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Harry was seven when it happened.
He had been existing quietly in his cupboard, trying to block out the sounds of merriment and the scents of the Christmas feast that was going on just beyond the grate, in the kitchen. Never mind that he had helped Aunt Petunia make most of the meal, most of his daily nutrition came in the form of protein bars and mineral-enriched water.
Harry had been lying on his belly, trying to block out the gaiety but still enjoy the slight breeze that stirred the heavy air inside his paltry little room via the pathetic little air-grate when he had accidentally knocked his head against the cupboard doorframe and opened his eyes as a result.
Harry had stared at the happily-eating-leftovers form of Ripper the Rotten with a peculiar sort of envy, despite his deep seeded loathing of the vicious little cretin.
From deep within him Harry wished that he could be somewhere-anywhere- that he could be treated even half as nicely as Ripper. Harry tried to be good but no matter how hard he tried or how much effort he put forth he was always found wanting. Harry cried pathetic, jagged little sobs that made him feel worse instead of better- wasn't Aunt Petunia's shows always saying that crying 'let the feelings go'?- while he curled up into a tight little ball and whimpered.
I just want one friend!
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Harry was so lost inside his own mind that he never saw the rippling of his skin nor did he feel the eerie wind that began to flow through the cupboard. Then again, even if he had been able to feel the wind, there would not have been much done for it. Harry was too far gone, too lost in his own mind and subconsciously reaching for the part of him that had been sealed away.
A Healer would have called it 'Critical Core Overload'. In Harry's case, the result of a child's magical core being suppressed too tightly and therefore unable to bleed off the excess magic in an uncontrolled burst of 'accidental' magic. There was a reason why 'Baby Binds' were supposed to be checked every year by a certified Pediatric Healer.
The cores of children were elastic, slowly evolving into the metaphysical spherical basin that would safely house their magic. Truthfully it was why children began formal magical education at eleven- because ten was the age that the child's magical core grew rigid enough that successive use of magic would not negatively impact it. Using successive magic prior to that point could cause the core to distort. A Distorted Core would cause the amount of magical power available to the young magical to sharply decline, up to and including being entirely unable to perform any of the magical disciplines, despite actively possessing magic.
It was for that reason that 'Baby Binds' were commonly used as a way to prevent children from harming themselves accidentally. On the night that he had left young Harry with the very magic-phobic Petunia, the Headmaster- in an attempt to ease little Harry's transition into his new life- had bound the boy's unstable magic further.
After all, the poor lad had been through a very emotionally challenging event and children tended to be far more emotive than rational. Magic responded much more strongly to emotion and little Harry's magic was quite potent.
(There was also the somewhat harsher thought of wanting little Harry to be utterly helpless so that the lad would later appreciate the power at his fingertips much more deeply. Albus had always thought that that was where Tom had gone so wrong- finding his magic early and using it to terrorize the staff and other children unchecked until Albus had arrived with the lad's Hogwart's letter. It was part of the reason why Albus had always denied the lad's requests to stay over during the summer- the lad needed to appreciate his power instead of using it to harm others! A few summers unable to use his magic due to the Ministry Sensors were just the thing! Unfortunately even those lessons could not undo all of the early damage young Tom had done to himself and the lad had never absorbed the lesson Albus had been so patiently trying to teach him.)
However, for all that he was an incredibly learned and wise man, a Pediatric Healer Headmaster Albus Dumbledore was most certainly not. Furthermore he was the head of two governing bodies as well as the Headmaster of the only school in all of England, Scotland, and Wales. So he could be forgiven for forgetting that seven- being a magically important number- was a year in which all children went through a great deal of growth.
Emotionally agitated, hungry, and subtly reaching for a part of him that should be there but wasn't, Harry's magical core passed the critical stage and went into meltdown.
The Detectives called it a gas line failure, ignited by the holiday candles.
Either way, Number Four, Privet Drive, went up in quite the blaze of glory.
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Cloud Strife grunted in discomfort as the sharp Nibel winter winds stung at his eyes and tugged harshly at his clothes.
The blond boy swiped angrily at his eyes as he berated himself for ever entertaining the thought that the other kids had wanted to play with him. He had been so excited, though, to be included in the Midwinter Festival's game of hide-and-seek that he had ignored all the warning signs. Cloud felt especially stupid when he thought back to the look Tifa had been giving him, from her place in the center of the gathered crowd of Nibelheim youngsters. His neighbor was always a bit nicer to him than the others, and the fact that she had been ashamed of something should have been a clue as obvious as Mt Nibel itself.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! He repeated over and over to himself as he carefully checked the stars- had there always been that many of them?- and tried to plot out a course for home. It was pretty dark now and Ma had no business being out in this type of weather- she was sick enough as it was!
Even Cloud knew that the men of the village would never mount a search party for him.
New tears- different ones- pricked his eyes as the eerie call of a hunting pack of Nibel Wolves pierced the air. Cloud, like every other mountain child, had grown up on stories about the wolves of Nibel and their hunting prowess.
A loud crack sounded from nearby and Cloud whirled around to face it, but just as he did so his eyes caught on the gleaming eyes of a too-close predator. Cloud yelped and stumbled backwards, his inattention to his surroundings causing him to trip. Despite his floundering, he lost his balance and fell backwards rather hard. Cloud's poor head bashed against a rock as an unfortunate result, nearly knocking him out.
I wish I had a friend.
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Harry shook his head, curious about his new surroundings. He could hear things he had never noticed before! And he could see! No more squiggles! Harry squinted into the dark night- and when had he gotten outside and where exactly was he?- with his new and improved eyes and saw a large dog-like creature leap towards a child that seemed to be about Harry's age who was lying on the ground, unmoving.
Harry did not stop to think, he just reacted.
A single bound saw him knocking into the other animal and rolling several times in the snow. The dog-like creature bared very sharp, very scary looking teeth at him, but Harry was too absorbed in the strange new instincts telling him to bite here and swipe there to notice. It took a few minutes, but eventually the dog-like- wolf?- seemed to decide that retreat was the better option and took off. Harry turned around and padded over to the kid- who was still lying on his back in the snow, staring at Harry with a wide-eyed expression of alarm.
Harry sat down next to the kid and canted his head to the side curiously as the wary child very slowly sat up and looked at Harry with a great deal of apprehension.
Like how Harry usually looked at Ripper the Rotten.
Harry did not like that look. Not at all! So, he did what felt natural- he reached out and licked the blond's cheek.
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Cloud was very, very confused.
One minute he had been certain that he was Nibel Wolf chow and the next there was a white wolf with very intelligent green eyes sitting next to him.
Then the new fold licked him! Licked him!
"Uh, thanks?" Cloud said uncertainly after the wolf reached out and licked his cheek, causing the animal to bare its sharp teeth at him. And oh Fenrir he was going to die-
Then the wolf looked down at its own two front paws. After a long moment of staring, the wolf then proceeded to do the strangest little dance-hop-thing Cloud had ever seen; tripping over its own feet after it accidentally stepped on its own tail with a panicked yip. The wolf laid there in the snow sprawled out half on its side, for a long moment giving off the aura of being entirely confused. Then- in front of Cloud's very own eyes!- its form blurred and morphed until it was that of a small child with messy dark hair, green eyes, and the dorkiest glasses Cloud have ever seen.
"For the love of the mountain!" Cloud yelped in alarm as he scrambled back away, feeling a bit bad when the other boy's face scrunched up in distress and disappointment.
"Sorry." The other said in a language that Cloud did not understand, but he was sure his Ma would. She had been a librarian back before she had married his Da.
What mattered most to Cloud was that the boy was looking as depressed as Cloud felt. "Well." Cloud said after a long moment of nervous, awkward shuffling on both their parts. "Do you got any family? People who are lookin' for ya?"
The boy canted his head to the side in an uncanny likeness to the white wolf had done- and yes, Cloud knew that the boy and the wolf were one in the same, but he could only deal with so many things at once- and frowned heavily. Then the green eyes roamed apathetically over the foliage before the boy looked back at Cloud and shrugged.
"Well." Cloud said again, for lack of anything better to say really. "We need to get inside, there's a storm comin'." Cloud took a long, deep breath and reached a hand out towards the boy, feeling gratified when his palm touched only smooth, though extremely cold flesh. "Come on." Cloud said tugging the other along with him as he tried to divine his way back home- and to Ma, who should be able to make sense of things. "Let's mosey."
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Cloud's mother had merely raised an eyebrow at his story before she looked over at the newly clothed- honestly, the child had been in rags!- and washed child who was currently eating some leftover stew as if he had not had a decent meal in ages. "Well." She said at length, mulling over the stories she had heard or read over the course of her life. "It was said that the Cetra could shape-shift like that. As a matter of fact, Fenrir was said to have had a human form as well as his wolf one. I think that Leviathan was said to have a half-human form he could shift into as well."
"Wow." Cloud muttered, sneaking a glance at the curiously silent child, who had finished the stew and was now glancing up at the two Strife's hesitantly through his dark bangs.
The blonde woman shrugged her shoulders and smiled warmly at her son. "Shifters are known for their courage and their loyalty. Though I would hazard that this one was born human and can shift into a beast, given that he can speak." She turned her gaze to the other child and smiled warmly. "More?" She asked kindly as she pointed to the bowl.
The boy's brows furrowed and he grunted lightly. "Thank you." He said slowly. "It was good."
"Ah." Claudia said in an approximation of the same language, though her Nibel brogue was thick. "Are you full?"
The boy nodded his head quickly, a smile taking over his face that made him seem much younger. "Yes! Thank you!" The boy bit his lip anxiously and asked, clearly reluctantly. "Do you know how I can get back to Surrey?"
It was Claudia's turn to be confused. "I'm afraid I've never heard of that place." She gave the boy another quick glance-over and nodded decisively to herself. The people who had had the boy had apparently been neglecting him, and shifters were supposedly signs of good fortune and friends whose devotion surpassed the bonds of life and death. "Well, let's get you to bed."
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Verändern had been in Nibelheim for a little under three years when Claudia Strife passed away.
The green-eyed boy clung to Cloud and wept bitterly for the loss of the only mother he had ever known. It had been Claudia who had named him- the woman refusing to believe that his name was 'hairy' no matter how many times Harry spelled it for her in clumsy, childish block letters- and had told him all the stories about the Cetra and the shifters.
Cloud heard the door and nudged Verä lightly, causing the other to immediately shift into the form of a Nibel Wolf nearly effortlessly. No one in Nibelheim knew that the wolf that trotted faithfully after Cloud Strife and defended him viciously was actually a boy about two years younger than the young Strife child.
By now Harry had gotten proficient enough at shifting that he could transform into just about any animal that he could properly visualize, but he especially loved his wolf forms. They had found that Harry couldn't change his gender, for all that he could manipulate everything else, and if an animal was too simple-minded it made it hard for Harry to shift back. Something about nearly getting lost in the animal's instincts. The one time Harry had tried to shift into a dragon he ended up suck as a dragon youngling for a whopping forty-eight hours, so he had shied away from overly large animals ever since.
At any rate, Harry was the Strife family secret, and with the passing of Claudia, both boys intended to keep it that way.
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Harry- who was in his wolf form and therefore carrying most of their supplies; as anything attached to him that was not human disappeared into the ether until he transformed back into Harry- and Cloud paused and took one last, long look at Nibelheim.
Nibelheim was home, the place where they had found each other, but there was no one in the town who would hire Cloud. The house would be taken care of by the man who was renting it- Master Zangan- but the boys needed to learn trades or accrue skills that would enable them to support themselves.
Neither one of them needed to mention that they were positively terrified. But Nibelheim was indifferent to their ages- Cloud being twelve to Harry's ten- and if they did not at least try to find a way to make a living they would lose the only home that either of them had ever known.
"Well, Verä." Cloud said in Harry's English- the Earth-born wizard having taught the blond boy and Claudia all he knew about the language. "Let's go make our own fortunes." Cloud grinned down at his companion. "After all, you're supposed to be a sign of good fortune."
Harry huffed a breathy, wolfish laugh and tried to knock Cloud over with his fluffy tail.
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