Brooklyn was woken the next day by the sound of the promised thunder and lightning outside. Having lost his transforming magic, he knew it was going to take some getting used to, especially when he wasn't able to be stone during the day.
He gave a small sigh of relief; grateful he wasn't stuck out there in the weather right now.
There was a sudden knock on the door, and Harry came in with a plate of eggs, bacon, and a glass of water. He sat up, smiling at him.
"Thought you'd like some breakfast. I managed to sneak some from the table."
Brooklyn took the plate gratefully. Even after his dinner last night, he was still hungry.
"What about you?" He asked.
"I already ate, it's all yours," Harry responded. The gargoyle nodded and then began to eat. But he still had a question.
"It's probably a little personal for you, Harry, but do you really believe that your parents died in a car crash?" Brooklyn questioned.
"I don't really know. My aunt and uncle never give me a straight answer. All they say is that they died in the car crash, and not to ask questions. But I've recently had dreams about it. All that I see is a lot of green light, but nothing else. But how does a car crash have green light?" he asked.
Brooklyn's eyes narrowed, stroking his chin in confusion. I feel like these supposed relatives are lying to him, he thought. He couldn't help but feel something darker happened to his parents.
Harry's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "Enough about me. I want to know about you and your clan, Brooklyn! How did your story begin?"
Brooklyn shifted nervously. He never had to tell anybody about how they came to Manhattan.
"You don't have to if you don't want to," Harry quickly said. The gargoyle then realized that the only way to lift the burden of the horrible night was to talk about it to somebody. And it will hopefully help him to continue to remember those he lost.
"It's a long story. It all started at our castle, Castle Wyvern in 994 A.D. led by Princess Katharine. There used to be hundreds of us guarding the castle and protecting the humans from invaders, even when the princess and her wizard guardian, the Magus didn't really accept us. Goliath was the leader and the only one who had a name."
Harry's brow raised. "But what did you call each other?" He asked in confusion.
Brooklyn couldn't help but smile a little, remembering that little boy Tom, who had asked the very same question. "Well, we called each other Friend, simple as that, until we arrived in Manhattan; that's when we knew that we needed names, and decided to call ourselves after the New York landmarks."
"There's Hudson, Broadway, Lexington, and our gar-beast, Bronx. I'm the only one in our clan at the moment that has a bird's mouth. But I just thought Brooklyn could be a pretty cool name."
Harry ginned. "Well, you chose your names well," he commented. Brooklyn laughed before continuing.
He told Harry all about their best human friend who betrayed them and led the Vikings to invade the castle and capturing everybody and destroying most of the clan except for him, Lexington, Broadway, and Bronx, who were sent to the rookery for scaring the humans not intentionally, but because of the mother of Tom calling Brooklyn a beast and throwing a piece of wood at him.
Harry was pretty angry at that undeserved insult, but let Brooklyn continue.
His story proceeded when they went to track down the humans. But then the Magus accused them of killing Princess Katharine when she was really saved by Goliath. He then cast the permanent stone sleep spell onto Brooklyn and the others for a thousand years until the castle rose above the clouds.
Harry was raptured onto every word, especially years later in 1994, the billionaire David Xanatos was brought up as the one who found the gargoyles and woke them up again, and how they met their detective friend, Elisa Maza.
The best part for him was Brooklyn telling about another gargoyle, Goliath's mate, who found a way to survive those thousand years. She was discovered by Xanatos and hired to betray them all, because she was angry at all humans for betraying and destroying her kind.
"Her given name was Demona. She became a big enemy for us later and we had to fight her constantly," Brooklyn said. Harry shivered a little at the name, Demona. It sounded like the other word, demon.
His story ended with them fighting Xanatos' Steel Gargoyle Clan, struggling to endure Demona betraying them all for her obsession with destroying the human race, and starting their new life, fighting to protect the people and facing new enemies such as the Pack and Macbeth.
Harry simply sat there; eyes wide with awe. "Wow," he simply said. Brooklyn gave a small sigh. Even though he was able to tell him, he still felt hollow. He still wished that the rest of them had been able to survive.
He left out the story of how Demona seduced him to her side. Goliath did say he forgave him, Brooklyn still didn't feel quite ready to forgive himself, despite being able to prove himself over and over to be a worthy choice for Second in Command, especially during Goliath's strange absence.
And he just didn't feel like telling someone as young as Harry this. Brooklyn felt scared thinking about what Harry would say, and it would possibly break their already close friendship and have Harry never trust him after that.
I will tell him eventually, but not now. Not yet. It has to be the right time.
Harry then told Brooklyn he had to go to school, and that he would see him later that evening. Brooklyn nodded and Harry left, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
Over the next few weeks, Brooklyn became used to his new 'home'. He made sure to avoid Harry's 'relatives' so they wouldn't catch him. It took some time to get used to sleeping during the night since Harry was in his cupboard at that time.
Harry was once again happy since he had gained his first real friend, even if it wasn't a human. But Brooklyn had proved to be the most exciting thing he had ever encountered.
He had many amazing stories to tell, which included one about Elisa's brother, Derek, being transformed into a gargoyle mutant by the crazy doctor, Dr. Sevarius; thus renaming himself Talon along with other people getting the same treatment, who also ended up becoming Mutants and live in the Labyrinth.
He was most interested in the story of the time Xanatos and a scientist called Sevarius took a piece of Goliath and made a clone out of him called Thailog, who became evil and manipulative.
"Sevarius also made clones out of the rest of us when making a deal with Thailog except Bronx, along with creating a hybrid gargoyle from Elisa and Demona; calling her Delilah. Demona had named the other clones Brentwood, Malibu, Hollywood and Burbank." Brooklyn had told him. This made Harry shudder slightly at the idea of a Brooklyn clone, especially the way Brooklyn described them having red eyes.
"They sound kinda weird, and I really don't like the sound of this Sevarius guy," he said, as Brooklyn nodded.
"Yeah, Sevarius is nuts, and I avoid my clone as much as possible. But they seem to be doing well with Talon's group," he said.
Brooklyn and Harry's friendship grew quite a bit through the next few weeks, trust for each other building gradually.
Brooklyn also made his time to help Harry whenever he could, since Harry had told him about how his cousin Dudley invites his goon friends over to do their favorite sport: Harry Hunting.
He pulled pranks on them quite a few times (while making sure he hid afterwards), by pulling rugs out from under them, tripping the boys with his tail, and hiding in dark areas and letting his eyes glow white to intimidate them.
One of them, a boy with the face of a rat named Piers Polkiss, was convinced there was a monster stalking them and never came over again for quite a while, much to Brooklyn's satisfaction.
"You really didn't need to do this, Brooklyn. I've gotten quite used to it," Harry had protested one day. But Brooklyn shook his head.
"I feel like I owe it to you after you helped me survive, Harry. It's a gargoyle's duty to protect those who can't protect themselves. You don't deserve any of this treatment from your cousin."
Harry ended up smiling at Brooklyn after that.
...
The moments where Brooklyn had any kind of alone time in the house was when Harry was sent over to the neighbor's house, the batty Mrs. Figg.
Brooklyn really hated how Harry's own blood relatives treated him like dirt or a dog that rolled in something. Deep down, he longed to take the boy with him to Manhattan to live a better life with his clan.
But this plan backfired; unless he figured out a way back to Manhattan, since Harry told him he was in England, so if he did take Harry with him, he wouldn't have any idea what to do or where to start. And since he can't turn to stone anymore, Brooklyn couldn't risk being shot by bad people out there. So, he figured waiting was his only chance for an option to get out of here opened up.
He had opened a newspaper one day and nearly had a heart attack at the date: 1990. Had Puck somehow sent him back in time, too? Before his clan had even woken up? Brook shivered, imagining his rookery kin still stone permanently right now. He still wondered how Puck could do it without the Phoenix Gate that was long gone in time.
One day, he tried to see if Elisa's phone number could be reached. While the Dursleys and Harry were gone, Brooklyn picked it up and tried, but all he got was dial up noises.
The red gargoyle frowned in disappointment. So, he guessed Matt's number was out of luck if he tried that, too. His wings flapped in frustration, growling silently.
Giving a heavy sigh, Brooklyn hung up the phone, deciding to watch television in the living room while he waited for Harry to return from school.
...
Then came Dudley's Birthday one day ("Oh joy," Brooklyn had muttered, causing Harry to snicker). Harry pretty much told Brooklyn to stay out of sight during the party, which he was more than glad to do so.
He just couldn't believe this brat complained about how many presents he had (37, for goodness' sake!) and when they got word that Mrs. Figg broke her leg and couldn't take Harry while they were at the zoo, Brooklyn had to cover his ears while listening at the top of the stairs from the brat's fake cries.
The gargoyle hoped that he and Harry would get some quality time together so they could talk some more, but that hope was dashed when they said they wouldn't leave Harry alone in the house and ended up taking him with them. Harry had mouthed at the top of the stairs that he would see Brooklyn later, and he nodded halfheartedly.
He ended up exploring the house again for himself, occasionally taking food from the fridge and simply sitting in front of the T.V.
Around 2:30, Brooklyn heard the sudden opening and slamming of the front door. He immediately switched off the T.V. and bolted up to the bedroom.
He peered from the top of the stairs to see an angry Uncle Vernon dragging Harry in by his ear while Aunt Petunia leading in a soaking wet Dudley.
What the? Brooklyn thought to himself in shock while Vernon yelled furiously at Harry, then Harry said something that made him freeze in surprise.
"One minute, the glass was there, then it was gone! It was like magic!"
Vernon immediately threw Harry in the cupboard after this, causing Brooklyn to hiss softly in anger. He so wanted to pummel the whale right now. But right now, all he could do was wait until Harry was let out.
...
A couple of days later, Harry was let out and he went up to see his friend.
"What happened?" Brooklyn demanded in an angry tone. "Why were you locked in your cupboard?"
Harry looked confused and scared. "I don't know! We were at the zoo and in the Reptile House. I was suddenly talking to a boa constrictor who had said he'd never been to Brazil. Then the next thing I knew; the glass just vanished! I-I feel as if there's a disease in my body making this happen!" he sobbed.
Brooklyn then calmed a little after Harry finished, though he too was confused. How can any normal human talk to snakes and make glass disappear? Only a wizard or a witch can, the inner voice in him replied. He gave a small sigh.
"Listen, it will be okay, Harry. At least they let you out of your cupboard. We will be able to figure this out, alright? Just don't keep blaming yourself for these incidents." He assured gently.
Harry gazed up at him, and suddenly hugged Brooklyn around his middle. The gargoyle was startled by this sudden gesture. He never had a human hug him like this before, but Brooklyn gladly accepted it, even wrapping his wings around Harry, and sitting on the floor with his friend, feeling even more protective of him than ever.
