Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or HP.
Chapter 1
A small boy with dark raven hair zoomed past an elderly couple and run straight to the shop selling flowers of various colors. He had a pout adorning his pale face as he glared and crossed his arms over his chest, impatiently waiting for his mother to catch up. "Mom! You said we had to hurry up! Why are you walking so slow then?" complained Percy momentarily forgetting about Sally when his sight landed on the baskets of yellow daisies. "Are these sunflowers? Where are the lilies and petoonas?"
Sally chuckled. "No, those are daisies not sunflowers. And Percy, if you're going to meet your aunt you should at least pronounce it correctly." Ever since she told Percy that their relatives from another country invited them for a summer holiday, the boy exploded in excitement eager to leave their apartment and play with his cousins and possibly get to know every one of them. Percy's enthusiasm didn't stop even after telling – in a form of bedtime stories – their names, faces and attitudes. Although she couldn't tell more of Dudley and Harry, it had no effect in lowering his excitement. Her boy was just born with a ball of energy to last him forever!
And Sally understood where this was coming from. She might be the type of mother burning her candle at both ends to provide for her son but would never neglect Percy. There were times seeing Percy in the playground by himself and there other times when few children decided to play with him… Oh who was she kidding, only her neighbor's twin little girls play with him and it is out of sympathy. That cemented it. Together they will travel (no matter how much it costs her) to Surrey. It was high time for both mother and son to treat themselves into a new scenery and away from the Manhattan air.
"Petuna."
"It's Petuni-a."
"Petoooonah." Sally sighed dearly. She looked at her child racing towards another shop, a bakery, forgetting the flowers they were supposed to buy. Maybe by the time they arrived at Privet Drive Percy would get the hang of pronouncing it. "Mom! What does Aunt Tuna like to eat?"
Or not…
"Darling, I think we sho-"Her words died in her throat as her eyes caught on to something massive, black and bad. Panic immediately welled up forcing Sally to hastily rush towards her child as she tried to stay calm. "Sweetheart, it's time to go."
"Are we going to Aunt Tuna's house now?"
What's a hellhound doing here? Sally thought and shook her head as she had more pressing matters to attend. Gathering Percy up on her arms, Sally chose to ignore the question and head to the other direction of the hellhound. In her mind, beneath the clouds of worry, she prayed to the gods – to Poseidon especially for an unnoticed escape. But with the dog's impressive senses and speed, she knew deep down they were in an unfortunate situation.
Let it be known that Sally Jackson was no athlete, neither a strategist. However when it reached down to her child being threatened, it was as if some miracle enhanced her motherly instincts had her went straight to the marketplace. It appeared to be crowded with merchants and consumers arguing for the best product. Exactly what she wanted as smells of other humans and imports greatly surrounded the place. Looking back at the location of the hellhound, Sally weighted her options: blend with the population or stray away to avoid injuring innocent people? Perhaps she should hail a cab seeing the hellhound hasn't found them yet…
"Mommy why is Clifford black and angry?" Percy exclaimed, sounding distressed as Sally glanced to where he pointed.
Her heart must've skipped a beat or two when her eyes caught brown orbs with red bleeding from the enter of its irises.
It growled, saliva bubbling from the corners of its mouth, and barked.
Then someone shouted. The other hellhound she first saw whirled its head, confused at first but ultimately gained senses when its powerful legs bounded on the streets, pounding anyone close by.
Suddenly streams of people rushed in many directions, screaming and running for their lives. Sally too started to ran.
.
Mulciber pursed his lips to hide a grimace as he wandered beside a swarm of muggles bustling to work. He'd rather hole up, took shelter in the nearest abandoned shanty than conceal his being surrounded by people he couldn't bother himself with. But no, it was nowhere near the plan to get himself captured again by those blasted Aurors after escaping Azkaban almost a week ago (that was what Mulciber assumed, his time and date perception had been altered to a point where he doubted himself at counting days) so Lucius thought it best to hide the escapees among crowd of people he hated where the Aurors wouldn't think twice of searching for them after their tracking spell failed.
Paranoia sat in their minds for the longest of time, and while no Aurors found them yet, notice-me-not charms were used at the instant they received wands. Finding Bellatrix and Avery, who Mulciber was sure were at arms length away, became impossible to locate. Instead, his eyes drifted to a dog. At first glance it appeared to be a wrinkled small dog seated atop the windowsill; however, as his eyes gained focus gone were the harmless visage.
What creature could possibly exist that was larger than a hippogriff and deadlier (–looking) than a werewolf, Mulciber though as he scanned the surrounding area if anybody saw the same creature as he does.
He must've been intently looking at the odd entity because the next thing he knew people were fleeing and the dog was trotting along with another of its kind.
"Mulciber! Potter is spotted among the crowd." Avery said, pushing his way forward to where he assumed the Potter brat was and expecting Mulciber to follow, "Rodolphus is in pursuit so are those monstrosities."
"Potter–" There was a crate of roosters thrown at their direction, they dodged but the metal transport muggles love were providing to be a huge bother as they honk, almost hitting Mulciber and everyone around him. "–can't prance around without the Order close by.
"You think we don't know that? Hopefully, they'll be more distracted fighting the dogs than guarding the kid and if they don't see us then our chances of returning to Azkaban are slim." Avery explained. His face gaunt and his eyebrows furrowed as if fighting the stampede of people were more stressful than their runs from the authorities.
Mulciber could see black masses – the dogs – cornering a person. He had no idea who but he had a sneaking suspicion it was their target as he could also see Bellatrix and her messy raven locks. The Lestrange brothers must be nearby. "Over there!" he pointed and his wand begun to lit white. Performing a spell in front of muggles is a big breach of the Statute of Secrecy. But he'd done this act before and he'd do it again just to present the Dark Lord his enemy.
"Serpensortia!" The tip of his wand exploded and a long, black snake came shooting out of it. It lunged, without any hesitation, sinking its venomous fangs into the nearest dog's well-toned leg.
It yelped, and glared its uniquely colored eyes at the snake before sending its paws to crush half of the snake's scaly body and ripping it into shreds with its impressive muzzle. Mulciber thought for a second that perhaps the dog was immune to poisons.
To his right, he heard Avery yell, "Confringo!" at the boxes of vegetables the dog was supposed to step on.
It exploded in flames, sending sharp debris of wood and bright red paste. He wished it was the dog's blood but he knew better… These dogs were creatures of unknown origin and the two death eaters didn't know what could kill them, thus they resorted to testing every spell they could think of. Avery then lashed out another spell, "Incendio."
"The Potter boy is nowhere in sight, Avery, and the other creature is gone. We should leave." Mulciber turned to his fellow death eater, anxious; his senses were in high alert because any time now the Aurors would arrive.
However, pops and cracks (the sounds of apparation) were not what his ears caught.
"Impedimenta!" A bluish-white light flew hitting the dog that should have been roasted by now. The spell did little effect only throwing it back for a few feet, but it did save Mulciber's head from getting mowed.
For a moment, everything was black and he felt cold. He was on his knees in disbelief, his eyes wide and his lips white. A while ago he would have protested that nothing scares Mulciber more than the Dark Lord himself, but the sudden thought of the dog gathering his head with his muzzle, its teeth crushing his neck, gnawing…
…Mulciber shivered. The pureblood failed to notice Bellatrix march up to them, a sneer marring her pale face as she kicked Mulciber. She looked anything but delighted with the situation and here they have the presumption of kidnapping Potter would uplift her (albeit in her own crazy way). In fact, she appeared murderous. Any hints of glee was well-hidden behind there dark irises.
"The boy wasn't Potter." She said. "Get up you trash. We have to leave."
Mulciber and Avery stared the woman, they went to cause ruckus only to learn their aim wasn't what they thought he was?
"Now!" Bellatrix emphasized as she turned around, walking away with long strides unwilling to wait for the other two to follow her.
"How is it possible?" asked Avery, huffing at the wasted opportunity.
"I don't know!"
"Those damned mutts clearly wanted the boy, if he wasn't Potter who is he?"
"I said I don't know!" Bellatrix hissed, "The filthy muggle boy looks like the Potter brat!"
Mulciber, who had grown quiet since his near death experience cut across before Avery could reply, "Why would the dogs go after the boy if he's a muggle. I reckon he is anything but." The three reached a dark alley, abandoned seeing as the city centre exploded in mass panic minutes ago, but two individuals stood silently. Both were wearing non-wizarding clothes, tread bare as if it was repaired with a reparo countless of times, yet the two managed to look presentable.
The smaller one had a pink sock (a portkey) at hand while the other carried a small, sleeping boy onto his arms. It must've been the Potter look-alike, Mulciber frowned, well… the child did have James Potter's infamous birds-nest of a hair.
"That's because he isn't one." Rodolphus said and the three stared back attentively, waiting for an explanation. "He created water out of nothing and pushed his mother away from the killing curse. That kind of underage magic is indeed powerful compared to levitating objects and altering the hair color most children usually do, hence why Rabastan and I decided to bring him along. Dear Bella, I think it's high time for us to have a proper heir."
.
Petunia Dursley is proud to say that her family is perfectly normal. She has a great husband and an amazing baby boy, she lives in a nice house with a beautiful garden, and an hardworking cousin who's blessed like her to have a little baby angel. And when Sally Jackson and her son agreed to come at Little Whinging, she'd gone from overly excited to extremely anxious as her eyes found her little sister's freak of a son arranging the table for lunch.
"Boy!" She called Harry, who flinched at the sudden noise, "Start cleaning yourself. Sally and Percy will be here any minute now."
Her nephew wordlessly scampered away from the dining and Petunia breathed a sigh of frustration. She can't just hide the boy from the Sally as she would ask (naturally) about Lily but she's scared, Harry's freakiness might show when they're staying here. It's bad enough her Dinky Diddydums gets to be exposed.
The doorbell rang, and Petunia straightened, dusting the dirt off her skirt, pressed her palms against her hair to tidy it up. She got on her feet and pulled the door open.
"Sally! How long si–" Her words were cut at the sight of her cousin's wavy, brown hair stained with red. There's a long cut on her forehead while her arms are covered with gashes.
"Petunia…" Sally started, her voice wavering as if she's trying to hold back a sob. "Per-Percy's taken! And the-the police! They're useless!"
Petunia gasped, when did it happen? How did it happen? She has many questions in her mind waiting to be answered but looking at Sally, who lost all her composure at the name of her son, shake and cry Petunia wisely kept her mouth shut and allowed her cousin inside.
Perhaps a cup of tea or two might calm her down to tell her story.
.
Hello there. I am here with a new story I probably wouldn't finish because I'm a lazy bastard but I decided to post it anyway. Another but, is that, it's summer! The boredom would probably make me go crazy enough to update my stories (including this, I think).
I originally intended this to be a switch where Percy gets adopted by the Lestrange and Harry ends up in Manhattan. But I decided against it, ehh.
Clarifications! (1) I don't know if anyone's OOC or not because it's been a long time since I've read the PJO and HP books (2) My grammar is not good and I don't give it enough effort to correct it so I'm sorry in advance. (3) I assumed PJO hellhounds are like those from Teen Wolf – immune to fire. (4) From what I've seen in the HP movies, Death Eaters don't use Avada Kedavra spell per spell and I thought that maybe it needs uh more concentration for it to be used which makes it a bit hard.
