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Harry wakes up in an alley. Harry has just completed his second year at Hogwarts, and his last memories before waking are gardening in Aunt Petunia's yard. Harry does not recognize his surroundings.
Harry is wearing adult wizard clothes. The robes are super baggy on him, and he is wearing an odd magical leather pouch on a string around his neck. Searching through the robes, Harry finds his wand and a few coins.
After looking around, Harry has learned a few things.
First, he is in America, in a city called Gotham.
Second, everyone who looks at him sees his scrawny, underfed frame and oversized clothing and assumes he is a street rat.
Third, after casting a spell to attract the local magical government, no one came. No owls admonishing him for casting underage magic. No Aurors to investigate magic in a Muggle area. No harm or help in enforcing his compliance with the laws.
Fourth, the pouch contains a lot of stuff. Lots of food preserved to last. More magic books than he can read in ten years. Photos that show an older Harry with an older Ron and Hermione. And so much more.
From all this evidence, Harry has come to one major conclusion and several suspicions.
Harry's main conclusion is that he has been de-aged somehow and has not retained the memories of his older self.
Harry has many suspicions, including why he has a bag with near-endless supplies. Currently, Harry suspects he was banished from Britain for something. Probably being a Parselmouth or some other nonsense. Until proven otherwise or someone comes to collect him, Harry is going to go with his banishment theory.
Harry has mixed feelings about his current circumstances, but is not put off by being homeless in a strange city. Harry's life as a street rat is an improvement over his previous life. He has food to eat, books to learn from, and no magical super predators to hunt or Dark Lord plots to foil. Truly, things are looking up.
After a few carefully worded Point Me spells, Harry has found himself in an abandoned fire station in a place called Crime Alley. Harry then dug through his pouch, found a book on warding by someone called Cassiopeia Black, and learned what Miss Black considered the basics of warding.
Harry then proceeded to carefully carve some runes into the four corners of the fire station before adding three drops of blood, then waving his wand to cast the concealment ward. Not wanting to be found and dragged back to Privet Drive by Muggles or Magicals, Harry added several other wards to keep out both Muggles and Magicals, trying to prevent magical tracking.
Truly, this Crime Alley place is much safer than Hogwarts.
No trapped stares to send someone to fall to their deaths. No Dark Lords plotting from possessed victims. No colony of man-eating spiders right outside. No deadly obstacle courses. No mind-modifying professors obsessed with fame. No dangerous magical artifact hanging about, ready for children to stumble across it. No dragons to smuggle. No giant murder snakes to sword fight.
All Harry has to worry about here is Muggle criminals who want to mug him or the occasional psychopaths who murder people for fun; however, that seems to be more of an issue for the rest of Gotham. The costumed lunatics seem to avoid Crime Ally lest its crime lord, the Red Hood, shoot them.
The Red Hood Harry has found is great. The Red Hood keeps drug dealers, human traffickers, and pedophiles away from the children in his territory.
Truly, Harry is starting to wonder why he did not run away earlier.
Back onto homemaking, Harry has learned and gotten a lot of practice with the Mending Charm. First, by fixing up the floor so he could safely walk across it, then walls and supports lest the building collapse on him, and then the rest of the building, before working on the abandoned and destroyed furniture.
After getting his old-timey gothic stone fire station into a repaired condition with defenses to keep away non-blood-based tracking magics, people with hostile intent, Muggles, Dark Creatures, insects, rats, and poisonous gases. Harry has moved on to his next projects: a rooftop garden and learning household magic.
Harry's magical pouch, while it contains enough food to last a few years, does not contain anything tasty, just canned stuff that can be stored forever, and Harry would rather avoid going out to try and buy stuff with the limited amount of Muggle Money he has found in his magic pouch.
As for household magic, there's a lot to it, apparently. Cleaning charms to keep your home tidy, magic to help with cooking, making food healthier and more tasty, protections to keep out magical pests, clothing repair and enchantments, and so much more.
Another thing Harry has taken note of is that his lightning bolt scar is no longer inflamed and has started healing, and no longer hurts.
Harry sometimes misses his friends, but then remembers all the danger he has dragged them into and figures that they will be safer without him. Sure, he's lonely, but Harry has a sturdy roof over his head, a home to tend to, food to eat, and safety.
It's on one fine overcast day, it's never really sunny here, that Harry is working on his rooftop garden when he sees the local crime lord collapse on a fire escape on the next building over.
Moving to the edge of his roof to peer closer, Harry can see that his area's main protector, the Red Hood, is bleeding and has collapsed.
Naturally, Harry does what he always does when people need saving. Harry tries to help. First, levitating the Red Hood over to his roof from across the street is simple enough with the levitation charm before vanishing the bulky leather coat to get a better look at the injury.
A bullet wound is a lot simpler to heal than a wound caused by magic with its own intent and energy to prevent healing. Harry gets to work. Forcing down a blood replenisher after magically vanishing the helmet to get at the Red Hood's mouth before casting a few basic healing charms that Harry has learned to stop bleeding and dampen pain, Harry then wonders what to do with the still-injured Crime Lord before deciding to put him up in a guest room while Harry tends to him.
Jason comes too slowly. The last thing he remembers was escaping after being shot by the betrayal of one of his lieutenants. Jason doesn't know where he is. Jason is missing his helmet, which will explode if anyone other than him or his family tries to take it off. Jason is missing his armored jacket with his trackers.
Jason is lying on a soft bed in a room with a window. Looking out the window, Jason can see Crime Alley, which is the old, condemned fire station. Jason hasn't been noticing the fire station for the past few months. Jason's mind or perception has been messed with, he decides.
After a few more moments to examine himself and his surroundings, Jason decides on Magic as a cause.
Jason hears the door open and immediately swings his attention to the person entering.
Scrawny but filling out, clothing that fits him, messy dark hair, too-big round glasses, and green eyes. Jason catalogs, then recognizes the boy as one of his street kids who showed up a few months ago.
“Umm, Hullo?”
The boy says with a clear British accent. British, magical Jason's mind immediately jumps to John Constantine and what he has learned about the British magical community being a mix of old blue-blood demon summoners, causing him to tense, aggravating his wound, before he forces himself to deliberately relax.
Jason grunts at the boy, both to avoid giving any information and to see what the kid will say.
“I’m Harry, Harry Potter.”
The boy, Harry, stares, waiting for him to react as if expecting recognition, and, upon seeing none, continues.
“I saw you were hurt and decided to heal you.”
Harry states matter-of-factly with his chin up, too-big glasses on his face.
After a moment of silence, waiting for a response, the boy continues.
“Breakfast?”
“Jason has been kidnapped by a magical!”
Tim declares in the Batcave, sending his family into a panic as they start the search.
Jason sits in bed, taking a sip of the soup Harry had offered him, figuring that if Harry was going to do anything to him, he would have done so while Jason was unconscious.
Jason has lots of questions. Most of Jason's questions, however, start and end with why is a magical British child hiding in his territory?
Jason, after five sips of the soup that is supposed to make him healthier, decides to start a light interrogation.
“So, kid, why are you here?”
Harry, for his part, answers the question with a shrug before speaking in a questioning tone.
“Magical banishment of some kind?”
Jason takes that in, staring harder at the kid, before asking a follow-up question in a neutral tone.
“What did you do to get magically banished?”
“No idea. It probably has to do with politics.”
Harry answers carelessly with an eye roll, clearly demonstrating his view of politics.
Harry has been in Gotham for six months. During this time, he has made great progress in building himself a home and gaining a magical education from the massive library hanging around his neck.
Most of the books around his neck are written by Blacks and are of a decidedly darker bent.
The books contain many rituals involving sacrifices and blood, as well as many, many curses.
His new patient, the Red Hood, is weird. The Red Hood isn't acting adult-like at all—no demands for answers. No threats. He's truly odd. He hasn't even complained about the food Harry has made from the magically grown plants in his rooftop garden.
A few days into hosting Red Hood, Harry gets asked an odd question.
“You don’t mind that I kill people?”
Harry ponders how to answer that. Harry killed Quirrell and was rewarded with house points. Harry killed Tom Riddle's ghost and the murder snake and was rewarded with more house points. During all his time in the Wizarding world, he was praised for his supposed slaying of the Dark Lord.
Murder over the past two years has been encouraged at every opportunity.
After pondering his past two years, Harry hesitantly answers.
“I am expected to kill my enemies. Why would I mind that you kill your enemies protecting children?”
“Can I have some of your blood?”
Harry asks seemingly at random.
“Why?”
Jason asks wearily, knowing full well that a magical can do with one's blood.
“I want to add you to the wards.”
Jason stares before agreeing.
Jason has had a week to study the kid, and while he possibly could have left after the third day, he decided to stay and observe the child wizard living in his territory. And has made some rather alarming observations.
First, the kid was obviously abused.
Second, the kid has a magical library, and given how magicians are known to hoard knowledge, Jason is wary of how he got it and who banished him.
Third, Harry is Wayne Adoption Bait.
Orphan? Check.
Dark hair? Check.
A need to do the right thing? Check.
As for being a wizard and technically a Meta? Bruce has adopted Duke, so even being a Meta isn't enough to spare children from Bruce's grasping arms.
Sure, the child's willingness to kill his enemies might repel Bruce a bit, but Bruce will see that as something to train out of the boy, as he has with the demon brat.
Jason will have to hide Harry; he decides to keep Bruce away lest the kid end up in spandex.
After leaving Harry's and making an excuse to the family that he was crashing with a friend and that his injuries weren't as serious as they seemed, Jason made sure to keep visiting the brat.
Somehow, after repeatedly visiting Harry now that he has been keyed into the wards, Jason has found himself moving in and taking care of the child.
Somehow, despite not setting out to adopt, Jason has found himself with a kid and is trying to take care of the brat, which has really turned into Harry taking care of Jason.
Harry has somehow concluded that Jason the Red Hood needs looking after. Jason has the distinct impression that Harry sees all adults as either cruel, incompetent, or both.
Harry uses magic to clean, has a rooftop garden that grows food almost on demand, cooks wonderfully, and does all the household tasks.
In recent days, Jason has even begun worrying about Harry's education. Harry reads a lot of magical books; however, his non-magical education is lacking badly. Should Jason be trying to enroll the brat in the local school? Should he look into homeschooling?
Does Harry even have identification or papers?
Jason did not set out to acquire a kid.
