I've decided to continue this story after all. It interests me and I have absolutely no idea where I want to go with this.
So it's sort of ad-libbed, but then again most of my stories are. I'll assume that if you liked the prologue you'll probably like this too.
Some swearing, mostly mental.
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or Harry Potter.
Harry Potter was a strange little boy; everyone on Privet Drive knew that.
They had all heard about how he'd been left on the Dursley's front steps when he was a baby, though everyone disagreed as to whose child he really was. Mrs. Number Seven said that he was the son of some man her father had met, rich and influential, who trusted the Dursleys to look after his son. Most disagreed, and the other neighbors all said some variant of how Harry was just the son of a distant relative who for whatever reason couldn't take care of him.
After all, why take in the boy if he's not a relative?
All of the children on Privet Drive [the few that there were, other than Dudley] avoided Harry, for the simple reason of his cousin. By the age of four Dudley was bigger than any of them, and he didn't have any friends yet - therefore, Harry was also not allowed to have any friends, because if Dudley couldn't have it then neither could his cousin.
And none of them wanted to mess with Dudley Dursley.
Gabriel was quite aware of how horrible his vessel's life was.
On occasion, he was grateful that the child had been spared the horrible treatment, then quickly remembered that he was stuck in said child's body, and his resentment returned in a rush.
It hadn't been his choice to possess the boy but noooo, that damned ritual had taken over and he'd been forced into the body nonetheless. An angel was the exact opposite of a demon; they were physically incapable of possessing a body without permission. The ritual, and Gabriel's semi-powerless state had helped bypass it, but whatever the ritual had done had slipped the shreds of Harry Potter's soul into his Grace. Which meant that, for the time being, Gabriel was trapped.
In a four year old's body.
Harry Potter might have been there as well, if not for two factors. One, his soul was in pieces. That wasn't something anyone ever recovered from. Two, Gabriel was an archangel.
It happened with all their vessels. An archangel was huge, their true form contained by only the right vessels. No matter how strong a human was, there simply wasn't room for them.
Even in Gabriel's reduced state, it took Harry Potter's soul only a month to be worn away by the stronger and more powerful being residing in the body.
As a result, he was seen as the odd boy out in most cases. Gabriel had struggled with his vessel for the better part of a year - it was immensely frustrating to be in a body that barely knew how to control its legs and arms, much less speak. And the way adults treated him - ugh. Gabriel swore that if he ever got out of this mess he was going back to Heaven and never taking another vessel like this again.
Occasionally he wondered what Harry Potter's life would have been like, had he not intervened. After the incident where he was locked in 'his' cupboard [the Dursleys apparently didn't think him worthy of having an actual bedroom] and the last shreds of Harry's soul were worn away by stress and the lack of any food or water, Gabriel concluded that the boy would have starved to death in the first week or so, and at least this way death had been less painful.
Gabriel spent most of his time trying to figure out who Harry's parents had been. Obviously the mother had been related to the people he'd been forced to stay with - the similarities between her and the woman who was Harry's cousin's mother was obvious, even with the little he had glimpsed of the dead woman's face. The man must have been where Harry got the majority of his appearance, because Gabriel was sure that such black, messy hair did not come from this disgraceful side of the family.
He wasn't sure where the father had come from, though. Something magical had gone on in that house - damn that fucking ritual to hell, but it gave him a necessary clue - and Gabriel had absolutely no idea what.
He had never been too concerned with the Earths outside of the one he took shelter on. The majority of the angels concentrated on that one, since it was the first Earth their father had created. Interplanetary travel would have drawn more attention than he'd have liked, and Gabriel had been doing perfectly well under his disguises.
[At least, until the Winchesters showed up.]
Concerning the magical side of things, Gabriel had a lot of questions. Why were there unbelievably crappy wards surrounding the house Harry's relatives lived in? Why was he important enough to need wards? Why had no one bothered to take the time to check on Harry? And most importantly, what was preventing him from gaining his power back? Gabriel had been at his lowest in terms of angelic power ever since Halloween 1981. Something was preventing him from recharging as fast as he needed to. A fraction of his power had been restored in four years - at least so far - and he should have long ago been at full battery. Was the ward meant to prevent that? Or did it have some other reason? His limited resources made Gabriel unable to tell, and the overall helplessness of his situation sent him into the occasional monumental sulk. He was going to get his power back, and find the magical community, and get some serious answers.
The Dursleys, it seemed, were desperate to make sure that Dudley was better than 'Harry' at everything.
When Gabriel had been forced to attend school along with Harry's cousin [he was sure that they were only sending him because there were laws against him staying home] he had returned to their house halfway through the year with grades that were at least three letters above Dudley's. There had been a lot of yelling from Harry's uncle, Dudley had thrown a tantrum, and Gabriel amid it all had barely escaped to his new bedroom.
He'd only gotten out of the cupboard after pushing Harry's aunt to give him Dudley's second bedroom with a little bit of Grace. Dudley had thrown a fit after that, too, now that Gabriel thought about it, even though all he ever did with it was store broken toys or things that he didn't want anymore.
Anyway. School.
Gabriel had quickly learned that if he brought home better grades, it resulted in a miserable time no matter how much Grace he could use on the humans. If he had been Harry, it would probably have led to a lifetime of underachievement. As it was, Gabriel simply didn't pay attention in class and what answers he didn't already know, he purposely got wrong. It wasn't as if he needed good grades for when this body grew up, after all.
In some cases, Gabriel counted himself lucky he wasn't at full power. At least this way, his vessel could still grow and get older. If he got too old, he'd have recharged enough to reverse it a bit by then.
The Dursleys of course knew nothing of angels or their nephew's possession, and simply decided that 'Harry' had stopped using dirty tricks to get better grades than their darling son.
It honestly made Gabriel sick.
As Harry got older, Gabriel learned more and more about how humans worked.
Specifically, they seemed to have retained their pack instinct from their time as neanderthals.
Dudley had gained a group of friends as soon as he was old enough, who spent most of their time intimidating younger kids. Their favorite target was Gabriel, who they assumed to be helpless, and Gabriel had entertained himself once for three hours as they looked for him in vain while he watched, invisible.
On the rare occasion that they did catch him, no one ever managed to actually hit him. This only made the group of children that much more determined, and on a particularly spirited chase where Gabriel had been run into a dead end behind the school, he had somehow found himself on the roof.
Dudley had told his father right away and Gabriel had spent the weekend locked in his bedroom, most of which he'd spent trying to figure out whether he'd flown or used some sort of magical transportation. It had felt much more uncomfortable than flying did, but then again as he was running on maybe an eightieth of his actual power, that could be easily explained.
The next time something strange happened, it was definitely not by use of his angel powers.
The teacher had been ribbing into him for not turning in the homework, and Gabriel had been distracted from some fairly heavy thoughts. Frustrated at losing his train of thought, he had glared at the teacher and then stared in shock as the man's hair abruptly dyed itself blue.
Another week trapped in his room was given for that. Gabriel spent it poking and prodding the little ball of what must have been magic that was steadily growing next to his Grace. It had attached itself to the already-present power, no doubt inherited from what remained of Harry Potter. Gabriel taught himself how to create a string of witch lights to decorate his room and then tried to conjure something, which exhausted the core so badly it was weeks before he could see it again.
A week before Harry's eleventh birthday was Dudley's, and as usual the event was completely over-celebrated. Gabriel sat at the table, not even sparing a glance at the plate in front of him. If the adults in the house ever noticed that he barely ever ate, they didn't comment on it, but Gabriel had a feeling it was connected to the reason he hadn't been forced to do any chores around the house.
There was a pile of brightly wrapped presents at the end of the table, cascading onto the floor and swamping half of the living room. Another one fell onto the floor as the thundering footsteps of the ridiculously obese Dudley Dursley sounded, the boy slamming over the door and casting piggy little eyes over the scene.
"How many are there?" He asked loudly, focusing on the presents.
"Thirty-six," the uncle told him proudly. Gabriel wasn't sure what his name was, he'd never bothered to learn it.
"Thirty-six?" Gabriel rolled his eyes as Dudley's face reddened. "But last year, last year I had thirty-seven!"
"Yes well some of them are quite a bit bigger than last year-"
"I don't care how big they are!"
"Diddykins," the aunt came over, Gabriel was mildly sure that her name was some sort of flower. "Don't worry, sweetheart, we'll go out later and buy you two new presents. How's that sound?"
"So I'll have thirty...thirty..."
"Thirty-eight," said Gabriel, attracting the human's attention all at once. They seemed to have forgotten that he was there.
"Mind your own business, boy," the uncle blustered, turning back away from Gabriel as the doorbell rang. "Who's that?"
'That' turned out to be P-something, one of Dudley's gang friends. Not literally a gang, but that was what they called themselves. Gabriel thought of them as about as terrifying as a load of ants.
"Where are we going today, Dud?" the boy asked, joining the club of pretend-the-other-kid-isn't-there.
"The zoo," Dudley said, glancing up at the aunt, who nodded.
"What about him?" asked the uncle, jerking his head in Gabriel's direction.
"I've told you, Vernon," Oh, so that was his name. Gabriel promptly forgot it. "Mrs. Figg said she can't take him. He'll have to come with."
Gabriel sat bolt upright. Mrs. Figg was an old woman who liked her cats too much and who the Dursleys left him with every time they went somewhere. She once gave him cake that Gabriel was sure would have tasted dusty and stale, if he'd bothered to eat it.
"What?" Dudley howled, an the only thing preventing a full-on tantrum was the presence of his friend.
Several minutes later, Gabriel found himself in a car for the first time.
He hated it.
It was confining and slow, the seat belt dug into his neck, and even though he was sitting alone in the very back seat Dudley and P-whatever kept reaching back from the middle row of seats to hit his head.
The zoo itself was also horrible. Gabriel knew that the animals were there only because there was no other place for them, but when you'd been around when Earth was basically just a giant forest, seeing all these predatory animals behind bars was more than a little odd. He lost the Dursleys five seconds after they got through the entrance and had toured half the zoo before a security guard noticed that he was alone and the Dursleys were paged over the intercom.
The uncle had been steaming mad, and Gabriel half hoped that the guard would send Child Protective Services after the Dursleys.
It didn't happen.
The snake room was Gabriel's favorite, mainly because it was the only shady place in the entire zoo and therefore much cooler than anywhere else. He found a corner and sat down in it, enjoying the breeze that occasionally drifted by.
The only problem with this place was that it was right in between three different cages. Gabriel wasn't sure why the snakes in this world had a language, but it was very annoying to try and rest with them constantly going back and forth about who had gotten the better dinner. Animals, honestly.
Gabriel eventually poked his head up and hissed back at them, mildly surprised when the words came out as actual hisses.
"Do you mind? I'm trying to get some rest here and you're being a bit loud."
"A speaker?" One of them had said in surprise, but Gabriel just sat back down and ignored any questions they asked him. The zoo was much less interesting than Dudley had made it out to be. He wondered what the humans got out of this experience.
Gabriel's vessel's birthday came a few days later. He spent the day mostly in his room, avoiding the Dursleys, who were still upset that he had gotten away from them at the zoo.
The sky outside was barely dark yet, since it was summer and the sun didn't set until late in the evening, so the owl came as a surprise.
Gabriel stared at the thing perched outside his window for a moment. It pecked at the glass and was this owl actually irritated at him? Gabriel was fairly sure that owls were never meant to be this sentient. Cautiously, he opened the window.
The thing flew in and perched on his desk, right next to where he was sitting. Gabriel hesitantly reached out and poked it, making it flap its wings angrily. Well. At least now he was sure he hadn't been slipped some hallucinatory drug.
There was an envelope tied to the leg the bird was forcefully sticking out at him, and Gabriel grabbed it, using a miniscule amount of Grace to untie it without really thinking. The owl didn't leave, even after its message had obviously been delivered.
"Aren't you supposed to go now?"
It gave him a severe look and started grooming itself. "I'm pretty sure that owls aren't supposed to act like this."
It continued ignoring him. Gabriel turned back to the letter and examined the paper. It had his vessel's name on it, with his room [and wasn't that a creepy thought] and the Dursley's address. Gabriel ripped it open, taking a moment to examine the seal. What was this, the Middle Ages? No one used parchment anymore.
The letter was also addressed to his vessel.
Dear Mr. H. Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.
Sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
"What the hell?"
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