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At eleven, Harry James Potter is technically Harry James Dursley, though no one dares to call him that. Truthfully, the Dursley's don't call him much at all as far as names go; usually 'boy' or 'idiot' will do, with a few increasingly offensive variations. They seem to enjoy verbal abuse more than they should, but Harry knows better than to call them out over it. Last time, they'd locked him in the cupboard for two straight days. He just has to weather the storm until it passes--it always does.
Today, however, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley seem intent on sending Harry to an early, stress-induced grave.
At the crack of dawn, Mr. Dursley forced the family into the car and they'd set out towards an undisclosed location. He hadn't spoken a word since. His wife had been quiet as well, only opening her mouth to tell Dudley to shut up when he hadn't stopped asking about their destination. Now, Harry sits next to his equally-unsettled cousin in a silent car headed for god knows where.
'They're going to kill me,' Harry thinks. 'I'm done for.'
He swallows and looks out the window at the rolling hills. They fly past his window in a blur of brown and green, and he lets his eyes relax into the horizon. However, something unusual catches his attention. A sudden flash of color draws his gaze, but the car is moving too quickly for him to focus on it. The glimpse he gets encourages him to twist in his seat, focusing on an image that makes little sense.
There, at the side of the road, stands a woman dressed in bright pink from head to toe. In addition to the bright clothing, every inch of exposed skin seems to have been dyed purple to match the hair hanging to her ankles. Harry gapes at the shrinking figure. It can't be real. But just as he begins to doubt it, she moves, raising a single hand in a wave.
Before he can process this, another car blocks his view of the woman, and he slowly slumps back into his seat. Dudley is sneering at him.
"The hell were you lookin' at?"
Harry doesn't respond. What would he say, anyway? He'd sound crazy. Vernon starts and tilts his head up so he can see Harry through the rearview mirror. His cheeks are the usual shade of crimson, but his eyes lack the unbridled hatred Harry’s used to. Instead, they look almost...anxious?
Sooner than he’d like, the car screeches to a stop just off the side of the road. Aside from a derelict shack, there’s nothing to distinguish this hillock from all the rest. Harry and his cousin exchange worried glances in a moment of rare solidarity as Vernon and Petunia hurriedly exit the car.
“Dudley, stay put,” Petunia orders as Vernon opens Harry’s door, grabs him by the arm, and yanks him to his feet.
‘Jesus christ, they’re actually going to kill me!’
Dudley huffs, “I don’t want to--”
“Stay in the car or I will ground you until the day you die!”
Stunned, Harry and Dudley can do nothing but gape as the former is dragged towards the cabin. The closer they get, the more frightened Harry becomes. From a distance, the place only seemed run-down, but up close he can see what look like claw marks up and down the front door. One of the two visible windows is blown out, glass left twinkling on the porch. Vernon spares the ruins no attention before rapping out two quick beats against the door.
“Hello,” he bellows, and Harry’s suddenly struck with the feeling that drawing any attention is a very, very bad idea. He yanks against his uncle’s hold but his skinny frame is no match for it. After an achingly long silence, the door creaks open, revealing an empty entryway.
With the opening comes a stench that makes Harry’s stomach roll. He gags as Petunia turns faintly green, but still they pull him forward into whatever hell resides here.
Despite the setting sun outside, the shack’s shadows are thick, almost writhing in intensity, the only light coming from the shattered window. The longer Harry stares the more frightening the shapes become, glimpses of claws and teeth dripping with a substance he’d rather not identify.
“What the hell are we doing?” he hisses, shrinking into the light. The shadows twitch at the sound of his voice, growing antsy. He gulps.
“Mind your tongue,” Petunia reprimands, though it’s more reflexive than anything. Strangely, the two of them don’t seem nearly as terrified as Harry deems sensible. It’s almost like they don’t see the creatures occupying the space, which does nothing to slow Harry’s heart rate.
“Please,” he says. “We need to go, it’s not safe.”
“Quiet,” Vernon orders. Then, to his wife, “He should be here.”
Petunia presses her lips together in a stern line. Her skin is still off-color, but whatever trepidation she’d had outside is quickly being replaced by annoyance. Before Harry can think to stop her, she steps forward into the shade and yells, “Albus!”
A lot happens at once.
Directly before him, the shadows coalesce into a humanoid figure, fuzzy at the edges, and Harry finds himself staring at the thing’s only concrete feature: a pair of yellow eyes. Quick as a whip, the form of smoke flings itself at Petunia and yanks her further into the house, her piercing cry choking off into a whimper. The front room goes totally dark, the window now covered by more of the creatures, and in his shock, Vernon lets go of Harry’s wrist.
Harry doesn’t hesitate--acting on instinct alone, he ducks into a roll as the monsters swarm the spot he’d been standing in only seconds ago. Vernon, too, lets out a brief, pitiful scream before giving in to the overwhelming mass of darkness above him. While they’re distracted, Harry runs into the next room, nearly tripping over the body of his aunt. The creature is still attached to her, so Harry leaps over them both and makes his way to the back door. He kicks and hurls himself against the wood, but it won’t budge.
“Shit!” he hisses, and suddenly the house goes quiet once more. He turns, already knowing he’ll be met with a dozen hungry eyes, but the sight still terrifies him straight to his core. Apparently sensing his helplessness, they take their time creeping towards him, moving in a single, sinister mass. He closes his eyes.
At the sound of shattering glass, Harry tenses for a blow that never comes. Instead, four gingers dressed all in black and holding long, glowing knives fall to the floor in front of him, facing down the horde.
“What a day, eh Fred?” the one on the left asks.
“What a day indeed, George.”
“What the fuck ,” Harry blurts, prompting the boys to glance at him. The two who’d spoken--twins, apparently--grin like the cheshire cat. Despite only looking a few years older than Harry himself, there’s an easiness to their posture that suggests familiarity with the situation at hand.
One starts, “Don’t worry--”
“--we’ve got this covered!” finishes the other, turning back around and sinking into a fighting stance. The other two boys, one older than the rest and the other around Harry’s age, grimace at the shapes before them. The oldest pulls a backpack over his shoulder and reaches for something, but before he can grab whatever it is, the twins lash out lightning-quick at the mass.
Harry watches them in amazement. Rather than simply working together, they move like two pieces of a whole, always perfectly in sync. He’s never seen anyone move with such effortless grace and he’s struck wondering who these people are.
Unfortunately, their efforts produce less-than-ideal results. Simultaneously, they jump back in line with their brothers, grimacing down at their knuckles which have turned red with welts.
“Ouch.”
“You idiots,” the oldest one says. “Those are Iblis demons, you can’t kill them unless you strike their eyes.”
“Yeah, we figured that one out, Perce.”
“Dumbledore didn’t say the infestation was this bad,” the boy continues unabated. “Here, use these.” He pulls two large jugs of water from his backpack and tosses them to the twins.
They grin. “Holy water.”
“Very smart, Perce. I knew there was a reason we brought you.”
‘Perce’ rolls his eyes and turns to the only brother who hadn’t spoken. “We’ve got this, get the mundane out of here.”
Apparently happy to get away, the boy rushes back to Harry, offering him a wary smile. He pulls a wand-like tool from his belt and scrawls some kind of rune onto the door. Slipping the tool back in place, he braces his hands against the wood and gives it a hearty shove. Harry starts to tell him it’s pointless, the door is stuck, but it swings open without so much as a squeak. The boy steps aside, letting Harry pass ahead as the sounds of battle start up again.
Once outside, the boy closes the door and faces him, awkwardly scratching his neck. His face is smattered with freckles and his whole body is long and lanky, like he’d been stretched out.
“Who are you?” Harry asks. He doesn’t have time for pleasantries.
The boy blinks. “Um, I’m Ron. Ron Weasley. Those are my brothers, Fred, George and Percy.”
“Why are you dressed that way? What--what the hell just happened? What were those things?”
Ron’s brow furrows. “Wait, you can see them? The demons?”
“Obviously,” Harry huffs. “I’m not blind. They killed my aunt and uncle!”
“I’m sorry,” Ron says, unsurprised. Tentatively, he rests a hand on Harry’s arm. It’s warm, and Harry lets some of the tension fall from his shoulders. “What were you doing here in the first place?”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “They mentioned someone named Albus.”
Ron’s eyes light up. “That’s odd.” His hand drops. “Were they Shadowhunters?”
Harry is so, so tired. “I don’t know what that is.”
Ron smiles again, a real one this time. “It’s what I am. We kill demons, and protect the mundane world. But,” he looks Harry over, “most mundanes can’t see demons, or us.”
“So?”
“So you might not be a mundane.”
Before Harry can unpack that, the door flies open and Ron’s brothers run out in varying degrees of panic. Percy, the last one out, slams it closed just before the demons reach him. He pulls out his own weird wand and scrawls something else on the door before stepping back.
“There’re more than we thought,” he explains, gasping for breath. “We need to call for backup.”
The twin not currently sprawled out on the ground huffs in annoyance. Without a word to his brother, he picks a spot on the wall and scratches yet another rune, this one sparking as he finishes it. And just as soon as he’s out of reach, the wall goes up in flames, quickly spreading to the roof.
“I suppose that works,” Percy admits.
Harry, at his wits end, sinks into a crouch. Clutching his head, he lets the Weasleys’ conversation float right by him until Ron joins him.
“What’d you say your name was again?”
“Harry. Harry Potter.”
Silence greets him, then, “No way.”
At that, Harry tilts his head up. “Wha--”
Ron’s eyes go wide as they flicker up to Harry’s scar. “You are. Oh my god.”
“What are you talking about?”
He appears almost starstruck as he replies. “You’re a Shadowhunter, Harry. And a famous one at that.”
Slowly, like sun peeking between the clouds, laughter bubbles up in Harry’s throat. Once it comes it won’t stop, and he falls flat on the ground as his body shakes and shakes and shakes. He doesn’t know it then, but in the years to come today’s trauma will fade. He’ll remember not the strange car ride, nor the demons, nor his aunt and uncle’s demise, but that today was when his life changed for the better.
At eleven, Harry James Potter has his first encounter with demons, and at eleven, he is set free.