Preemptive
The Macdonald triad is a trio of qualities in childhood that some psychologists believe, when paired together, are predictive signs of a serial violent character with homicidal and/or sexual predatory habits. These three qualities include bed-wetting past the age of five, fire-setting, and cruelty to animals.
Lily yawned, stuffing the bundle of bed sheets and blankets inside of the washer. It wasn't a muggle thing, but an expensive wooden box enchanted to clean then dry the clothes inside. The handles and buttons were small, meant obviously for House Elves and not human fingers. Thankfully, Lily's fingers were slim. She closed the door and pressed the shiny white button that activated the enchantments. Pressing her hand over the box, she could feel the movement inside as the sheets were washed.
Her son, Harry, was a chronic bed-wetter. Nothing she couldn't handle, but the poor boy was always so ashamed whenever he woke up in the morning with a wet bed. Lily tried not to tell James, knowing the wizard would worry. The help books she bought at Flourish & Blotts promised bed-wetting would stop after a certain age, the best thing to do was ensure that the child wasn't embarrassed. She did her best, but her poor boy always looked ready to cry whenever he told her he had wet the bed, again.
"Mummy?" Harry peaked into the small laundry room. He looked like he wanted to ask a question.
"I'll make your bed for you, sweetie." Lily said, guessing what he was going to say. "Go to the kitchen and eat breakfast with your dad."
"'kay." Harry mumbled, looking down at his feet and shuffling away.
'My poor boy,' Lily thought. 'Maybe Severus knows about a potion that might help? Oh, should I ask him? Can't let Harry know I asked him about something like that.' She picked up a basket full of her husband's robes, neatly folded, and walked out of the laundry room.
Harry was easy to potty train when he was younger. He was walking by the time he was nine months old, after all. Early bloomer in many other things, from talking to eating on his own. She had him going to the bathroom by himself by the time he was two. The biggest worry was making sure he couldn't fall inside, he was so tiny then and still is. Bed-wetting had continued to haunt him, though. He wet the bed at least once every week normally, sometimes near daily. It didn't seem to coincide with any nightmares, Harry never mentioned any bad dreams. Lily just wished she knew the cause so she could crush it. Her son didn't deserve whatever curse was following him around.
She hoped it wasn't an actual curse.
Lily walked up the stairs. She could hear James teasing Harry for taking ten pancakes for himself, "Think you'll be able to finish that without becoming a balloon?" "Yeah!" And she smiled. Once upon a time, she hadn't ever thought she'd be where she is now. A housewife married to James Potter with a son, spending more time cooking and cleaning and shopping than reading and studying magic. As talented of a witch she was, it felt so much more fulfilled to be a good wife and mother. She could only imagine her mother's fury if she knew Lily had become just another homemaker.
After placing all of James' robes inside of his dresser and putting the basket back in the laundry room, Lily joined her family in the kitchen.
James was chanting Harry on. "Come on! You've only eaten three!"
Harry groaned and stuffed his fork, loaded with two pieces of his pancakes, into his mouth.
"Merlin's sake, James, don't encourage him to overeat." Lily scolded.
"He's too skinny anyways." James dismissed.
Preemptive
Harry ran the match against the side of the table until the tip lit on fire. He dunked the stick inside of the candle jar and lit the wick. Pulling the matchstick out, he stared at the flame moving down, devouring the nearly-white wood. He blew it out just before it reached his fingers at the bottom.
"Thank you, hun." His mum kissed the top of his head. "Go throw the match away, and put the box back in the drawer for me." She said.
"Yes mummy." Harry said. He picked up the matchbox and skipped into the kitchen. He threw the matchstick into the trashcan and bounced over to the drawer closes to the sink, pulling out and dropping the box inside.
He hesitated.
Then, Harry took the box and pushed it open. He took a handful of matches and shoved them into his pocket, quickly closing the matchbox and throwing it back inside of the drawer.
"Harry, I need your help with the ornaments!" His mum yelled from the living room.
He slammed the drawer shut and raced back to her, the matchsticks quietly moving against each other.
Preemptive
Harry bolted out of the front door, hearing his mother call "Be back for lunch!" Behind him. He laughed to himself and jumped over a small puddle, stopping just for a second to drag his foot back and kick pebbles and dirt into the water. He returned to his fierce run.
Every now and then, his mum would let him outside without any supervision. It was rare, but sometimes she did. He liked it when he was allowed out by himself. He always felt so smothered by his family's constant, protective presence around him. Their hearts were in the right places, but he hated it. Other children weren't so guarded, other children got to play outside all the time. Not that he liked other children, they tended to be very annoying, but he hated feeling so abnormal.
He also had a secret hobby he participated in when he was set loose on Godric's Hollow, all on his own.
Harry entered the village cemetery, shoes pushing into wet dirt. It had rained all night, and though the summer heat had sucked much of the wetness, the ground tended to be soft and mushy. In the air was the distinct smell of fresh mold and polluted rainwater.
Walking deeper into the cemetery, the noise of the waking village became muffled and distant. This was his favorite place in the entire village. Stray cats liked to sleep around statues where it tended to be dry or in the weathered tombs whose openings had just large enough cracks for tiny to medium-sized creatures to sneak in.
In the farthest spot from the entrance, there was an old tree. Its leaves never fell, even in the winter, and the trunk was as thick as three Harry's. Its branches stretched over an old tomb, a statue of an angel, and three different intricately carved headstones. Buried by the base of the tree was a simple metal box Harry had bought when he was seven from a thrift store in the village. Inside of the box contained an assortment of tools he's collected over time; knives, different sized hammers, large shards of glass, scalpels, and the sorts.
He likes to 'hunt' the creatures around the cemetery and use his tools to toy with them.
Harry pulled the gardening shovel from the tiny hole in the side of the tree trunk, and got to work pulling the box out from the ground.
The dirt had been packed in tighter by the rain, but its wetness made it easy to dig it out. In no time, there was a small pile of mud and roots and the occasional rock, and a elbow-length hole. Harry brushed mud off of his metal box with his hands, wiping them off on his pants.
He pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked the box, popping open the lid and revealing his tools.
"I'll use you." Harry said, pulling out a small cleaver. He closed the box and rest it back inside of its hole, burying it once again. He was very cautious. He'd almost been caught a few times and he figured he'd be in a lot more trouble if someone saw the box.
Finding an animal to play with wasn't very hard. Harry figured it must be his magic that made them freeze when he saw one, because they never ran away from him. They never fought back either, except for the occasional, very stubborn cat.
It took him about ten minutes to find a fat, black cat sleeping on top of a headstone.
Harry grabbed the back of its neck and settled it against his chest, carrying it back to the tree. The cat meowed angrily, but rested without much movement in his arms. He scratched behind its ears.
He suddenly remembered the family cat. To his mum and dad, the cat had run away. In truth, it had been the first animal he decided to play with. He hadn't meant to kill her, though. He did love the cat very much, but he threw it too hard against the wall and it died. It was very sad. He buried her in a special place at the cemetery, her grave marked by a heavy stone.
Harry got back to the tree and placed the cat down. He pulled out its right leg and forced it flat against the ground. "This'll hurt." He cheerfully warned and raised the cleaver, bringing it down with as much force as he could down. He severed the paw.
The cat yowled but didn't move. Harry removed each of the paws, careful to make sure he didn't get any blood on his clothes. Instead, it all pooled underneath the cat. Harry then cut off its trail, then slammed the cleaver down over and over again until its stomach was split open, guts spilling out like the insides of a piñata. He dropped the cleaver and dug through the the innards, pulling them out to reach deeper inside of the cat. He found its ribs and cracked one off, placing it delicately to the side.
He got home just after noon.
Preemptive
Lily walked inside of her son's room, carrying a small basket of cleaned clothes. She smiled at the neatly made bed and set to putting the clothes away inside of his dresser.
Harry was only nine years old, but he hated it when she came inside of his room. He tried very hard to be independent, insisting on putting his own clothes away and sometimes even doing his own laundry. He had stopped wetting the bed when he was eight, though every now and then he did. It wasn't as bad it was just a few years ago, though. She assumed it was from his chronic bed-wetting that he had the desire to prove he wasn't just a kid.
But he was out, playing in the village. He wasn't there to stop her from entering his room, from putting the dirty clothes he left in the laundry room that morning away. Lily hated keeping him inside so often, the boy needed to play with other kids his age. She was just so scared a Death Eater attack might occur and her son would be hurt. Lately, the Dark Lord's attention has been on Spain. She could trust that her son would be safe on his own, knowing how unlikely it was for an attack to happen.
She set the basket on his bed and pulled out an armful of shirts. She walked over to his dresser and pulled out the bottom drawer, where she remembered his shirts were at.
To her surprise, there wasn't a single shirt inside. Instead, there was an assortment of boxes and random objects.
Rocks, broken chunks of stone, tiny knives she wondered where he could've gotten from. Random cubes and rectangular containers, too, with insides that rattled together when he opened the drawer.
"Boys." She rolled her eyes. She should probably take the knives away, but her son was a cautious boy. She bet there were plenty of boys who collected dangerous things, trying to be manly.
However, she was curious was inside of the boxes.
Lily set the shirts down next to her and reached out to one of the boxes, a cube-shaped thing. She pulled off the top with ease.
When she looked inside, her heart stuttered.
Little teeth, some sharp others dull, looking as though they'd been pulled out of an animal's mouth. Dried blood on some of them, but most were clean and oddly white as though they'd been bleached.
She placed her hand over her mouth, dropping the box. The teeth spilled over the inside of the drawer.
Lily had to talk to someone.
Notes:
I feel like I might continue this at some point, but I'm not entirely sure. Basically, Harry is a born little sociopath. Lovely, ain't it? All the little warning signs he might grow up to be a serial killer or a Dark wizard, or both. Animal cruelty, bed-wetting past the age of five, and strong fascination towards fire. He also collects trophies from the animals he kills. Bones, like teeth and bits of rib, mostly. Ain't he a sweetheart? At least he cared about the family cat!