He didn't remember much of the last few years. What he did remember though, he wished he didn't.
His uncle had had to go on a business trip to Japan, and had decided to turn it into a family vacation, and had also grudgingly taken Harry along as well. Harry had been so excited; it would be his first time out of Private Drive, let alone the country.
It had been great, while it lasted. And like most things in Harry's life, it didn't last very long.
His uncle had come back to the hotel in a rage when the meeting he had been at didn't go very well, and had decided to take it out on Harry. It's not that Harry wasn't used to being beaten by his uncle when his aunt and cousin were away, which they were at the time, but he hadn't been expecting it, and had cried out when his uncle sent him sprawling to the floor. His first mistake.
His second was trying to get back up, which only managed to infuriate his uncle even more. And his third mistake was trying to apologize when he was sent flying across the room. The beating lasted longer then normal and when his uncle finally finished raining down punches and kicks upon him, he was barely lucid. When the large man came back and lifted Harry up by his hair, Harry didn't make a sound, but when the flash of metal in front of his face finally registered in his semi-conscious mind, it was already to late. Pain exploded though him as the kitchen knife was plunged deep into his stomach, but he couldn't even scream past the large hand over his mouth, not even when the blade cut open his pale throat with a quick slash. When he was finally thrown onto the floor, he couldn't make a sound, let alone move, he could only watch in morbid fascination as his bright life pooled onto the hardwood around him. He felt a cool calmness wash over him as darkness collected at the corners of his vision, before swiftly pulling him under. And just like that, Harry Potter quietly died on the floor of a hotel room, murdered by his own uncle.
When he next woke up, the room was empty of all traces of his relatives, he would later find out that his uncle was never caught or charged with his death and that people thought that the room he was in was haunted. He never knew why people thought it was haunted, but he guessed someone must have heard him crying over the eight years he stayed in 'his' room. In the time he stayed at the hotel being the 'Sunny Ridge Ghost', he found he could only go a certain distance from his room and that he was not able to leave the building's grounds at all. The chain over his heart that connected him to the hotel was ever present, and no matter what he did, he could never get it off.
One day he heard this terribly screeching, that none of the living people seemed to hear, and when it finally stopped and he unplugged his ears he found a giant monster, with a gapping hole in it's chest and a white bone-mask covering it's face, crouching not twenty feet away from him. At first he'd been too terrified to move, but after a couple of seconds of the monster just sniffing the air Harry relaxed slightly, maybe it couldn't see him? That theory was thrown out the window as the creature lunged towards him with a bone-chilling scream. He shouted and curled in on himself, his arms covering his face, and wished the creature would just stop! Silence. After a minute of quiet, Harry pulled down his arms and saw the monster crouching in front of his again, but this time right in his face. It sniffed him once more before screeching and jumping backwards into a black portal that appeared behind it.
Over the next while he found that the monsters, which he dutifully dubbed 'Screamers', came around his hotel often, and that no one except him noticed that they were there. They didn't do much when they came by, they usually just sat around, and acted as if they were basking in the sun and waiting for something. At first he felt tired when they were near, which confused him greatly, but after a while he felt wanted, important, brave, almost like he guessed a commander would feel with his people ready to do what ever he told them to without a moments hesitation. The feelings were addicting and he had to occasionally remind himself that he couldn't become dependent on these monsters, but a little voice in the back of his head countered every time with ' they were his soldiers, they should do what he wants, right?' But he didn't listen to that voice, he always pushed it to the back of his thoughts, he didn't want to know what the Screamers were waiting for.
He didn't want to know what nightmare could tame such monsters.
He didn't even want to think about it, it gave him shivers, of what he didn't know.
And the little voice always seemed to laugh at that.
And that's when he met 'them'.
The Soul Reapers.