AN: Remember: "Creativity not reality". I do not endorse any activities to be repeated outside of this work of fiction.

I own nothing, least of all Harry Potter.

Trigger warnings: Harry Potter child abuse.

Slenderman shuddered as he felt that somewhere, somehow new stories were being told about him. He shook his head. That hasn't happened since Germany. He reminisced.

He'd gone after Sally and Harry after they failed to come back on time and found them returning a lost trinket to a local group of teenagers. The Code was rather lax in regards to sightings, particularly with small groups of teenagers and children, so he just let them go with a mild scare for good measure.

He brought them back to the manor and, after sternly telling them to follow their commitment next time, sent them to bed. He resolved to spend the next day taking Harry to the mall a few towns over under the guise of a Glamour. BEN expressed a reasonable desire that his own clothes be his own and Harry acquire some for himself.

The mall in question had some adequate clothes for cheaper prices. Jack informed him that Harry would experience a severe and sudden growth spurt within the next few months from the nutrients he was given and recommended not to buy more expensive clothing from a store with connections to the Underrealm for a few months when his growth would plateau.

Slenderman continued to clean up a few leftover plates and some dog toys Smile left lying around as he contemplated what Jack had told him earlier.

*flashback*

The eyeless doctor led Slenderman to a separate room in his laboratory. Inside was home-made laboratory-grade machines of Jack's own design. One of which was a rather detailed blood and tissue analyzer. Sure enough, Jack led the entity over to the computer and pulled up some documents from the machine.

"So, I took the blood sample Harry gave me and sent it through everything I could think of. Take a look."

He handed Slenderman multiple pages of gibberish, numbers, and charts. The ageless being read through them and nodded every few minutes.

Jack continued. "You know the kind of crowd we get, but I've never seen things like it. Those energy spikes in the red blood cells, some proteins I have no clue what they do, even the plasma has trace elements that shouldn't be in blood in the first place."

Slenderman nodded. "To be quite frank, I suspected as much. During my time observing him I found him… unusual. Or at least similar to some others I've met in my long existence. Yes, they value their privacy and, as such, rely on memory modifications, illusions, and attention-redirection to keep themselves hidden from human society."

"So, Harry's one of them?"

"Indeed. If my suspicions are correct, the fact that he is 'one of them' is precisely why his so-called 'family' treated him with such animosity."

"So is it safe to say he's not human?"

Slenderman gave the impression of smiling. "No, I believe he is as human as they come. Not like The Rake, Seed Eater, or myself. However, I believe he has something… unique to him. More like Toby, Jeff, Sally, or yourself. Once human or still human, but something just makes them different from the rest of society."

Jack raised an eyebrow over an empty socket. "So, is it something we should be wary of?"

"I think… you'll find he will fit in just fine."

*flashback end*

The next day dawned bright and early… elsewhere.

It was still just as foggy as yesterday and the perpetual overcast was still hanging low.

BEN got on his computer and quickly got to bluud .com and opened a hidden chatbox.

ZeldasBoy1234: "Hey, sup?"

Funnymouth: "0)_(0"

ZeldasBoy1234: "Can u get to Slendys?"

Funnymouth: "…"

ZeldasBoy1234: "E.J. says it's a "transverse fracture". Needs u for it."

Funnymouth: "I like to lick the bluud."

ZeldasBoy1234: "It's pizza night on 2nite if u want."

Funnymouth: "Sweet, I'll be over at 4."

Ben closed his laptop and sighed. Sometimes Funnymouth was just a pain to translate, but of all the people in the house, he was probably the only one who knew what the demon-virus-thing was talking… er, typing about half the time.

The day rolled by without much. At 4 o' clock Ben was playing Call of Duty and sniping noobs at their spawn point when his laptop forced itself open. He paused and watched as the screen filled with code, glitched images, and static before coalescing into a thin, pale hand that reached out of the screen. The rest followed soon enough.

"Hey, man. Come on, Harry's downstairs."

Harry sat down in Eyeless Jack's lab again. This time, the eyeless doctor was accompanied by… someone? Something?

It was practically a skeleton with pale skin stretched across it. It didn't have any clothes, but didn't have any genitalia that Harry could identify. Its hands were very long and very bony. But the most notable thing was its face.

Harry started noticing the trend that these people's faces were the more notable features to them.

Its eyes were black, reflective orbs in its sockets. There was no hair on its head. Its nose was slightly hooked. But its mouth was the weirdest. Its jaw hung limply on its hinge to the skull. There were no teeth inside and its pointy, red tongue lolled out like a slug.

Jack introduced him. "Harry, this is Funnymouth. He's a lot better with bones and broken bones, so I asked him to come look at your arm."

"H-hello."

Funnymouth gurgled something unintelligible that caused its tongue to spasm and curl. Harry assumed it was a greeting. Mr. Funnymouth turned to E.J. and gurgled more. The eyeless doctor could apparently understand it.

"No, thank God. It's a transverse not compound. If it was compound I'd put him in surgery or even risk a local hospital."

*gurgle squelch*

"Safety comes before secrecy. You know that."

*guttural croaking*

"It seems like it's all still intact and I didn't need to reset anything, but so far I've just put a splint on it."

*glug croak*

"He actually did the first aid himself. He used some bandages to strap a lead pipe against it. It was quite effective."

*drawn out squelch*

"Well, not only effective at keeping his arm flat, but also effective at breaking his abusive uncle's tibia."

*squishy clucking sounds that were probably laughter*

"Well, I'll leave the expert opinion to you."

The croaking figure nodded in acknowledgement and lifted Harry's arm for closer examination. He removed the splint and used its slightly slimy fingers to pad around the area feeling asking some questions which Jack translated.

After some time, it got up and gurgled something to Jack who nodded seriously before turning to Harry.

"Okay, Harry, I'm not going to lie to you. This will hurt. Ready?"

Harry nodded nervously, sweat was already breaking out on his forehead and his stomach doing flip-flops. "On three."

"One… two… three!"

The internet figure compressed its hand around the broken area and Harry felt as though the bone underneath became extraordinarily hot and grew spikes from the inside-out. His vision quickly started dimming and the room swam around him like what he assumed a carnival carousel would be like. His ears were ringing loudly, but he could make out someone screaming… oh, wait. It was him.

The pain stopped as abruptly as it started. Harry's vision was still fuzzy despite his glasses still being on his face and the voice of Jack sounded like it was coming through his ears stuffed with cotton. He felt himself being shifted into a position where his knees were kept upwards and his head was against the observation table. Slowly, but surely, the darkness around his vision receded and Eyeless Jack's face swam into view.

"…ry?... arry?... Harry? Harry, can you hear me? Harry?"

The seven year old mumbled a response. Jack sighed in relief.

"It's okay, Harry. We pretty much expected that kind of response. Can you move your arm, please?"

Harry experimentally moved his left arm and gave a dazed and tired smile as it didn't hurt. "No pain?"

He nodded wearily and started getting up before Jack's hand pushed him lightly back down. "Harry, just stay there for a moment, okay? Let yourself get your bearings."

After a few minutes, Harry's head started clearing up and he turned to the eyeless medic. "So, how'd he do that?" He slurred.

Eyeless Jack smiled and tapped the side of his empty eye sockets with a pen before replying. "Magic, remember?"

That evening Jack announced that Harry was doing amazing at his recovery and was ready for some heavier meals.

Though Jack knew most normal humans would probably need at least a week or two of lighter meals before getting back to most of society's diet, Harry's physical after the bone treatment showed he'd gained a small bit of weight, got a lot more color to his face, and all around was recovering remarkably from his malnutrition from only two days.

Once more, he cursed the Dursleys to suffer.

As a celebration for Harry's ability to enjoy food, the tenants all agreed to let Harry pick the toppings of the pizzas that night. When Harry admitted he'd never had pizza, it was unanimously decided to get a couple pizzas with every topping available spread out among the pizzas. Jeff was the one to phone in the order (after all, Slendy has no mouth) and the order came about thirty minutes later.

Harry was actually the one closest to the door when it rang, so he volunteered to go pay the delivery guy. He opened the door and came face to face with a guy in his mid-to-late teens wearing some piercings holding a stack of pizza boxes with his scooter parked a few feet away.

"Wow, weird place you got. I heard from other guys who normally deliver here, but I never covered the route down here before. Okay, so that's eight medium pizzas; three half plain, half pepperoni; two all sausage; one half pepper, half onion; one half mushroom, half black olive; and one half pineapple, half margarita-style. That'll come to $48 even, little man."

He brought the boxes into the house and placed them on the foyer table for Harry, anticipating they'd be too heavy for the seven year old. Harry gratefully handed him the fifty… "dollar bill" Slendy gave him. The delivery guy pulled out two "one dollar bills" from a fanny pack and handed them over as change. He was turning around to leave, when Harry spoke.

"Um, excuse me, sir, but what's it like at your job?" He asked curious.

"Woah, a little British dude! Nice! Uh, let's see. There's not really too much that goes on at my job. I mean, when I'm not delivering I'm helping make the pizzas or cleaning up around the party room. Uh… oh, well I'm actually taking on a new job tonight. I just got hired as a part-time security guard for the graveyard shift."

"Graveyard shift?"

"Yeah, from midnight to six in the morning. My manager agreed that I could give it a whirl for the next five days. Six if I want the bonus. 'Far as I'm concerned, it's pretty easy money. All I do is sit in the office watching over the empty restaurant. The only issues are those pretty creepy animatronics they got there. Well, I need to head home to get rested up for it. See ya."

He walked away before remembering to give the slogan. "And thanks for buying Freddy Fazbear's Pizza."

Harry watched as the teen scootered away back to the pizzeria before closing the door. That night, Slendy cut up a small hunk of each flavor of pizza, making sure to get at least some of the toppings on each sample. Harry quickly decided that pepperoni was his favorite (leaving poor Laughing Jack to bemoan why no one else ever liked pineapple on theirs).

They ate and Sally offered to let him in on a board game before bed, which Akako readily agreed. In the end, they agreed to play a shortened version of risk (to which Jeff gleefully added colorful commentary to the backstories of any unfortunate survivors to the battles that took place).

At 9:30, Slendy told them to go to bed and went upstairs to retire himself.

BEN, Jeff, Eyeless Jack, and Toby all stuck around the parlor room as everyone else filtered out to either go to sleep or get on with their nocturnal life. When they were sure they were alone, BEN closed the door and turned to the other three.

"Okay, so what do we do about the Dursleys?" He asked without prelude.

Jack growled. "I say we rip out their intestines and use them to skip rope… with them still conscious of course."

Jeff rolled his eyes. "Jack, you know how the Underrealm would react to something like that. They'd tan our asses before we'd be able to have any fun with it. Also, doesn't that seem like more an L.J. thing?"

Jack scoffed. "You know, sometimes I enjoy messy killing too. It's not just that freaking clown that has all the fun."

Jeff nodded in consent. BEN brought the conversation back. "Okay, so we all are in agreement that those bastards need to pay, right?"

Nods all around. Toby raised his hand to interrupt. "Uh, problem. The Code says we can't just cause the murders and interfere with the human society's justice system for Normies. It'll raise too many questions for the department if a Normie family gets their guts blended save for one kid who's gone missing."

BEN scowled. He hated the department's stupid rules. Then his long, elven ears twitched upwards in inspiration. "Well, what if we just… speed along the human justice system?"

"What did you have in mind?"

BEN whispered his plan to everyone all of whom were grinning maliciously by the end of it.

Jeff's permanent grin quirked. "Still have a problem guys. Slendy won't let us teleport around, he'll know if we use the Slender-port Terminals and like Hell he'd give us a lift. 'Oh, please, Mr. Slenderman, would you teleport us to Surry? Around the place where Harry lived. Oh, no sir we'd never hurt the Dursleys or go against your orders.' Blah blah blah." He stuck his tongue out, maturely.

Jack put his finger to his chin in thought. "So, we need a way of teleporting around without Slendy knowing. There's only one person I can think of with something remotely like that-"

He stopped as the faint smell of sulfur fumed around the room. Jeff murmured under his breath. "Speak of the devil…"

"Oh? My ears are burning, something good I hope?" Came a deep, reverberating voice from behind them.

The four conspirators turned quickly to find a lone figure sitting comfortably in one of Slendy's armchairs. It was almost completely black except for jagged, red mouth-like slits on its torso and limbs with two spikes on its shoulders curving upwards. Above the two curved spikes, its head floated in place. Two glowing-red eyes bored into them above another jagged, grinning mouth. Two, large, black horns stuck out the sides of its head and small, black spikes were scattered everywhere on its body.

Jack nodded to the figure mostly in just polite acknowledgement. "Zalgo."

All at once, the multitude of red slits curved upwards in grins. "The one and only. Now, what do fine, upstanding members of the Underrealm such as yourselves need with lil' ole me?" He chuckled darkly.

Toby spoke before anyone could stop him. "We need to get somewhere Slendy won't allow us."

Zalgo raised an eyebrow, but his mouth curved even wider. "Oh? Disobeying the rules? That's hardly becoming of Proxies, now is it?" His eyes glinted as he looked between the four.

"W-we need to go somewhere to get revenge for someone." BEN said.

The Demon of Madness let his grin slip in interest. "Now why would Slendy not let someone get revenge? Hmm? What's so special about this case?"

BEN began to explain. "It'd be too suspicious if they died suddenly, so we came up with another plan-"

"I don't knooowww-." The curved slits turned predatory. "What exactly do you need?"

BEN was cut off by Jack. "Wait a minute. You never want anything without something. What's in this for you?"

Zalgo chuckled. "Why so distrustful? I'm just a diabolical being from the depths of the Underrealm, interested in a nice, friendly deal between comrades. Associates. Coworkers. Amigos. Right?"

He was met by four blank stares.

"Fair point. How 'bout for starters, you tell me what's so special about this place? Then we can negotiate."

The wards shared a glance before Jeff addressed the bemused demon. "Well, we got this kid, but Slendy decided to keep him on instead of just messing with his memories and putting him in a new home. We dunno why, though."

"What's so interesting about him? What's his name?"

"Again, we don't know. Slendy just said he might come in handy if we gave him a chance. And his name's Harry. Harry Potter."

For a brief second, the demon's eyes glowed like two charcoals, but none of the teens noticed and went on. "He was treated just awful by these relatives of his and there's no reason why! I mean, yeah, sometimes we get a kid with spider legs or tentacles or something and their families are bad, but Harry is just a kid! That's why we gotta get revenge on these bastards."

Zalgo steeped his spiny fingers in front of his mouth and "hmmed" thoughtfully. "I'll tell you what; I'll give you what you need for this revenge scheme free of charge, BUT-" He paused for emphasis. "I want you to spread a little chaos while you're out there. Set some things on fire, kill a few late-night joggers, egg someone's windows, something like that. I'll even keep this a secret from Slendy granted you do one other thing for me."

The wards warily motioned for him to continue. "Do not tell Slenderman about this conversation."

"Done!" Jeff asserted. He shrugged off Jack's growl and eyeless death-glare. "What? It's a good deal, we were already planning something like that, plus it's not like we'd tell Slendy in any place."

Zalgo maintained his steady grin. "Then we are in agreement?"

Four wards nodded, albeit reluctantly. "Then what do you need?"

Jack spoke. "First off, we need an untraceable long-distance phone call-"

"Hello, this is British Children's Welfare, this is Patricia speaking how may I help you?"

A fake-gruff voice sounded on the other end of the line. "Uh, yes, hello. I'm here to inform you of a possible abuse charge. I'd like someone to take a look at it."

Patricia raised an eyebrow. Clearly these people weren't British, but on the off-chance that it was an American who moved there, she had to listen. "Very well, any specifics."

"Yes. The boy's name is Harry Potter. He lives- or rather lived- with his Aunt and Uncle in Little Whinging, Surrey. You see, he ran away recently. I doubt his family notified the police when they found him gone."

Patricia frowned. She couldn't recall a "Harry Potter" on file. Then again, it was difficult to keep track of one child in an entire country of orphans and foster children.

Though, her frown increased when she pulled up some records and found school records for a "Harry Potter" in the Little Whinging area, but no medical records nor adoption or foster care papers. There was no notification of missing persons filed to the police. The school papers had a name and location attached, so she tried it out.

"Um, excuse me, sir. Could you tell me who his Aunt and Uncle are and where they live exactly?"

"Yes. Their names are Petunia and Vernon Dursley. They have a son, Harry's cousin, whose name is Dudley Dursley. And they live at Number 4 Privet Drive, ma'am."

She frowned. It all matched up. "Are there any specific reasons why you want to file abuse?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it, but I suspect physical abuse, deliberate starvation, and child labor and safety violations."

Patricia nodded and arranged for the house in question to be searched by the local police department.

"Thank you for calling Mr…?"

"Oh, uh, Drowning. I mean, Downing. Benjamin Downing."

Jenny Smithson drove the squad car down the quaint street of Privet Drive. It seemed fairly standard. She would have hardly pegged any of these houses to be a place of child abuse… then again, you couldn't judge a book by its cover.

She was an officer on the force who took child abuse extremely seriously. Even if it was "just a suspicion" she'd agree to tag along even if she had to do it without pay on her own time. In her first year on the force, her department received a call from a concerned old woman that her neighbor's son was being horribly abused. At the time, the department needed more evidence to warrant a search or investigation. "Just a suspicion" was not enough back then.

As it turns out, the next week they were on a man-hunt for the father. Five days after calling, the elderly neighbor noticed the father hurriedly packing suitcases in the car and driving away that evening without his son. His wife had left him, so he lived alone with the boy and she called the police to alert them that the son was left alone.

When Jenny and her squad finally unlocked the door, they were horrified to discover obvious signs of abuse and child endangerment throughout the house. She was the one who stumbled into the son's room first. The father had taken his beatings too far and the poor kid died as a result.

Ever since, she took any tip or sign that a teacher, neighbor, or even random concerned citizen offered and led a search and investigation the next day.

That morning, she and her partner visited each house in normal clothes and a disguised cop car to ask some questions from the neighbors. Jenny really didn't like them. They seemed like the gossipy kind, so she kept the questions discreet and focused more on learning about Harry and the Dursleys.

The mothers were only too happy to gossip about Petunia's garden parties and how their children played with Dudley. She was shocked to see them physically sneer at the mention of Harry. She suspected the neighbors didn't care too much what happened to him. The fathers spoke highly of Vernon and Dudley as "upstanding men of society", but again "harrumphed" at the mention of Harry Potter, calling him "a lazy lay-about".

The children in those households seemed like generic spoilt bullies. Each one had the distinct impression of an animal; a rat, a crocodile, a monkey, a lizard, etc. They mentioned how much fun Dudley was and how they played with his toys frequently. They didn't say much about Harry other than he was a loner, though Jenny caught one boy, Piers Polkiss, calling him "freak" from a slip and didn't notice.

They continued interviewing a few others. A batty old cat-woman vehemently denied that Harry would be in any danger from his relatives, though her shifting eyes gave Jenny another opinion.

A few households had families who had recently moved in. Their stories were much different (along with the personalities). The mothers were polite and told how Petunia was very nice on the exterior, but how they got the impression she was constantly judging them. Some caught her looking around their living rooms when they invited her over and suspected she was looking for material to spread hateful gossip.

The fathers of these households admitted that Vernon was a very loud, in-your-face sort of man with a short temper and rather meaty hands. However, it was unanimously agreed that the boy, Dudley, was a spoilt, arrogant brat. They tried telling the school about how he bullied their children regularly, but the Dursleys had the other families (who collectively made up most of the PTA) in the palm of their hand. Incidentally, these same families were the ones whose children were Dudley's friends.

When asked about Harry, they learned that apparently he was orphaned when his parents died in a "supposed" car crash. They emphasized "supposed" because it was always a suspicious story that one-year-old Harry survived with only the scar. Plus, Petunia's stories of her sister were always spoken with such venom that they were likely embellished. Especially in regards to their being regular drunks.

The parents had only ever seen him going to and from school and doing frequent outdoor chores. On the other hand, they never seemed to remember if Dudley had ever been assigned a single chore.

Few of the children admitted to seeing him. Even fewer actually knew his name. He was like a rumor or a ghost to the neighborhood; someone who was seen occasionally and talked about, but there was never any "real" information about him. No one knew his favorite color. Any television shows he liked. Anywhere he'd ever gone.

They mostly just accepted him as the neighborhood ghost story.

They never really talked with him because his cousin was a bully who drove them away if he saw them with Harry. This just helped cement a case that Dudley was a spoilt bully which simultaneously eroded from the friends-of-the-Dursley's arguments of a nice, happy family (bar the one ragamuffin cousin).

Eventually, they agreed they had enough testaments from the neighbors and confronted the Dursleys themselves.

Getting out of the squad car, she noticed the grass and hedges had started coming undone. Just looking at the lawn she could tell it was used to frequent trims and being almost perfectly manicured. She'd peg that the lawns hadn't been properly cared for in about three days.

In the back of her mind, she made the connection how Harry frequently did the outdoor chores and, if the source was correct, ran away roughly three or four days ago.

The door was answered by a woman who looked more horse than human. She was flustered at their sudden appearance, but led her and her partner to the living room. Given that it was Saturday, her husband, Vernon, was still in the house. Jenny got the impression of a bloated walrus in a leg cast. When Vernon smiled at them, it reeked of forced cheerfulness.

They called down their son and, at first, Jenny was startled to think that a bipedal pig in a wig had just waddled its way down the stairs and into the room.

Then she realized it was their son.

"Mummy, my toys are all over the place still!" He whined. Jenny briefly twitched into a scowl before maintaining the neutral mask of an officer.

"Diddykins, please sit down. We have some rather nice company." Petunia said with artificial sweetness. If Jenny had to put an analogy to it; it was the high-fructose corn syrup of sweet voices. Disgustingly sweet and dripping with artificial chemicals.

"Why can't you go and clean it up? Why couldn't he have cleaned it up before he left?! I hate it now that the frea-"

"Dudley! Please sit down." His mother exclaimed casting a few glances at the officers. Jenny's eyes narrowed. She was 99% sure he was about to say "freak" and connecting it with the Polkiss child's slip up, she had an idea who "he" was as well.

Vernon smiled falsely before adjusting in his chair to face the two officers. "Now, sir and madam, what can we do for you today?"

Her partner straightened before addressing him. "We're here because of a report that a one Harry Potter might be missing from this location. Do you have any information regarding him?"

A rather large vein on the elder Dursley male's head throbbed dangerously. "I suppose you know he lives here?"

Jenny smiled. "Well, we had a few sources, but thank you for confirming it."

The man went slightly pale before darkening to a red. His wife hurriedly started talking. "Yes. He was my sister's child. He was orphaned when he was a baby after they got in a drunk driving accident. She was always such a reckless woman." The horse-faced woman scowled. "Anyways, we got saddled with the boy shortly afterwards."

Jenny's partner raised his eyebrow. "I'm sorry, but we never received any adoption or foster care paperwork regarding him. Is there a reason for it?"

Petunia paled slightly. "I'm afraid it was rather sudden and given that we are family I did not think we were obligated to do so. However, it is widely known that he does live with us."

Jenny pursed her lips slightly. It reeked of something beyond that. Her partner also caught on, but kept his neutrality. "Well, we have a report that he has not been seen for the past few days and may have run away."

Vernon turned puce, but gave a stiff nod. "Yes, the ungrateful brat ran away about three days ago in the middle of the night. He was always a delinquent, mind you, but I caught him as he was trying to leave and he used a lead pipe- a lead pipe I tell you!- to break my shin. Afterwards he ran away and hasn't darkened our doorstep since."

Jenny raised an eyebrow. "And you didn't think to call the police?"

Vernon scowled. "We expected he'd be caught soon enough. I'm not keen on welcoming back a boy after that incident. If you want him in Juvenile Hall, take him." The last bit was said with an almost hopeful tone.

Jenny nodded, pretending to understand. "Well, can you take us to his room, then? It may be possible there are some things there that may give us some clues on how to track him."

She noticed Vernon and Petunia share a quick look before the wife smiled and got up. "I'll lead you straight there."

The son, who was largely bored of the conversation spoke up. "What are you going on about mummy? He doesn't-"

"Dudley, isn't your program on?" Petunia interrupted abruptly. The piggy boy's eyes widened in excitement and he waddled over to the television set. Her partner agreed to stay downstairs to keep an eye on the other two as Jenny followed the wife to the stairs. The sounds of some mindless cartoon drifted out of the living room at their heels.

The first thing Jenny noticed was picture upon picture upon picture of the smiling pig in a wig at every age and several in infancy. She could see he was always fat from the get-go and in several he was still sticky from the lollipop or ice cream remains in his hands. A few had the family as a whole.

Jenny took a brief look at the main portrait above the mantle. It showed Vernon in a blue suit grinning falsely. Petunia in an ugly, canary-yellow dress with a rather distasteful, yellow flowered hat neatly set on her head. Dudley looked like he was ready to scowl the second the camera was done and looked distinctly uncomfortable in a blue suit that matched his father's.

There was no Harry.

Her eyes widened slightly and she quickly looked over every picture again. Dudley. Fruit. Dudley. Dudley. Landscape. Dudley. Family. Dudley. Flower. Dudley. Dudley. Dudley.

No Harry.

She followed the wife up the stairs to the second story. She led her past her son's room (which she pointed out with great emphasis). It had top-of-the-line toys, a television set of his own, books gathering dust in the corner, and several expensive-looking video games all cluttered together.

The rake-thin woman led her past the master bedroom and straight to another bedroom in the back. This one was much smaller than the son's bedroom and she was quick to note that almost every single object in the room was broken. Somewhat violently.

Broken Transformers toys were lying next to shattered computer disks and a few broken toy cars. Some were expensive-looking action figures whose faces had been melted off. Probably by the magnifying glass with a broken lense lying just next to them. Many of the dusty volumes of books were collecting dust in the corner of the room. Some with destroyed covers and some loose pages lying around. A couple of toys looked like they had been gummed up with some form of candy or gum to the point that they were inoperable.

Petunia tutted as she watched the officer for a reaction. "Yes. Harry is a delinquent as my husband explained. He has this horribly violent tendency. He breaks so many of my Diddykins's toys that we just toss them to him. Any toys my dear Dudley accidentally breaks go to him as well. No sense in wasting money if the boy's just going to break it."

Jenny nodded in understanding, it would have made sense after all, but was still analyzing the room in the back of her mind. She took another look inside the room and noticed the bed in the corner had broken toys that were removed from the market almost six months ago for lead paint lying on the bed. Frowning at the likelihood that they'd feign ignorance if the fact that he had dangerous recalled toys brought up, she was about to leave when something clicked.

The recalled toys were six months old and stacked on the bed with toys that were popular as far back as a year ago. But the bed itself had some worn, old sheets and no comforter along with a pillow tossed in the corner like decoration. But what set off alarm bells was a thick layer of dust on the toys and bed itself.

The bed had never been slept in.

Looking around the room again, there was no space made out in the sea of broken toys for a seven-year-old to sleep in. This was a bedroom, but it seemed almost like a decoy bedroom to throw off the scent of things.

Something didn't make sense.

*gurgle*

Jenny blushed in embarrassment as she turned to a quizzical-looking Petunia. "I-I'm terribly sorry to intrude, ma'am, but may I use your loo?"

Damn. She really had to lay off the leftover Chinese food before jobs.

Petunia smiled her diabetes-sweet smile again. "Of course, my dear, please don't bother with the powder room downstairs, the upstairs one is just to the left."

Jenny thanked the woman and made her way to the white-tiled room. She sat doing her… business and let her eyes wander over the room briefly. The room was painfully sterile. The smell of disinfectant permeated the entire space, masking the horribly metallic smell of the deodorizer-

Metallic smell?

Jenny scrunched her nose. She looked around the bathroom closer and quietly finished up. As shameful as her mother's lectures may have been, she didn't flush to avoid the noise. She carefully crept around the bathroom taking a closer look at things.

There!

There were dark spots under some newly-bought decorative rugs that were staining the tiles underneath.

Dark red spots.

And the newly-bought rugs looked like they were bought specifically with those tough, red stains in mind.

She continued her search with renewed fervor. Checking the cabinet, she found a few spare bottles of shampoo, a few spare toilet paper rolls… and a first aid kit.

She brought it down carefully and opened the latch. Inside, it seemed ordinary, but several objects were "off". The roll of bandage and gauze was significantly smaller and the tubes of antibacterial gel looked almost empty.

She opened the battered booklet on first aid and came to a slightly crinkled page with a small thumbprint of blood on it. Her breath caught. The thumbprint was too small to be one of the adult Dursleys and far too skinny to be that of their oh-so-precious son. Plus, she doubted the son would ever go to the first aid kit on his own. More likely, he'd whine for his mommy to make the boo-boo go away.

Scanning the page, she saw it was instructions on how to make a make-shift arm splint. It detailed how, in the event that a medically approved splint was not available, a long, straight, strong object could be bandaged around the area of a broken bone to keep the arm from moving.

He used a lead pipe- a lead pipe I tell you!- to break my shin.

The Uncle's words came floating back to her. A lead pipe was long, straight, and strong. It would do for a make-shift splint. Additionally, the massive amount of bandaging tape gone from the kit would support that it was used to keep the pipe in place.

Her throat constricted at the implications.

Somehow, this child had broken his arm.

Shuddering, she continued to search the bathroom quietly. Fearfully, she crouched down in front of the cabinets under the sink.

Iron.

She froze. The metallic smell she first smelled on the toilet was emanating from inside the cupboard. She slowly opened the door and almost gagged at the sudden wave of the nauseating smell of rotting pus and dried blood. Peering inside made her heart sink even lower.

Once fluffy-white towels were red with splotches of dried blood and some off-yellow mucous-like substance caked in certain spots. As an officer who dealt with abuse, she'd seen plenty of dried pus before.

She quickly made her way back to the toilet in time for it to catch her vomit.

"Are you alright, dear?"

Jenny stiffened. That horrible woman was standing outside, listening to her the entire time. Thank God she was so silent as she looked around.

"Y-yes Mrs. Dursley. I-I'm afraid the- my lunch did not agree with me. Hehe. I'm terribly sorry for needing your loo." She said shakily.

"Oh, it's no trouble ma'am. Come out when you feel like it."

Jenny waited a moment to compose herself, then flushed her vomit and "business" and made a loud show of washing her hands in the sink. As she exited, she came face-to-face with Petunia. Damn, nosy, old hag, she still didn't leave.

"Are you alright, dear? You seem rather… pale." Petunia fretted. Her eyes darted quickly to the bathroom. Specifically the cabinet where she'd stuffed the towels away. The garbage wasn't until Tuesday and they couldn't afford to have the bloody rags in their trash bin out in the open for that long.

"O-oh. It's quite alright. As I said, something didn't agree with me."

Petunia led her back downstairs where her husband was smiling scarily at her partner while telling a long-winded tale about business transactions in drill tips. She almost felt sorry for her bored-to-tears partner. She could see the relief cross his face as she appeared and he stood up hastily apologizing to the walrus-man and explaining something about a tight schedule.

Jenny gave a subtle hand signal to her partner that meant they needed backup and the tip was real. His eyes widened slightly, but he schooled himself and followed her to the foyer.

Jenny forced a smile at the despicable family. "Well, I suppose we will get right on looking for young Harry."

Petunia and Vernon sagged visibly with relief. "Then we wish you the best of luck."

As they watched the family close the door Jenny's eyes strayed over to the stairs.

An awful lot of locks to put on a storage space under the stairs.

…

Locks…

…

Oh, God.

The door closed firmly and Jenny dragged her partner back to the squad car. She started driving away as casually as possible, watching the house and was unnerved to find the husband and wife watching her leave through their window like vultures.

As soon as they got a few blocks down, she radioed in.

"The tip was real. We need an immediate investigation. I repeat; an immediate arrest and investigation."

Within minutes, Petunia and a loudly objecting Vernon were being led to squad cars in handcuffs. Dudley was whining the entire way to his own, separate squad car destined for a waiting area for children.

Jenny led forensics to throughout the house. In addition to the lack of pictures on the first floor, they found a child-sized step stool in front of the stove along with child-sized fingerprints covering most of the kitchen utensils indicating frequent use.

She led them to the second floor and they confirmed the fingerprint in the booklet to be a match to the fingerprints on the utensils. A few minutes later, they later confirmed the prints did not belong to Petunia, Vernon, or Dudley.

But the main attraction was one she saved for last. She led them to the stairs in the foyer and pointed out the locks on the door. Removing the deadbolts, she was sickened.

Inside was a small child-sized mattress with multiple stains that smelled like age-old urine and feces. A shelf held some broken crayons and some broken toy soldiers reverently placed. It spoke volumes if the child prized a few broken toys as though on a pedestal.

The single-bulb was long-since removed and the socket was exposed and, as one member of forensics painfully found out, still live.

A small drawing was scrawled on a wooden support saying :"Harry's Room" in childish writing.

But what truly sealed it were the blood stains on the walls, floor, and mattress. Along with a tiny, bloody handprint on the door where it was pushed open.

Forensics confirmed (though they really didn't need to at this point) that the fingerprints were a direct match to the bathroom and kitchen appliances.

The police searched the entire area and brought out some dogs to try and sniff out a possible shallow grave. Forensics was hopeful that the lack of too much blood and possible first aid meant that the boy really did run away and did not meet a gruesome fate at the hands of his relatives.

The Durlseys vehemently denied murdering him, but admitted in the face of all of the evidence to have broken the boy's arm. They continued to insist that he ran away.

Jenny remained hopeful that evening as the evidence was processed. She was at her computer, finishing up any leads on Harry Potter, but coming up negative.

*ding*

She was startled out of the report she was writing by an email from an unknown sender. The subject line was "Harry Potter".

Cautiously, she opened it.

Officer Smithson,

We are grateful that you took our tip seriously and those wretched people are behind bars. I just wanted to let you know that Harry Potter is safe.

He has received medical attention and we are in the process of finding appropriate psychological therapy as well. As you can imagine, the damage was rather extensive.

Attached are some photographs he allowed us to take when he was first attended to by our resident medic (for the time being, he will be known as Doctor E.J.). Please note the following diagnoses.

-Broken Ulna (transverse fracture)

-Mild to severe malnutrition

-Second-degree burns to the right hand (admits were forcefully inflicted)

-Multiple lacerations and abrasions

-Multiple scars

-Multiple bruises of varying degrees of severity

We have arranged for him to remain here in our care. Please do not worry, as he will be safe with us. If you desire a testimony from him, he has agreed to answer questions on video to be replayed in court as he would prefer to stay away from Britain at the time. Please understand.

Thank you for your help in righting this great wrong.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Downing

She opened the attached pictures and found a small, thin seven-year-old boy staring back at the camera. He had black hair and very green eyes along with a small lightning-bolt shaped scar matching the description of the neighbors.

A few pictures were taken with his shirt removed, showing the remains of belt-shaped scars and multiple lacerations on his back. A lead pipe was wrapped to his arm by medical bandage tape which confirmed her suspicion that it was used as an emergency splint. She saw a picture of the burn on his right hand and shuddered upon recognizing the shape as the heating element of the Dursleys' stove. The final few pictures were x-rays of malnourished bone density and a fractured arm bone.

The other documents were scans of lab reports detailing blood nutrient content, height, weight, etc.

She immediately called forensics and forwarded the letter to them.

The next morning they revealed that the pictures were real and matched a lot of evidence found at the house, further incriminating the family. Though, they admitted that the email address led to a dead link in the US. They couldn't trace the source beyond that, so Jenny had to accept Mr. Downing's promise that Harry Potter was alright.

A week later, the Durlseys were in a court room. Dudley was in the audience stands with a social worker shifting uncomfortably and loudly whispering his boredom.

Jenny silently hoped that the child's uncaring attitude to the fate of his parents was painful to his mother's heart.

The disk was removed from the "Evidence" envelope it had been in since she'd first received Mr. Downing's parcel. A projector and player was brought into the courtroom and the disk was inserted to begin playing.

The screen lit up and showed a frail boy with messy black hair in a plush armchair. His thin, bony arm was in a sling at his side and he looked at the camera, mildly uncomfortable with the attention of being filmed. He identified himself as "Harry James Potter, age 7" and a masculine voice spoke off-camera, introducing himself as "Doctor E.J." for anonymity. The voice asked Harry about his home life, how he was treated, an average day, a good day, a bad day, his school life, his chores, and the day he left. He asked Harry to detail standard punishments administered by both Dursley adults and teachers.

After being interrogated, a hand in a white latex glove in a white labcoat sleeve appeared at the edge of the screen and held up enhanced images of the boy in question; specifically pictures of the scars on his back, the burn on his hand (which Harry supplied his healing burn scar on his hand to the camera), and X-Ray images of his broken arm and severe bone malnutrition. Harry didn't seem distressed by the questioner nor the questions, just a bit uncomfortable at being the center of attention.

Afterwards, Harry was happy to address the camera and state that he was currently very pleased with his new family.

By the time the screen faded to black, the courtroom was in an outrage. The Dursley's lawyer had nothing in the face of the overwhelming evidence provided by the investigation and the testimony video. The Dursley parents were sentenced to 10 years in prison and heavy fines for extreme child endangerment. Dudley Dursley was given over to the custody of his paternal aunt Marjory Dursley with instructions to attend several psychiatric evaluation sessions over the next few months with more in the future as deemed necessary

Jenny watched with some dark glee as the couple was taken away in cuffs, though she noticed a few figures in the far back of the public gallery whose faces were covered in hoods. They wore identical grins and one looked directly at her before nodding discretely.

When the court room was adjourned, she quickly made her way to the back of the courtroom, but the figures had disappeared. Though a small envelope was left on one of their seats addressed to her. She opened it up and removed the two pieces of paper inside.

One was a short note in neat writing.

Thank you for all of your help, Officer.

-Benjamin Downing

The other was a childish drawing of a generic brown-haired woman in a police uniform with a young, smiling boy with black hair and obvious green eyes. On the back it said "Thank you Officer Smithson –Harry Potter" in childish scrawl.

She smiled and left the courtroom a happier woman.

That evening, Privet Drive was glowing in the early morning pre-dawn darkness…

Well, #4 was glowing at least.

Four figures stood in front of the roaring fire that was once #4. The few things of Harry's were salvaged in a tiny bag and put to the side. They also… liberated a few things before allowing Toby to set the place ablaze. After all, why let perfectly good things go to waste.

Jeff got a new knife and a few state-of-the-art tool bits from Vernon's business. BEN stole some of the video games Dudley had along with his computer system and a few consoles. Toby was satisfied taking some of the tacky, but expensive, china Tchotchkes of Petunia's which would probably be used for some amusing batting practice later on.

Toby was currently sitting cross-legged and dangerously close to the blaze with a small extendable roasting rod with a couple marshmallows turning lightly golden from the glorious blaze.

E.J. didn't take anything from the house but had a few coolers with biohazard stickers next to him and was currently munching on a kidney-shaped lump of flesh.

Jeff noticed first. "Hey, E.J. where'd you get the kidney?"

Jack swallowed before answering. "I managed to wheedle a few short trips from Zalgo to Marjorie Dursley's house and the local penitentiaries. Guess whose this is?"

"Ew, you're eating that fat guy's kidney?"

"Oh, God, no. That bloated whale and his kid's organs are probably so disgustingly fatty it'd give me indigestion. This is Petunia's." He took another bite.

Jeff raised a nonexistent eyebrow. "So, you just left the others alone?"

E.J. grinned maliciously. "Hell, no. The cooler to the right has about 40% of Vernon's liver. I want to run some tests to see how that fatty organ (and I was right, it is) could process so much alcohol and fat. The cooler to the left has the Dursley kid's pancreas. I want to see how it could survive so much sugar."

BEN looked at him. "Why only 40%?"

"Well, I believe you can survive with only that much missing, but just barely. Petunia'll be fine with just one kidney. As for the kid's pancreas, he'll just have to limit his sugar intake with daily injections of insulin. I figured for a kid like that, it'd be Hell enough.

"I also ran into that stupid dog of Marge's that Harry mentioned. Ripper, I think its name was."

"Was?"

"No, I kept it alive (AN: after all, if I killed a dog in my fic, you people would probably eat me alive). I just removed a few things necessary to "rip" stuff." He held out his palm which had a large amount of sharp, pearly white teeth glinting in the firelight. "Don't worry, he was out when I did it. No sense torturing an animal just for its nature. Though, some revenge on Harry's behalf was justified."

Jeff nodded, "Definitely." He glanced around at the surrounding houses. "We should scram. These people are probably getting suspicious. Though, if they do see us-" His grin widened and he brandished a knife as he glared at #5, "snitches get stitches. Right?"

"No, Jeff. We're getting enough attention as it is. Let's just use Zalgo's portal to get back before Slendy finds out." Jack said firmly. Toby sat up and popped the slightly-overcooked marshmallow in his mouth (E.J. winced at the burns the teen couldn't feel) before retracting his roasting rod. The four gathered their stolen possessions glanced back at and made it to the fence edge where a swirling, red portal beckoned.

As they walked across the lawn, Jeff turned to the eyeless doctor and summed up his action for clarification. "So, you ripped out their organs and stitched them up while they were out from anesthetics?"

E.J. grinned and his smile glinted evilly in the red blaze.

"Whoever said the Dursleys were unconscious during their procedure?"

Albus Dumbledore just got back from an annoyingly long and complicated ICW meeting. Honestly, those fools couldn't count to 10 without his help.

After almost a full month of being gone from meeting to meeting, he just wanted to go to sleep in his familiar bed. He apparated to the gates of Hogwarts well past midnight and walked up to his study. On the way, he was suddenly accosted by four irate heads of houses still in pajamas.

Snape was the first. "Albus! Get those bloody things out of your office!"

Minerva nodded in rare agreement. "We've resorted to casting silencing charms on every classroom and as many as we can around your office, but the noise just bleeds through! The students can't get a decent night's sleep! We tried owling you but you couldn't be reached."

Albus didn't hear anything beyond that as he rushed towards the noisy office. He spoke the password ("Blood Pop") and ran up the stairs to the doors. The second he opened them, the silencing charms were broken and he was hit by a wave of noise that couldn't possibly be healthy for human hearing.

All around his office, his spinning knick knacks were spiraling and whizzing while emitting screams, sirens, honks, and (embarrassingly for one) some noises that were reminiscent to a raspberry Peeves would give. His desk was almost buried under a frantic amount of letters from Arabella Fig with a specific yellow wax seal he instructed to use when communicating information regarding Harry Potter. Disregarding his bleeding ears, he ran to each and every one of his instruments tied to Harry Potter and #4 Privet Drive.

Each one said the same thing essentially. 1) Harry Potter was not in #4 Privet Drive. 2) Harry Potter was not in the UK anymore. 3) #4 was in danger.

The only comfort he had was a remaining instrument puffing away indicating that the Potter boy was still alive.

He silenced them all with a wave of his wand and called upon Fawkes. In a flash of Phoenix Fire, he found himself in front of another, completely different fire.

He watched as his plans, like #4 itself, went up in fire and smoke.

He glanced to the side just in time to see four figures disappear into a red portal at the fence gate. The figures wore hoods and had their backs to the blazing inferno, so he couldn't make out their faces. Admittedly, he was too surprised to see them that he hadn't thought of using a Stunning Spell to get one of them. By the time he'd thought of the idea, the swirling, red portal closed in on itself and vanished, taking the only source of information with it.

Dumbledore ran over to the space where it used to be and raised the Elder Wand casting generic diagnosis charms.

His wand came up blank.

Stunned, he raised it again and cast more specific charms, ancient charms, tracking charms, even some rather unapproved-of-by-law charms designed to trace a mode of transportation. Each one came up with nothing and insisted that nothing ever magical existed there in the first place.

He stared back at the spot where the fissure in time and space used to be and glared darkly as though sheer willpower might force it open again. His anger was distracted by the distant horns of muggle "fire engines" rapidly approaching in response to the blaze.

He spared one more glance at the pyre that was #4 Privet Drive before walking quickly away towards a dark space between two cookie-cutter homes without any windows facing him. He summoned Fawkes and Pheonix-flamed away to his office, leaving a scorch mark on the muggle's lawn.

Once back in the familiar environment of his office, sans the clicking and ticking of roughly 35 intricate, expensive silvery devices, he began to do what he'd always done for 140 years of his life.

He planned.

Deep below the earth's surface, in a large cavern made completely of black obsidian, from the craggy walls to the impossibly-sharp stalagmites and stalactites adorning at random intervals, a being sat in an obsidian throne, draped across the armrests. Red flames flickered and licked at the rock from small cracks and veins of red, glowing coal pulsed. Around the throne were rivers of tar-black ooze slowly sludging its way around the cave and fed by drips and drizzles of the stuff from the roof.

The being in question was currently playing with a small, gold key in his hand. The ornate end of it was intricately shaped into an ancient symbol. The society that created it was long-gone, but the essence of the symbol remained ingrained in the basis of the human psyche.

The symbol of absolute, unadulterated Corruption.

The being flipped it thoughtfully in its hands, contemplating something. Finally, he stood up from his seat and walked over to the pool of black muck and murmured into it, "Harry Potter."

A skeletal hand, coated in the tar slowly emerged from the sticky embrace and held up a partially decayed newspaper. Zalgo took the paper and the ooze fell off like water on plastic as the hand was dragged back into the muck. He smoothed out the creases before re-reading the old headline:

"You-Know-Who Defeated Forever! Wizarding World Saved by Boy-Who-Lived; Harry Potter!"

The demon grinned as he re-read the old passage from a paper called "The Daily Prophet" detailing this mysterious wizard that an entire society was afraid to say the name of and how a young toddler managed to supposedly destroy this corrupt soul off the face of the earth. "Oh, Slendy, what a prize you've caught, haven't you?"

He tossed the paper back into the river and it was slowly dragged back under the surface. Flinging himself back onto his dark throne, he held the key above his head once more, examining it. He flipped it over once more and read a name engraved in the handle.

Gringotts Bank

"This will be… fun."

AN: People in this chapter are purely fiction. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is completely coincidental.

If you were wondering about Funnymouth, I chose him because he was the only pasta I could think of who had to deal with broken bones (even if it was just a jaw bone).

Oh, Jeeze. Halfway through writing the officer scene, I realized I'd just named her "Officer Jenny". I guess for the most part you can call it a "cameo" of sorts for Pokemon.

I have little to no idea how the justice system works in America, let alone Britain. Please forgive me for anything that I messed up on, but for the most part I think I did alright. (And I know they have a lot of different terms and phrases regarding police in Britain, but I'm from the Mid West, so please cut me some slack.)

What is Zalgo doing? How does he know about the Wizarding World?

I hope you enjoyed.

-Crow

-Funnymouth: "Funnymouth" by Slimebeast

-Zalgo: Internete meme: by unknown

-Freddy Fazbear: "Five Nights at Freddy's" by Scott Cawthon: video game franchise