Happier
(yeah I know the names sucks but I can't be bothered changing it now)
Her lungs filling with blood as she sunk to the ground. Her feet bound and chained to bricks her arms tied behind her back.
Tears blurred her vision as she screamed and thrashed against her binds.
'Why...' she choked her once bright green eyes rolled back...
Riley shot up gulping the air greedily blinking away the tears from another nightmare. She lightly touched her cheek before sighing and slumping back into the mattress. It was the same dream... no... nightmare that had been recurring for months.
The door burst open, revealing a slightly dishevelled bulky blond man his blue eyes wide with panic. His eyes rested on Rileys form and his shoulders slumped in relief.
"Another nightmare, Harry?" He asked her, his voice was scratchy, though she thought it was probably because he only just got out of bed...
She rolled her eyes at the man, though it was more in a fond irritation. "It's Riley, Dudley I hate being called Harry and you know it. And yeah another nightmare..." she trailed off as she took in her cousin's appearance raising an eyebrow at his state of dress or lack thereof, only dressed in boxers and a very loose shirt.
Dudley let out a huffing laugh when she eyed his lack of clothes, running a hand through his short dirty blond hair. "Yeah, well I heard you scream. Thought you might need help more than I needed clothes... so ya wanna talk about it?" he asked lightly as he stepped further into the dirt poor hotel room the cousins were currently staying for the time being. Having fled England, years ago, together after he had found her beat up and bloody in an alley near his old apartment in London when he moved out of his parent's place.
Riley had had a bad run-in with some old school classmates who blamed her for the deaths of their families or friends in the war. She couldn't be faulted for being born. Could she? Voldemort had taken from her too, though people tend to forget she was human just like them. She lost her parents before she even really knew them, and her friends all died in the last stand against the red-eyed snake faced bastard.
She didn't even really get a proper childhood, her cousin and lifesaver could attest to that. Having lived with her for the better part of fifteen years. Hell, he had been apart of the reason it was so crappy and he will forever regret how he and his parents treated her, all for something she couldn't control. It took a near-death experience for him to open his eyes to the reality of his actions. The lives he had unintentionally cut short with his bullying.
When he saw her crumpled form propped up against a bin five years after he had last seen her. Ironically on the same day, she had saved him from a cold empty death by Dementors. He didn't think he just picked her small frail body off the cemented ground wrapping his old leather jacket around her shoulders as he carried her to his apartment. It was only a few blocks away, she was lucky he recognized her and that she was on the route of one of his daily running paths.
She was in bad shape but the wounds were thankfully treatable. He thanked God briefly that he had quit boxing to become a doctor getting into med school was difficult with his horrid grades that he had to straighten out over the years but he was glad for it. Saving lives was more important than beating people up. He had laid her down on the bed in the apartments guestroom where he had stripped the bloodied shirt from her bruised and battered body and started dressing the wounds wincing at the sight of some of the worse for wear ones as he did.
Riley hadn't come to till a few days later, where she had groggily taken in her surroundings and panicked. Alerting Dudley of her conscious state. He had tried-and-failed to calm her down, so her magic wouldn't inevitably blow something up with her emotional state of distress.
After talking her down from panicking wide-eyed distress he explained what had happened and why she was in his home. She thanked him and told him what had happened to her and how after getting her inheritance tests back from the magical hospital St Mungos she was cornered by some drunk and delusional wizards who blamed her for the death of their friends and families. She broke down in her cousin's arms releasing years of pain and grief she suffered over the years.
Dudley asked what the test was for and she asked him if he had her bags which thankfully he had brought in too. She dug out the papers and handed them to him her eyes tearing up as she refused to look at him. He finished reading it and to her great relief, he said it changed nothing that she was still his family even if it wasn't by blood. He said whether her name was Henrietta Winchester or Hariel Potter she was still just Harry to him.
She asked him what he thought about America and he said it sounds good knowing what she was getting at seeing as that's where her blood relatives were. So they packed up their lives in England and bought a house in Los Angeles, California with her inherited money from the Potters and Sirius and began their search there.
It was 2005 when their house had burnt down, her then-boyfriend, Jack Styne, had been trapped inside when it caught fire. Though Jack was dead long before the fire started, his throat was slit from ear to ear and his blood dripped on her forehead from his place on the ceiling above their shared bed his face frozen in a look of pure terror.
Riley remembered it vividly, Dudley had left early hours in the morning for his work at one of the City hospitals after he finally completed his studies and course training he was hired by one of the closer lesser-known hospitals. That day was burned into her memory the yellow-eyed demon, for there was no better word for the vile creature that killed her lover, was forever haunting her nightmares when the one's of her time in Malfoy manor dungeons didn't.
She had collapsed outside the house on her knees letting the world know of her grief as she screamed. They had been planning to get married that month he already proposed and now just like Fred and Cedric, Jack was dead. Riley remembered feeling absolutely broken and lost, that was when her guardian angel Azrael decided to show up.
The tall dark and drop-dead gorgeous angel explained to Riley what had happened and that the creature was indeed a Demon one of the four Princes of Hell if one wanted to get technical.
He explained that it was the same one that he had saved her from when she was barely six months old, he told her of how he spirited her away to England to a couple who had prayed to him for a child before their demise three years before she was born. How he had taken her from her family only to lose track of her when she turned fifteen months old due to the blood wards protecting her.
Hearing that set something off and Riley was back to screaming only it was in anger instead of grief. She beat against the angel's chest as he told her how he took her back in time three years when he whisked her away to England, she clung to him when he told her about the supernatural beings outside of both the muggle and magical communities.
How no angels or demons were able to enter England and most of Europe now because of the new agreement that was ruled out with the British Men of Letters. So even if he wanted to he wouldn't have been allowed to help her without losing his wings and being even more useless to her. She had settled for quiet sobs when Dudley pulled up the drive in his 1969 Boss 429 red and black Mustang. He was immediately consoling her after taking a shot In the dark at what happened and that Jack was most likely dead.
Azrael had stood stiffly off to the side as the pair calmed down enough for him to explain what he was going to do, after re-explaining to Dudley about the supernatural and how to kill them. Well really he just handed Dudley a bag that neither had noticed was hung over the suit-clad angel's shoulder and told him what was in it and that the book should explain the rest. The angel told the pair of an apartment well penthouse he owned in the City and that they could stay there where they would be protected. Well, Dudley anyway as Azrael explained he was going to take Riley three years into the future where she was supposed to be.
Dudley had started the hunting life after he read the book and learnt how to use the .45, while he waited out the years for her return in 2008 on May 2. Doing small salt and burn hunts in neighbouring states returning to the Penthouse when he knew it was time for his cousin to return. He had quit his job not long after Azrael left with Riley.
He had slimmed a lot since the last time she had seen him three years prior well really a few minutes ago for her. Replacing whatever fat he had left with pure muscle. They started moving around continuing the Hunts while searching for her family and the demon that killed her mother and boyfriend. Staying at crappy hotels was their new thing only going back to Azzy's, as Riley liked to call the angel, penthouse when they were hunting locally. It wasn't that they were poor, far from it really, they just preferred to keep a low profile while on a job.
Riley shook her head free of the past year or four in Dudley's case and got out of bed. "What's on the menu?" she asked as she bustled around the room getting her gear on which mostly consisted of jeans an ACDC shirt and a red flannel top over it having only slept in her underwear.
Dudley shrugged "Bacon and Eggs I 'spose... unless you want a burger on the go. I got word of a case in Kentucky. Werewolves I'm guessing." he said none committedly as he watched her pull on her boots and put the angel blade in it. something they got from some very out of it angels they had killed well Azzy had killed saving their asses before going off-grid. Thinking of the angel he rubbed his chest, were said an angel had carved Enochian, the angel language, sigils into their ribs so they couldn't be found by other angels hurting a hell of a lot more than their spunky tattoos against possession.
"Burgers sound good about now... where's Fred.." she trailed off her question when yapping was heard and a black ball of fur launched itself at her abdomen. "Omph! Heya Freddy! Who's a good boy? you are! yes, you are! oh ye..."
"Ahem, hunt remember?" Dudley cut in rolling his eyes at his cousin and her black king Charles spaniels antics. "Fred's in the back I'm never letting that he'll join ride shotgun ever again." He called behind him as he went to get changed before heading out to his Darlene, yes he named his car...
The pair hit the road again after Riley cleared out their rooms with a flick of her wrist absentmindedly. Her magic has become second nature to her over the years undetected by the magical departments of America, MACUSA was far from lazy, the Enochian sigils just seemed to work with magical signatures as well completely masking hers from the magical community.
Holy cheese and firecrackers and hold my beer I found this old thing when I was going over old documents and my God this is a mess. one that I'll be fixing so if you like it you'll be seeing more of this, even after the shows end which I'm dreading tbh... Hells out!