Unwanted

Harry groaned as a particularly annoying bird twittered outside his window woke him much too early for his liking. He tiredly rolled out of his bed and winced as the tongue lashing Mrs. Weasley delivered last night returned with vivid clarity.

Grinning ruefully at his subsequent departure, he rubbed his eyes with the knuckles of his left and absently felt around for his glasses with his right. His hand ended up stumbling upon the OWL scores that he left on his desk and he brought them to his face after donning his specs.

Nine OWLs wasn't so bad; he wasn't a genius, but he wasn't completely daft either. Academically speaking, that is. He received an O in DADA, just as he predicted, and the rest of his grades consisted mostly of E's and A's with the exception of Divination where he received a D and, of course, History of Magic, his one and only T. His career choice of being an auror was down the drain seeing as he only received an A in potions, but it didn't matter much to him anyway. There was no way in hell he was going to work for the ministry after last year. Not to mention he seemed to have a career already picked out for him.

Besides, the less of Snape he saw the better.

Harry got dress in a pair of baggy, gray gym shorts and a white tank and went outside for a jog. The air was unusually humid for that time in the morning and after only twenty minutes, sweat began gathering on his chest and forehead. He enjoyed it nonetheless. Running was another outlet for stress, next to smoking—an odd combination, but effective. His ears picked up an additional pair of feet pounding on the ground, catching up to his. He glanced to his right to find the girl from the grocery store running right along side of him.

"Hi," she said breathlessly. She seemed to be having a bit of trouble keeping up with him. He wasn't about to slow down on her account though; it wasn't his problem. "I didn't know you ran."

"Well now you do," he said dispassionately. He felt annoyingly self-conscious that her eyes continually dropped to his sweat-soaked body rather than meeting his own.

The girl looked fleetingly disheartened for a moment before adding, "So you want to hang out sometime, if you're not busy? You didn't exactly give me a straight answer last time."

Harry raised an eyebrow, "And why would you want to hang out with me?"

"Oh, erm, I just wanted to...make up for the way I treated you in primary school. I remember I was pretty horrible to you."

By this time Harry had reached the Dursleys front lawn and slowed to a stop. The girl followed suit, leaning down with her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

"What's your name again?" Harry asked.

"Rachel, Rachel Ackerman."

"Right..." Harry trailed off, not knowing what to say next. This girl didn't seem to give up. And he really had no interest in getting reacquainted with anyone or anything related to his childhood. Incidentally, he was saved in the next moment by his cousin, who came strutting out the door on his way to one of his gang member's homes. Dudley froze on the walkway as soon as he spotted Rachel. His stance quickly changing from smug to glib.

"Hey Rachel," he said, making his voice a little deeper than usual and swaggering towards the two joggers. Harry quickly turned away and stuffed his knuckle into his mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

"Hello Dudley," she said dryly, looking completely apathetic. He didn't seem to notice her distaste at his presence.

"I didn't see you at Malcolm's party last week. Pity...I was hoping we could, ah, talk some. Ya know?"

"Oh, well, er, I had other plans."

"Is that so? Well I think you should chill with the boys and me today. We're going to the Grill later."

The Grill was the local hang out place for teenagers in Surrey and was usually filled with them at all hours during the summer. Not a place Harry would enjoy considering his most recent reaction to being surrounded by people.

"I don't know..." She said looking perturbed. It was obvious she had no interest in hanging out with Dudley. Seeing as he was no longer holding anyone's attention, Harry decided to make his leave.

"Come on," Dudley persisted as Harry slowly moved towards the door. He was just at the steps, reaching for the door knob—

"Well, only if Harry will come too."

Harry dropped his hand in defeat, inwardly swearing at his luck.

"Oi Potter, you're coming to the Grill with us."

Harry turned to see Dudley trying to seem imposing and Rachel showering him pleading looks. A part of him deep, deep down may have felt a little bad for her.

"No," he said shortly, twisted the door handle.

"I'll tell Dad," came the anticipated response.

"And I'm sure my friends will love that," Harry returned the threat. Rachel looked between the two boys, not following the conversation.

"Come on Harry," she pleaded. "Don't you want to see everybody again? Nobody's really seen you in five years."

"Let's try and make it another five then." Nobody probably remembered him anyway.

Then came the onslaught.

"Please—"

"—Potter I'm telling you—"

"—Please—"

"—I don't care about your freaky friends—"

"—Pleeeeeease—"

"—I'll Pound you if you don't—"

"—Pl—"

"ALRIGHT!" Harry roared; the incessant whining and commands grating on his nerves. He was just about willing to do anything if it got them to shut up. Rachel squealed, jumping up and down and clapping, having succeeded in her mission to get Harry to hang out with her. Dudley was smirking for he now had an opportunity to hang out with a girl he'd been eyeing all summer.

"Good. I'll meet you at the Grill at about noon," Dudley said to Rachel before strutting off towards Piers'. Rachel turned to Harry with a bright smile.

"Thank you so much. I have to go home and shower so I'll be looking for you at the Grill later, alright?"

"Yeah," Harry said, thoroughly annoyed at this point. This was not how he wanted to spend his day, especially after yesterday. He was already planning on skipping out.

"All right, I'll see you in a couple of hours!" She called; jogging in what he assumed was the direction of her house. He sighed, turned, and reached for the doorknob once more.

Ring Ring

Closing his eyes, Harry dropped his hand and pulled out his cell phone.

"Yeah?" he said shortly.

"Duck," said an all too familiar voice from the other end. Upon recognizing it, Harry immediately dropped to the ground, feeling a burst of hot air rush over his head.

He quickly rolled to the left and threw himself back up on his feet, whipping around to face...absolutely nothing. Though it appeared as nothing he could hear its heavy, rhythmic breathing several feet directly in front of him; its rancid breath puffed on his face. He knew something was there; the demonic energy it harbored came to the notice of his senses. His eyes darted back and forth trying to catch any movement of sorts. He mentally turned on his infrared function as blotches of heat formed in front of him. The demon was at least ten feet high and almost the same length wide.

Harry bent his knees slightly and began inching away from the house and towards the street, he didn't want to cause a disturbance near his aunt's flowerbed—she would kill him. The grass rustled as the demon moved forward to follow him. A short flick of his wrist brought his dagger forward and he wasted no time in cutting a long, shallow incision from the crook of his elbow to his wrist.

An earsplitting roar erupted from in front of him before he could perform any blood magic. Harry leapt backwards instinctively and felt something thick and razor sharp tear through his shirt and graze his stomach just enough to draw blood. A second claw swung forward and caught Harry on the side of the head. While he'd taken worse blows and the most he would get from that was an ugly bruise, his glasses were knocked off, leaving Harry with nothing but his other four senses. He nearly growled himself as the scent of his own blood, from his stomach and his heavily bleeding arm, clouded that of the demon. Harry quickly drew back his arm only to be stopped again as a giant cloud of fire materialized in the air and hurled towards him. Harry cried out in shock as he ducked, almost stepping on his forgotten cell phone in the process...which was still on.

'Well this is great,' Harry thought as he dodged to the left in response to some heavy movement on his right. 'I'm fighting an invisible demon who breaths fire AND I'm wasting my minutes!'

As Harry ducked another blast of fire, he reached down and scooped up a handful of dirt before he straightened and threw it in the direction of the demon. An agitated face could barely be made out in the dirt cloud as the demon ferociously shook its head. Harry smirked, seeing his chance. He drew his arm back, locking the knuckles in a semi-bent position.

"Blades of Blood!" he cried viciously, sweeping his arm forward. Five, identical, crimson blades sliced through the air before cutting through the demon. Its body became visible in spurts of blood as it was torn apart in several places. Harry hopped up to the body, performing the burning ritual to get rid of the remains.

"Taste of your own medicine, bitch," Harry muttered as the flames died down into ashes before turning and walking into the house.

The door had hardly closed before he walked back out again, picked up the cell phone and his glasses, and walked back in, grumbling about stupid promises and dumb, fire-breathing demons.

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