Ten year old Harry Potter awoke to the sound of his cousin Dudley's earth shaking footsteps jarring the cupboard that he had been forced to sleep in. the little boy tried to ignore the sound but the fact that everything was being shaken erratically didn't allow that, so with a sigh he sat up and reached for the light bulb that was the only source of light that he had in his (small though it was) domain.
As he reached to touch the light bulb Dudley decided that it would be a good idea to make sure that his freak of a cousin was awake to make his breakfast so he jumped on the stairs with all his might. The sudden action of the obese Dursely child jumping harshly right above the spot where Harry was reaching for the light bulb caused his to jump as he cut it on.
He smashed his head violently into the bulb which was coursing with energy in the form of electricity, and all of that energy was transferred into Harry in the form of an impossibly strong shock. In an instant all of the muscles, tissues, organs, and other parts of Harry's small body were fried. He began to spasm uncontrollably as more and more energy from the open circuit flew through his body.
The cupboard was filled with the smell of burnt flesh and hair, and the sound of a body flailing around madly. Vernon Dursely was the first to realize that something was wrong. He had been about to bang on the cupboard and yell at the boy to get up and fix breakfast, but the smell coming from that small "room" cut those thoughts short.
Vernon had never liked the little freak as he had called Harry, but he was deathly afraid of what those wizards would do to him and his family if the boy were to die, so with speed that even he didn't know he possessed Vernon unlocked the cupboard. He almost went sick at the sight before him. The boy's skin was charred black, his hair was gone, and he was still thrashing around.
Luckily the fuse to the bulb had blown and there was no more electricity coming through. Vernon gently took the boy into his arms momentarily wrinkling his nose at the smell. Petunia came into the hallway and shrieked at the sight. She hadn't thought a person could survive something that could char them black, but she could tell by the twitching that the boy was still alive if barely.
"Vernon what the hell happened?" Petunia hissed while staring at the grossly disfigured body of her nephew.
"I don't know what happened, but we need to get someone to help the boy now!" Vernon was bristling with a mixture of abject horror and concern. He needed the boy to live for the sake of his family.
Petunia only nodded before rushing over to the phone. She picked it up and was about to call the hospital, but then she thought about the injuries that the boy was suffering. There was a good chance that the operation that they would have to perform would not be able to save the boy's life, but she knew that the wizards would.
Quickly Petunia dropped the phone and ran upstairs to her bedroom. Once inside she went to the closet and began to root around until she found a small box. Opening it she revealed the note that they had been given regarding Harry all those years ago, alongside that was a small pouch filled with something. She grabbed the pouch and rushed back downstairs, but she didn't stop in the hallway where Vernon was still cradling the near corpse that was her nephew. Instead she went into the living room and stopped in front of the fireplace. She then opened the small pouch and took a pinch of what was in it (a green powder) before shouting "Headmaster's Office Hogwarts" and throwing the pinch of powder in the flames which sparked up and turned a dazzling shade of emerald green.
She dropped the pouch with the powder in it and stuck her head in the green flames, and she was shocked when she found herself looking around an office study with a old man who had a very long beard tucked into his belt, but she was thankful at the same time because she knew that the man had to be Albus Dumbledore the man who was going to save the boy.
"Harry needs medical attention." She shrieked out startling the old man whose eyes shot straight to the face in the flames. His face was deathly pale, but he gave a nod before he pulled out a long stick that she was sure was his wand before shouting "Expecto Patronum". She watched in awe as a bird made of silvery light burst forth and flew off.
"Thank you for the warning Petunia, but could you please move so that I may come to asses the situation?" she was a bit out of it after the show of magic, but that had broken her from her musings. She nodded and moved her head from the fireplace, and the flames faded from their emerald color only to reignite as Albus Dumbledore along with a woman that was dressed in a red dress with a white apron and a white cap over her head. She had curly blonde hair and blue eyes.
The woman went straight to Vernon who had entered the living room still carrying Harry. "Once again thank you for contacting us so quickly. I am sure that my colleague Madam Pomfrey will be able to attend to your nephew, but could you tell me exactly what happened?"
Dumbledore's blue eyes were twinkling, and he was using his immense skills in legillimency to pour through her memories. He knew that they abused the boy. His scanners told him that the boy was malnourished, but he knew that they never beat the boy so it wasn't their doing.
"He was in the cupboard under the stairs getting something, and then we heard thrashing and smelled burning flesh and hair. That's all we know."
Dumbledore nodded at this. He could tell that she hadn't lied to him exactly, but he knew that she had omitted something, but that wasn't important. What was important was the boy. He had to be healed.
"Headmaster!" the voice of Madam Pomfrey rang out, and he turned to her as fast as his old bones would allow. When he saw her his face paled. On one of the couches was Harry Potter. His skin was charred and his body was twitching randomly. That was not a good sign. It looked almost as though the boy had been exposed to a fiendfrye and cruciatus. That was not good in the least.
"Poppy is there anything that you can do?" The boy was his greatest weapon he could not allow the plans that he had carefully crafted and tempered for so long fall to disarray.
The woman nodded. "I can heal the burns and sooth the muscle spasms, but the boy has fallen into a coma. There's nothing that I can do for that he has to come out of it on his own. Until then I think its best that we take him back to the castle for observation and daily treatment."
The wizard nodded. He needed the boy close at hand, and while it was not ideal for the boy to be in a coma it did allow him to keep the boy in his pocket so to speak and that would help greatly when it came time to activate his machinations.
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Sarutobi Hiruzen took his pipe and filled it before lighting it and taking a long drag, the strong smell of his special blend of tobacco filling his nose and lunges. He had just gotten to his office after a short lunch break. He always found it relaxing to spend time with the common folk; to let them know that you are no better than them or any others because of your title.
However he knew that they didn't believe in that philosophy. They believed that a title meant everything. Titles were either to be protected or abandoned, but most titles lasted for life: Hatake Sakumo, Orochimaru the traitor, Anko the snake whore, Uchiha Itachi the kin slayer, and little Uzumaki Naruto demon.
Each of those individuals were in the eyes of Konoha nothing more than beasts that had no right to live. Sakumo driven to suicide after abandoning a mission to save his squad mates, Orochimaru abandoned the village after it was discovered that he had been conducting experiments on citizens of Konoha, Anko was labeled a traitor along with Orochimaru even though no evidence of her helping him was ever found, Itachi slew his entire clan save for his little brother in a single night right under the nose of the village and its shinobi, and Naruto was considered a demon for the simple fact that he housed the Kyubi the most powerful of the nine biju that Hiruzen's sensei Senju Hashirama the Ichidaime Hokage had gifted to the shinobi villages.
Hiruzen sighed as he thought about his sensei. He knew that the man would be disappointed in him and his village. He had allowed his wife to be the first human to house the legendary power of the Kyubi, and the villagers had loved and praised her, but instead of encouraging the love of the jinchuriki he had allowed the hatred in the hearts of the villagers to fester and grown. It had become cancerous and it consumed them.
Naruto's life was not easy following the death of his parents and the sealing of the Kyubi inside of him. He had never been beaten; physical violence was not their style. They instead resorted to mental abuse. They forced their children to ostracize the boy, they called him a demon, they upped the prices of necessary items, and much more. They denied the boy the simple necessity of life, and it was starting to show.
Although he never cried he had also stopped looking at the other children with jealousy and instead he looked at them with resentment. His blue eyes that were once clear vibrant and full of life were now ice cold and dead looking. He knew it was his fault, but there was nothing that he could do. His law only prevented people from harming the boy or telling him about the Kyubi. He could do no more.
'I'm too old for this shit' he thought as he cut himself from his thoughts and began to focus on the paperwork. He was surprised to find that the pile of paperwork was much smaller than normal. He was halfway through when an ANBU agent with a stylized tiger mask appeared in front of him.
His face stilled from that of the elderly grandfather to that of the Hokage. "Tora report!" he barked out
"Hokage-sama there's been an incident with Naruto." The elderly leader's eyes widened a fraction.
"What happened?" he hoped no one had harmed the boy. If he died then the Kyubi would be released. That was what happened to any biju when their jinchuriki were killed. That was not a good thought.
"Naruto attempted suicide. He tried to hang himself, but the chakra from the biju healed him however because he didn't get himself down his neck just kept breaking and healing. We did manage to get to him before the beast could provide no more chakra, and we were able to heal the damage."
Hiruzen let out a sigh of relief. The boy was alive. He could talk to him about trying to kill himself. It would do no one any good for the Kyubi to be free. "Thank you for your quick work Tora."
He was about to dismiss Tora, but the agent spoke again. "Hokage-sama there is one more thing."
"What is it?" Tora bowed his head deeply. This was not something that he wanted to tell the Hokage, but he had to do it.
"Hokage-sama Naruto is in a coma, and we can't do anything for him. He has to be allowed to progress on his own." That was the beginning of Hiruzen's waking nightmare.
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Keerava a red eyed golden scaled argonian barmaid looked around the bar front. It was empty. The tables were clear and most of the customers had gone up for rest. she let out a breath that she hadn't known she was holding before thanking every deity that she prayed to and walking over to the bar where Talen-Jei a green scaled red eyed argonian bartender.
She sat down in front of him. "It's not polite to drink out in the open even if we don't have customers." He said with a sly smile.
"I don't want a drink Talen-Jei. I need to talk to you, and since we're the only ones here it seems like this is as good a time as any."
A confused expression passed across his face. "I suppose so." He decided that if she wanted to talk then he could at least have a seat with her so her went around the bar and took the seat to her right. "What is it that you want to talk about?"
Keerava bit her lip. It was hard to talk about something like this, and she had been planning on it for a while now, but every time she had tried to find time he was busy or she had to do something. "Talen-Jei do you remember when I told you that I needed to talk to you a couple months ago, but we never got the chance?"
He nodded. "Yes we had a lot of things come up and we didn't have time to talk. What was it that you wanted to talk about Keerava?"
"I gave birth." Talen-Jei's eyes went wide at that. He couldn't believe what he had heard. She had had a child… that was what she had never gotten around to telling him.
"Who fathered this child Keerava?" it made his blood boil that she would do him like this when he was the one who help establish everything that they had. She had the nerve to turn her back on him. He would kill her, the man and the child. It was only fair. She had thrown everything they had built together into the flames, and he'd be the one to stoke the fire.
"Talen-Jei I slept with none I swear it!" she could see the murder in his eyes and the bloodlust seemed to be so heavy she could taste it in the very air.
Talen-Jei slammed his hands down on the bar with such force that the wood cracked a little. He turned to her and snarled. "You think I would believe something like that?!" he raised his hand to slap her but was stopped when it felt as though his hand was being held in place. "What in Oblivion?"
"Yes what in Oblivion indeed Talen-Jei." Said a voice from behind the enraged argonian male, and he turned his head to get a good look at the source of the voice. It was a tall red eyed Dunmer woman. She was dressed in thin black leather armor with a hood that was down and she carried a dagger.
"Who are you?" he grunted out. It felt to him as though the air itself was getting heavier.
The Dunmer smiled. "I am the one who gave Keerava the child."
Talen-Jei snarled "how can a woman let alone one that isn't argonian impregnate an argonian woman?"
The woman smiled. "That's simple Talen-Jei. You see I am no ordinary woman. In fact I am neither man nor mer. I am the Daedric Prince Boethiah."
"You impregnated me?" Keerava asked in shock.
"I told you that already, but that wasn't the reason that I came here."
"Why did you choose me?"
"That child was born under the sign of the shadow and is an argonian." Keerava and Talen-Jei gasped they knew what that meant. "And I'm sure you know what that means. However right now it's too soon. The child needs to grow older and get stronger. Not only that though the child is destined for greater things, and I got tired of waiting. So I took the child for myself."
"What the hell are you blathering about?!" Talen-Jei may have had a healthy respect for deadra, but he had no patience, and for that outburst he found a dagger to his throat.
"You shouldn't demand things from the deadra especially use princes, but I'll let it slide this time." She re-sheathed her dagger and turned. "Now listen good you better take care of that kid for at least six years and then name him like your tradition. After that I don't care what you do as long as you don't harm him. If you do I will send you to my plane of oblivion for the rest of eternity."
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Cold that was all the child felt. It was so confusing one moment so close to death and the next it feels almost as though life is only just starting. The child looked up to see a man with deathly pale skin and white hair. He was wearing some king of stone like armor and talking, but the child couldn't understand.
"It seems that my experiments have worked. A child that has retained its sight has been born, but there seem to be some complications. Nothing deadly..." he wrote everything he said in a notebook. "but certainly unwarranted. The child is neither male nor female but seems to possess both sets of reproductive organs. Also her (I will refer to the child as a her due to my belief that the female characteristics will be more defined in the future) skin is even more pale than my own, her teeth are sharper, her eyes are much more sensitive to light changes and have better capabilities in darker areas, and her hair is just as white as mine."
The little girl simply looked at the man. She couldn't do anything at all. She couldn't walk, talk, she could barely move her own head and she was not in the least comfortable with that.
She tried to scream, but all that came out was a high pitched something that she was not proud of, but it got the man's attention, and he picked her up and took her over to what looked like some sort of nude female.
The female thing was skinny and so pale that the veins were visible to the naked eye, the eyes appeared to be scabbed over, and the hair looked like skin more then hair as it lay over her head in a shape reminiscent of twin horns.
The man gently supported the child's neck and forced its mouth onto the nipple of the creature. The child tried to fight and the man laughed thinking the child was just being rather rambunctious. "Calm down little one. Your father Gelebor only wanted to feed you."
The child didn't relax at least not immediately. She only relaxed when she had run out of energy, and she knew that the man wanted her to suckle so she did, and she soon felt the warm milk make its way down her throat. It was disgusting.
Gelebor hadn't wanted to feed the child milk from her mother but he hadn't brought food with him. But he promised himself he'd only do that once and next time he'd get her some meat.
As he thought about getting her some meat another thought crossed his mind. What was he supposed to name the child? He hadn't thought much on it but there had to be something that he could name the girl. So he began to think about names. Some names he came up with sounded silly like Bellathor or Belphina or Raphe. It was only after a lot of dumb names that he came up with a name that sounded somewhat pleasant. He decided to name the girl Nala. Nala the first of the new snow elves