A/N: I know there are probably a good number of people seeing this who have A: never heard of Elfen Lied, and/or B: are a bit annoyed at me for writing and posting this instead of working on Rise of the Forsaken. About A: Elfen Lied is perhaps my favorite Anime of all time, and definitely the one with the best story. If you don't mind the excessive blood and gore and mild Anime nudity (no im not a hentai…) then id definitely go check it out, you can find the first episode at least on Youtube. As to B… I have the next chapter of Rise of the Forsaken started, but the plot bunny for this has been keeping me from adding any more til I at least get out one chapter of this… so here I am with the first chapter of my HP/ Elfen Lied x-over: Harry Potter and the Diclonius.
"talking"
'thinking'
SSParceltongueSS
Prologue: A Chance Meeting
Seven-year-old Harry Potter sat in the back seat of his Uncle's car, sobbing to himself silently. 'They're finally doing it,' he thought to himself in despair. 'They're finally sending me to the orphanage like they always threatened.
Life had never been kind to Harry. Orphaned when he was only one, he had been sent to live with his mother's sister, Petunia, and her husband, Vernon Dursley, as well as their whale of a son, Dudley. Since the day he arrived, he was belittled, told how much of a freak he was, and left bereft of love. He had never been called Harry on purpose by his aunt or uncle, who always referred to him as boy or freak. In fact, the only reason he knew his name at all was because of his schoolteachers, who called him by his name in class.
From the time he was old enough to walk he had been tasked with doing all the housework in the Dursley household, and had always lived in the cupboard under the stairs. He tried to just do what they said, because he knew resisting would only lead to his uncle hurting him, on top of the beatings he commonly received from his cousin and his gang of friends. Then there were the other times.
You see, things happened around Harry. Strange things that could not be explained. Like the time that he was being chased by Dudley and somehow ended up on the school roof, or the time when his aunt gave him the worst kind of horrid haircut, but the hair grew back overnight. Each time these things happened, Harry received a hard beating from his uncle, all the while being threatened with being left at an orphanage, where they did horrible things to children, before being locked in his cupboard for the rest of the day.
Recently, Harry had been thanking whatever had decided to watch over him, for the strange things had stopped. For the space of a month and a half, nothing strange happened, and so he received no extra beatings and no threats of abandonment. Then he luck turned on its head.
It had started as a normal enough day, something that made the Dursleys happy as they strived to attain the perfection of normalcy. Then things had gone horrible wrong. Harry was making breakfast like he always did, when Dudley decided to trip him. As Harry fell, his arm brushed the handle of the pan he was using to cook bacon for his uncle, causing it to flip towards him. Just before it hit him however, it stopped, greases, bacon, pan, and all, and floated in mid air right above him. This was bad enough, but Harry's fate had been sealed when the floating breakfast and pan had decided to fly over and hit Harry's uncle as he walked into the kitchen in his suit for work. Before Harry knew what happened, he was being beaten before being shoved into the car, which promptly began to drive.
"Shut up you damned freak!" Harry's Uncle Vernon yelled at him as he drove. "You're getting what all of you and your kind deserve! Left out of the way of decent folk like us!"
Vernon continued his rant as he drove, though Harry tuned most of it out instinctively as he wallowed in self-pity. The drive continued for several hours, during which time Harry began to calm down a bit. By the time two hours had passed he had calmed down enough that he was able to think a bit more rationally about what was going to happen to him, which led him to come to a realization.
Nothing could be worse then where he was coming from, or at least very few things; so maybe being left at the orphanage wasn't a bad thing at all.
The more he thought about that, the calmer Harry became and the more it made sense. It helped that Harry was very smart for your average seven year old At the very least, wherever he was being left would offer a chance at something better, a hope he had never had with his "family". Who knew, maybe he could even take advantage of the clean slate and make a few friends… if they could put up with his freakishness.
Harry sat silently, lost in his thoughts as the car sped along highways before finally coming out into a suburb on the outskirts of a large town. Harry had no idea where he was, except that it was about three hours away from Surrey where the Dursleys lived. Harry watched as Vernon drove the car down a small maze of streets before he finally pulled up in front of an old looking building constructed of brown wood. Vernon stopped the car in front of it, then turned around in his seat and grabbed Harry by his collar with one meaty hand.
"Listen freak. I am going to let you out here now and you are going to walk up to that door. Then I will drive away. When you have lost sight of the car, you are to make your freakish self noticed by the people who run this place and hope they take in a freak like you. Understand?" Harry nodded frantically, very nervous having his uncle's hands on him again in any way so soon after the beating.
Getting out of the car as he was instructed, Harry walked up to the door of the orphanage, wiping his Uncle's spittle that had flown onto his face during uncle's rant off of his face with his sleeve. Before he was even halfway to the door he heard the screeching of tires and turned around to see his uncle's car speeding off into the distance, breaking multiple traffic laws on the way. By the time he reached the door the car was long gone. Taking a deep breath, Harry reached up and knocked on the door.
Ella Rayburn had worked at St. Francis' Orphanage for three years and thoroughly enjoyed her work. Early on in her twenty-seven years of life she had felt called to help the children she tended to notice suffering in the streets. Growing up in a wealthy family had resulted in the expectation that she would either learn to take up business or marry someone of equal status. It had caused an uproar in her family when she had instead opted for a simple life as a social worker.
Her tenure at the orphanage had been relatively uneventful, dealing only with the mundane kind of children everyone did, until three months ago when that… girl showed up. Ella shivered. That girl with the pink hair and those eyes just freaked her out, not to mention the hat she always wore.
Her thoughts were interrupted as she heard a knock on the front door of the orphanage. Banishing thoughts of the disconcerting girl from her head, she went over to the door and opened it. She was not happy with what she saw. Standing on her doorstep was a child that looked around seven. He had black hair and green eyes, but that wasn't what Ella noticed. She was more concerned with the bruises and cuts covering his body.
"Are you in charge of the orphanage?" the boy asked her in a blank voice, as he regarded her with eyes that showed no emotion. She had to suppress a shiver as she nodded to him. Those eyes were the same one that girl had. Why did she get the ones that were freaky?
"Yes dear I am. Were you left here?" Ella asked, doing her best job of acting normal. At the boy's silent nod she continued. "Well let's get you in here and cleaned up a bit. God knows that standing here all day won't help anyone, and you should probably come get a look at your new home.
As she ushered the boy inside and started patching him up while explaining life at the orphanage, she couldn't help but think to herself mournfully. 'Why me?'
Harry remained silent as he was led into the orphanage by the woman who had answered the door. She had introduced herself as Miss Rayburn, the matron of the orphanage. She put up a nice façade, and Harry really didn't have a problem with her, but he could tell that her disconcerted her. He just wrote it off a part of his freakishness and did as he was told.
Before long he had been ushered into what seemed to be a common room of sorts. There were several other children in the room. They had ages that seemed to range from five to around ten, with several groups of boys and girls making play throughout the room or gathered around the lone TV. Miss Rayburn had told him that this was the younger children's playroom and then promptly left.
Very few people in the room had taken the time to notice the newcomer, so Harry was free to observe them for a few moments. They all generally seemed happy and outgoing, though there were the normal childish scuffles that erupted every few minutes. A part of Harry longed to join them, but his "uncle" had beaten his childishness out of him. So he just stood off to the side and watched, until he heard the disturbance coming from the next room.
Having nothing else to do and with his curiosity sparked by whatever was happening, Harry walked through the door at the other end of the room and into a room that seemed to be a cafeteria. What he saw as he walked in shocked him.
Across the room from him were four people. Three of them were older, two boys and a girl, and they were standing around a girl that look to be Harry's age based on size. The three older children were pushing her and calling her names as Harry watched. She bore it all stoically, though there was a faint sheen of tears in her eyes. Harry's eyes widened as he made out some of the insults. "Freak", he heard one call the girl. "Monster", he heard another. "You should go away and not come back", came another.
Harry would normally leave the older children to their bullying, as he knew that if he interrupted they would likely just start in on him as well. But the names they were calling the girl struck to close to home for Harry. Before he knew what he was doing, he had rushed over behind one of the boys and pushed him. The boy stumbled and fell, taking the other boy with him and leaving the older girl speechless for a moment.
The biggest boy, the one Harry had pushed, got up and glared at Harry. "What do you think your doing helping that freak?" he snarled.
Harry, despite his nervousness as his mind caught up with his actions, glared right back at the bully. "Go away." He said in a low voice, while meeting the bully's eyes with his own.
Harry was sure that his defiance would trigger another beating in the long line of beatings he had received over his life. To his surprise however, the boy got a glazed look in his eyes and nodded his head, before silently walking away. He looked at the other two bullies who gave him one fearful look before following after their friend in a hurry. Surprised beyond measure but resolved to think about it later, Harry turned to the girl he had helped.
She had short hair that was pink surprisingly enough. Her eyes were red as she looked up at Harry from where she knelt with distrust. She was short and had cloths on that were closer to Harry's than the other kids in the orphanage as far as state went. Her most distinguishing feature however, was the pair of horns that jutted from her head, shaped almost like cat ears.
The girl looked up at Harry for a moment before asking. "Why did you help me?"
Harry thought for a moment before answering, "I'm not really sure. I just did."
The girl looked away and began searching the floor for something. "So are you going to run away or make fun of me like everyone else now? Cause if you are I don't want to hear it."
Harry was a bit taken aback by the girl's reaction to him, but considered it for a moment before getting down on his knees and beginning to look with her. "No, im not. Now what are you looking for?"
The girl's head whipped around and she stared at him in shock. "You, you mean, your not gunna run away? Your gunna help me?"
"Yes." Was Harry's one word reply.
"But, but why? I mean, I'm a, a… freak." She said, finishing her sentence in a whisper.
Harry stopped searching for a moment and turned to face her. "So am I." He said. He looked of to the side for a moment before reaching under one of the tables and grabbing a ratty looking hat. He held it out to her. "This what you were looking for?"
The girl nodded with a still shocked expression on her face. Taking the hat from Harry she slid it onto her head, making sure it covered up her horns. "Why, why are you a freak?" she asked in a small voice.
"Things happen around me, and I survived the car crash my parents died in when I was one, when my "family" said I shouldn't of." Harry replied, spitting the word family with venom.
The girl nodded, her face losing its shocked expression and regaining a calm look to it, the same one that Harry wore. They knelt there in silence for a few moments before Harry asked her, "What's your name?"
"Lucy." The girl responded. "I don't know if I have a last name. My parents abandoned me a long time ago and I only came here three months ago. What's your name?"
"Harry Potter, though the only reason I know my name's not "freak" or "boy" is because of my teachers at school. My "uncle" left me here today. So… friends?" Harry asked with trepidation.
Lucy considered it for a few long moments, before giving a small smile. "Friends." She agreed.
Harry allowed himself a small smile himself as he got up with his new friend, who was a freak like him. Maybe things here wouldn't be so bad after all.
A week passed at St. Francis' Orphanage, a week that was the best week Harry and Lucy had both respectively had. They were both thought of as freaks by the other children, but they had been avoided since word of Harry's strange effect on the bullies spread. They didn't care about the others though. Who needed them anyway? They had each other, and both of them were happy with that. Alas the happiness would not last, as a meddling old man had finally found his pawn, and had was coming to put his plans back on track.
Harry and Lucy were laughing quietly in the cafeteria alone as they often did, when an old man with a long white beard dressed in a long pink and yellow robe walked in. They fell silent immediately and looked upon the strange man with an expression of distrust.
"Who're you?" Harry asked cautiously.
The man's eyes began to twinkle as he looked at Harry, though that twinkle dimmed somewhat when he looked at Lucy. "Why, Harry my boy, im here to take you back to your relatives. Now, come along."
Harry's eyes had widened when the old man had mentioned him going back to his relatives, but then they narrowed. "No," he said.
"But Harry my boy, surely you must miss them. After all, they are your family!" The old man exclaimed, his twinkling eyes meeting Harry's. Harry felt his resolve waver a bit for a moment, but then Lucy spoke.
"He doesn't want to go with you old man." She said angrily. "No leave him alone and go away."
The old man switched his gaze to Lucy for a moment. "I don't believe I've ad the pleasure Miss…?"
"None of your business old man!" Lucy snapped at him. "Now go away!"
The old man sighed for a moment before pulling out a long stick. "I'm truly sorry it had to come to this." He said with a mournful expression as he pointed it at Harry and Lucy.
"What the hell is that going to do?" Exclaimed Harry. "My friend told you to leave so leave!" he said, looking the old man in the eye.
The man's eyes seemed to glaze over for half a second before he shook his head sharply and refocused his gaze on the two children before him. "Im afraid that won't work on me Harry. Now, lets be off with you."
Harry was shocked that the man hadn't listened to him. Everyone listened to him when he did that! Before he or Lucy, who was just as shocked, had a chance to say anything. The old man shouted "OBLIVATE!" and Harry's world went white.
Albus Dumbledore walked away from number four Privet Drive, satisfied that his plans had been put back in place. He hadn't expected the Dursleys to abandon Harry, or for Harry to learn rudimentary control over his magic. Not to mention the boy's attitude. But it was nothing a few memory charms, a behavioral charm, and a power binder or two couldn't fix. Dumbledore was indeed quite satisfied with how things had turned out. His plans were still in motion. The boy would play his part, and Albus Dumbledore would reap the rewards.
Nothing could stop him now.
Back in St. Francis' Orphanage, Lucy opened her eyes and looked around. She searched the orphanage frantically, trying to find Harry, but he was gone. She asked the Matron where he was, and she asked who she was talking about. After that, Lucy went back to her room, brought the image of the old man to her mind, and screamed in rage.
A/N: Well I hope you all liked it. If any of you want a picture of what Lucy looks like, just tell me and I'll put a link to an AMV where you can see her as both a child and a teenager in my profile. Now, to all of you, my readers, I can only say one thing. Like it? Hate it? Either way, please review it! (P.S: The more reviews I get for this, the quicker I'll get up the next chapter of this and Rise of the Forsaken! ))
Korrag
