Chapter 3

A few hours later, Harry was on a plane, ready to be in England for the first time in only two years. So much had changed since then. He had left a weak child, and now returned a competent combatant, trained in stealth, fighting, weaponry, magic…and assassination. As he remembered why he was returning, he swallowed. He was to kill the Dursleys, his only living relatives. The ones who he hated so much. He knew that he desired to hurt them, but to kill them? He wasn't sure.

Ever since he had joined the League of Shadows, he had known this day would come. But knowing he would have to do it at some time didn't change the fact that he would have to actually kill someone.

They were evil, Harry assured himself. What kind of people would treat a child like that simply because of a grudge against their parents? Did they deserve to die for that, though? Maybe not, but if this was the only way for Harry to be rid of his anger, it was a necessary sacrifice. Being able to use wandless magic efficiently would make him much stronger, meaning that he could go on to save countless more lives than he would if he didn't do this.

No matter how much he came up with reasons for why this was the right thing to do, trickles of doubt still settled upon his mind. Finally he decided that it was worth it, even if only to stop himself from disappointing his adoptive father. He owed an awful lot to the man, and he most certainly didn't want to let him down.

With a sigh, Harry decided to sleep. It would be best to be well-rested, even if this was not a great test of his abilities.

He awoke as the plane landed and promptly exited, only having to move a few metres to get to the black SUVs waiting for them. It was really quite amazing how much governmental corruption could get you. They had arrived at a private airport that would leave no report of their arrival or departure. Stealth technology rendered them invisible to radar, so no one but the League would ever know they had been here.

Disregarding those thoughts, Harry thought about his mission. Ra's had told him that there wards around the property, and whilst the wards had been set to protect him, it would probably be safer not to use magic. He had been told that he was something of a messiah to the wizarding world as a result of the fact he had managed to kill Dark Lord Voldemort. Speaking of that, neither Ra's or Harry were sure why that had happened, but assumed it was something to do with one of the various prophecies associated with Harry.

Anyway, magic in the former residence of the "Boy-Who-Lived" would draw undue attention from people trying to "save" him and former followers of Voldemort alike. If the wards did happen to detect their operation – an unlikely situation – Harry was to extract immediately and not take the risk of engaging any wizards.

As they arrived at Privet Drive under the cover of night, Harry opened the car door and dropped out, immediately dashing across the nearest lawn and up the side of a house, crouching atop the roof as he observed his surroundings. He had intentionally gotten out quite a bit away from the house, giving himself the opportunity to look for any guards.

No lights were on in the whole of the street, and the League had seen to it that the lampposts were disabled, but that didn't mean there weren't wizards using spells to see through the darkness. But no, Harry looked for the tell-tale shimmer of an invisibility cloak or any trace of human movement, but there was nothing.

Satisfied of his relative safety, he moved onwards, bounding from roof to roof with only the lightest of footfalls, barely making a sound. As he moved along the rooftop of the house next to number four, where the Dursleys resided, he felt a very slight tingle on his senses. That must have been the wards.

Harry paused, listening for any new arrivals triggered by his crossing of the wards. Once again, there was no one. He leapt to the roof of his target destination before slipping down to the ledge below and looking through the window. Petunia and Vernon's room. Both were sleeping. Perfect.

He moved around the house and ensured Dudley was also asleep before dropping to the ground floor and going to work upon the back door's lock. It was no match for him and he slipped inside, his breathing beginning to quicken as his levels of excitement and fear rose.

Without the slightest sound he sneaked up the stairs, pausing as he arrived at the top. Killing Dudley first would be better, seeing as an alone person gave much less risk of being comprimised, but could he bring himself to kill a child? He reminded himself of the fact that he was younger than said child, and that Dudley had bullied him.

No, he decided. Dudley posed no threat anyway, even if he was awoken. He was not fast enough to escape, so he would die last. Harry recalled the master bedroom door tended to creak, but it was luckily open just enough for him to slip through. He held back a sneer. That was doubtlessly in case their precious "Dudders" had a nightmare.

As he looked over the sleeping forms of his aunt and uncle, he let his training take over. Any emotion slipped from his face as he became a visage of calm, cool efficiency. Harry might have simply caused a gas leak and left the stove on, but Ra's had advised him that one day he would have to kill someone up close, and that it might be best if he did it now.

Harry reached into his pocket, and pulled out a syringe, unsheathing the needle. Vernon would be first, he decided. Using his free hand, Harry jammed his thumb into the pressure point behind his uncle's ear, ensuring that he would not awake during the procedure. As predicted, the man remained asleep as the needle entered his heart, injecting its deadly payload into his bloodstream. Nothing appeared to change in the man but for the fact he stopped snoring, but Harry knew he was dead.

He allowed no emotion to enter him; that could come later, but for now he had to focus. Face still devoid of any feeling, he repeated the process upon Petunia, not showing any hesitation as he killed his own blood.

He slipped out of the room and into Dudley's, administering a dose the same size as he had for the others, just be safe. As life left Dudley, and Harry severed all connection from his past life, slaying all of his remaining blood relatives, magic washed over his skin and a breeze moved through the sealed room.

Harry's eyes widened, the wards had just broke. If someone was surveying them, they would be here soon. He darted back down the stairs, soundlessly escaping through the back door as the night's silence was shattered by a tremendous crack.

Crack.

Albus Dumbledore arrived on Privet Drive dressed in his pyjamas, which seeing as his usual choice of dress were brightly-coloured and horrifically-decorated robes, was quite an improvement if he was seeking to appear normal. His expression, however, was not something one would expect to see upon a man famous for his obnoxious joviality. It was one of pure terror.

He had been awoken by the blaring of one his silver devices. It had taken him only a moment for him to be out of bed and apparating to Privet Drive when he noticed it was the one tied to the wards of Harry Potter's residence. Or Harry Potter's former residence he should say. It had now been over two years since the day he noticed that the wards had begun to deteriorate and had went to see what had occurred.

A horror akin to the one he felt this day had dawned upon him when he had realised that Harry was gone from number four Privet Drive, having fled from his cupboard during the night. He had known that Petunia had bore a grudge against Lily, but hadn't even conceived the notion that she would be so cruel as to carry that grudge against Harry as well and make him sleep in a cupboard.

That day he had felt a rage like none he had felt since Voldemort had still walked the Earth, but at least from the fact the wards had still been intact he had been safe in the knowledge that Harry Potter was still alive, even if he had been forced to run away by his treatment at the hands of his relatives.

Today, there was no rage, only fear, for the falling of the wards meant that either Harry or his blood relatives were dead. As morbid as it might be, he hoped for the latter. If Voldemort was to be killed permanently, Harry was the only hope. As benevolent as he might appear, Albus was more than willing to sacrifice the lives of three abusive muggles to save the wizarding world.

So he strode forward, hoping for the life of him that the Dursleys had been the one to die.

As much as he might prefer for the Dursleys to be the ones to have perished rather than Harry, he still did not condone killing, and anger brewed within him at the thought of one person killing another. Luckily, Dumbledore had lived centuries, allowing him to control his temper very well, meaning he normally would have calmly unlocked the door. Unfortunately for said door, he was in a hurry and it found itself blown straight of its hinges.

Any attempts of stealth forgotten, Dumbledore bellowed, "Homenum Revelio!"

He had to stop himself from releasing a sigh of combined relief and annoyance. The lack of people detected by the human revealing spell meant two things: that the Dursleys were most likely dead (Dumbledore didn't even want to contemplate the possibility that the Dursleys were out and Harry was dead) and that the attacker was most likely gone.

Up the stairs he went, cautious in case that someone had managed to ward himself from his spell. Two open doors immediately greeted him, and he decided to go left. A gentle banishing spell brought the door to a full open, and Dumbledore grimaced as he saw the two people laying on the bed, one a morbidly obese man and the other a petite yet unattractive woman. From the fact that his spell hadn't detected them, they were clearly dead.

Fully opening the other door provided him with the knowledge that Dudley Dursley was as dead as his parents. Dumbledore turned away, not being able to stop himself from seeing one of his students in the boy's position.

A muttered magic-revealing spell revealed that magic had not been cast recently, and Dumbledore frowned. These people had been killed only moments before he arrived yet not by magic. He would have guessed it was the Killing Curse by the way that there were no visible wounds. Perhaps he should have expected that from the fact the wards had not been triggered.

Dumbledore frowned again. He would have to leave this for the muggle authorities to investigate; his knowledge of mortal killings was extremely limited.

Harry darted across the lawn and vaulted the back fence. He estimated that the noise had emitted from in front of the house, and from what Ra's had told him, that could only be the distinctive sound of a wizard apparating. What Ra's had also told him was that Albus Dumbledore, one of the most powerful wizards in the world, had been the one overlooking his placement at the Dursleys and would most likely be the one monitoring the wards.

Dumbledore was most certainly not a man Harry wanted to meet in the current situation, and luckily the League had planned a different extraction in the event of a wizard arriving.

As Harry moved towards where Ra's would meet him, flitting from shadow to shadow, unidentifiable emotions flooded him. He had killed someone. He had killed three someones, two of which who happened to be his only remaining relatives.

Tears threatened to flow from his eyes, but he rapidly banished them. He had done more than killing. He had replaced evil with death as he had been taught to do, for that was what the Dursleys had been: evil. He had separated himself from his past and his anger. He would keep the name Harry until he was fully initiated into the League, but his identity was now new.

A/N: Sorry for the delay, I was focusing on other stories.