The Best Revenge

Chapter 02

“Halfrek, this Harry person, is just a child, a fourteen year old child. Therefore I’m assigning you to his case.” Out of thin air he brought forth a thick manila file and handed to the she-demon in front of him. “You see, Anyanka just met a few powerful individuals. The outcome… won’t be pleasant for her (3) but it did gave me the opportunity I was waiting to take a closer look at those individuals.”

“And who are they, D’Hoffryn?” asked Halfrek letting curiosity get the best of her. The old demon just smiled.

“Oh, It’s a group of very nice people. I believe you will like them,” D’Hoffryn waved his hands and a small screen appeared floating at his side showing a group of people sitting around in a common looking living room.

“This is the mother of this little house-hold, Joyce Summers.” A nice looking blond woman come into focus, “She is a normal American mom who works in an art gallery and raises her only child. Her ex-husband lives in another city a few hours away and often forgets to visit their child.”

“I don’t like him already.” Halfrek could not see why these people were so important.

“Oh, but let me introduce you to the rest of the family. This is her daughter, Buffy,” a pretty blond teenager girl appeared in the screen, “and she… is the vampire slayer.”

Now Halfrek was interested. The slayer was a very powerful being… for a mortal.

“Her friends,” now a red-headed girl with a blue-headed boy and a larger boy, a brunette, were sitting on a couch listening to the slayer’s mother, “are a wiccan witch, a werewolf and… well, the other boy is just a mortal but he had been fighting vampires for over two years now.”

Halfrek checked her files. Willow Rosenberg was the witch, her boyfriend Daniel ‘Oz” Osbourne, was the werewolf and Alexander ‘Xander’ LaVelle Harris, the other vampire hunter.

“And of course, Mr. Rupert Giles, Miss Summers’ watcher, who happens to be dating her mother for the past few weeks… there was something about a chocolate incident and the hood of a police car(4), but I didn’t get all the details.”

Now Halfrek could definitely see some possibilities for this set up. There were some powerful individuals in this mix. Harry would get all the support and training that he needed, both in magical as in physical combat. It was perfect.

“No one said we couldn’t make sure the boy doesn’t end up in a place where he will get the proper training for the upcoming battle. Did they?” D’Hoffryn smiled gently at his demon, “Just because he has to go away, it doesn’t mean he can’t be trained and I, for one, share Anyanka’s feelings of not wanting to ‘blip out’ of existence.”

Agreeing whole hearted with her boss and mentor, Halfrek opened the file and started to read up on her new assignment. Maybe she would get an idea of how she could bring Harry together with his future friends.

Two hours later D’Hoffryn was beginning to regret his decision. Halfrek was still yelling, apparently her new protégé was a poster child for abused children and she would move heaven and hell to make sure he was avenged.

“Not unless he wishes.” D’Hoffryn pointed out, “Those are the rules, Halfrek. You know that. Unless he wishes for revenge you will restrain yourself to do only what I ordered you to do. The Powers that Be are holding us responsible for the detour on the boy’s path, let’s not give them more reason to be angry at us. Just make sure he will have the right friends, that we are allow to do.”

“In that case, let me take one step further,” she demanded, D’Hoffryn raised an eyebrow in a silent question, “let me make them family.”

“We cannot change the life of a destiny holder!”

“But I can arrange his future.” That made D’Hoffryn pause.

“How?”

“I can make him be adopted. I can give him a powerful and loving family, it would not change his destiny,” Halfrek noticed that her boss was tempted by her plan, one more reason and she would get to do things her way, “but it would give him powerful allies to stand by him in battle…” and that did the trick.

“You have my permission. Do what you have to do.” And with a wave of D’Hoffryn’s hand, Halfrek found herself back in her little corner of the Vengeance dimension where she sat herself to work on her new case.

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Over the next few weeks all Halfrek did was to plot and plan how to turn Harry’s life around, taking as little time as possible to work on the occasional child wish that came her way. Finally, after countless hours of preparation, she was ready and with very little fuss she vanished from her desk and reappeared in a secluded area in the Ministry of Magic Atrium. It didn’t take long to do her job, just a matter of jamming the floo network for a few hours; just enough to make sure the wizards were forced to take another means of transportation.

Satisfied with her work, the brunette vanished out of the Ministry and rematerialized in deserted alley in London.

The Vengeance demon disguised herself as an old lady full of bags in her hands and a severe limp before she started to make her way across the street. As she passed the parked automobiles an unremarkable black car turned on the corner at an impossible speed.

The driver never saw the old lady until he was almost on top of her, which forced him to make a sharp turn to the right, lose control of the car and crash head on with a truck coming in the opposite direction. Halfrek didn’t pause to admire her perfect handwork, the next part of her plan was about to be set in motion.

Inside the car, the driver laid unconscious across the front seat while in the back seat the three passengers could barely move. The truck driver was helped out from behind the wheel, he had a large cut in his head and was complaining about a lot of pain, but seemed to be fine. Bystanders quickly hushed over to the black car and phoned for an ambulance, the driver of the black car was unconscious but seemed unharmed, the three passengers on the back sit seemed just shaken and a bit dizzy. No one noticed as the smallest of the three managed to grab a stick from one of the others and hide it in his sleeve.

Three ambulances arrived at the scene almost at the same time. The ambulance’s crews later would be unable to tell why they decided to split up the victims the way they did. Usually the victims from one car would be kept together, the only difference being on the case of a victim under the age of 16, who would be taken to a different area, but generally to the same hospital.

As it was, the truck driver was taken along with three of the passengers from the black car to one hospital and the fourth passenger, victim number five, was taken to a completely different one. Where he was checked over and declared unharmed by the crash, and that was how a young man named Harry Potter found himself sitting in a hospital bed talking to a very nice muggle lady from the social services, but that was were his luck ended.

Upon arrival at the hospital, the nurses took his old ragged and dirty clothes and dressed him in a hospital gown, taking his newly ‘acquired’ wand with them. He was defenseless once more.

In his hospital bed, Harry was receiving the visit of a very nice brunette with curly hair and a pleasant smile. She identified herself as his social worker.

“Well, dear,” the pretty lady said with a sweet smile, her black curls shaking merrily around her face, “I’ve checked your file and the doctors have declared you have no injures from the car crash, but that is why we do have a problem…” she trailed off with a frown on her face while she checked whatever was written in her file.

Harry was ready to jump out of the bed and run for it.

He could not believe his luck, this morning he was sure he was going to die. They had taken him from Azkaban where he was ‘waiting for trial’ and taken him to the Ministry of Magic for interrogation. He had been in prison for over a month now and he just knew he would not live to make a full year. The prison guards couldn’t care less if he was a minor, they simply hated the fact that their ‘hero’ had gone dark and made sure Harry was aware of how they felt about his betrayal.

Over the last month Harry had been beaten, denied food and even kept under Dementors watch for longer periods of time than other prisoners. Taking all that in to consideration and adding the car crash on the way back from the Ministry it was a miracle he could still understand what the woman was saying.

The icing on the cake, of course, had happen during his stay at the Ministry for the so called interrogation. His friends, all the ones he cared the most about had come by to tell him what a horrible creature he was and how they were all ashamed to have ever claimed him as a friend. Ron, Hermione, all the other Weasleys even Percy had come to gloat.

Sirius and Remus never did show up. Harry knew they were hiding and that Sirius was still on the run; that gave him some small measure of comfort as he could pretend they believed him to be innocent, even Dumbledore made sure to come by and tell him how much of a disappointment he was and how his parents would never forgive him for what he had done.

‘For what he had done’, just like that and it was final. There was no doubt in them that Harry had killed Cedric Diggory. They had believed Harry could do such a horrible thing and not even once they had bothered to even ask. Not even a ‘why’. To them, he was guilty and that was it.

Well, to hell with them and the rest of the wizarding freaking world. He had it. As soon as the pretty lady from social services left the room he would get up and go away. Someplace they would never find him and let them deal with their dark lords and half baked friendships.

The pretty lady touched his hand getting his attention back to her.

“Hello, are you there?” she smiled at him, “For a second there I thought I lost you.”

“Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind.” His voice was raspy and it did hurt to talk, maybe because he had been screaming all morning. “Please go on, … I didn’t catch your name.”

“It’s ok, dear, and you can call me Hallie.” Halfrek gave Harry her best smile. Yes, this one would be ok. Just a couple more details and her job here would be done. “As I was saying, the doctors couldn’t find any wounds that could have happen in the crash, but you are severely malnourished and bruised. Care to tell me what happened?”

“I… felt down the stairs?” it was half a question, Harry knew Hallie wouldn’t buy his story but he really didn’t feel like he could come up with good explanation and the truth would only get him in trouble. Exposing the whole wizarding world now would not be a good idea, even if it was to tell the social service that he had been beat up by aurors.

“Why don’t you let me tell you what I know and then you can fill in the blanks?” Hallie asked.

“Ok”

“Your name is Harry, you live with your uncle, aunt and cousin in Surrey and failed to come home last month when your boarding school let you out for the summer. How am I doing so far?”

“Spot on.” Harry relaxed a little, of course the social service would check the identity of a minor involved in a car crash, and he did have name tags on his clothes which happen to be his school uniforms, the only thing he had left after being taken from Hogwarts right after the third task. “But do I have to go back to my relatives? Couldn’t I just… you know… go away?”

“Not really,” Hallie did seem apologetic, “You are still a minor, so the law requires that a responsible adult should take care of you. However, when we checked with your aunt, she said she didn’t want you back and was ready to sign away her guardianship, making you a ward of the government. You wouldn’t have to go back to your relatives, but you would have to go to a half way home until you are 18. I could contact you school and see if they could…”

“No.” Harry yelled, “I… I decide to drop out. Could I go to school around here instead?”

“Was there any problems at your school, Harry?” The concerned look on her face made Harry cringe; he could not allow her to go investigating his old school. He would be found in no time. He decided to play the poor student card.

“They all know me there. I don’t want them to know I got myself in trouble. I would never hear the end of it.”

“Well, I suppose I could overlook this detail just this once,” Halfrek pretended to consider the problem. She really had no intention of contacting those horrible people and let them know where HER Harry was at the moment. “Ok, but only because your aunt is considering signing the guardianship papers. I think I can put this off until a more defined situation is established. Are you sure you don’t want to give it another try at your uncle’s or even remain at the same school?”

“Mer… I mean, Lord, no. I wish I could just go to a place where nobody knew me and I could start my life all over again. I wish they would just… I don’t know lose my file or something like that.” Harry said almost to himself, he didn’t notice the nice lady from social services showing a demon visage for a few seconds before changing back to her pleasant human face before Harry turned to her again, “So, when do I get out of here?”

“It might take a few days. You are severely malnourished. The doctors want to make sure you can actually walk before they allow you back on your feet.” Halfrek gave him another of her smiles and got up, “Listen, I have to see another kid downstairs but I’ll be back here in two hours. Is that ok? And don’t worry, I’ll make sure your wish is granted.”

“Sure, Hallie. No problem.” Harry answered automatically already so involved in planning his grand escape from the hospital that he didn’t noticed Halfrek’s last words.

Halfrek stayed around for another moment making sure she had everything and a male nurse came in with a syringe.

“What is that for?” asked Harry worried about not being able to defend himself in case of something happening.

“Just something to help you relax, dear.” Halfrek answered before the nurse could open his mouth, “your body has been through a lot lately. Rest for a bit, I’ll be here before you wake up.”

Harry wanted to kick and scream; he could not be put to sleep now. The aurors were probably already on their way, he had to run not sleep.

He was out like a light before Halfrek stepped out of the room.

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Author’s note:
(3) Refers to “The Wish” episode 09 in Season 03.
(4) Refers to “Band Candy” episode 06 in Season 03 of BtVS.