Disclaimer : Same as first chapter.

A/N : Hey boy and girls I'm back! So this is an overview of Harry's childhood. I always hate these chapters when I read fanfic but they must be done as they play a major role in the story. I'm gonna try and make it as entertaining as possible so as not to lose you. :) Anyway, on with the story!

Chapter 2 : Young life

The man reappeared in a luxurious looking room with windows overlooking the park of a little village. It was very quiet. The man walked into another room containing a little bed, probably for visitors and guests. He placed Harry in it and walked out of the room.

So it began. Harry's mysterious saviour was called Raven… By the public. He was a talented assassin, silent in the dead of night. He was feared by the bad guys and was praised and rewarded by his employers or his customers, it depends on how you call someone who pays an assassin to kill an enemy.

Ever since he managed to get his hands on Harry, or Swan as he was now called, he began training him in the arts of assassination and combat. All sorts of them : sniping, shooting, hand to hand combat with various weapons such as daggers, throwing knives and he also taught him how to use his fists and body. Swan learned how to channel as much energy as possible in his hits and not lose one ounce of stamina. He learned how to be dead silent and the art of dissimulation along with various styles of martial arts. He was also taught archery and swordsmanship. All in all he was a deadly weapon.

But that's not all. No, far from it. In the early days, Raven discovered that Swan was, as he, a shadow mage, a child born to darkness. He didn't know what could have caused it since at the time and still now, he didn't know the child's past as he decided to separate himself of the wizarding world due to past experiences, but he was glad nonetheless. Two shadow mages born in the same century was unheard of, and once he got to Hogwarts, with the training he was getting, he would make a great scandal, and pose a great threat to the supposed light. Ooh yes, he was planning to build a team with Swan and reshape wizarding society. No more discrimination, bigotry or such nonsense. All magical creature would have their place and every magical being would be taken into account. It was part of why Raven wanted Swan to go to Hogwarts, to build this team so that when the time was right, they could start to strike.

It's in one of his training sessions that Swan currently was, doing his best to dodge, role, counterattack and survive. There was no place for his mind to wander off if he wanted to do a good job of surviving this encounter with Swan. And what the hell, Raven was still holding back. Even though he was drenched in sweat, he wasn't all that tired.

"Argh Raven! Please don't hold back! You know I can stand against you even if you go all out so cut the crap!" He said between two jumps. A savage grin appeared on Raven's face wich did small job of unsettling Swan. With swift movements, Raven lept up the wall and on to a wooden beam wich supported the ceiling, crouched, quickly took his bow out and started firing. Swan, having correctly interpreted his intentions, sheathed his daggers and took out his throwing knives. By then, Raven had already started shooting arrows at his face and he was forced to dodge while chucking knives at him.

This little bit of dancing carried on for a few minutes until Swan had had enough. He fell into the shadows and shadow-walked right behind Raven. He had learned how to do this little trick soon after he was told he was a shadow mage, at age five and seeing as now he was nine years old, he had a fair bit of experience with it. But back to the spar. Raven, having anticipated this move swiftly and graciously turned around to parry the katana blow aimed at is neck, but he wasn't expecting the sheer power of the blow wich made him topple off the beam. Without missing a beat, Swan whipped out his wand and let loose a multitude of spells, silently, wich where all promptly, effortlessly dodged by Raven.

They both looked at each other for a few seconds, then the two of them unsheathed their sword, Swan lept off the beam straight at Raven who parried the hit and after a moment, the two blades became blurs. After what would be three hours of sword fighting, the two of them clasped hands and laughed a bit, still panting.

"You're getting better and better Swan! I'm impressed." He praised. "But you must still improve. Your Hogwarts letter will come bye in about one year and a half and I have that much time to finish preparing you the best I can, but seeing as you learn super fast it shouldn't be too much of a problem." He carried on in a more serious tone.

"But why do I even need to go to that school anyway? I receive all the education I need here and I love it. Hogwarts is going to be useless for me." He asked, still curious as to why his dad insisted on why he went there. He didn't fully understand yet.

"Well I suppose I can tell you now..." He trailed off, lost in his own thoughts.

"Tell me what dad?" Swan demanded though he was slightly apprehensive of what ever it was that was going to sprout from his dad's mouth any second now. That seemed to do the trick as his dad snapped back to reality and he looked sheepishly at his adoptive son.

"Sorry for that. So yea. I've made up my mind and I am going to tell you the truth." He said in a strong voice though Swan saw a spark of aprehension. 'Probably doesn't know how I'm going to react to the info.' He thought with a chuckle.

Raven led the way to the lounge and sat down, he invited Swan to do the same.

"OK little guy. I'll tell you what's going on. First of all I want you to know that at present time, the wizarding world is a highly prejudiced and corrupt world. What with two wars in its small history and numerous dark lords that have somehow managed to scare the people enough for them to seek refuge where ever they find it. The most common refuge is behind laws. That is where the prejudice comes from. You see, the wizarding population thinks that every thing is black and white, and they try to shun everything that is not light. And that is why I left the wizarding world. Because we are a kind of dark creature, the shadows...

"So back on topic. Almost all magical creatures are also shunned due to the fact that wizards have a huge and uncomparable ego. They think they are way more important than other magical species. But that is not reality son. You must understand that cooperation is much more reliable and efficient than forcing someone to do something for you. All that the wizarding population thinks of as dangerous is shunned or carted off to azkaban, the wizarding prison.

"It is not surprising that their ministry is so corrupt. After so much dark lords have past, surviving supporters still work in it without getting detected! But the minister just doesn't care enough to act. And that's where we come on stage. This is why I want to send you to Hogwarts, to build a team who we can trust to be at our side, who are good fighters and who are ready for anything that the world has to fling in their face. You will train them as I trained you. All that so we can make this world a better place. I say we are some kind dark lord but with different beliefs. I make this your first mission." He finished his speech reverently.

All throughout his monologue, Swan had listened with rapt attention. 'So this is why I've been trained for six years of my life in all styles of combat...' He thought to himself. Then a sudden thought made itself known. "I like it." He chirped out loud. Raven relaxed and a smile made it's way to his face.

One year later, it was three days before his birthday and Swan couldn't wait. It was just his luck that some escaped murderer was roaming the city and Raven and he had immediately taken action. They may be assassins but that didn't mean that they were the type of persons to let a madman take action on some defenceless people.

So that was why, currently, Swan was patroling New York South and Raven was patroling New York North. It was bloody annoying to be excited for ones birthday and trying to concentrate on a man hunt. He would sure as hell kill the man if he saw him. Luckily for the convict, after seven hours of non stop patroling the city, it was Raven who spotted the man and called Swan to tell him he got it under control. Swan was pissed. He wanted the man bad! He shadow-walked up to Raven and exited the shadows without anyone noticing. They high-fived and promptly left with five thousand dollars, courtesy of the officer.

"Seriously? Three days before my birthday and this guy shows up? I would have so liked to kick his-" He started but was cut off.

"Please no profanities! Anyway with the cash I got, it's all the more presents you'll get." He said with a little grin. That shut Swan up and they walked silently untile they reached a shadowy, secluded place and dropped in the shadows to get back home.

Three days later it's Harry's birthday. The big apartment was filled with laughter from the children, chatter from the adults that sat at a table playing poker while watching on the children. Swan was having a blast with his friends from school. They where playing air-soft, with the protections of course. Gosh he realy needed that. He didn't often act his own age because of the seriousness of his work. It was pretty fun realy, the way he managed to weild the gun, it was easy almost natural for him. 'It must be all those hours of training and the implied threat if I lost when Raven spoke to me about the game.' He chuckled to himself while dodging a plastic orange bullet coming from his right.

In the meantime, the adults were looking on with amusement as the ten year olds ran around the apartment. They had to duck at times as stray bullets came rushing at them from all directions.

"I must say your son has some has some skill with weaponry." Amanda said. She was the mother of a friend of Swan and a good friend of Raven's. "How did he do that?!" She exclaimed while watching Harry do a back flip emidiately followed by a front flip to avoid seven plastic balls wich wizzed past him as he manoeuvred all the while shooting three bullets at his friend who, taken by surprise received all three in the stomach and fell to the ground faking death.

"This my dear friend is a lifetime of practicing martial arts as well as few self defence methods." He replied mysteriously. "Though I have to admit, he is pretty skilled." He added as an afterthought.

"A little skilled?" She asked disbelievingly. "And a few self defence methods? It's more like he's a trained soldier or secret agent!" She continued. "Spit it out. What's the secret?" She asked in a demanding tone of voice.

"No chance there. Professional secret." He replied jokingly. Amanda huffed in annoyance. "Well it's getting late. We should be on our way now. It was a pleasure to see you all again." She said in a warm voice addressing all the adults. That was the signal and the families started trickling out of the apartment while offering a last 'happy birthday' to Swan who said goodbye to his friends and their families.

"Well that was refreshing." Raven said while making his way over to the TV.

"Yup it was cool to see them again because I won't get to see them until September the first so yea. What are you gonna watch?" He asked in an innocent voice. It was past his bedtime and he wanted to watch a film, not go to bed in other words.

Raven decided to try another trick, since he was old enough to understand. "It's an adult film." He stated.

"What's it about?" Swan asked not noticing the evil smirk that Raven was sporting.

"Well... It's a wand wich gets in a holster..." Raven spent the next hour detailing the supposed film to his adoptive son who by the end of the speech had caught onto the meaning of wand and holster and was blushing a furious red. Raven cracked up and sent Swan to bed.

"Say, do you want to have your first ever contact with the magical world tomorrow? We could go to Diagon and get you some stuff even though you already have a wand, we could see if there are some interesting things in Nocturne Alley and we could go and get you some new cloths too." He called up the stairs. Harry had gotten his wand when a powerful wizard had attacked the city. Harry had killed him with Raven's help and they had taken the wand. It was pitch black with silver lines circling the tip and handle wich was angled. It was ten inches long and kind of supple. The wand had a Basilisk's horn as a core. Raven suspected it to have belonged to Salazar Slitherin but he wasn't sure.

"Yay!" Swan exclaimed. "Oh I'm so excited! Ok dad that's fine by me!" He called back down the stairwell.

Raven chuckled at his son's eagerness. He was just like him.

A/N : So I hope you enjoyed this second chapter. Nothing realy epic, just setting up the scenery and the timeline. Yes they will have some of our technologies and already have. Next chapter will be Diagon Alley and the return of the BWL wich is not quite the person they thought he would be... :) Anyway I thank you a lot for reading this story! I didn't even know if you would find it or not. It's just for fun so if you have some ideas for future chapters or suggestions on how I should set the plot please tell me as I have not yet figured out completely how all this is gonna work out. All comments are appreciated of course. Also don't expect the updates to be as frequent as this one. It just so happened I had a small portion of this chapter ready so it didn't take too long to do it. See you next time!

Squid