Chapter 4: Be Cautious!

'Don't let him touch you,' Loki mentally reminded Harry. 'You are in danger. Remember how he normally reacts to your magic? Well, though he is borderline retarded, even a blind pig—which would be much like him, now that I think about it—could've figured out that you were doing it on his son. And, much like the blind pig, he will be angry.'

"Boy!" Vernon screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. "Do you know what Dudley has just told me?!"

"No, sir," Harry said meekly.

"Why you lit—" Vernon began, but got no further as he moved his hand to grab Harry by the shoulder.

'Now,' Loki whispered. When Harry saw the obese man move, he was preparing himself to strike, gathering his anger and negative emotion towards Vernon.

As his uncle's hand touched his shoulder, Harry rammed his hand towards him, holding it only a few inches from the man's stomach.

For a moment, magic coursed through Harry, and then he let out a scream as burning coldness scorched at his palm, but then it was gone and a burst of bright light lit up his vision.

When his sight returned, Harry found himself staring upon his uncle slumped against the wall with his clothing slightly frosted over at the front.

Harry had released a blast of concussive magic that only worked for a short range. From what Loki had told him, the ice must have been a result of him performing the magic imperfectly, the leakage manifesting as coldness. He frowned. Loki had said it was normally heat.

'From the damage on the wall behind him and the blood leaking from his nose, I'm going to say he's most likely dead,' Loki said, no remorse in his tone as he interrupted Harry's thought. 'Well done—oh, I mean "oops."'

'Wh-what?' Harry asked, also speaking telepathically as he stared at the apparent corpse in horror.

A sigh echoed through Harry's mind. 'He. Is. Dead.'

'But I didn't mean to kill him!'

'In the wilderness a blind pig such as he was always going to be eaten by a greater predator, no matter how angry it was.' He paused. 'Perhaps we should stop using this analogy, unless you are particularly hungry.'

'No!'

'No, you're not going to eat him, or no, you don't want the analogy to stop? You humans are so confusing,' he said. 'Anyway, you hated him; he hated you. You were enemies, and you're meant to kill your enemies. It is not a bad thing to do, especially if you are merely a child acting in self-defence.' Loki sighed. 'I guess you're going to have to kill the others as well...'

'What?' demanded Harry. Killing one relative was bad enough.

'Pay attention to your surroundings, Petunia has already come in whilst we've been talking. Oh, now I can hear her sneaking up behind you. I would suggest defending yourself.'

Harry spun, magic already flaring within him as he caught sight of his aunt wielding a kitchen knife, but he wasn't quite fast enough, and his world became pain as the blade nicked at his shoulder.

This blast of magic was unintentionally more powerful, fuelled by Harry's panic, distress, and agony. The slightly longer range dispersed it, however, so that it hit with about the same impact as it had hit Vernon, but Petunia had lunged forward and was caught under the chin.

Harry could only watch in horror as his aunt's neck was snapped and she fell to the floor limply. Suddenly fatigue hit him like a brick and both Harry and Loki knew that one more attack would leave him collapsed.

'Pick up the knife,' urged Loki. At Harry's hesitance, the god's tone grew more desperate. 'Pick up the knife, Harry! Leaving any witnesses will be extremely bad for both us! You feared an orphanage, but you would rather spend the rest of your life in a jail cell!'

At this, conflict raged within Harry. He knew it was selfish, but there was no going back now. He had already accidentally killed his aunt and uncle. If he didn't kill Dudley as well, he might be responsible for not only his own death, but Loki's as well.

He didn't want to let down the only person who had ever taught him anything. The only person who had ever shown him an ounce of kindness. Despite Loki's occasional impatience and constant apathy, he had helped Harry, and he liked him.

Loki's words echoing through his mind, Harry dropped to his knees and picked up the kitchen knife. It looked like a sword in his small hands.

At that moment, Dudley came around the corner and froze. For a few seconds, Harry thought the boy would run away; instead, he seemed to instantly process his dead parents and charge at the one responsible.

And whilst he might've been smart enough to figure out what Harry had done, he was not smart enough to realise it was not a smart move to run into the pointy end of a knife.

Loki was stunned. 'He…he literally ran into your knife. Like some kind of blind pig. As many times as I've used that excuse, I've never seen it actually happen.' He paused. 'I suppose it is a bit more plausible when they only run into the knife once, rather than a dozen times in a row.'

Tears now streaming down his face as a barrier broke inside him, Harry fled the house without a final look back, clutching at his wound.

For a moment, Loki felt guilty. Even he had not been that young when he had killed his first man. He brushed any emotion away. In the end, this was all for Harry's own good.

Now the first part of his plan had been completed, Loki knew that his next objective was to train Harry to become more powerful, but what would come after that?

With a combination of his time observing the world through Harry's eyes and further recalling his memories of being a spirit, he had noticed that he had been the victim of a temporal fracture, or, in other words, he had travelled through time.