22 There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
Two months later :
When Harry first arrived in Africa he hadn't thought much of the place, aside from his newly found hatred of all things winged and insectoid. Truly, mosquito's were a bane on humanity that should've been purged many, many years ago...
Fortunately, Kali quickly taught him a couple spells that caused the bugs to avoid him like the plague, freeing him of bites and the potentially deadly disease they carried. Not that he'd have been killed by them, his body had been magically enhanced by his sacrificial ritual, giving him enhanced magic, strength, and durability.
Kali said that most wizards were hardier than non-magicals, but that Harry was unique due to his unnatural advantages.
As soon as they arrived in Africa, Harry had 'persuaded' Kali that their next home should be on a beach somewhere... Afterwards, it wasn't hard to find an isolated beach devoid of civilisation. It was a large beach with almost completely white sand, not far from the shore were large tree's and fauna, making it look like the amazon jungle was right there.
Kali was apprehensive about settling there until she'd felt the ley lines travelling right under their feet. She was surprised to find such a magical place with no magical people already settled here, though, there were a couple reasons for it.
The first being the huge number of incredibly deadly predators that were patrolling the place. The high magical density of the area had attracted many critters, both magical and not. A regular settlement would likely be overrun and destroyed within a few days, forcing the inhabitants to flee or die trying to maintain the place.
He and Kali didn't have such problems however, demonic runes were essentially the antithesis to nature itself, giving it incredibly potent warding properties. All it took was a bit of finicking from Kali to designate the local creature they wanted to keep out, and wallah, a new unharassed settlement.
Still, as much as Harry disliked to admit it, he was still a child... This mindset had led to them not constructing a cabin, like last time, but instead creating a treehouse.
There hadn't been any tree's big or strong enough to support the home he wanted to create, so he'd spoken with Kali and they'd eventually come up with a ritual to make one. It wasn't all that difficult, nor did he need any rare components.
All the ritual did was suck out the life-force of all nearby plants, and infused them into a seed in the middle of the ritual circle. Once it was dead, all that was left of the surrounding flora were a hundred meters of dead, blackened land, and one humongous tree in the centre of it.
Unlike the typical green leaves that'd previously decorated the plant life that was there, the leaves of the new tree were all crimson red, like blood. Its height was about 38 meters tall, and 6 meters wide.
It didn't take much afterwards to manipulate the tree itself to construct a treehouse. With magic, Harry literally melded to tree into the shape he wished, creating a treehouse that'd be physically impossible to exist without magic.
All in all, Harry was happy with it, Kali was too, but, since she was used to living in grand palaces, this more 'tribal' lifestyle wasn't to her taste. Still, she could admit it was a marvel to behold.
They hadn't just constructed a treehouse during their month-long excursion into Africa though, no, Kali had taken to teaching Harry more about rituals, runes, and magical tradition. She'd forced him to hunt regular animals like lions, elephants, and other dangerous critters that lived in the savanna.
Despite his magic, he was still a young child, so fighting large creatures such as that were still difficult. Regardless though, he managed, collecting his 'conquered' resources as he did.
Soon enough though as days went by, they'd reached that 'special' day...
Harry had just been swimming in the ocean and was coming back while dripping with seawater. He'd apparated up to the treehouse when the sound of numerous party horns suddenly went off, almost causing him to launch fireballs at the origins of it.
He managed to restrain himself and look around however, finding many colourful floating party horns and signs, all with 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY' plastered across them. He gives an exasperated sigh, but can't keep the bright smile that appears off of his face.
This would be the first time, ever, that anyone had actually cared to remember, or even celebrate his birthday. He focussed on Kali who was wearing a sundress that somehow revealed even more of her body than her typical leather bodice did.
"H-how did you know?" he stutters out, wondering how she knew of his birthday if he'd never told her.
She smiles and approaches him, waving her hand to remove all the excess sea-water from him as she hugged him against herself. "Oh, master, did you think I'd only given you my memories of Africa when I entered your mind?"
Harry goes red at her words, "Uh, if you did that then..."
Kali nods, "Oh yes, I saw those 'interesting' dreams you had of me, you naughty boy. But let's not talk about that now, it's the day of your birth, let's celebrate." she says, waving her hand and causing two bottles of red wine to fly out from somewhere, as well as a present wrapped delicately in colourful paper and a bow.
Harry beams and takes the present, slowly unwrapping it to preserve the paper and eventually revealing the contents. "Donkey Kong?" he questions, looking the Gameboy game over. "Where did you get this?"
Kali smothers a chuckle with her delicate fingers, "Oh, master, don't you know? You should never ask a ladies methods."
...
"And the wine?" he asks, already having a good guess on how she'd acquired it.
"Well, they deserved to have it taken if they were just going to leave it lying around, wouldn't you say?"
He breathes a sigh but doesn't retort, instead simply bathing himself in the festive atmosphere... Despite he and Kali being the only people present, it truly felt like he actually had a family. Something he was infinitely grateful for...
...
Still... "You won't make me drink that, right?" he mutters, glancing at the bottles.
"It's a celebration, master, demons are able to drink as soon as they're weaned off of milk. I hope you don't still consider yourself a babe?"
He shakes his head, deciding to just go with it. Kali hadn't harmed him yet... So what's the worst that can happen?
