Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Danny Phantom.
Being a teenager is not fun. One has to deal with sudden changes in their body, new hormones, new emotions, and they start feeling sexual attractions towards others. On top of that they are constantly growing, in need of more nourishment and sleep then before. Life and society spring new expectations upon teenagers on top of their changing bodies, with little regard to their already complicated status. It is no wonder that teenagers often feel grumpy.
Add in a possible case of diagnosed PTSD, an upcoming war, and a total information black out, and one could easily see why Harry Potter was irritable.
He knew nothing of what the newly returned Dark Lord Voldemort was doing! The madman who had murdered his parents, terrorized the wizarding world, who had either directly or indirectly been behind most of the problems Harry had faced at Hogwarts, the man responsible for Cedric's death, and the wizard Harry had dueled in an old graveyard on the night of his rebirth. Harry desperately wanted to know of his plans and actions, to prepare for the next inevitable confrontation. He searched muggle newspapers and listened in on muggle news for any signs of the evil wizard's actions. Harry checked the front page of the Daily Prophet for headlines that would hint at Voldemort's plans.
The Boy-Who-Lived found absolutely nothing in those sources. And he couldn't get any information from his contacts in the wizarding world.
Ron's letters demonstrated that the second youngest Weasley didn't need to be speaking to put his foot in his mouth, they were filled to vague references to events, things, and people Harry didn't know about followed by Ron mentioning that he wasn't supposed to tell Harry for security reasons. Why make the references at all then? If Harry didn't have a better opinion of his best male friend he would have said that Ron was deliberately taunting him.
And then Hermione's letters didn't make things any better. At some point over the summer she had began staying with Ron, wherever he was, and she kept saying that she wanted to tell him things but couldn't, in case somebody intercepted the owls. She also mentioned that they'd be able to tell him more when Harry joined them, but nobody would give him any clue as to when that was.
The only reason he wasn't furious with the information blackout was one of Sirius's letters.
You know sometimes I forget you're muggle-raised, Sirius had wrote, and all the things you don't know because of that. Living with the muggles here has opened my eyes a bit in that regard. You need to know this; don't make eye contact with strangers, especially ones you suspect might be wizards. There's this thing, called Legimency, muggles would probably call it mind reading but its more complicated than that. A practitioner could view your memories, among other things, and pick out all the sensitive information in your skull.
Harry understood why they weren't telling him some things. If some Death Eater could walk by and pick memories out of his head, then it would make sense that nobody would tell him anything while he was at the Dursley's. He was a walking security risk. But why didn't they just get him away from his relations? Or at least tell him some of the more obvious things about what Voldemort was up too, things that it wouldn't matter if the Death Eaters knew that he knew.
That unanswered question was the reason he was forced to hide under the windowsill of the Dursley's, listening to the seven o'clock news. Evidently Danny Phantom was still missing from Amity Park, although what appeared to be a female version of him had taken his place. Along with the Scarlet Huntress, she had taken up the ghost boy's duties. The Fentons were also still absent, something the various news organizations had discovered when they had gone to ask the family of ghost hunters for comments on the Phantom situation. Sources reported that they were off on some secret business
Harry knew that all the Hogwarts students would be thankful that Amity Park was still protected, despite the removal of some of its guardians. If it wasn't and something happened to it, Professor Binns would give another lesson about 'history in the making', like he had last time the topic of Amity Park had come up, and assign more essays on how the history of the wizarding world would influence its reactions to the events happening in Amity Park.
And Hermione would be bugging him and Ron to take more of an interest in those events.
But that wasn't really relevant, at least as far as Harry could tell. The Fentons were muggles, Phantom dealt mainly with spirits, and they were all Americans in any case. There was no reason for them to be mixed up in a British wizarding war. None of the other news Harry had heard as he crouched in the bushes had been useful either. And each report was getting more trivial then the last.
His uncle asked his aunt where their son, Dudley, was. Petunia replied that the boy was 'having tea' with one of his friends, like he had for most nights that summer. Harry quietly snorted. Dudley was with his gang, no doubt engaging in delinquent activities. Harry turned his attention back to the news.
When the news had become utterly irrelevant, Harry snuck away from the window. He had learned another batch of zilch. He needed to clear his mind. Harry decided to take a walk.
The sun was falling beneath the horizon, the orange light of dusk slowly giving way to the blues and blacks of night. The streets were empty that evening, giving Harry solitude. Not that anyone there would bother to talk to them. Locally he was a bit notorious, the "Potter Boy" who had to go to a school for boys who were incurably criminal. It made the people of the neighborhood a bit reluctant to talk to him and scared away some of the more impressionable members.
He walked by an empty park, playground swings swaying in the slight breeze, and noticed a group of people on the other end. Harry picked out the rather large figure in front, his mutually reluctant cousin, Dudley Dursley.
Dudley had always been large, but it used to be fat. That had changed lately. Now a portion of his mass was muscle. The heavy boy had taken up boxing and hadn't been putting his skills to good use. Dudley had taken to beating up people smaller than them (everyone) alongside with his gang.
Harry idly wondered which unfortunates had crossed their path that night.
Dudley noticed the wizard boy across the park and Harry noticed the distress that suddenly showed on his face. Would his pudgy cousin Dudley do? He was too scared of the smaller boy to confront him. But he'd lose face with his gang if he shied away from the confrontation.
Dudley decided to excuse himself from the rest of the night's activities evidently and left the group, walking over to Harry. Harry smirked for a moment and then thought better of it. His cousin was a massive jerk, yeah, but there was no need to take his current frustration out on him. Still...
"I'm surprised you left your gang behind," Harry began to taunt him. "You missed the opportunity to cement your reputation."
"What do you mean?" The larger boy asked suspiciously. He was looking for Harry's angle.
"Just think, you and your friends are walking along when all of the sudden you run into the boy who supposedly spends his time at a school for the incurably criminal, is supposed to be a bit mental, a bit dangerous, and then wham! He casually starts talking to you and you casually start talking back to the dangerous freak. What an amazing fellow, this Dudley person, thinks your gang, he's able to be so chummy with the dangerous lunatic. He must fear nothing!"
Dudley slapped his hand to his forehead.
"Why didn't I think of that?" He whined.
"Well I would say it's because you're as stupid as you look, but if that were the case, there's no way you'd be able to walk."
"Laugh it up freak."
"Thank you, I will, delinquent."
"Why are so you cheery all of a sudden?" Dudley asked darkly. "I preferred you the way you've been all summer."
"The prospect of imminent death is making me feel so light hearted today for some reason," Harry replied. "Just think, you and your parents will get your fondest dream to come true soon. Course you'll probably die soon after, the guy who'd off me doesn't like muggles..."
"Muggles?"
"Non-magical people. He also doesn't like magical people with muggle parents, sort wants to kill them all."
"Bloody hell, what's his problem?"
"Currently? Same as yours. I'm still breathing. Oh and there was this incident when I was a baby and he gave me this scar..." Harry drawled, pointing to the lightning shaped scar that crowned his forehead. "Blew himself up doing so and just came back last year. Killed a friend of mine right in front of me and then used my blood for a ritual to get himself a new body. Git doesn't know a thing about apologizing or gratitude because after that he tried to kill me again."
"Good grief," Dudley groaned as the two walked back. "Has he killed your girlfriend and stuffed her in the fridge yet?"
"Most wizards don't use fridges, so he wouldn't think of it when I do get a girlfriend," Harry replied. Joking about Voldemort made him feel so much better for some reason. "I suppose with the money his followers have got, he can buy one for the occasion. They won't miss it. They've got enough to buy the magical government. In fact they have bought the government and they've convinced them that their boss isn't back."
"Wow, corrupt government, murderous madmen after you, and no girl? Better you than me I suppose."
"Your sympathy is heartwarming," Harry deadpanned.
"Why are you even out here anyway?" Dudley demanded.
"Talking a walk to clear my mind and reflect on my doom."
They turned street corner and started going down the avenue.
"So..." Dudley began. "Were you being serious back there?"
"Serious? No. Honest? Yes." Harry replied.
"Wow. I'm really glad I don't have magic."
"Yeah. We wouldn't want you at Hogwarts anyway."
Harry's fingers and limbs felt cold for some reason and he thought he saw a mist start to rise from the streets. It was getting cold quickly for a summer's night.
"Brr..." Dudley rubbed his hands together. "You doing some cooling magic or something?"
"Not on purpose," Harry told his overweight cousin. "I'd get expelled if I used my wand outside of school except for in cases of self defense." Thank you Hermione. Harry had made sure to ask about that after getting Sirius's letter that mentioned Legimency. "I can't do wandless magic yet, and I don't know why I'd want something like this to happen, so that rules out accidental magic as well."
"You'd be making me uncomfortable," Dudley replied.
"And myself at the same time. I'm not that stupid." Harry shot back.
"Criminy! It got colder fast!" Dudley exclaimed shivering.
Harry noticed it too. It had become bone chilling cold.
"Dudley we need to get out of here," Harry hissed. "Whatever this is, it isn't good."
"W-w-hat is it?" Dudley asked, teeth chattering.
All light seemed to vanish, plunging the duo into darkness. The light from the lamps, the light of the moon, and even the light of the stars failed to penetrate and illuminate the two boys, even as the cold grew sharper. It was like being lost in a storm cloud during a new moon, even the air itself seemed dark and oppressive.
And then the feeling hit.
If one has ever experienced the deepest of depressions then no description is necessary. If one hasn't, then it is doubtful any description will do the feeling justice, but an attempt must be made.
Hope. At best it was a dim feeble light, not at the end of the tunnel, but overhead, not promising an end or for everything to get better, but merely a minor respite. At worst it was inconceivable. One could not even imagine hope through the cloud of dark emotions within, crushed by apathy, crushed by despair, crushed by sadness and grief and guilt and sometimes even anger. There was no room for hope.
Pain. It was subtle, so one could never tell if it was a gentle ache around the area of the stomach or enough to make one curl up and cry. It was always there and one could only be free of it by forgetting about it for a short time.
Energy. Motivation. Nearly impossible to muster. It was so very hard to care about some things in that state or to see why the reasons as to why one should care matter.
Fear. Omnipresent. No hope meant that the future could hold nothing good and one should dread what tomorrow brings. One should fear what their loved one's would think of them if they knew all those little secrets. One should fear the rejection that one so richly deserves, the misfortune that would be coming up, and the mistakes of the past coming back to haunt them.
Grief and sadness. Sadness needs no reason in that state. It simply is. Overwhelming oceans that threaten to spill out at any moment in the form of tears, at any time of the day, at the slightest provocation. One also finds themselves mourning almost anything, especially memories of a past without that state, a thing that seems forever gone.
Self hatred. Words could never express how much one hates themselves in that state. How they are such a horrible, worthless, useless being, who should just die...
Lies upon lies, to give validity to the feelings one is experiencing, lying about their own worth to make it easier to give up and just simply escape into oblivion.
That is the best way to describe the feeling that hit Harry Potter and Dudley Dursley.
"M-m-make it stop," Dudley moaned.
"Dudley, stay close to me," Harry said. He knew this feeling and fought it even as the memories of a screaming woman and a flash of green light rose up in the back of his head. "I know what's doing this. You can't see it, but I can. Listen to my voice, grab my arm, don't let it get near you."
Dudley's cold and clammy hand grabbed Harry's upper arm and squeezed, painfully hard. But Harry didn't tell him off, there were more important things to do.
"W-w-what is it!" The rotund cousin squeaked.
"Dementor," Harry replied shortly. "Eats happiness."
Harry drew his wand.
"Lumos," he incanted. That was one charm that was acceptable to use in front of muggles, as it was easily explained away as a flashlight.
The light revealed what Harry had guessed. A tall figure, dressed in tattered black robes, hooded and menacing glided towards them, radiating despair and unhappiness from every inch of its body. Harry caught a glimpse of a second shape further back in the mist, probably a second one.
"Two of them," Harry hissed to Dudley. "I don't know if there's more. If they get me, just run away, because then it won't matter if there's another you wouldn't be able to see it anyway."
Harry desperately searched for a way to get out of this situation without using magic, but he couldn't think of one. It seemed hopeless. There was nothing he could do. A person like him, who couldn't save anybody, who let Cedric die, didn't deserve a soul anyway...
Harry growled as he tried to summon up a happy memory to fight off the influence of the foulest Dark creature to inhabit the mortal world. Born from an encounter between Pariah Dark, Abaddon, Loki, and Epiales, dementors were meant for nothing but the purest evil, their mere existence a fouler thing than all the actions of Voldemort to date. Harry had learned all about them in his third year at Hogwarts, including their origin.
Loki. Trickster god. Pranks.
Fred. George. Weasley. Ron.
Ron and Hermione. There was his happy thought. The only happy thought he'd ever need.
Harry Potter raised his wand, preparing to cast the Patronus Charm, to summon both happiness to fight off the despair forced upon him and a truth about himself, revealed through the shape of the Patronus, to drive back the lies of Loki that aided the dark feelings in taking root in Harry's heart.
But before he had a chance to summon the silver guardian, an ethereal green light shone and a beam of the same color smashed into the creature in front of him. The dementor stumbled and turned its attention away from Harry and Dudley. The dark feelings lessened a bit and the two turned to see who had intervened.
A boy floated behind them, dressed in some sort of black form fitting clothing, wit emblazoned on the front in white. He had white hair and green eyes. Harry noticed that he was softly glowing.
"Danny Phantom?" Dudley gasped. After hearing that, Harry recognized the being.
Danny glared at the dementors.
"You remind me of Spectra," he said darkly. "I really don't like that."
He fired off another beam of ectoplasm. It raced towards the creature who drew in a deep rattling breath. The green beam was sucked into its mouth and then was gone.
"I didn't know they could do that," Harry commented idly as the dementors started to advance once more.
"So that's how you want to play," Phantom said, holding up both hands. In one hand he gathered up a ball of glowing green power. In the other hand he held pale blue energy. Putting his hands together, he thrust the blue energy into the center of the green and then lofted the ball into the air.
Again the demontor drew in a deep breath, taking the ball with it. Once more the energy disappeared, seemingly a waste.
But then there was a flash of white-blue light and the dementor fell to the ground, encased in ice.
The second dementor stared to advance but then thought better of it. It retreated, grabbing its frozen comrade and taking the despair with it.
"It was even supposed to be my night off," Phantom muttered under his breath, but Harry caught it. "Mundungus owes me for this."
"What do you mean your night off? What are you even doing in Britain? Why did you leave Amity Park? What are you doing here?" Harry asked, swiftly recovering from the effects of the dementors.
"He's here because I asked him to be," a voice that Harry recognized spoke up. He turned to see Mrs Figg, their batty old neighbor, angrily striding over to them. The wizard boy tried to hide his wand.
"Don't bother, keep it at the ready," she scolded him. "There's been one attack, they might try again."
Both Harry and Dudley stared at her in shock.
"I am so glad Dumbledore gave me the means to contact you," Mrs. Figg said, turning to Phantom. "I can only imagine what would've happened otherwise. Thank you."
"It's no problem," Phantom replied. "I'm just a bit annoyed because it was supposed to be my night off guard duty-"
"Guard duty?" Harry asked. "Wait, Mrs. Figg, you're a witch?"
"Squib," she replied, glancing at him.
"Squid?" Dudley asked, letting go of Harry's arm. Harry rubbed it; Dudley's grip at hurt.
"Squib," Mrs. Figg corrected. "A muggle child born to wizarding parents."
"Why didn't you ever say anything?" Harry asked.
"Dumbledore's orders," the witch replied. "And I didn't see you that often, I just stopped by every once and a while. Come on, lets get you two home."
"But why is he here?" Dudley whined, pointing a figure to the floating spirit.
"Guarding Harry," Phantom answered. "Dumbledore wanted a bunch of firepower on hand in case Voldemort launched a sneak attack."
"How long have you been tailing me?" Harry asked, growing a little bit annoyed. He remembered his DADA lessons, it would probably be no use in getting mad at Phantom.
"About a month or so," Phantom replied as he floated along with the group. "I should probably turn invisible again." The spirit vanished and spoke up again.
"There we go. I'll try to stay next to one of you so you don't look like you're talking to empty air."
"Why are you tailing me?" Harry asked, guessing the answer ahead of time.
"Dumbledore's orders," the ghost boy replied.
"Why are you following Dumbledore's orders?" Harry asked, getting to what he was really curious about.
"Voldemort wants some people in my town dead, so I've got to beat him up," Phantom told Harry. Harry heard the sound of flesh hitting flesh and guessed the spirit had punched his palm. "Dumbledore sent Lupin to fetch them and to warn me of what was up."
"He's been a big help, taking over guard duty has freed up manpower needed elsewhere," Mrs. Figg said happily. "And with him here we can be sure that you're safe."
"Well, not anymore," Phantom replied from the air beside her, sounding abashed. "Now that they know I'm here they'll take countermeasures. We'll probably have to move Harry to the headquarters."
"Finally," Harry said under his breath. "But what were the dementors doing here and not Azkaban? Has Voldemort already recruited them?"
"Azkaban?" Dudley asked.
"Wizard prison," Harry answered off handily. "They're the guards."
"You use those things as guards," Dudley gasped in horror. "Mental. Your bloody lot is mental!"
"Yes, yes, they are," Phantom said, this time by Harry. "Honestly what were you thinking?"
"I was muggle raised," Harry protested. "And nobody listens to me!"
"I'm a squib. They could care less about me." Mrs. Figg replied.
"Whoever thought it up was an idiot who didn't think about long term consequences," Phantom said darkly, surprising himself. Then again he had been putting up with both Sam and Hermione joining together to crusade against all the problems of the wizarding world, he had been forced to learn a little about these things. But he'd spew chunks before getting one of those S.P.E.W badges. "No wonder it produced someone like Voldemort, concerned with only power, and picking on people different and weaker than him."
Harry shot Dudley a look. The dementor's must have made the boy a bit more perceptive, because he flinched under it.
"What should we tell the Dursley's?" Harry asked, turning back to the last place he had heard Phantom. By now the effects of the foulest creatures to walk the mortal world had faded and he felt much better. He could see number four, Privet Drive ahead.
"Phantom saved Harry and me," Dudley spoke up. "And wizards are coming to take him away for the rest of the summer."
"Sounds like a plan," Harry spoke up, surprised. He hadn't expected his cousin to contribute at all.
"Alright, I'll be nearby until relief comes," Phantom spoke up by Dudley. "So don't worry. Besides, the protective magic around your house should keep you all safe until we can move Harry."
"There's magic on our house?" Dudley asked confused. "What's it do?"
"I don't know much about it," Mrs. Figg replied. "But I do know it's supposed to keep you all safe from Voldemort's followers and Dark creatures."
They stopped by the doorway.
"I'll be outside if you need me," Phantom said. "See ya later."
Harry couldn't tell if the spirit had left, but at the very least Phantom didn't speak again.
"If you can't find him, just contact me if you need anything," Mrs. Figg told him. "It's been nice seeing you again."
"Likewise... I think," Harry responded, a bit confused. He and Dudley turned and entered the house.
"Thanks," Harry heard Dudley mutter.
"For what?" Harry asked, confused. "Phantom took care of them, not me."
"Yeah, but you stopped me from running into them," Dudley replied, not meeting Harry's eye. "Since I couldn't see them-"
"Well nobody deserved to have their soul ripped out."
"They eat souls!"
"Well, kiss them out of you, but yeah, you'd be a vegetable for the rest of your life," Harry replied. "They almost got me in my third year, when they were all over the school. It was great incentive to learn the Patronus Charm." Once more he was joking about the bad things that had happened to him. After the dementor attack it felt so very right for some reason.
Dudley stared at Harry, as if seeing him for the first time.
"Well I'm off to bed," the wizarding boy told his cousin. "Just as a heads up, you'll probably have nightmares tonight. But just remember that I'll be leaving soon. Tell that to your parents, it will make all of your days."
And with that, the Boy-Who-Lived became the Boy-Who-Went-To-Bed.
Author's Notes: The rules for writing this story are a bit different than for my other story, due to the differences in the source mediums, and it's refreshing in a way to switch between them.
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