Ebony Daemon Rat
By Rannath
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Gold Digger to Fred Perry and Stainless Steel Rat to Harry Harrison

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A man walked purposefully towards a house in Godric's Hollow. As he approached the house he grew worried. The front door was blown off its hinges, and the house itself was on fire. He sprinted into the house, bounded over James still cooling body, and came to a screeching halt outside the one occupied room in the house. He stopped just in time to see a figure standing above Harry's bed fall to dust. Stepping into the room the man spied Lily's corpse out of the corner of his eye. His breath caught in his throat and he forced himself to walk toward the crib. Looking down into the crib a breath exploded out of the man's mouth. He reached into the crib and pulled the child to his chest. Then he fled into the night before any of James' meddlesome friends made their appearance.

"My Goddaughter's dead, I want to know who did it, why they did it, everyone who was involved and I want everything they hold dear dead or firmly under MY control." The man looked coldly over his large hooked nose and slim glasses at a young woman.

"Yes my Lord, we've already know who it was, some pitiful Wizard names Voldemort, and we've sent out the troops to take care of his followers, the Death eaters." The young woman looked relieved when the old man smiled. An infant's cry came from behind the man's seat. He turned his chair and bent out of it and when he spun back there was a child in his hands. An older woman rushed in from the door behind the young woman with a bottle and a bag under her arm. The man took the bottle and plopped it into the child, Harry's, mouth. Harry gurgled happily as he ate. "Lord Gothwrain?"

"Oh yes, I called you have for another reason, didn't I?" The old man, Gothwrain, looked up from Harry to the woman, "While I take care of business you'll be taking care of young Harry here. I believe you just had a son, Romeo was it? So it won't be too much of a hassle, will it?" The woman quickly shakes her head and takes the baby from Gothwrain's arms. Gothwrain smirks and picks up the phone on his expansive desk. He dials a number and waits for the line to connect. "I have him," He waits for an answer, "Yes, and I'm ready to proceed whenever you command it."

A week later Gothwrain was in front of a throne. On the throne was a woman bathed in shadows.

"You majesty I have the perfect subject to fuse with Harry A daemon in the shape of a mouse," Gothwrain started his speal, only to be interrupted.
"I though we weren't going to use a rat because of Iceron's curse."
"True, but the daemon mouse is a daemon, a being or pure magic, thus not susceptible to Iceron's curse as a normal mouse or rat would be."
"When can you have the ritual ready?"
"It is ready."

That night, after retrieving Harry from Dorrie Ellis (the young woman Gothwrain was having watch his 'grandson') and the cage containing a daemon mouse from the strike team, who seemed to have lost a member retrieving it from the crypt it was in. Gothwrain sauntered down to the dungeon he's cleared out for the ritual. On the way he… shifted, his fingers elongated and his nails became claws, his front teach became larger, his nose pointier, his ear traveled up his head and became more rounded, he shrunk a good inch and sprouted dull grey fur all over his body. As he walked into the room candles burst to life and a circle on the floor flared in response to the light. He places Harry in the centre of the circle and puts the cage down next to the circle. Clutching the cage in his hand he began to chant. Nearly an hour later Gothwrain stopped chanting. The daemon mouse broke into motes of 'black light'. The motes flew to Harry and, after swirling around above him for a good thirty seconds, plunged into his stomach.

Harry's cry was painful to Gothwrain's ears, but he approached his grandson. After Harry was safely in the arms of his Grandfather he quieted, but sniffled every now and then. On the way back to the Ellis house Gothwrain felt Harry's form shift in his arms. He looked down to see Harry's face, covered in dark black fur, Harry's emerald eyes half closed. Gothwrain smirked, basking in his own superiority and inspected the rest of his Grandson's body, small claws were forming on his fingers, his feet longer, normal for a were-rat. After dropping Harry off with Dorrie Gothwrain headed to his personal chambers for some much needed sleep.

For the first few year Harry was identical to the other children in the compound, he played, ate, slept and everything else small children did. At four all were-rat children are tested. Harry proved to be much stronger and faster then the other children, though only in his hybrid and quadruped forms, in his human form he was just below average. His magical potential was on the other hand far above average for a magic-user, it grew even stronger in his hybrid and quadruped forms. Of all the children living in the were-rat compound three were chosen as the strike team for the next generation, these three were given extra training, taught all they could be taught and given all they would need to do they job, and do it well.

At five he was put apart from the other children. He received personal instruction from his grandfather in magic, politics and how to manipulate people, and learned to fight with the next generation's strike team, his best friend Romeo Ellis, a grade a bitch and Harry's fiancée Lynda McKraken and Moisha Rich, who Harry only knew through Romeo. Harry was, unlike the other three, forced to train in his human form, as his other forms were dangerously strong.

Of course Harry didn't always follow the rules set out by his instructors.

An older were-rat came flying from the training grounds, broke through several trees before he came to a stop. When he cam to a stop he jumped to his feet and charged back to the training ground, whipping out a small silver dagger. A pained scream came from the training ground. Gothwrain sighed.

"Harry, this is the third instructor you've injured seriously. I know you aren't doing it on purpose, so I'll be lenient, but you will still be punished. I'm sealing your hybrid and quadruped forms until you've completed your training. The seal will only be removed when you are in mortal danger."

About two months to his eleventh birthday Gothwrain called Harry into his study.

"As you well know, I we know nothing about your daemon powers. But, as you can speak with your archetype, all you need to do is find one to learn," Harry rolled his eyes, he'd heard this a thousand times before, "Saying that, we've located a daemon mouse," Harry's eyes lit up and he grinned broadly, "You will be going alone, as the were-cheetah is heading to the same destination as we speak. Your seal will be removed for the duration of this mission. You have five…" before Gothwrain could finish Harry was out the door, Gothwrain rolled his eyes.

Harry smirked as the saw the two women enter the compound. Brittany, the were-cheetah, was in all honesty, not fit to be called a were-cheetah. She was broad hipped and well rounded, unlike the old stories of the lean and deadly were-cheetah, Harry doubted she could catch so much as a cold. Slipping in behind the two Harry trailed them, through a lava trap and then the hole, the other woman, Gina, created. When they went down the chute Harry clung to the wall above them. Soon enough they split up and Harry decided to follow Gina, who was not gushing about her boyfriend. He saw, in a holographic projector he later found out was called a Historian, how Brittany came to be with her family. Shortly after that Brittany came back with a magical being of some kind. Just after that Gina picked up a bracelet that happened to be cursed. Harry chuckled at that and decided to go ahead when the women, and that magical being, decided to go to sleep. He moved in the direction he smelled the daemon mouse.

He saw his objective as soon as he got into the room where he smelled the mouse he'd come for. He walked up to the mouse and shifted, leaving a pitch black rat where Harry once stood.

Harry squeaked at the daemon mouse, who squeaked back. This went on for a while, until Harry shifted back into his human form and picked up the daemon, then plopped it down on his shoulder. Harry strolled casually to the exit and when he got there evaded the inept guards and went to the site he was to meet his grandfather.

The week before Harry was to turn eleven, and owl landed just outside their kitchen window, Gothwrain opened the window intending to shoo the owl away, but ended up grabbing the letter the owl offered to him. Looking down at the letter Gothwrain grinned and chuckled lightly. Eventually he decided to check out this "Diagon alley" to see if this form of magic had any merit. But he had doubts, who would seriously call themselves a witch, or wizard. Eventually he just decided it was the earth bound human's, who were all descended from the non-magical people of the magical emigration era, peculiarity.

Gothwrain and Harry, shadowed by several dozen were-rats in quadruped form, went to Diagon alley on the twenty eighth of July. On their way in the wizards looked oddly at Gothwrain, who was dressed in a suit, and Harry, who was dressed in a skin tight black body suit, covered by jeans and a leather jacket, and wore a dull brown Fedora. Gothwrain was impressed. Some of the inventions of the earth-bound mages were remarkable. Certainly they had no counterpart on Jade.

After looking through Diagon alley then Knockturn alley, which impressed Gothwrain immensely, Gothwrain decided Harry would learn from the earth-bound "Wizards" then adapt what he learnt to the superior Jaden style of magic. And so Gothwrain bought Harry his supplies, and a small library of books for extra study. Eventually, when Gothwrain had stripped the alleys of anything he found interesting the small troupe headed home.

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I'll have one or two more story ideas (in the form of story chapters) up by Friday… then I'll start working on which ever I have ideas for.