He was only five when they went to the traveling circus. Of course Dudley pushed him into the cages with the lions, because he could care less if his cousin was eaten or not. The ten-year-old knife thrower's assistant, Cathy, saw what happened and immediately went to get an adult who could help the poor kid.

Instead they found him cuddling the male and the females were treating him like a cub.

Since it was clear the lions weren't about to eat him alive, he was allowed to stay with Cathy for a bit while they did their show. A tense discussion with the ringmaster and Vernon later, and they left.

"He can stay. Apparently they were forced to take him in, so they agreed to leave him with us."

Actually it was more along the lines of the fact they called the poor child a freak that they wanted nothing to do with, and the Ringmaster had seen bruises and signs of abuse.

Cathy looked happy about the news.

"Can he be my little brother?" she asked with stars in her eyes. She always wanted a little sibling to dote on.

"You're in charge of taking care of him Cathy."

She looked at him with joy. He was just glad he no longer had to go back to that house.

"From now on your name is Triton!"

"Sure," said the newly named Triton.

As it turned out, his animal magnetism didn't just apply to the lions, but every animal in the circus. As such he was put in charge of feeding them with Cathy's help. It freed up some of the older performers to work on their acts, and as such the shows became even better.

Strangely, Cathy would tell the ring master that Triton had the weirdest ability to talk to the animals...which made them cooperate more during their acts.

Triton loved the circus. He was fed, he had his own room, and a big sister who never hurt him. Sure feeding the animals was hard work, but the animals sometimes talked to him and told him things.

The animals were all better behaved around him, enough so that he was able to walk in and give them their food without having them chained up first.

Cathy always had a freak out when he did that though.

"Hey Tri, you ready for the show tonight?" called out the trapeze performer Mark.

"I am, so are the lions!" Tri called out.

"Great! Want to practice your balancing act again?"

Triton had found his niche among the performers when he was able to keep his balance on the tight rope. Cathy nearly had a heart attack when she saw him walking along it when there wasn't a net below him to catch if he fell. At the moment he was learning how to do flips on the rope without falling.

He might have been able to walk along the rope without problems, but tricks were another story. The knife thrower, Angus, was teaching him how to pick locks, something Cathy didn't want to learn.

Angus was a firm believer of learning to stand on your own, which was why he was teaching Triton the same things he learned while he was a boy in Scotland. The fine art of fighting and lock picking. You weren't a man of the Highlands unless you could break your opponents arm and give him a chipped tooth with a few moves.

Unfortunately Triton was still a runt, so some of those moves weren't useable to him. Fortunately dirty tricks were always expected in those kinds of fights so even a small thing like him could win a fight with children twice his age. Cathy was not pleased to find out what Angus was teaching him.

Triton fell on his bed with a smile. He had finally gotten the hang of doing flips on the rope without touching the air. It was harder than it looked, and the biggest trick was to be able to walk on your hands and keep your balance.

Heights had never bothered him, but Cathy insisted he practice over a tight rope suspended just five feet in the air just in case with a mat below.

Considering how many times he fell before he got the hang of it, that was probably a good thing. Climbing back up from the net to the tight rope would have taken forever, and he would have wasted too much time climbing.

"I really don't like you learning how to fight from Angus," said Cathy, handing him some soup.

"Well I don't like being the personal punching bag of bullies," said Triton.

Triton was about to turn seven, and he had been in the circus for nearly two years.

Cathy was out making him a special cake while everyone prepared to help him celebrate it. Last year had been the first time he had ever been allowed to celebrate his own birthday, and he loved it.

He was even allowed to help out on the trapeze this time, since he had gotten so good at it.

It was after the party that something awful happened to him though.

There were several weird cracks like firecrackers and he thought someone had brought them out as a surprise. Suddenly the lights went out and there were flashes of color and some weird words said.

Triton ducked and managed to avoid being hit by one when someone shouted 'Obliviate!' at him.

The next thing he knew was someone telling him that he was safe now and that he would be back with his family. When he woke up he found himself in a far too familiar house on the couch.

"No, no, no! Not here again!" he whispered. He peeked outside and realized that the place was being watched by some weirdos in robes.

He had the feeling if he tried to leave right away they would just drag him back. The sun rose in Surrey and he heard his former aunt come down the stairs.

"YOU!" she hissed.

Triton face-palmed in misery.

Petunia at least heard his half of the story before she considered kicking him out.

"So the freaks forced you to return...and you say they're out there watching?"

"They aren't exactly discreet," said Triton in misery.

"I can't believe they dragged you back after two years! How did they even notice you were gone?" said Petunia in annoyance.

"How should I know? They broke into the tent and just started throwing these weird lights before they kidnapped me! And I think they tried to do something before they grabbed me."

"Probably tried to erase your memory, knowing them. What are we going to do? I don't want you here and you were kidnapped!"

"We need to plan so that I can return back to the circus without them knowing...or to make it so that they won't follow me."

"In the meantime you'll have to enroll at the local school. It's just a good thing you left before school started..." said Petunia.

She didn't want to explain why he hadn't attended school in two years.

"Why should I enroll in a school? It would only drag the police into this mess when I leave! How about you let me use the computer and we can claim home-schooling? That way no one will ask who I am or why I'm here."

Petunia blinked. That was actually a good plan.

"Deal."

"I'll have to use your address to get a library card, and as far as anyone knows it's only a temporary measure anyway. If anyone asks you can tell them I go to a different school."

"Agreed. You had best hide while I explain this to Vernon."

Triton hid in the basement which had another door to the garage so Vernon couldn't lock him out. Not that he could anyway as Triton always carried his lock picks and boot knives with him.

"HE'S WHAT?!" shouted Vernon.

Finally Petunia let him out. Vernon did not look happy and Dudley had already gone to school.

Triton glared right back at him.

"Let's get one thing straight. Neither of us want me here, and if it weren't for those jerks watching the house I would have left hours ago. So until if find a way to permanently ditch them, I'll claim this place as my residence and we'll agree that I don't exist to anyone that will actually remember me."

"Agreed. Damn freaks..." muttered Vernon.

"Oh, and if I find the bastard who kidnapped me from my real family, I'll be sure to knife him for you."

Vernon suddenly looked much more cheerful about him being around.

"You'll willingly injure a freak for bringing you back?"

"I might need to train in that first. After all, if I'm trained I can do more damage."

Triton already had Vernon pegged. If he was willing to dish out what the 'freaks' had coming, then the man would allow it. Petunia simply wanted him gone without a trace.

It was a sad day indeed when you have to use what the drunken flame throwing man had to teach you about manipulating people into doing what you wanted. That man drank more of his alcohol than was strictly needed for his act.

It took him six months to come up with his first plan. And it took them five hours to find and drag him back. He repaid them in kind by stabbing each of them repeatedly, and despite their odd sticks they couldn't remove his knife.

Vernon was very pleased when he mentioned it.

So he planned and he practiced. He had long since come to terms with the fact that he would never be normal and as long as he was trying to teach the 'freaks' a lesson Vernon was easy to handle.

Dudley learned the hard way that his parents wouldn't keep him from dealing with Triton when he was showing the boy exactly what Angus had taught him.

It was good to humble the brat before he got too big a head.

Triton became a familiar face at the library once the school hours ended (it was to keep the ruse that he attended another school) and he spent countless hours reading maps and survival guides. He even read on plants to see what was edible when it wasn't cooked, and what was poisonous.

Petunia said nothing, but allowed him to eat his fill so that he would have the strength to run. Vernon dropped him off at every class he asked for and never once complained about him beating it into Dudley that there was always someone stronger.

Apparently even Vernon could conceive that learning such a lesson early would only help him in the long run. At least this way Dudley never accidentally pissed off a mafia family with his habits. Slowly six more months passed, and Triton made another go at his escape.

This time it had more far-reaching consequences.

He had forgotten his name. They had tried to erase all his skills, but when they failed they erased his identity as Triton Bloom.

However...his sanity was tied too strongly to that of Triton, so his mind made a compromise. If the magic demanded that he 'forget' Triton, then it would shove his memories and skills aside. No one ever said that the memory charm they used erased the memories. In the case of those with powerful mental barriers, the memories were shoved out of the way for a time.

And so Harry Potter was forcefully brought back into existence. Triton took the back seat and would give instructions to his 'original' personality, but Harry would be his shield from those damnable memory charms they used. He would keep the mind reader with the greasy hair from noticing that something was off about him, and hide his true plan of never going back to his aunt from being seen.

Triton was nothing if not patient.

He was nine, and the arrangement they had was still in place. Petunia had noted several watchers around the school Dudley attended and was annoyed to find them there.

All he had to do was time his scream to when the police were patrolling and subtly break the man's wand. He couldn't obliviate the cops if he didn't have it.

It took only five more times, each one with a separate cop, before a patrol was made around the school to catch this apparent group of pedophiles.

The fact they couldn't even answer simple questions a high schooler would know, such as basic history and who was the ruling monarch only made it worse.

Eventually Petunia mentioned that there was a 'cult' which was trying to steal children and that they had targeted the area for some odd reason.

Mrs. Figg was immediately arrested as a member when Harry spotted something magical in her house. Petunia was horrified and furious that one had been so close, and had rightly assumed she was the main reason they had found Harry in the first place.

And to further keep the magicals out of their area, Petunia had developed a simple test to see if they were a new set of watchers.

There were a few key words that the magicals always reacted to.

'Voldemort', 'Dumbledore', and 'Avada Kedevra'. If someone reacted to those words when dropped in a regular sentence, then chances were pretty good they were magical or had contact with their group.

Finally whoever sent them took the hint and quit bringing people. Which was when Triton made his third escape when he was ten.

He made it all the way to the colonies and was taken in by a group of mercenaries who were trying to make child soldiers.

He was actually somewhat happy to let Harry take the charge as the dominant personality while he kept the body alive. He needed to learn these lessons, and Triton was glad for the respite.

But like all respites, they never last. A single traitor among the children brought down mobile suits and sent him away long enough to be picked up by a stray muggleborn (as they apparently called New Bloods) who deposited him on Earth long enough to be found.

Petunia was a mite annoyed he had barely lasted a year before being found.

On the plus side, his disappearances were getting longer, so that was something at least.

"Petunia, why is there a letter addressed to my birth name here?" asked Nanaki.

He preferred the moniker 'No name' to the one given to him by the people who kept him imprisoned here.

Petunia took one look and hissed at the letter.

"They dare send one now?"

For four years Nanaki and Petunia had been in cahoots with the plan of him never returning. Which was why she was not happy with the presence of the letter one bit.

"What is this?"

"A letter to a magic school. The one in charge is the same bastard who's been sending others to drag you back."

"I suppose I'll have to thank him in kind for all the 'attention' he's given me then won't I?" said Nanaki coldly.

Petunia's smile was equally as frosty. Neither of them had any love for the magical communities, for roughly the same reason. They had taken their family away from them. It was time to return that favor.