to have some fun.
The few time he felt like questioning things, Ankou answered him before he even found the way to phrase his questions. According to his bestest friend, Harry was magical. It was a bit mind-boggling because, of the two of them, Ankou was surely the best for this role—it really seemed like he could make anything happen. Apparently he was the one to be the hero. He would grow up to be a child of wild magic and would become a hero for the whole magical world because he would be the first in centuries to befriend Death. It all sounded a bit absurd, even for a fairytale, when he thought about it. But when Ankou explained it to him, it all sounded so logical that soon Harry subconsciously accepted it as fact.
So, really, it shouldn't have surprised him that much when, at midnight on his eleventh birthday, a giant came banging on their door—almost taking it off its hinges—and talking about mad things.