Introductory A/N
Hey, guys. I, uh... yeah, I was browsing the Internet looking for Slender Man/Harry Potter crossovers when I saw this challenge, 'Harry Potter and the Slender Man.' Uh, here's a basic summary:
REQUIRED
-Harry's first sighting of Slender Man is his first day of primary school.
-Slender Man decides he likes Harry, and kills the Dursleys (and three other abusive foster families) when they injure him.
-Slender Man takes a sort of 'guardian' role in Harry's life, in addition to stalking him as normal.
-Slender Man DOES NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES have anything to do with Voldemort.
OPTIONAL
-The Quibbler has a regular column about the Slender Man; like usual, people take it to be more of Xeno Lovegood's usual nonsense, moreso then usual thanks to most wizards and witches refusing to believe in magical (or whatever) creatures that are invisible even to them.
-Snape is also someone who can see the Slender Man, through, perhaps, a brief stalking case in his childhood.
ETC.
Let's begin, now, then, I guess...
Oh, one last thing. Slender Man will always be referred to as Him, It or Slender Man, or another one of his names. All personal pronouns will have a capitalized H to distinguish him, outside of Author's Notes.
DISCLAIMER
If you recognize it, I don't own it. Chances are, if you don't recognize it (Slender Man being mostly an Internet thing and all) it's still probably not mine.
PROLOGUE
Slender Man
The first time Harry Potter saw Him, he thought He was a teacher he hadn't met yet. Thinking nothing of it, he turned away and continued playing with the few children who were nice to him. He'd find out who He was in time, he figured. He had other things on his mind, such as the fact he had a name. The Dursleys, nasty as they may have been, were at least willing to keep him inside until his 'freakishness' was less likely to pop out out of nowhere.
It hadn't helped, but it certainly had helped them keep his own name from him. 'Harry Potter' was a nice name.
As his back was turned, he didn't notice Him disappearing behind a tree with a young child by the name of Anthony Lewis.
"Boy! You've been using your- your freakishness to be 'better' then Dudley at school, have you?!"
Harry didn't know how to react. "Uh... I... wha...?"
Uncle Vernon took that as a firm Yes. Harry, however, was more concerned about the man in the window. It looked like His back was turned to him... but they were on the second floor...
"Well, then, we're going to have to teach you normal learning!" And with that, he dragged Harry to the bedroom, grabbed his spare belt specially reserved for this (he didn't want any of that freakish shit on his other belt) and, using it like a whip, proceeded to all but torture Harry for several hours.
Harry still couldn't get his mind off of the man in the window. He was so deep in thought that he could hardly feel the blows.
No face.
DURSLEY FAMILY FOUND DEAD IN HOME!
Child abusers? Unknown boy found in cupboard; claims to be Dursley nephew
Daniel Richards
SIX YEARS LATER
Number Four, Privet Drive
A sigh. A groan. Some other type of moan, perhaps, escaped Harry's mouth. This was the third time he'd been sent back to Privet Orphanage - that was what the house had been converted to, in no small part thanks to the Dursley's surprising amount of money stored in the bank, or so he had been told. He didn't understand it as well as most, but he was a child. That was natural.
He had been told that the Dursleys - and the Oaks, the Woods and the Birches - had been doing something very bad. Child abuse, they said. Illegal. Every time they died, there was proof they had been doing something... bad to him. Hit him. Yelled at him. Anything. And every time, the family was completely wiped out. The entire family tree. Even the ones locked up in prison and asylums were dead. No one knew what to make of it.
Some of the more religious people theorized he had a particularly violent Guardian Angel, or some sort of Guardian Demon. Harry knew precisely what was doing it all, and honestly wished It would stop. It scared him. He had once briefly entertained the idea of killing himself, but didn't. Something stopped him. Every time.
"Harry! Letter for you," said the postman. They had gotten to know eachother a bit - his name was John, a rather ordinary man with a dull and uninteresting life. But they were friends.
"Letter for me? From who?"
"Dunno, says something about a school." John tossed him the letter. He caught it in midair - he'd always had good reflexes and a keen eye, both of which were kept exercised by the tall man's sudden appearances every now and then. Eyes more then reflexes, as He rarely gave him a reason to run.
The letter read 'HOGWARTS, SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY.' Harry snorted. Prank letter. But how did they know his exact address? They knew where he slept, even- surely, the tall man wasn't working for them in some way?
He caught a glimpse of a pale, blank head shaking side-to-side in his periphery vision. But when he turned to look, He was gone.
And so was John, too.
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
-H.P. Lovecraft