Shaken
Harry stepped into his room with a towel wrapped around his waist after a quick trip to the bathroom for a shower and to bandage his arm and stomach. His left temple was tender to the touch and had already began to discolor. Thankfully his hair hid most of it.
As expected, Inuyasha was sitting happily on his bed by the time he returned, trying to balance one of Harry's quills on his nose. This was not the first time Harry had a glimpse of what the half-demon's mentality was really like.
"Thanks for the warning," Harry said as he pulled on his clothes.
"No problem," Inuyasha muttered scowling as the writing utensil floated away from his face. Harry shook his head sadly at his mentor and pulled out the book.
"God, I'm only halfway through this thing," he whined while flipping through the pages.
"Take your time," Inuyasha said, placing the quill back on the bridge of his nose. "There's no use rushing it. If you get something wrong in a ritual you could end up killing yourself or worse."
"Mmhmm," Harry said, not really listening. "I wonder where the Order guard was when I was attacked? Think Mundungus ran out on me again?"
"More likely he was killed by the demon before hand," Inuyasha shrugged. There was something in the way he said it that implied it was more than a speculation.
Harry, having long been working on desensitizing himself to the horrors war brought, swallowed the prospect with little difficulty.
"That would...suck. You weren't kidding when you said they'd be more likely to seek me out because of the threat I posed..."
Inuyasha had said that at the very beginning—demons were attracted to power. Not suicidally so, but power that would equate or just barely surpass their own. It was how demons moved up in hierarchy and prowess; they used other demons as stepping stones to the top, often times absorbing the youki of their victims to feed their strength. Hunters, due to their constant exposure to youki, often developed stronger, more prominent auras that signaled a challenge to nearby demons.
"I guess it's a good thing," Harry continued. "At least they'll be focusing on someone who can handle them and innocent people will be spared."
He continued flipping until he came upon a page that caught his interest.
"We gotta get someone on that gate," Inuyasha said, shaking his head. There was actual concern in his voice, something Harry never thought he would hear from the usually unflappable hanyou. "But it can't be given to anybody. It takes a certain mentality and specific life conditioning to be qualified. It could be another twenty years before we find one. That will certainly keep you busy..."
"Hey! What about this one?" Harry said excitedly, disregarding anything Inuyasha had just said and holding the book up to his face. Inuyasha leaned back to get a better focus and looked to where Harry was pointing.
"No," he said brusquely.
"Oh come on!"
"Absolutely not."
"Why not?"
"Because I said so."
"What's the harm?"
"Only the million and one things could go wrong."
"I would be so much more powerful. It would give me a HUGE advantage over Tim-Tim."
"No," Inuyasha stuck with finality. "N—O. You most likely wouldn't survive a ritual like that anyway. It fucks up your DNA too much."
Harry would not be deterred, "But what if I absolutely HAD to?"
"That would never happen. Trust me, it's not worth it."
Harry pouted, dropping the book back into his lap, knowing that he had lost this time. He looked longing at the diagram of one of the most complex rituals he had stumbled upon yet: the ritual to turn oneself into a demon.
It would require so much of his own blood that surviving it would be doubtful, but still...
There was a time when the very thought would be horrifying to him; how he would equate it with all things Voldemort. But he knew demons now, demons of every kind. If he could be like Shippo, or Kouga, or Inuyasha...he'd have a much more secure future ahead of him.
"You know what? For even suggesting that, I'm going to make you go to the Grill."
"What?!" Harry cried despairingly.
"Yep," Inuyasha grinned cheerfully. "It'll be good for you to hang out with kids your age."
Dudley and that girl Harry could handle, but he didn't even need to contemplate on how Inuyasha would make him do something. The man could be a sadist when push came to shove. He gave Inuyasha the most betrayed scowl he could muster.
"You just enjoy watching me suffer."
"You know it."
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Harry glowered as he pushed open the door to the Grill and entered the loud and crowded area. He was not pleased with the arrangements of the day.
Without his cast-offs, it was easier than he thought to blend into the crowd. He currently wore a pair of black jeans, with a fit white t-shirt and his leather jacket, so anyone he accidently bumped into as he maneuvered through the throng of moving bodies wouldn't give him a second look.
"Harry! Harry, over here!"
He looked over the many heads to see Rachel with a group of what he assumed were her friends; kids who wouldn't dare talk to him in primary school. He groaned, cursing Inuyasha to the deepest pits of Hell, and made his way over to them.
"Hey," he said dully, barley audible over the loud music.
"Hey!" She said enthusiastically. Her friends, on the other hand, were less enthusiastic to see him, assessing him with guarded and quizzical looks. It was obvious they were forewarned exactly who would be joining them that afternoon.
There was a girl with short red hair that he vaguely remembered hanging around Rachel when they were little as well as a tall boy with spiked, dyed, blonde hair and another boy with brown hair and blue tips. Boys were really into coloring their hair these days.
"This is Cassidy and the blonde is Steve and that's Derek," Rachel introduced to him. Regardless of Cassidy's timid behavior to his presence she was shyly checking him out. Derek was in the process of sizing him up and the Steve boy seemed to have already made up his mind about Harry.
"Is it true you hijacked a car and shot three cops?" the blonde asked loudly with a haughty air about him. Judging by the collared shirt and clean slacks, Harry had to guess that this boy came from the wealthier part of town.
Harry merely stared at the other boy as though he were the biggest idiot on earth. Next to Fudge, of course. Steve seemed to lose the arrogant look on his face after a minute of silence.
"Didn't you hear me?" he asked, a bit angrily.
"No," Harry intoned. "The music must have been too loud."
Rachel frowned at her friend's aggression.
"Steve, knock it off. What's your problem?"
"My problem is this delinquent coming into our place. We didn't want him around in primary school, and we don't want him around now."
Even Derek and Cassidy seemed a little shocked by his outburst, but Harry welcomed it fully, sensing the precognition of a fight in the air. It had been along time since he had gotten into a fight with a human and he was itching to try. He originally had his heart set on Malfoy for the next time the little snake tried to start something he couldn't finish, but this kid wanted to start a fight with him, well, then it was his funeral.
"Steve!" Rachel snapped angrily. "What the hell is the matter with you? I told you he was cool. Why are you giving him such a hard time?"
Harry raised a hand to silence her.
"It's alright. I told you it was a bad idea for me to come here," he looked at Steve's cold, grey eyes. Eyes that annoyingly reminded him of Malfoy's. "Kid, I will go where ever the hell I want. And if you have a problem with it—do something about it."
Harry said this while stepping up to Steve's face, which was a few inches taller than his—closer to Ron's height, actually—another thing that made the thought of punching him in the face all the more enjoyable.
Steve hesitated, looking uncertain under Harry's steely gaze, and finally seemed to back down. Harry smirked, for once understanding the satisfaction Dudley got from people being scared of him. This kid was obviously smarter than he looked.
"Good move," he couldn't help but throw in as he turned his back on the group and started his way back to the Dursleys. Maybe this was why Inuyasha wanted him here; the man seemed to have a second agenda half the time. Maybe he thought Harry needed to find some closure with the people in his town or establish where he stood in terms of social acceptance. Now he knew no one from Little Whinging pick on him ever again.
He heard a scuffling of sneakers on the tiled floor and a short 'No!' from Rachel and the smirk returned full blast on Harry's face. So the kid wasn't that smart after all...
Harry didn't even need to turn around; he just ducked, allowing the slow, sloppy punch to sail over his head. A turn of his heel later and he landed a return blow in Steve's exposed side. The blonde fell down to one knee, holding he side and whimpering. Harry looked on with a dismayed expression. This was just pathetic.
Then he winced, feeling his stomach wound pull at the movement in his torso.
"Potter!"
Harry turned around to see Dudley and his followers marching forward through the crowd. By now, most of the occupants of the Grill were watching the commotion, cheering for more action. Harry had trouble keeping a smile off his face. Dudley would definitely be a bigger challenge than his last opponent, who, at the current time, was being helped up to his feet by Cassidy and Derek.
"Yes, Dudders?" Harry asked innocently. Dudley appeared stricken at the name for but a brief second before recovering his menacing posture.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he asked in a low voice, his boys flanking his side. Harry couldn't help but feel confused. Just last year Dudley enjoyed beating the snot out of a ten year old and now he seemed to be taking the role of defending people.
"Just self defense," he said innocently. A few people around them nodded, having witnessed the earlier events. Dudley puffed up and stepped up to Harry in the same threatening manner he had done earlier to Steve.
"I'm afraid I can't allow you to get away with this, Potter," He said. His piggy eyes darted towards Rachel for a moment. Harry almost laughed out loud at what was going on. Dudley hadn't changed; he was trying to impress Rachel, who, at the moment, appeared quite unimpressed by everything that was going on.
Unafraid, but thoroughly bemused, Harry opened his mouth to say something that would surely egg Dudley on, but froze as an ominous chill swept through the air. Apparently he wasn't the only one who felt it either. Everyone in the Grill began muttering to one another, looking around for the source of sudden cold. Harry and Dudley locked eyes for a moment, Dudley's alarmed expression silently asking if it were the dementors he'd encountered last year. Harry gave a slow, small shake of his head. It most certainly wasn't dementors, for he didn't feel faint in the slightest. This chill was only skin deep and seemed to draw up goose bumps on anyone's flesh who had felt it.
Just as he was going to try and convince himself it was nothing harmful, the ground began to shake. All hell broke loose.
Teenagers ran in every which direction to find the nearest exit, Harry among them. He knew he had to get back to the Dursleys. He pulled out his cell phone as he ran down the street, trying to keep his balance as the ground continued to shake, and dialed Inuyasha's number.
"Fuck," Harry mumbled angrily as he only received a busy signal in response. He jumped over a crack that broke through the sidewalk and continued running towards the Dursleys.
"P-Potter...Harry! Wait up!" Dudley gasped out from the other end of the street, but he was no match for Harry's speed. As much as the overweight boy hated to admit it, his cousin was the only one who could protect him in cases like this. His train of thought was cut off as a telephone pole crashed down in front of him, causing him to scream like a girl.
Harry heard the scream from way behind him, but paid it no heed. He was standing in front of the Dursleys usually pristine house, frozen in shock. The structure, which he spent ten miserable years confined in, was now split directly down the middle and spread apart, showing half-rooms as if it were a giant doll house. And right between the two halves, embedded several meters into the foundation, was a canyon of sorts. A red fiery glow sparked and spitted from within—but instead of sending out heat it emitted the familiar chill that suddenly filled the area moments ago.
Harry stepped forward, his human instincts telling him to get the hell out of there. There was something innately threatening about the glowing hole in the ground that destroyed his relatives' home...something that imperiled his very soul.
He took another step forward against his better judgment. He had to find out what it was.
Harry now stood twenty feet away from the fiery pit, the chill more intense than ever before. He idly wondered where his aunt and uncle were…or his guard for that matter. The ground, which had been shaking with small tremors the whole while, suddenly gave a gigantic lurch, sending many floor boards and furniture falling into the abyss before him. And something else fell that caught Harry's eye. Something that made his heart stop beating. The book.
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Heck yes. A couple more chapters and he'll be back in school. Whether I'll have Harry's humanity stay intact...well...I'll decide that later. I've also started my Inu Yasha prequel to this story, so check that out.
Thank you so much for the reviews! They make me smile:D
