Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and can't get money for this, but I can make him into a Mafia Prince.

Warning: Some chapters (the ones including pranks) might not be appropriate to read at work. Laughter may ensue leading your co-workers to see you as even more insane than they previously thought.

Chapter 7: First Blood

Blaise went to wake up her father while Harry cautiously entered Manuel's room. Here he had to be careful, his father slept with a gun and knife under his pillow and though Manuel probably already knew it was him it paid to be cautious so as not to become a target.

"Dad," Harry called out softly from near the bed but not near enough to be within knife range knowing that Manuel would go for the knife at such a close distance instead of a gun. To get that far into the bedroom of Manuel Darkov made things personal.

"Harry," Manuel's voice was alert and Harry moved to the bed and climbed in beside his father, snuggling down into the warmth and ignoring his dad's wince as his cold feet brushed against him.

"Merry Christmas dad," Harry said, giving his father a hug.

Manuel returned the hug and anticipating what was coming next told Harry, "Merry Christmas Harry, but it's way too early to get out of bed."

Harry pouted for a moment in a typical seven-year-old manner before wiggling free from his father's arms and heading out of the room. Blaise was waiting impatiently in the hall for Harry and shook her head negatively in response to Harry's questioning look. Neither of their father's was willing to get out of bed and indulge them in their need of presents. It was tradition for the four of them to wait until all together before opening anything. Harry sighed, a hidden twinkle in his vibrant green eyes as he plotted.

"Well, we can at least go open our stockings," he said and allowed Blaise to precede him downstairs.

Pausing for a moment at the end of the hall Harry concentrated hard as sweat began beading lightly on his forehead, he was rewarded moments later by two muffled yelps; this particular feint of magic had taken a lot out of him but would it would be well worth it in the long run. For a brief moment Harry swayed there near the top of the steps wondering why some of the magic he played with was harder to work with and needed to be controlled in different ways than some of the stuff he could just wish to happen. Doing some things with magic, like what he had just did, was more tiring than others to his young body and unlike the day at the amusement park he didn't have an adrenaline rush to augment his powers. Smirking Harry regained his equilibrium and skipped lightly down the steps to join Blaise at the Christmas tree positioned near a crackling fire in the informal living room.

Upstairs Manuel was shaking cold water off his head and grimacing at Harry's unfair and devious tactics before heading towards his shower, giving up on the idea of sleeping in. Further down the hall Trevor was grinning even as his teeth chattered, Blaise must have really wanted him up for her accidental magic to have forced such a thing to happen. Still grinning Trevor pulled a length of wood from its hiding place in the bed frame and cast a simple drying charm before heading to his shower; his daughter would definitely be getting her letter in a few years. Wouldn't she be surprised then, but he would also have a lot of explaining to do. It wouldn't matter though, it would be worth it.

Christmas day passed as it always did excepting the fact that Manuel glared at Harry for a good fifteen minutes after he came down, peeved at the wakeup call and planning retaliation for later. They spent the day exchanging and fooling around with presents as each shift of the guard changed. The ones that were at the mansion today were those that didn't keep contact with their family or were spending a different day with them, mainly all of them. Harry was glad most of them stayed to spend Christmas at Darkov Manor since except for three or four of the guards they had been around since Harry was a baby; some often delighted in teased him with embarrassing stories on changing his nappies. Then of course there was the ton of food to feast on.

Throughout the day you only had to walk into the dining room and grab whatever you wanted to eat off of the trays or steam table. It was at dinner that everything changed. Before dinner a thorough sweep was done of both the grounds and the mansion, the exterior security systems were set on high alert, and the house was locked down so that they could celebrate Christmas dinner together and no one was forced to miss out because they were on shift. Every year they all sat down to enjoy Christmas dinner and crack rowdy jokes, ignoring the fact that they were saying things most seven year olds shouldn't hear. To Harry, Manuel, Blaise, Trevor, Sensei, and all the rest this was how Christmas dinner was meant to be spent; with their mafia family all together, sitting around the grand table in a locked down house.

The rest of the holidays passed uneventfully except for a brief problem when security was breached. It had been in the early hours of the morning when the alarms signaling one of the first story rooms being broken into went off. Instantly the whole of the Darkov household was on alert and guards could be heard moving through the halls towards the lower levels, checking for intruders as they went. Harry himself was on his feet in no time, slipping his feet into his shoes as he pulled his knife from under his pillow and picked up the gun from the bedside table. Silently Harry slipped into the hallway at the same time as his father and Trevor, Blaise joining up with them only moments later.

"Stay here," Manuel ordered firmly to the two children, "I don't want to see either of you set foot downstairs."

Before either Harry or Blaise could respond Manuel and Trevor were gone, leaving them alone in the hallway as all but one guard left at the stairs had headed to the lower level. Harry reached out to tap Blaise's arm and motioned her into the relative safety of his room, the hallway was too open. Settling her comfortably in his bed he motioned for her to stay lying on the bed and he drew the thick hangings to screen her should anyone enter the room, she would have been safer on the floor under the bed but less comfortable and her escape would be hampered if they needed to flee. That done he took up position in the shadows across from the door and waited.

He didn't have to wait long before his door creaked softly open; it wasn't his father, he would have knocked first as a precaution as would most of the guards. Harry hadn't heard any noise from downstairs and now suspected that the intruder had somehow slipped by the guards, either that or there was more than one and the guards were tied up dealing with them. Harry stayed his hand until the shadowy figure was fully into the room; double checking to make sure it wasn't a guard. Eyes locked onto Harry's position and the young boy no longer hesitated but sent his knife flying, brining up his gun at the same time. The intruder was one step ahead of him.

The moment the knife had left Harry's hand the intruder had dove forward under Harry's guard and knocked the gun away. A furious struggle ensued as Harry desperately tried to land blows on his opponent. But it seemed as if the intruder merely absorbed the blows and knew exactly what moves Harry was going to make as he threw his greater weight around to disadvantage the young Darkov. All too soon Harry found himself pinned to the floor and though he continued to struggle he couldn't throw the shadowy form off of himself.

What happened next was completely unexpected. During the struggle Blaise had slipped unnoticed from the bed and retrieved Harry's dagger. Moving behind the intruder she had raised the knife and plunged it down, squeezing her eyes shut as she did so, at the exact moment the intruder reared away from Harry who had just kneed him forcefully in the groin. As the intruder reared away from Harry his body turned sideways towards Blaise exposing him to the frantically thrust dagger. The sharp edge of the blade pierced the intruders body as the flesh of his neck parted easily beneath the force of Blaise's frenzied stab.

Blaise opened her eyes, unable to resist, in time to see dark eyes glaze over in death as the body slumped sideways off of Harry; the front half of the assassin's neck was completely severed. Harry rose to his feet, ignoring the blood that had poured over his body and was spreading darkly across his carpet. Taking Blaise's bloody hands in his own relatively clean ones Harry led his friend to his bathroom.

"Come on Blaise," he coaxed her gently, "let's get you cleaned up."

Manuel and Trevor had only made it to the second floor before they were ambushed. Expertly dispatching one assassin Manuel left Trevor to torture information out of the second one as he headed towards the first floor. Manuel reached the top of the stairs and almost started down them when he was disturbed by a faint odor in the air. Looking sharply at the air Manuel noticed a faint haze floating along the first floor and immediately covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve, shaking his head slightly as if to clear it.

"Knockout gas," Manuel cursed moving back to the second floor where the gas had yet to infiltrate and turned to Trevor who had just slit the assassin's throat having no more need for the bastard alive.

"Sampson betrayed us," Trevor hissed, the desire for vengeance in his voice.

Manuel's blood ran cold. Sampson had been on the guard for at least two years and while a bit strange they had trusted him, the intelligence he had gathered had always been top of the line and had never steered them wrong. It seemed as if the man's ambitions had risen to meet a higher price.

"The kids," Manuel ground out and sprinted back to the third floor, taking the steps two at a time.

Not bothering to knock Manuel flung the door to his son's room open and flipped the lights on, his gun sweeping the room as Trevor did the same beside him. Harry and Blaise weren't there but a slightly mangled and rapidly cooling corpse lay in its own blood in the middle of the room. Both fathers felt their hearts skip a beat and nearly stop before they caught the low sound of a voice accompanied by running water coming from the bathroom.

The sight they walked in on was one they did not expect. Blaise was sitting stonily on the sink counter; blood was splashed all over her though it obviously wasn't hers and Harry was gently washing blood off her hands and whispering soft words of comfort to the distraught and shocked girl. For a second Harry looked up and caught his father and Trevor's eyes before turning back to Blaise.

"If it wasn't for you he would have had me Blaise. Thank you. You did a very brave thing; you protected me and the others in the house. That man doesn't matter anymore, what matters is that we're safe. You saved us."

Harry's words released a flood gate in Blaise and she started to sob and shake. Coming forth Trevor wrapped his arms around his daughter while Harry dried her now clean hands on a dark towel.

Picking his little girl up and cradling her in the safety of his arms Trevor took Blaise to his room and tucked her into his bed, coercing her to take a sleeping pill; the talk they needed to have was one better saved till morning.

Harry also slept with his father that night after he had showered the crusting blood of his attacker off of himself and the back-up guards had arrived to take care of the situation. Most of the on-duty guards had been caught by the knockout gas and were suffering from extreme wooziness and headaches. Though he had appeared to be strong it had been more of a front for Blaise, inwardly Harry had been shaking and now delayed reaction was setting in. He could almost still feel the man's hot blood drenching through his clothes, onto his skin, and Harry couldn't hold back a shudder at every imagined whiff of the tang of blood he knew still clung to him even after a vigorous scrubbing under nearly scalding water. Manuel held Harry in his arms as his shaken son finally fell asleep and he couldn't help but think back to Harry's first kill.

Flashback

It was only a little over a month before Harry's seventh birthday and they were taking the limo out to dinner. They hadn't realized that their guards had been cut off from reaching them until right before the limo was attacked. A sense of fearful déjà vu had gripped Manuel and he had come out fighting after telling Harry to crawl under the car and hide, he wasn't about to lose another child. So intent on one of his opponents and the taunts being thrown at him about his dead wife and child Manuel hadn't realized that he was being snuck up upon until a gun shot shattered the air. Quickly dispatching the suddenly distracted man in front of him Manuel had turned to see his little Harry standing over a still form, the gun he had picked up shaking in his hands though he didn't know how the boy had managed to keep hold of the gun after the recoil. Manuel knelt before is son, blocking his view of the body and gently removed the gun from Harry's hands before pulling his son into a tight hug. They were safe then and the guards were coming to surround them in a protective barrier but still Harry had shook…

End Flashback

Manuel sighed and pulled his son closer, thankful his dark prince was still alive. He had managed to help Harry through his first kill and together they would help Trevor get Blaise through hers. It wouldn't be easy but they would do it, they wouldn't allow Blaise to lose herself to guilt and fears.