India

"What happened to your hand?" Harry's aunt asked when he lowered the bags onto the kitchen counter. Harry looked down at his bloodstained palm for a moment before schooling an innocent expression on his face.

"I tripped," he said offhandedly.

His aunt pursed her lips and sniffed, "Well get that cleaned up. And you better not have broken the eggs."

Harry rolled his eyes and started up the stairs.

"Like you were concerned in the first place, cow," he muttered. After washing off his hands he went to go see Inuyasha at the gate.

"Take your damn time why don't ya?" Inuyasha griped when Harry arrived.

"Hey! I'll have you know I've been buying ramen and fighting demons," Harry retorted indignantly.

Inuyasha's ears reflexively perked at the mention of ramen, "Well, that's alright then."

Harry sighed tiredly and put a cigarette in his mouth, before taking out his zippo and lighting it. Not three hours after he got back to the Dursley's he went straight to Dudley's bedroom and nicked some. He'd seen older students sneak up to the Astronomy tower, or wander off during Hogsmead trips, for a quick smoke but hadn't understood the appeal in it. He heard nicotine was a relaxant, that it could be considered therapeutic; but he found the smell that would cling to his clothes or the damage it could do to his lungs to be a turn off.

Now he understood. It wasn't to look cool, as he was careful not to let Order members of his relatives see him. Instead he found that with every drag he could feel a bit of his stress flow out of him and his head would clear.

While doing much better with coping with his problems since he met Inuyasha, Harry still found a fag every now and then could help him relax.

"Well this looks like a charming habit," came a dry voice to his left. Harry blow smoke through his lips and grinned sheepishly.

"Do you mind?"

Inuyasha smiled and shook his head, "Somehow, I don't think it will be smoking that will kill you."

Harry laughed.

"Well I'm glad to see you're confident in my abilities. Er, you don't think this will affect my stamina or anything?" he asked, suddenly worried.

"Nah," Inuyasha said waving it off. "In fact it shouldn't even make a spot on your lungs."

"Really?" Harry asked perplexed.

"Mmmhmm. Think about it—a child who goes for days locked in a cupboard with no food would be much more severely malnourished than you appear to be."

Harry didn't see where this was going and asked a bit defensively, "What? You think I lied about that?"

"Not at all, I'm saying your magic sustained your body," at Harry's blank look he continued. "Your body unknowingly conjured nutrients for you to survive and remain relatively healthy—at the bare minimum, at least."

"And you think it would do the same with my lungs if I smoked?"

"Right on."

"Oh...Do you smoke?"

"Not so much anymore—I'm an old man."

Harry snorted. He doubted if Inuyasha would ever be an old man.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I got something for you," Inuyasha walked over to Harry and handed him a small, silver object.

"A cell phone?" Harry asked, looked at him questionably.

"That's what they're called," Inuyasha said cheerfully. "You found a demon around your neighborhood didn't you?"

"Um, yeah...How did you...?"

"Well you'll be seeing much more of that. Once you start sensing them it never stops. In fact you'll start seeing them everywhere. It will be up to you to decide whether they're hostile or not."

Harry nodded, "And the cell phone is for..."

"So I can let you know of any demons that need to be taken care of or to call me if anything happens. My number is in there, so is Tai and Shiva's, and so is my daughter's," Inuyasha gave him a scrutinizing look. "She insisted."

Harry threw up his hands, "I swear I have nothing to do with that."

"Mmmhmm," Inuyasha smirked, "Anyway, the most important feature...it makes videos!"

"Videos?" Harry repeated, looking at Inuyasha as though he was mad. "And this will help me...how?"

Inuyasha shrugged, "I dunno. I just think it's cool."

Harry nodded in agreement. It was cool.

"Up for a little fresh air?" Inuyasha suggested.

Harry grinned. Just as he promised himself, he was getting a tan. He wasn't about to pass up a chance while being in India was he? On many occasions he and Inuyasha went up a long set of stairs hidden behind a fake wall. One could pass through it much like the gate at platform nine and three-quarters. Of course, knowing Inuyasha they had to walk up the stairs the "fun way"—meaning Harry had to jump as many steps as possible. All the way up the 400-step spiral stone staircase. Wonderful.

He soon forgot about any pain involved when he reached the warm outdoors. India was truly beautiful—or at least the part above his gate was. A long range of white, rock-strewn mountains could be seen in the distance and grassy fields and limber trees surrounded the area. A small village stood in the west with many skillfully carved palaces and temples in golden-yellow sandstone.

Among all the work and fighting he did that summer, Harry had the time of his life. He liked to spend time playing games with some of the kids his age, swimming in the river, and fruitlessly trying to flirt with the girls. He even rode a camel once. It was brief and it didn't end well for his back, but Inuyasha got a kick out of it.

The locals were nice enough as well—even if they didn't seem to speak a word of English (that was part of what made the flirting so hard). But that didn't prove to be a problem. Harry was quite impressed to find that Inuyasha could speak fluent Hindi. In fact, he could speak many languages. Surprise, surprise.

"Run to that tree," Inuyasha ordered out of nowhere. He pointed to a bare-leaved white-barked tree approximately two-hundred meters away from them.

"Are you going to time me?" Harry asked. He knew he was fast, but compared to most demons he'd have to be inhumanly fast, which was why Inuyasha often emphasized on speed.

"Yep."

Without any further prompting, Harry shot off. Wind rushed by his face as his feet altered in pushing the ground behind him. Before he knew it the tree was nearly within reach.

Something broke through the ground right between him and his target.

"What the—shit!"

Springing up from his next planned step, Harry just narrowly avoided having his leg cut in half by a scythe-like protrusion swung by the unburied demon.

While still in the air from the high jump, Harry bit his thumb hard enough to break the skin and then snapped his fingers. A blood-whip waved out from between the point of contact of his fingers and he brandished it forward just as he landed. The whip wrapped around the second scythe-like arm of the demon, which had been in motion for a second attack.

Harry yanked hard, uprooting the demon that appeared to resemble an enormous, leathery mantis. His small victory was short-lived as the demon focused its energy in violently dispersing the whip with an ear-splitting screech. Once freed, the demon smoothly transitioned onto offense and swung another appendage at Harry, this time radiating the same energy it used to dispel his last attack—youki.

Harry had already cut a shallow incision across each palm.

"Shield," he barked, swinging his left arm around before him and holding his palm out. The demon's attack was only delayed for a second before the shield shattered, meaning it could power its youki to counteract Harry's fresh understanding of blood magic.

Luckily, Harry had been able to recognize this as a second-class demon and dropped to the ground immediately, throwing his right arm forward next.

"Orbis telum!"

The plasma coating his hand lengthened into a translucent, cone-shaped oddity, the spear-like tip of which shot forward with blinding speed and impaled the demon on the underside of its belly.

Knowing better than to relax, Harry used his left hand to send forth a sickle-shaped projectile that lopped off the demon's head.

"Falcis! Attero!"

The two-piece body shriveled into embers after a brief flame. The light, Indian breeze took care of the rest of the evidence.

Huffing, more so from shock than exhaustion, Harry turned to see Inuyasha laughing uproariously.

"That wasn't funny, asshole."

Dying down to a chuckle, Inuyasha brushed some hair out of his face and straightened his posture.

"Yes it was," he countered. "What does Pop-Eye say again? Constant Vigilance?"

Harry chucked his new cell phone at him. He probably should have seen the demon coming; it wasn't like Inuyasha randomly throwing demons at him was anything new. But somehow the man always managed to catch him off guard.

With his new, intense schedule over the month, Harry had forgotten about his impending birthday.

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Even MOAR shortness.