Soon enough a pattern developed where Harry would read the Book at night and try to scrounge up both the ingredients he needed and the time to perform his rituals during the day when he was done with his chores. He had dismissed using some of them to intimidate them to leave him alone, but perhaps even as sense blind as they were something had them less inclined to start needling him or yelling at him. Harry didn't know it, but his body language had changed as well as other legacy indicators that had allowed humanity to avoid getting killed were steering the Dursleys away from directly attacking him though Dudley seemed less gifted with these necessary survival instincts even as he had less luck finding Harry increasingly day to day.
It had been in the course of finding deserted enough areas that he had learned of his other gift, and it had been unexpected even as Harry was shocked to learn that he could talk to snakes. The first thing he did after bidding the snake a good hunt was to go home and consult the Book even as the idea of asking either Vernon or Petunia never even entered his mind given past experience though there was the nagging question if that was why they called him freak or if it was something else. He had been interested to learn that it seemed that he had another avenue to explore and there were even rituals that required this gift to use, which had been followed by him letting the smile remain on his face until he had removed it upon leaving his cupboard once more.
Time passed and Harry slowly worked his way through the rituals that he had found, and the results were interesting even as he knew they were building blocks towards the final goal to be strong enough to see them again and know what had happened to them. Of course, Harry had been squeamish the first time that he had to use blood other than his own, but he had settled for some of the rodents he had found trying to infest his garden, which made removing them benefit him twice. Sure, his aunt claimed it as hers, but he did all the work, and possession wasn't all that was required to own it even as Harry had taken some pride in the state of his garden.
On the plus side, he found uses for most of the 'weeds' that his aunt had him remove from his garden even though some could have been worked in to complement the plants there. Who would know that what his aunt considered pests would be rare enough ingredients for him. Still it taught him that the phrase 'one man's junk was another man's treasure' was definitely true even as junk could be treasure of its own as he had heard about the restoration business even though most here were more inclined to buy new things if just to say they had.
He had found a snake and a cat that were rather hungry and they gladly ate his rituals left over's that was when the sacrifice wasn't reduced to ash to fuel the spell, and neither of them had tried to attack him though which was a wonderful change compared to the so-called people around him. Thankfully, most didn't do that at this level and he soon had two friends even if it was more appreciating his talking to them and caring for them. So, Harry had a snake he could understand off the bat and a cat who he had named Trouble that he was learning to understand to keep him company, which was better than the brainless monkeys that Dudley had around him making noise to all seem bigger and more important.
He had managed to keep his gift contained and unnoticed until one day when Dudley was playing with a new toy, and as usual, it was being used rather malevolently for his own amusement, but that was just the way Dudley was. So a slingshot that Dudley was shooting rather haphazardly often trying to and did come close to striking him several times and if not for a few physical restoring rituals would have been rather scarred up from his inability to dodge them even a few weeks back. It was inevitable that someone or something else would get hit, as his cousin was more destroyer than creator in his playing.
So it was no surprise when Dudley hit a bird, a raven to be exact and it was injured as it fell to the ground with a thump. As Harry had nursed several of the neighborhood's animals back to health after one of his cousins rampages, he moved and picked up the bird to nurse it back as he had before. The wing was obviously broken with how it was bent, but he hadn't noticed the broken neck when the raven had crashed into the ground.
It was a simple spell he had used on Trouble whenever she had gotten injured because of Dudley, and he had gotten quite used to it as well as the drain it caused using it. So he had no real reason not to use it, while he had read that the more he practice the better his reserves and his control of them would grow. Sure, he had been half-tempted to ask Mrs. Figg to look out for Trouble what with all her cats, but it seemed far too troublesome to explain where she came from.
So Harry simply let a few drops of blood flow into the bird's body and let some of his power resonate with it to speed up healing, and it was more the blood was to travel the body to direct his energy than trying to direct it with his mind. The few bits on healing did say that using magic directly normally required more focus and details than he had beyond the simple anatomy books he had read. Besides, Harry did the same to himself whenever Dudley did manage to catch him with his gang, and he had known that fighting back would only lead to more trouble for him when he got back to their home.
The unexpected thing was when the bird started moving and there was no heartbeat that Harry could feel as it rested in his hands. He had noticed something odd with the bird as it had fallen, but he had been too focused on reaching it and once more undoing the damage that Dudley had caused, and that was that the blurriness around the living was missing leaving only the sharpness of the dead. He looked at the bird and all there was that same image, and yet the bird moved.
'Wait there was something else there,' Harry thought in realization even as his eyes widened at the insinuation.
His head was spinning with it, this revelation that put the whole of life ass over kettle, and Harry wasn't entirely sure what this all meant. His brain was catching up with it even as he felt the idea slipping to his tongue. The shock was a bit great for him at this point to bite it off, as it had to be said.
"Motion to the motionless," Harry had murmured as the bird hopped to his shoulder. "So that is what the book meant. I had best make sure Trouble doesn't try to eat you..."
So Harry had three companions a snake, a cat and a bird. Shadow, Trouble and Night did their best to help him when they could. Yet he still had to leave them outside for the most part. Debating over it, he used a small ritual to allow them to become unnoticed and Harry had fed them the three squirrels involved. They were his friends so he had eventually rationalized killing animals for them. Between the four of them, they were doing a significant amount of pest control and there were far less calls for that service in Little Winging.
Considering that Dudley had staked out the park, Harry had taken to the less developed areas and he would rather spend time in the wild than deal with his family. The book was quite useful in how to survive in the wild, and besides his art, he had focused on those skills that would allow him to survive. He was not even eight and had already had to perform rituals to minimize the necessarily needed food while maximizing the efficiency of what little he got, but it had been easier that confronting them as he had little doubt that enough knocks to the head would make him forget the idea or maybe everything if it was a really bad day.
Smiling softly at the memory, Harry recalled the first time he had filled a glass with fresh warm blood and the ritual that had required him to drink it. His companions made sure none of the body went to waste; although, Night did seem focused on the soft areas. It had been after several of those rituals that Harry had noticed the first perhaps negative effect of his art.
He had fangs in his mouth. Retractable nonetheless, they were still fangs, and even if he could hide them, he knew they were there. So he was in some way a freak like the Dursleys had all ways told him that he was, but Harry just chalked it up to more weirdness in his life.
Like all the specters that he had to deal with, but it was better than what they could do if they were either malevolent or apathetic, let alone unaware of their actions. The duty that he had finally understood when he put his first restless to rest, and the book had mentioned putting the restless to rest as much as motion to the motionless. Still nothing went as planned, and he had seen that enough to know no plan ever went off entirely perfectly, which was why he had read about contingency plans being so important.
Well he had tried, but Harry had ended up with KiKi. She had been a very young child's spirit that had been killed or more accurately murdered. Somehow, he had agreed to animate her body in exchange for the man that killed her to pay.
He had been too shocked when little KiKi had tracked the man down easily and what followed was something his mind had not been prepared for at the time. Unsure of what she had planned or meant by making him pay, Harry had trailed after her, and what he saw was unpleasant to say the least. Still it turned out that little KiKi had been violated before being murdered, and that level of dark emotions had an effect on her spirit as well as her body when he had raised it.
Suffice it to say that Harry had been out of it when she had jumped the man and disabled him before starting to eat the man alive. He had just stood there white faced as the infant like skeleton like being had started eating. No, it was more the gorging of a wild animal with the cleaning the bones clean any carrion eater would envy, while the man screamed as chunks were bitten out and organs ripped out before her head had thrown back to swallow the feast.
The odd thing that he noticed through the shock was that instead of the flesh falling out of the skeletal form or flesh growing back over her bones that the bones had expanded becoming almost a skeleton shaped marionette in form. As it went on the bones went from pale white to black as they became denser and yet she kept chattering the whole time. Though when her chattering teeth were shaving some of his flesh off the sound was one that remained in Harry's mind even if it had been somewhat reminiscent of a slow chainsaw being pressed into wood, while the blood splatters were flying a bit like sawdust or spurting as she went.
Suffice it to say that Harry probably should have gone into therapy at that point. Any decent person would have advised it just for what the Dursleys had done to him at his current age, but a sight like that would send most therapists to convulsions at the amount of time and billing treating it would require. It had been even more disturbing when his companions had joined in on the meal, but then again, he had seen them do that to his animal kills before this and it was perhaps to them just more of a carcass to feed upon.
They did have personalities Harry knew from their interaction, but they just lacked certain human social mores, which as they were a snake, a cat and a bird was understandable. Besides, Shadow had discussed with him as he digested rats in how snakes related to their prey, while Trouble had given him a cats insight even including why they hunted and stalked their prey. It had given him a different perspective though it would have been bizarre if he had understood the mouse as it struggled as he could the man's pleading for mercy amongst other words.
So Harry barely did more than blink and look on as Night started to peck at the struggling man's eyes, while the other two jumped on getting their own bits of flesh to eat. It was the first time that Harry had seen someone die, but he was more confused at how little he felt for the man in particular especially as in KiKi's chattering he heard all that he had done to her. He had been shocked when there had been no restless when the man finally died well before his companions had finished eating, yet it was nice to know that he didn't have to worry about performing that duty here and now.
He had been well prepared to aid KiKi in going back to rest, but as she had been so young when she had died that she had decided to stay, and given the strange words he had understood from her Harry could understand why she wanted to see something first. He had managed to keep his other companions hidden, but he would not manage with KiKi, and Harry knew it of some reason even if spelled to invisibility that something would happen. As it was, Harry was sure that Vernon would not take to having an animated skeleton in the house, and that without the whole magical man-eater thing.
When he had gotten home, he had been proven right. Sadly for Vernon, it turned out that not only had Harry's rituals made him hard to hit as well as resistant to damage with a shorter healing time that they had made him a bit less emotional.
KiKi however had not taken it well and seeing Vernon lifted by the smaller form before being swung into a wall had been shocking. Suffice it to say that things changed at that point; although, Vernon had paled as he had commanded her not to kill or eat the fat bastard even as she had bared her teeth at him letting him see how they were able to move such that she could almost saw her way through his body. Harry hadn't planned a confrontation for before he told the three to go to hell as he left the house with a curse on his lips and possibly the house becoming one big fireball as he walked away, but what was done was done, and their fear was as useful to him as their ignoring him had been.
Looking out from the basement window, Harry saw that the Dursley House had not really changed over the years at all since that day or at least not on the outside, but he had changed and Harry was at times concerned with how it had changed him. Harry had moved into the basement with his menagerie but he still picked the weeds that so aided his art, and the garden was even now the envy of the neighborhood. Not that it mattered to Harry outside the pride he felt for his project and maintaining that level of success, and he had managed to restrain the pleasure he saw from the fear in their eyes.
Dusting off his clothing as he moved from the less cleaned area that he had used to grow the more subterranean ingredients he used, Harry thought about what he saw when looking in the mirror along the wall. He had changed in appearance though that was because Harry was dressed in clothes that fit him now even though they were rather dark and somber in appearance. Glancing about, Shadow was with him always and right now curled around his arm, while Trouble had grown somewhat as the cat sought the stupid vermin that tried to explore in his domain.
'I never thought that things would turn out like this, but I wouldn't change it for anything even though I have to wonder what is going on in Petunia's mind some days,' Harry thought as he held his hand out before his toothbrush smacked into his palm. 'Still the new dentists are nice and their daughter isn't that bad, but I have to wonder if they would put their professionalism aside to give Vernon or Petunia a drilling without pain killer. They didn't seem to like what they noticed from what I saw, but it is nice to have someone to care even before he tried to be more of a father to me than Vernon would consider. Besides, I suppose I could be considered quite the lady killer with how I have grown up looking so far.'
Rinsing and looking his face over in the mirror even as he knew his hair was a bit of a lost cause, Harry took in the state of his teeth and let his fang out for a moment as he smirked. He had found his eyes looked rather chilling when he had them extended, and with the black look, Harry did worry that sometimes he might be mistaken for a vampire or one of those romantics pining for the splendor of the past. It was not as if the girls around didn't like how he looked, but things had changed since KiKi had put fear into Vernon before the man had realized that he had embraced his freak existence though so far he had not given the man to suspect half the things he had done or had been willing to do.
Having seen Kiki and his companions eat a man alive, Harry had been certain he could have played up the fangs and even managed to drink a bit of their filthy fatty blood if it would have worked. Unfortunately, he had learned that someone had wanted him here and escape was still a ways away. Still the past few years had been very interesting in retrospect though it was a shame none of his parents friends had the will to visit here, and he was going to enjoy twisting the emotional knife in them as much as he would a real one in the heart of the sick bastard that had condemned him knowing what would happen with the way things had been arranged.
Smirking as his eyes shined with dark humor, Harry knew what anyone with a drop of sense would search for in those eyes. They were the eyes of a killer or at least someone desensitized to seeing death given the preferred food for KiKi and the rest though it seemed that he was living in a honey hole for the worst in the area or just passing through. Thinking back there were a few startling realizations that had followed even as his general manners and lack of Dudley trying to bully him had on those around him, but he would contemplate that some other time.
If anyone were to have known him well, they would say it was the eyes that changed. They still sparkled, but there was a hidden depth and darkness there. As if he had seen things that one his age should not, which had led to an early maturity. He still performed his rituals and with KiKi had delved ever deeper into his passion, and he didn't even concern himself about her diet or the others let alone himself anymore.
There was no shortage of components for him even for the more disturbing of the rituals he had learned. His relatives suspected that he was a killer, but if asked he would deny and be telling the truth when asked if he ever murdered someone. Did he allow people to die? Yes, he did, but he always made sure that they were better off dead. It had been rather shocking to find the number of abnormalities that dwelt in his area.
Harry had long learned that the adults in the area turned a blind eye to almost anything that they didn't want to believe and yet gossiped about the least of things. Even if the situation had seemed rather familiar to his mind for some reason, as if he had seen this before, Harry knew he hadn't a reason to have that sense of déjà vu even though it wasn't the only one. Though he had never been really allowed to watch movies or shows let alone those addressing those concepts so it wasn't from entertainment that the haunting familiarity came from, which was similar to his discomfort in hospitals and orphanages when he had been to neither before.
So was it any wonder that the suburban paradise he lived in was full of the worst sort of the dregs of society? It seemed you couldn't toss a cat without finding child abusers and rapists though they tended to have a drastically short life span now, while the wife beaters were almost lucky in comparison. They had only had to deal with being mauled by wild animals and they lived just missing a few parts and KiKi was still chipper.
So for a time his only friends were his animal companions and KiKi. That had sadly made him rather unsocial in addition to Dudley's effects on any school-aged friends he could make even after the bully had stopped trying to cause a scene with Harry. He would finally make a friend one day in the form of Alice, and with a human friend instead of just an acquaintance, he had changed for the better.
Now that had been another turning point especially as she was related to the dentists that had been shocked he hadn't been suffering from scurvy and had all his teeth let alone no cavities. Still Harry thought back to how much of a near disaster it had been, and how being a bit later would have made things worse. As many things in his life, it was a sorry thing that started it off.
Unlike the adults, he had learned to observe people and the sudden tenseness that the girl had around people was disconcerting. The sudden change in clothing as well as the sudden need not to be noticed drew alarm bells to his mind, and Harry found her behavior far too like his had been before, but unlike the song he had heard many years later it had ended in a somewhat happier ending for at least one of the people involved. It had taken a rather consorted effort, but he found out even as he had wished he was an adult and simply ignored it had it not been so revolting and offensive to his vestiges of humanity.
Little Alice seemed to have become the favorite niece of her Uncle John. He had done some rather unappealing things, but he had started off simply enough to methodically condition her behavior so that his current as well as later intentions would be readily acquiesce to doing. Harry had found the term grooming when tearing into some books in regards to criminal justice, and the notion that something similar had been planned for him though not necessarily training him to be some one's sexual plaything disgusted him for several reasons.
Her clothing had changed for two important reasons, with both deserving of letting KiKi play with the man. Longer clothing to cover the bruises without a good reason such as a spanking and other marks that were he had feared from other tools to condition her to accept his will and discipline, as well as to make her look less attractive so that others would not think to look at her for what she was his in his mind. The book had told him he needed a strong mind to deal with spirits, as some would be able to possess others, which had led to him learning a side branch that the protections had allowed him to invade other's minds or at least surface memories and emotions.
Harry had felt only the slightest of pangs of guilt for having used his gifts to coerce the knowledge from her. It had been when he had felt a moment of disgust at his action as Harry realized that he could have tried to coerce a spirit to know what had happened that had reassured him he had some humanity remaining, but his sudden concern for anyone in that situation had forced him to act. He had then promised her that the situation would be handled even as the adults never paid attention anyways.
'There was nothing anyone would do even without consent,' Harry had thought in disgust as he tried not to show it as he hugged the girl as she realized he knew and started crying into his blazer. 'Besides, KiKi is getting both restless and hungry again. Better to kill two birds with one stone as it were. Man already had her convinced that lying about it would lead to less punishment than if anyone or at least an adult found out. Still, it is best to be sure not to be played in a game in which there is consent. There is a reason there is a difference between doing what is right and doing what is good.'
So Harry had followed Alice to where her uncle had commanded her to meet, and he brought KiKi with him, while the pair waited as loath as he was to do so. He just wanted to make sure he wasn't being used nor that he was betrayed. The book had far too much information of what most would have considered perverse and immoral behaviors, but who was he to judge if he had already tortured and killed people.
The book had drilled into his head about consent and desire being keys to magic as well as life; however, the book had been rather lacking in any moral guidance and it had instead been focused on magic as well as the ethics of magic. Harry wouldn't grasp the difference between his having ethics and his rejecting social morals in what it meant to him for some time. Suffice it to say, despite neither the teachers nor the Dursleys having given him either the Talk or Sex Ed, Harry was not ignorant to some ideas prevalent in kinky or non-vanilla sexuality even though he wasn't feeling those sorts of impulses just yet.
If it had really been a desire to be hurt and more such as being humiliated by knowing she was being watched while being punished than that would have been a different matter. You begin reading about the blush worthy applications of some of the rituals he had used, and the serpent tongue ones had enough innuendo Harry had gotten the hint, which meant he was a lot less likely to jump to conclusion. Even though he had in part considered anything other than what the Dursleys did as a more healthy and acceptable intimate relationship, Harry had more than once stumbled upon and seeing a couple where the girl was laying in his lap and enjoying being spanked, which had further made him reconsider things yet again.
So Harry had his ethics shaped by the book and the notion of morals destroyed by the Dursleys, and he thought any relationship was more dependent on trust and happiness than the rest of it such as what the preacher sometimes roared about when he was there. Morals were to him something that societies had invented to validate themselves and their actions, and thus, they were just a mere social control that he had no use for in impeding his life. Even though he believed that, Harry wasn't planning to go out acting as a hedonist especially at his age, but if this was just two people happily playing then he would have to consider things outside of what the law said.
Oh, he knew there were reasons for it as there had eventually been laws protecting from spousal abuse, and as Alice was younger than he was, it seemed wrong for her to be pushed into things. Now if they were say teenagers going about half the experimenting he had been lucky quiet enough not to spook that happened in the park then it would be utterly different. Unfortunately, while age could be a number the whole situation stunk of preying on an impressionable girl, and some gentlemanly behavior still remained in his atrophying sense of humanity and chivalry even though some were trying to kill it as well as confusing the hell out of men at times.
It turned out that the man had been planning on going further that day in his actions, and it was obvious from her pheromones that Alice definitely was not wanting this to continue. Harry had waited for longer than he had wished as he still had a somewhat warped sense of ethics, and he couldn't simply let KiKi eat the man because of what he had been doing without proof even with Alice's confession. The adults had so many stupid rules about such things that they had instilled in most people and then there were the social conventions and not just the written laws, but John possibly could spin it after the mess that some over enthusiastic therapists had caused where it had been misinterpreted or actually fabricated memories.
All of that and his uncertainty in what was right in this case made Harry have to be sure that if he was caught that he had a rock solid reason for killing the man as he had heard Vernon complain about lawyers and how they worked the law. He only feared one thing worse than the Dursleys returning to form and that was prison or an orphanage. Self-defense should work and if he caught the man red handed as it were then there was no way he would feel sympathy for the man. Harry lived by some simple rules that had no real exclusions, as something was either right or not to his mind; therefore, as the man had broken them he deserved the appropriate justice.
Harry had waited behind a tree in the deserted area where the man had planned to meet Alice. He was truly offended considering that she was a year younger than him a mere seven years old at the time. The man had gotten so far as to take her clothes off when he had interfered.
"You know that really isn't the smartest of things to do," Harry had said from the cover of the trees even as he felt his fangs tingling, as they wanted to descend inside his mouth. "We don't like people like you. Oh, don't be so surprised in thinking that no one would find out. It probably would be simpler if you had chosen to confess to the police. We don't have the same qualms in dealing with your kind. Besides, my friend has been quite restless ever since she killed her own murderer. Why he even planned to do what you have been doing with her so I do think it is best to let you reap what you have sown..."
The man was unprepared for KiKi. She had simply jumped down on the man from the trees. Her little fingers had grabbed at his spine on the way down and with a snap, the man had fallen to the ground. KiKi had raised her hand and in an action that raised Harry's eyebrows an ax had appeared in it. Alice had looked on in shock as her uncle was systematically chopped up and eaten in front of her.
"He won't bother you or anyone else anymore," Harry had told her as he turned to leave with KiKi following still carrying her bloodied ax. "I don't think you need to worry about any one finding out what happened. You can just pretend none of this happened..."
"No!" Alice had shouted in shock. "I don't want to forget or it might happen with someone else someday. Please help me. Show me how not to be afraid again. Teach me to make them pay!"
For a time, there was a silence as a struggle passed through his mind. The risks of revealing more to someone versus the advantage of someone aiding him were being juggled, as it was so tempting to have someone besides his companions to talk to. Besides, there was the fact that given the circumstances that she would try to solve things on her own.
'Decisions... decisions,' Harry thought with a slight twitch. 'I have to ask myself is it worth it... then again there is the fact that I had before wished for anyone to come and save me... perhaps it would be worth it?'
"Fine," he had said with a sigh. "But you must be sure about this. There is no going back. You will do things that most would revile you as much as they would him for what he did. Do you choose to do this of your own free will?"
"Yes!" Alice had again shouted full of emotion. "I never want to feel this weak again."
Harry had sighed again before he had looked at KiKi and walked to where the man had died. There was still some blood soaked into the ground. He would need to be more careful of that in the future. Normally they lingered long enough to clean the site, but he had wanted to go away and not have her look at him how he had feared she might. She had wanted to be free of him but doubts of having someone he could call friend perhaps looking at him like a freak like the Dursley's still did if concealed behind their fear was not something that he had wanted.
With a simple gesture at the ground where he had died a black flame spurted up charring the ground quickly before vanishing without letting more than a whiff of smoke rise as well as removing any evidence even CSI forensics could find. It was interesting that the fire would completely erase all evidence even modern science would find nothing even with all of the advancements they had. He looked her over and tried to see if she had the dedication that it would take. How easy would it be to ever find someone to work with in the future? There were so many rituals and spells that needed more than one caster to make them work. She had accepted this so he might as well tell her.
He had reached into his backpack and pulled out the book along with the dagger he had worked so hard to make. He had calmly explained what to do and he watched on as she took the same oath he had until she had added something unexpected to her words. Words from the ritual right after it. One he had not performed. She had actually pledged herself to him for his actions and in shock, he had agreed without thinking.
He had berated himself for that a moment later as he had felt a bond form between them. He realized that he was responsible for her as well as for her training. His carefree life was gone as Alice had family that paid attention to her not like him. Still they had trusted that man so they were obviously not too bright.
'I wanted a partner,' Harry thought to himself as he walked her home, 'and instead I got a minion. Not that having help is a bad thing just that in my shock I permitted myself to allow Alice to tie herself to me. Power is tempting and now someone so abused and betrayed trusts me like this. I have to restrain myself from talking advantage of this in the future... I am just a kid and yet at times I feel as if I have lived lifetimes. It would have been nice to have played as a kid once and yet all that I have done has changed me so, and now I am going to guide Alice down this path. Will I be able to keep her from my mistakes? Would she even want to? And yet I think that things will be so interesting. To think that just wanting to know more about my parents would lead me this far... how much further must I go to find out why I can call some spirits and yet not theirs to me. Alice I promise that I will help you and yet I know that you will help me in my ambition no matter how far I have to go. I will help you to never have to feel as weak as you did before this.'
Time had passed after that and the pair had gotten into mischief and other assorted things. Alice did however show no interest in boys or more accurately other boys. She knew that she could trust Harry and he knew he could trust her. A friend, a human friend, was a new experience for Harry. He had helped Alice slowly work her way through the secrets he had learned and they both delved into some of the new rituals that required assistance. The pair still managed to kill things. Harry taught Alice how to hunt and they hunted wild animals along with their companions.
Alice took to the cynical nature of their art with a reverence. Animal sacrifices were readily used to repair the damage and prevent any possibility of it happening in the future. She would not be weak. It had been interesting when she had first drank her first taste of blood even if it had been animal blood still warm from the kill. She had acted like the world's most sugared up child as she had careened around the clearing. Harry had for the first time in a long time simply laughed. There Alice had been practically bouncing around the trees giggling like mad.
What neither of them had expected was the effects the first time Alice and Harry had shared blood or to be more accurate shared willingly given blood. It had been a ritual that would allow Harry to better know and understand Alice as well as Alice to better know and understand Harry, or perhaps from what they understood that they would have better been able to understand the other and what made them who they were. That it allowed them to always know exactly where the other was as well as their condition had made them choose this particular rite. They were very close friends at this point in time and had confided much in each other, but had still found it hard to reveal some of their skeletons.
Harry had first sunk his fangs into Alice's willing throat before offering his own blood for her to drink. The similarities to how vampires supposedly sired was humorous to the pair at the time. It was more humorous as they were laughing and cuddling without any social barriers between them. They would if described been acting intoxicated and rather mellow compared to the usual sugar high they had normally experienced.
Afterwards they would try to explain what it was they had felt but it was normally described as you know and the just got it but for the life of them couldn't put it into words. They had found that imbibing blood gave them a rush and they felt the magic in the rituals flow through them. The sharing of blood was different. As Harry had sunk his fangs in there was a rush of euphoria he had expected, but there was more to it than that. It felt like Alice was pouring all of herself into him and in a truly intimate manner allowed Harry to know her. Alice felt something of the same, but also a firm knowledge that Harry was there for her now and always just as she knew she would be there for him in whatever ways he would want or need.
The pair was practically inseparable after that fact and Harry took to spending more and more time with Alice even being invited to visit with her family when they went places. She had one strange cousin who was in no way related to that man. Despite the fact that most people treated her as a bookworm the two never did. They had in fact tried to slowly convince her of their ideals, which would be a long time in coming. Thankfully, it seemed that there was little risk for what had happened to Alice to happen to her although Harry had felt a slight foreboding with how she respected authority and that someone in charge was always right. He just hoped that Hermione's absolute trust in authority would not be broken as Anne's had by her uncle. She seemed like too nice and innocent to have it ripped away.
So for a time the pair studied and practiced whenever they could. The time had slowly caused Alice to become desensitized to the killings and was working her way from animals small to large. It was odd how many inferior predators they had found even among such a supposedly nice neighborhood. There was however a difference in their animal victims. They were rather solemn when they did so and always thanked the animal for its sacrifice even if they knew it was a part of life and its cold clinical cycle.
The pair eventually expanded into a trio when they met Anne. It seemed that one of the teachers was doing to her what her uncle had done to her. In all this time Alice had never killed a person even though she had watched Harry administer justice to those he had dealt with. She could not say that she had never tasted his kills fear filled blood as they struggled. She had even grown apathetic to the sight of Night pecking their eyes out while they tried to move. There just had been something about them that had compelled her not to kill them as if in part she was not ready for it as well as there was a certain something missing.
Anne was a bit different in her situation. The teacher had gotten farther than Alice's uncle had managing to only technically avoid stealing her virginity by sodomizing her. Anne had managed to kick the man several times as KiKi and the others had gone to work on him. It had been most therapeutic for her. Harry had felt that she was more than ready in her attitude and feeling the same comradeship as he had with Alice when they started had shared a glance with Alice before offering her a place with them.
While he still struggled, Alice and Harry inducted Anne into their number. Anne had watched as Alice slit his throat before beckoning her to drink with her. All while Harry smiled on at their actions, which he wouldn't know would render Anne far more forward with some things.
After Anne and Alice had downed several mouthfuls but before he had finally died, Alice had carved out his heart before removing it. She had offered a half to Shadow before giddily giggling offered a half to Trouble. Sharing was important after all, and he had managed not to wince at that quote from a far more fluffy show that Dudley had flipped over in search of one with more violence.
Alice and Anne had eventually conferred and having borrowed the book looked for a ritual to ensure no one took their virginities. There were ways but the simplest was slightly personal and they were for a time unsure how to ask. The two had while learning some of the art not delved deep enough to reach their goal. The spell had utilized the blood of their menses to safeguard them. While they had shared blood with Harry in the past and even had a few chaste kisses with him this was a rather sensitive matter that Harry would have to drink that from the source while chanting in his head to bind the spell in place.
The effects would be worth it though. Should anyone try to steal their virginities in the future without their permission, though they tried not to think about the fact that Harry could give his permission in their stead, would be struck dead and their body would rise as a skeleton to do their bidding. It was vexing that they didn't have the reserves to do that on their own, but they would work on it until they could to make him proud.
Harry had reluctantly gone on with the ritual and despite the three being killers, they had tried to comfort each other that it would not be that bad. It did however lead to the knowledge that not all touching there was bad just the intent could be. That was something that they had not really dealt with despite sometimes crashing into a pile after some of the more draining nights after other rituals or simply falling asleep talking. It was an odd moment as they realized they were still innocent and ignorant in some ways. Sex was despite the things that had happened to them still one of those areas.
Something that would be more confusing when they grew up, Harry knew, and not just that they didn't have issues if he was with both of them. Though that was strange enough with the continued impression of one man and one woman marriages or dating being the only appropriate thing to do, but at least they were keeping the other girls from acting like groupies. No matter how detached and disinterested he acted, Harry had found more of the girls around him giving him eyes that he was becoming familiar with especially as neither Alice nor Anne shifted them when he was looking at them.
So the trio went about their activities as they put such thoughts out of their minds. The group had formed a shared trust among them and they were slowly becoming close friends. The girls helped Harry with his gardening, which allowed them to get several useful plants for free while he helped them with their studies both in normal academics and more in their art.
The relationship between them seemed to work out and both of the girls had managed to gain a familiar of a sort. Though KiKi and the other companions were annoyed that they were banned from eating the same species as any of the new companions were. It just wouldn't do to eat something that they conversed with even if they had done things to their victims after talking to them. A companion was different than any other animal in their opinion and they were able to converse with and understand theirs, but not to the same level as Harry had done. The girls would likely chalk it up to practice though they all had come to understand KiKi and her ways.
So Alice had managed to reanimate a stray dog most likely having some Doberman blood and some other useful characteristics, as it was a black shorthaired dog barely older than a puppy she had found which she promptly named Mischief due to the mischief he got into. KiKi had been most upset, as the stray dogs she had found had been some of the tenderest of things she had eaten and it was so unfair to remove a whole species off the list. Seriously she had chattered about it was bad enough not to eat cats, snakes or birds and now no more dog. Still after several times of being yelled at for being bad she finally stopped eating any dog she ran across. In retaliation, KiKi had gone after the small rodents that seemed to dwell about in earnest. The squirrels in particular tended to not notice anything until she had scooped them up and closed her mouth around them.
While that was happening, Anne had managed to raise a tom she named Trick. That Trouble seemed to be taken with the tom seemed humorous for them. Despite what they had all done, they were still kids. Thankfully, Trick had eventually managed to not look like KiKi had originally as a skeletal cat would have stood out. Now if only Anne would stop trying to add things to give Trick more tricks. Like the time she had added bird wings that she still wouldn't remove. Thankfully, they were able to blend in well with Trick's fur and thus the ignorant masses remained unaware of the necromantic animate Kitty Hawk she had. That it had avoided other less desirable interest being raised was a very good thing.
All of that changed near his eleventh birthday, and he knew that the Dursleys were aware of what they would mean. KiKi had long since grown accustomed to getting the mail and removing any he got even if she did love giving them a fright. There were a few and the occasional owl had dropped some off as well, but Harry didn't differentiate in which culture his correspondence came from, and he hoped his time won friends would feel the same way.
Owls were rather intelligent enough to know better than to tempt KiKi, especially after the first few had gotten snatched and promptly were snacked. Harry had hated to admit it, but as he felt stealing was wrong, he never took any money that his victims didn't bring with them and they were besides scum also cheap when it came to the pocket change they had on them. He had contemplated raising a few and emptying their account, but that might lead to getting caught. So the three had taken to supplementing their money from yard work with some of the potions and rituals as well as components they had gathered.
'I have more than myself to be concerned with nowadays,' Harry thought as he opened the ornate letter with his sharp letter opener that was more than able to pierce a man's heart if necessary. 'Still just because they were scum doesn't mean their family is. So while some would not want the money, I am not going to cheat them of their inheritances. Especially not with what I know about my own inheritances, but you really do value something more if you had to earn it.'
Thankfully, Harry had managed to learn enough to call spirits forth and had found out about the so-called Wizarding World that his book barely mentioned at all. It seemed they were rather small and unimportant at the time. Still what the spirits had informed him of had been interesting and while some ancestors could be called, his parents still were elusive to his call.
A shame that none of his deceased relatives that he could call could come up with a reason for that though he suspected that they had an idea yet were unsure on how to tell him. There had been other things that frustrated him about that as well as how many he hadn't been able to commune with though there was probably a reason for that, which had required his learning more about what the Dursleys still believed he was ignorant about. From what he knew, Petunia was terrified with what she had seen him do let alone what training would cause or perhaps some dream that what he had done had made him unwanted by the wizards, which was probably her hope.
So he had gone to the Alley the spirits had recommended for one of his persuasion. They had informed him that he most likely had an account at Gringott's in Diagon Alley, but he knew that a real bank would lead to a paper trail eventually. The bastard that placed him here would be able to discover that sooner than later especially with how many fingers he had in as many pies all while being more respectable in appearance than anyone else.
Besides, while he and KiKi had managed to cow them into line, he was unsure if that would derail Vernon long if he spotted money. He was a greedy bastard and Harry felt better safe than sorry. It had taken threats of physical violence to keep just change from yard work after all.
So despite the well-held belief that Harry Potter was secluded away and Dumbledore's firm knowledge of him being as well informed as a muggle born, Harry had made many sojourns to his Alley. There had been so much to see and learn, and buy as well as sell that his inner capitalist had smirked like a shark dropped in a school of tuna. Besides, it was not like he had been troubled after the first time...