Chapter 4: Vessel

When Harry finally got his bearings back, he noticed that he was laying back on his bed. His body felt heavier...or maybe a better word would be fuller. More whole? It was like a space inside him that he never knew was there has been filled.

And, there was a heat that permitted him. It ran through his veins like little sparks of electricity. He felt full to the brim with energy.

He's never felt so alive.

Yet, at the same time, his whole body felt sore. It was like he was running for a whole day while Dudley and his friends played Harry Hunting.

It was such a juxtaposition.

Warm laughter rang through Harry's head, and this time it actually sounded like it came from within him. It rolled around his whole being and soothed the aches.

"You haven't forgotten about me yet, have ya, kiddo," his new passenger said teasingly, bringing his mind back to the matter at hand.

"Gabriel," Harry whisper shouted, not wanting to alert his relatives.

"Ya don't hafta yell, kiddo," Gabriel said, and Harry could feel the angel wince inside him. "I'm right here."

"Sorry," Harry apologized meekly, and Gabriel soothed the boy with his Grace.

""Skay, kiddo," the trickster said with a small sigh.

"I thought you'd take control," Harry asked him, and he wiped his face only to feel a sticky liquid that coated his forehead.

Yuck!

Gabriel hummed as he thought about how to explain this.

"I probably would have...but there were some...complications...," he said and then he trailed off.

"Complications," Harry asked, now extremely worried. "Is everything alright?!"

Harry wasn't completely sure what it meant, but it sounded bad and Uncle Vernon was always mad when he talk about work using it... That and Aunt's Petunia's hospital drama's always had the patients... No. Nonono!

Did he do something wrong?! Was he hurt? Or worse...did he hurt Gabriel?!

"Hey now," Gabriel said quickly as he noticed Harry's panic. "Everything's gonna be okay! I was just way more injured than I thought I was. Regular angel blades usually don't work on us archangels, but when I mixed it with pagan magic to fool my big bro, it actually managed to hurt me. I was actually leaking Grace and didn't realize it. Anyways, that wasn't all. I found a parasite that was leaching off your soul..."

"What," Harry screeched terrified.

"Whoa, calm down," Gabriel said. "I got rid of it! It just exhausted me more than I thought it would. It was one stubborn bugger!"

"Will you be okay," Harry asked, fidgeting with his fingers, voice soft with guilt.

"I'll be fine, kiddo," the angel said with a soft chuckle. "I just have to stitch myself up. I should be right as rain within a couple days. A week at most."

Harry smiled in relief.

The next few days were quite the experience for Harry. Even being locked in his cupboard, these were the best days of his life!

He's never had somebody to talk to before, and Gabriel—being Gabriel—almost never shut up. That's not to say he didn't like that. On the contrary, having someone to drown out the silence was nice. Plus, Gabriel was sociable enough for the both of them so he didn't have to worry about awkward silences. And, when he did speak, Gabriel listened to him. Nobody's listened to him before! Gabriel never tells him that he's too childish or dumb!

He even listened to him talk about his weird dreams and about the strange things that happened to him!

Gabriel told him that he wasn't a freak. He said his relatives were wrong. That he had magic!

At first he didn't believe the angel. He thought he was playing a cruel joke on him.

Magic wasn't real!

But, angels were real. Why not magic as well?

Gabriel, in response to this revelation, explained magic to him and talked him through a couple simple spells. One of them being how to unlock doors.

Harry was surprised to hear about people making demon deals to get magic, and was now scared of hunters. He was glad that his relatives have never heard of them.

However, despite all that, he was happy he now had an explanation for all the weird things that have happened around him. He just wondered how he got natural magic. Did his parents have magic? Were there more people like him? If so, where were they? Why would he be left here? Was his having magic just an odd coincidence?
All these questions were giving him a headache.

On the positive side, he was having fun learning magic. For once, he didn't have to dumb himself down to not get higher than Dudley. And, Gabriel encouraged him to learn! He even outlined events in history that he was a part of or had seen. He taught him ruins and Enochian. He even helped Harry with his homework.

And, when Harry was taking a break from school, Gabriel would tell him stories of his favorite tricks. His stories would always leave the young boy with aching ribs and completely breathless.

Harry wondered if Gabriel was planning on doing something like this with the Dursley's. He hoped so. He really hoped that Gabriel would let him watch it too.

For now though, they had to wait for Gabriel to recover.

Gabriel said that Grace leaks were really dangerous. It would be like him loosing his blood and Life Force at the same time. He said that it was lucky that the wounjd wasn't bigger.

It was honestly really scary.

Gabriel never outright told him, but Harry heard Gabriel say that he was lucky he got a vessel or he could have actually died.

Harry shuddered.

He was really glad he said yes. Gabriel was his friend—his first friend—and he couldn't imagine his life without him.

0000000

By the time three days had gone by, Gabriel had slowly, but surely stitched up his wound. He was really glad that he didn't use a strong pagan item to fuse with the angel blade. Shoot, using an actual angel blade was stupid enough!

Gabriel figured the reason he was actually hurt so badly was because he had pagan magic and mixing the two weapons made it possible to harm him. He wouldn't know for sure unless he stabbed another archangel with it—and that would be the height of idiocy. Not to mention insanity.

However, he was thankful to his Father that he noticed the wound—which honestly wouldn't have been so bad if it didn't leak Grace. That and he was able to get a vessel so quickly to recover. Using a vessel mean using less Grace—especially when he wasn't in control. It was the best way not to lose Grace...unless an angel was in Heaven. In Heaven, an angel would recover their juice as fast as one lost it.

He was the weakest he's ever been, but he was at least able to do some part tricks. He wouldn't be smiting anyone soon, but he could do little things to mess with the Dursley's.

Gabriel smirked. If he had to wait for his Grace to replenish, then at least he could prolong the Dursley's torture.

Oh. He had so many ideas! He wondered which one he should start with? It was really hard to choose. Maybe he should let Harry decide?

To his surprise, the kid really liked his Trickster stories. He seemed to nice for them at first. But, Gabriel wasn't complaining. He was happy to share his favorite—more kid friendly tricks.

Maybe he could even make a prankster out of the kid?

Gabriel smirked at that thought.

Yeah. He'll ask the kid what types of little tricks they could pull. Maybe even teach him a few while they were at it. He bet the kid would love to personally get back at the pigs he called realitives before the big finally...

Until then, however, he'll start making a ward to protect his new charge and vessel. He didn't want Harry getting hurt when he started his pranks.