Previously:Sebastian is old. Like really damn old. So he apparently has no problem following the orders of his former master, Ciel Phantomhive. The orders are simple: watch, protect, and select. Piece of cake, it'll only take a century (give or take a few years). In other words, the blink of an eye.

Black Knight

His Knight, Advance Guard

After a good night's sleep, Harry was able to process the events of last night and realize that he had underreacted spectacularly. He had spent the entire summer with no word from the Wizarding World besides Sirius, Ron, and Hermione (the three of them not good for wrangling information from) and it took a dementor attack for them to stop ignoring him. But do they finally loosen their tongues? No, instead they treat him like a naughty kid. "Don't do any more magic, stay in the house, don't forget to sit in the corner and think about what you've done wrong!"

He growled and kicked his school trunk as he passed it. It didn't help him feel much better, so instead he opened the top took out a roll of parchment and began shredding it as he thought. Writing a letter to his friends probably wouldn't help as it was likely they would know more and refuse to tell him. The last thing he needed right now were more tantalizing hints. He supposed he could leave, just to spite them all but then he remembered the guards that Mrs. Figg had told him were following him around. Merlin, they had witnessed firsthand just how dull his life was while at the Dursleys. He rather wanted to hex them all. They'd seen him trying to get information; couldn't they have spoken to him? Left a little note next to him telling him what was going on? There was no way something like that could have been intercepted.

Idiots.

And could someone tell him why the bloody hell there were dementors in Little Whinging? Did the Ministry send them? Were they rogue? Has Voldemort taken over Azkaban? There were so many possibilities and not enough people helping to rule any out. He would have to assume the worst. Voldemort had overthrown the Ministry of Magic and now the Minister of Magic was under the control of aliens! The aliens are in league with Voldemort because they saw a familial resemblance and now…Now they were preparing for an invasion. Yeah, that was it.

Harry scoffed and continued tearing the parchment into ever tinier pieces. He imagined that it was all the paperwork in the Ministry. Maybe without those documents keeping everything in status quo, things would be better. The Wizarding World would rejoice! Well, the Ministry workers at least.

Hedwig flew into the room with a dead frog held firmly in her beak. "About time!" Harry declared as she landed onto the top of her cage. "I was about to call a strike on my guards." Hedwig blinked her large amber eyes once. "Did you finally manage to catch Prince Charming? I think you were supposed to kiss him, not eat him." Hedwig gave a muffled hoot that Harry could have sworn was a scoff.

"Should I start making the banner? Would you fly around with me outside if I made one you could wear?" Hedwig dropped her prize and began to tear into it, not bothering to answer. "Fantastic!" Harry returned to his trunk and rummaged through it for a moment before finding his query. "Aha!" He pulled out the sheaf of parchment, and a thick marker he'd found in the room when he'd first moved in from the cupboard under the stairs. "Let's see…" He uncapped the marker and began writing. "That's for you to carry, Hedwig," he said as he neatly tore off a long, but thin strip. On it was written "BIRDS OF A FEATHER MUST FLOCK TOGETHER!"

He rolled one end and taped it shut then slipped a string through the funnel and tied it. Now it was something Hedwig could fly with. All he had to do was wrap it around her foot. "What do you think?"

Hedwig surveyed it and hooted her approval.

"Excellent. Next is mine. Should I write 'NO NEWS IS REFUSE' or 'GO HOME USELESS STALKERS'?" Hedwig didn't deign his question with a response so he chose the first and then made a banner to carry outside when he decided to leave his room and the second he wrote in large block letters and unfurled out of his window. He taped it to his windowsill and flipped off whoever was watching today.

The next day, Harry decided he was going to protest silently and not expend any energy. He taped the three signs (although he had to remake the last one) to the inside of his window just to make sure they would be noticed and wouldn't go missing. He glared at the spot that he knew his guard to be standing in judging from the compressed grass, and slammed the window closed. Hedwig was sleeping so he didn't have to worry about her needing the window open for another few hours. After locking the window, he drew the curtains closed and stared at the wall wondering why he didn't just leave through the back door and hopping the fence. By the time they noticed he was gone, he could be in London.

As he contemplated running off to spend the day in Diagon Alley, the cat flap opened and a plate of peanut butter sandwiches was pushed in. A glass of milk followed shortly after that.

"Thanks Aunt Petunia." She said nothing but he heard her stand back up and walk away.

He wound up not leaving the house. He simply sat at the desk reading Quidditch through the Ages for what could have easily been the hundredth time. Therefore, he clearly heard the clicking of a beak outside his window. News! Maybe they were writing to tell him to take down the signs. Or they were finally coming clean about the alien controlled cyborgs now dominating the Ministry of Magic and the Ministry of Agriculture! He hurried to the window and opened it allowing the owl to fly in and land on the bed post. He turned and faced the owl to retrieve the letter.

Only…it wasn't an owl and there was no attached scroll.

"Since when do crows make house calls?"

The crow cawed and ruffled its feathers. Hedwig hooted disapprovingly at its amusement but when it turned towards her and flapped its wings she fell silent and watched it warily. The crow lifted its beak and haughtily turned back to face Harry, its talons clicking on the wood as it did so. His snowy owl would have huffed if she was a human. Instead she turned her back on the newcomer, then turned her head to watch its interaction with Harry.

"OK then, now that you two are acquainted…what do you want?" The crow cawed again and flew to the top of the wardrobe before settling in. Harry blinked up at the crow. It twisted its head to watch him with a black eye, which blinked. "Fine, you win. I'm not chasing you out." Since the crow didn't come bearing news or gossip, he flipped off his guard again before closing the window and reclosing the blinds.

He flopped back into the uncomfortable and rickety chair by the desk and kicked his legs up onto the desk itself before flipping the book open again and staring at the page. He didn't read. How could he when there was a bleeding crow staring at him…and he swore that the damn bird wasn't even blinking.

"For the love of Rowena, do I have something on my face?" The crow cawed again. "Do that one more time and I'll get the broom, you dusty boa." The crow clicked its beak this time but its feathers ruffled again and Harry just knew it was still laughing at him. Harry glared at it for a moment and then sighed. "Since you seem to have made yourself at home, I just have to lay out some ground rules. One: Don't make too much noise, I really don't want to have to deal with Uncle Vernon in the next millennia. Two: Erm, oh, yeah…don't leave your food in here. All carcasses are to be dumped on the guards head. Precision is key. Three: I shall call you Salazar, and you shall be mine. At least until you decide to go elsewhere. Crystal?"

The crow, now dubbed Salazar tilted its head as it observed the fifteen year old quietly for a moment. Then it bobbed its head in agreement. "Great! Then welcome to the Hotel Dursley! You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave," Harry finished ominously. He snorted and resumed reading. "Feels like that, sometimes."

"BOY! WHAT'S ALL THAT RACKET IN THERE?!"

"Nothing, Uncle Vernon. I'll shut up now."

"YOU'D BETTER!"

Harry sighed as the man on the other side of the door walked away. The third day of Harry's containment passed with little else but the occasional turn of the page and finally the opening of the window and the creaking of the bed as Harry climbed in for the night. The teenager boy shut off the lamp sitting on the bedside table. "Goodnight Hedwig, Salazar."

After a few minutes the boy's breathing evened out and Hedwig spread her wings from her position on the top of her cage. She twisted her head to stare up at Salazar who was still perched atop the wardrobe. She hooted at him menacingly and Salazar simply tilted his head to stare at her. She hooted again and flapped her wings. Salazar did not move. The owl ruffled her feathers and left her perch. She rose gracefully into the air then circled the room once, her wings clipping Salazar's head. He was tempted to snap at the haughty bird but refrained and she swept out of the window unmolested.

The curtains fell back into place after her. Good. The crow hopped twice to get to the edge of the wardrobe, spread his wings and glided from his perch. He landed neatly as a man dressed in a black three piece suit. He lifted his hands, revealing the black nails and brushed it through the sleeping teenager's hair. Hadrian shifted underneath the touch but did not wake.

Sebastian…no, Salazar's eyes burned violet in the night but there was none to see it. So, calmly he sat on the foot of Hadrian's bed and contemplated the situation. Dumbledore's people would be here to retrieve Hadrian tomorrow night. He could bring Harry to the Phantomhive estate now. Salazar had already made the manor habitable and had hired staff. It was likely that Salazar would once again be doing, well, mostly everything but the staff's main function was defense anyway. However, there were no wards in place to protect Hadrian and in the current political atmosphere it would be difficult to arrange.

Not impossible, though.

Salazar's second option was to allow the "Advance Guard" – pompous mortals, no? – to bring Hadrian to their headquarters and simply accompany him in his crow form. They would probably ask questions but Hadrian's candid answers would not reveal the truth. He would be able to protect Hadrian if he needed to with the additional security provided by wards and Dumbledore's people. It would certainly help that they would not search for him in this case.

The demon frowned as he looked at his sleeping master, or rather his charge, he supposed. After all, Hadrian had not made a contract with Salazar. But that hardly mattered. Salazar tapped out a slow rhythm on his knee as he continued to strategize. Quite frankly Dumbledore was a problem. He allowed Hadrian to take on more than a boy his age should and while Hadrian bore the tasks remarkably well, he was still just a child. A child who was given no extra training; something Salazar would certainly rectify.

There was also the matter of the prophecy. Hadrian was fifteen, he should be told of its contents and he would be. Albus Dumbledore was not the only one who knew the thrice damned thing. Salazar did not see the purpose of keeping that away from Hadrian unless he wanted the teenager to go into battle blind, or maybe Dumbledore himself was blind to the child's maturity. That would certainly be the less insidious justification.

Hadrian would not receive what he needed from Dumbledore if he went with the Advance Guard. Salazar melted into the shadows and sped towards his task. The wards around the manor would be up by tomorrow night, of that Salazar was certain.

Uncle Vernon entered Harry's bedroom, dressed to the nines though the effect was ruined by the smug expression on his face.

"We're going out," he said.

"Sorry?"

"We – that is to say, your aunt, Dudley, and I – are going out."

"Fine," Harry replied. He returned his gaze to the ceiling.

"You are not to leave your bedroom while we are away."

"Okay."

"You are not to touch the television, the stereo, or any of our possessions."

Shame, Harry could have used some music to cheer him up. "Right."

"You are not to steal food from the fridge."

"Okay." He wouldn't steal it, he would eat it.

"I am going to lock your door."

"You do that."

Uncle Vernon eyed Harry with suspicion before leaving the room and doing exactly what he said he would. He locked Harry in the room. Footsteps followed and the sound of car doors slammed before the car itself rumbled to life. The family drove away and Harry lay on the bed and sighed before resuming his previous occupation. "~ London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady. ~"

Somewhere outside an owl hooted, the room grew steadily darker, and finally a crash resounded through the empty house. Silence followed and then the sound of voices. Whoever these intruders were didn't bother trying to keep quiet and a series of footsteps climbed the staircase.

"Awfully clean, these Muggles," a woman announced, partially in awe.

"Quiet, Nymphadora!" a gruff voice replied. The multiple locks on Harry's bedroom door clicked loudly and the door swung open.

"Don't call me Nymphadora!" she snarled. She didn't move to enter the room. Neither did the other seven or eight people with her.

"He isn't here," the man growled as he clunked into the room. "None of his belongings are here either."

"That's not possible," another woman replied stepping further into the room. "He couldn't possibly have left; we would have seen him!"

"Well, he ain't here, is he?"

"Maybe he's hiding," the woman suggested desperately.

"The door was locked from the outside," Nymphadora said. "He would've needed magic to get out and since there's no owl from the Ministry it's safe to assume he didn't. Remus?"

A man dressed in robes that had seen better days moved back into the house and explored. "He's definitely not here."

"Someone tell Dumbledore the boy's run away."