At seven years old, Herido stood frowning at the dart in his hand. He'd been playing with bigger, better, sharper, deadlier toys for years now, but his father was insisting that the children learn to throw darts.
"Now Herido, I've told you: you have to learn how to throw the simple things before moving on to the more exotic weapons." Gomez said as he threw the dart straight at Heri's head, as if to drive his point home. Heri simply batted it away with a hand and scowled.
"But I can already throw, father. I killed that Malaclaw with a kunai last year!"
"But you were aiming for Pugsley." Wednesday laughed dryly as she threw her dart. It landed true – dead centre of the dart board her elf was holding. Wednesday had a natural talent for weaponry that Heri could only dream of.
"And you shouldn't be proud of that. Your uncle Fester was looking forward to the bad luck that Malaclaw would bring him." Gomez paused mid aim. "Although, it did provide a wonderful meal. Ah well."
Pugsley snickered and lined up his own arrow. He was a good shot too – having a few years on him, so Heri really did need to practice. He hadn't been allowed to learn at the same time as Pugsley. Wednesday was starting her lessons with Heri, because she was special in her own way. When Gomez had refused to teach her Kung Fu at the same rate as her brothers, she'd taken to teaching herself and after she'd put three seniors at school into hospital, Gomez had agreed she was advanced enough to learn with the boys. One of those seniors was still in a coma. Pugsley may have been 10, and they had their fair share of witches and wizards visiting, but Heri knew that if anyone in this house would kill him, it would be Wednesday. He was glad she was here so that he could learn and prepare for her technique.
With that thought in mind he lined up his dart and threw. Tilly moved her board so that his dart also hit the bullseye. Gomez tsked with an amused grin.
"Now, now, Tilly. How is Herido ever going to learn how to correct his aim of you move the board like that?" There didn't seem to be anything malicious in his tone, but the elf quickly brought the board back to hold up in front of her face and after but a moment of silence she yanked out dart and slammed it straight down into her thigh – at the exact place it would have hit had she not moved.
Heri took up another dart and listened as his father corrected his posture and aim. His parents were insistent on the children learning the physical arts. They claimed that it would give them a head start for when they could start using their magic. They said that most magical beings relied too heavily on their magic and forgot that magic was merely another part of them, like their mind and muscles and that to truly be the best, all these things had to compliment and work in harmony with each other. Heri couldn't learn magic until he was nine years old. The type of magic practiced by the Addams' was old and powerful and therefore highly dangerous if misapplied, and the magical core of a child under nine was apparently just not stable enough.
Heri had changed a great deal over the last two years. Gone was the timid child that had lashed out. Heri was in control now and he loved it. Gomez and Morticia wanted their children to be strong and it was still comforting to know that someone wanted the best for him, even if their methods and family dysfunction would see authority figures try (and they had tried), to take the children away faster than you could say 'endangerment'. Heri could acknowledge now how euphoric he'd felt when he killed Vernon Dursley. How he'd gotten lost in the moment and how much he wanted to keep stabbing, to keep going because he didn't want Vernon to hurt him again and because he just plain wanted him gone. He was glad that he was the one to do it, and he didn't feel an ounce guilty. After all no one got away with trying to subdue an Addams.
The day after he'd arrived in America had been a blur. His young, only partially developed reasoning skills had taken a while to slot everything that he'd been told into something resembling sense. Once it did he couldn't stop smiling. Morticia recalled fondly that it had been a particularly nasty, smug smile, like he knew he had the whole world at his feet and quite enjoyed it. A heart-warming smile to see on a five year old, Morticia had said.
That night they had performed a blood ritual, they rarely performed any other kind, to adopt Harry Potter into House Addams.
It had been painful to say the least. Both physically and psychologically.
It had involved Harry drinking a potion that tasted like bread mould and strawberry liquorice and contained the blood of his new parents. There had been sacrifices – wizard sacrifices – of the same age and gender as the members of his new immediate family. They had explained to Harry the seriousness of this ritual – that even they were loath to sacrifice wizards (as apparently they just weren't as plentiful as muggles), and they never killed underage beings unless it was necessary. But they had also assured him that family was more important than anything and that they were happy to perform this ritual in order for him to join their family. Three year old Wednesday had simply watched in rapt fascination.
Harry sat in the middle of the ritual circle after it had been completed. For several moments it seemed that nothing was going to happen. And then the pain started. At seven years old, he could no longer remember the pain, but he could remember the sound of his own screams and the feel of his head, arms and legs slamming repeatedly to the floor as he tried to ease it. He remembered the fond smiles of his parents as they watched him writhe until he had passed out.
After the adoption his name had been changed to Herido, to honour the fact that Heri had come to them broken and he would always be an injured man – the walking wounded. His hair had become even darker and slightly tamer. He had grown a little and inherited his father's more Addams features, with his mother's pale complexion and almost unnatural grace. Official documentation was arranged to acknowledge him as a legal, born Addams in both magic and muggle America. It seemed to Harry that money could accomplish almost as much as magic. And ah, magic! How Heri loved magic. It was all the little things that he often forgot about that he had appreciated the most, like seeing Morticia light candles with her hands, or how his father would bowl a ball down a corridor in the opposite direction to the pins, only for it to come barrelling down the stairs five minutes later and hit a strike. He loved finding new strange and terrifying creatures lurking about the house. He never asked why they all seemed to fear his parents so. He wanted to figure it out himself, so he just took care when exploring the house. The house itself seemed to be almost sentient and completely indestructible, even though it looked from the outside that a mild wind would tear it down.
He thought that if he accomplished nothing in his life, he would be happy to just stay here, learning and enjoying being with his family. He guessed that was why no adult in the family seemed to work.
Meal times where usually spent talking about the trials, tribulations, chaos and mayhem that the day had delivered. There had been a rule of no fighting at the dinner table, although this rule went out the window about two months prior, when the temptation of being surrounded by so many sharp, wicked looking utensils became too much for the children, all of whom had developed a fondness for ninja style projectiles after they became addicted to violent Japanese anime and film.
One evening, as the family was enjoying a lukewarm meal of live bugs and half-digested toad in a caramelised snake skin, Heri was bemoaning that the bogeyman in his closet had stopped trying to kill him in his sleep.
Morticia noticed a gleam in her daughter's eye and motioned behind him.
"Isn't that him now?" She asked as though thoroughly confused. Heri turned to look and heard the light hiss of an airborne dart. As he spun back to the table he let go of a senbon, spearing the dart that Wednesday had thrown to the large joint of meat in the middle of the table.
"Thank you for the seasoning, imoutochan," He said, just to annoy her. "You're always so thoughtful." He added as he watched the poisoned tip of the dart begin bubbling its way through the meat.
Pugsley used this time to fire a bright purple spell towards Heri's head, but he'd seen the move coming and grabbed the meat platter, sending the joint flying into the air and reflecting the spell straight back at Pugsley, who promptly passed out from a violent, bloody cough. Heri watched as the joint made its decent, only to be intercepted by Gomez' carving knife, which expertly cut and delivered a few slices to everyone's plate before it could land on the repositioned platter.
"He's right, Wednesday. This is great!" Gomez said as he took a bite.
Herido had won the great battle of dinner, but Wednesday had been so cross that he hadn't died that he'd had to agree to let her electrocute him before bed. He took his job of older brother very seriously. He'd send the bogeyman to her tonight, just to make sure she slept frightfully.