Looking Bright In Brighton

Harry sat silently on the edge of the Brighton Palace Pier, staring into the ocean waves while occasionally swatting away nosy seagulls. To be frank, he was lost... It'd been mere days since he'd killed the Carrows and ransacked their manor property.

He'd first considered making it his home due to the magical wards that were apparently in place, but quickly discarded that thought for a number of reasons... The first was the state of the building, half of it had been claimed by spider webs and other critters, while all that remained looked as if a hoarder's family lived there.

Broken furniture, rotten clothes, destroyed books, dust, grime, mould. And that wasn't even mentioning the magical creatures that seemed to inhabit the place. He'd encountered one on his first day within it and instantly decided to stay where he knew it to be safe... The figure of Vernon Dursley stepping out of a cupboard with a bloody belt in his hands had shocked him, and he'd been terrified when all his magic did nothing to affect him.

Thankfully for his health and sanity, simply locking the door to the room stopped the thing from coming out.

The second reason he'd not made the place home was because of the people the Carrows were likely affiliated with. The fan mail he'd received had made it clear these witches and wizards weren't so insular as to be ignorant to each other, so it wasn't hard to surmise that people would soon look for their missing kin, friend, or colleague.

With his eventual departure decided on, he'd begun efforts to find or create a spell he could use in combat. The Crucio curse that he'd been subjected to and cast on Alecto was effective at causing pain, but not much else. It was power intensive, and wasn't efficient at actually killing someone.

No. He needed something that could dispatch many people at once, and after much thought he'd ended up recreating the phenomenon that led him to learn the Crucio curse in the first place.

Magic was Intent, and with Understanding he became better able to manipulate reality to his whims. Thus, to understand the Crucio curse he had to experience it.

To create a cutting curse, he had to experience it.

Harry looks from the ocean to the back of his left hand, running his fingers over the lightly stained fabric. In the end he'd managed it, able to cut something somewhat deeply with but a flick of his hand. Not something he could use blatantly in public, but it was an option.

His mind drifted back to his previous ponderings. After leaving the Carrow manor with a magical trunk filled with stolen objects and the taken-apart remnants of the siblings bodies, he'd ended up wandering into the nearest city called Crawley.

Too close to London, he immediately got on the train and used the money he'd pickpocketed from passerby to buy passage to Brighton, the furthest place south of London in England that he could easily get to.

And now he was lost... Not geographically of course, nor goal-wise as his objective of gaining power hadn't changed. He just, simply, didn't know what to do next. He'd considered leaving Britain completely by smuggling himself on a cargo ship, but with his luck he'd end up in some country which didn't speak English. Plus, it was easier for his to navigate a place he was vaguely familiar with.

It was now the afternoon and he'd been in Brighton since sunrise, half that time was spent in the library trying to find inspiration. After all, he had a whole trunk filled with 'magical' body parts that could be useful for a ritual.

Fixing his eyesight...

Improving his body...

Crafting another artifact...

But no, it just felt, wasteful.

Honestly, while he knew himself to be intelligent, he was uneducated in the ways of the world. Magical society existed but he had no idea how to contact them, or even if he should. The non-magical world was just as confusing and contradictory, filled with scum who'd hurt him for jollies if they felt like it.

Harry had always felt like an outsider, even with the Dursleys. He just knew, within his heart of hearts that he didn't belong. That he had to make his own mark in this place.

He releases a long sigh, which turns to a low hiss, ~There was one who understood...~ he mutters, reaching into his backpack and retrieving an object folded inside a pillowcase. Kaa, his friend's body was limp and half rotten as he pulled it out, but even the stench of decay didn't alleviate the yearning within him.

...

~Was that it...?~ he blinks, looking up from the corpse and around him at the families nearby enjoying activities the pier provided.

~No... Not possible. Even if I tried they'd betray me, like all the others...~ he hissed to himself, certain in his assumption.

"Hey!" a young voice exclaims behind him, causing Harry to straighten in shock and almost drop Kaa's body off of the pier. "Is that a body you're holding!? What're you, one of those freaks who kill things for fun!?"

It was a boy of twelve, accompanied by his friends of similar age. Black hair, brown eyes, and a mousy face. His buddies laughed at Harry's expense, but he just locked eyes with the initial annoyance.

"I 'spose it wouldn't be wrong to call me a freak. Just as it wouldn't be wrong to call you a pink sack of meat." he idly remarks, causing the laughter to trail off. As for if he liked to kill things...? No, people maybe, certain people... Definitely.

"Y-you're real weird, you know that?" one of the other boys say, looking disturbed by the gleam in Harry's eye.

The lead boy gives his friend a light shove and smirks at him, "Don't be scared, like this gaylord can do anything. Look at skinny he is! I bet he does weird stuff with that dead snake too!"

"You're the one staring at his snake, Owen! Doesn't that make you gay?" another points out, causing snickering to break out.

Owen, decidedly angry at his friends mocking him instead turns his anger to Harry, stepping forwards and trying to swat Kaa's body out of his hands with his foot. Harry blocks it with a hand before using some light telekinesis to knock the boy onto his backside. His friends erupt into laughter, causing Owen's face to flush in indignation.

Harry tucks Kaa's body back into its pillowcase and stows it away in his backpack, before standing up and facing the vengeful-looking boy. "Touch me again." he growls, "Your parents will be finding bits of you along the beach."

Again they go quiet, not having expected this kid to threaten them so calmly with such violence, nor had they ever encountered a glare, and a presence that promised exactly as he said.

Owen takes a step back and goes to turn, only to think better of it, looking around one last chance to spit at Harry. It flies through the air and lands on his shirt, the phlegm dripping down disgustingly.

Harry looks down at it, his fury flaring, but by the time he looks up again, Owen was fleeing down the pier with his friends.

Did the boy think he would forget about this?

No. He'd become the sole focus of something far more dangerous than he'd ever anticipated. A thought popped up in Harry's mind, forming a venomous smile on Harry's lips.

His next course of action was decided.

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Owen Marchfield had wet his bed for the first time in years, much to the confusion and disgust of his parents... He knew it wasn't his fault, but the nightmares he'd been having recently, of that boy he'd met at the pier... The look in his eyes... The way he held that dead snake, as if it was his most precious possession.

It was probably stupid to spit at him, but he was a kid, it was his job to be childish about things like that, isn't it? Plus, he needed to get back at the freaky kid for humiliating him in front of his friends...

Then again, weird things had started happening since. Things around the house going missing, creaking of floorboards outside his bedroom at night. Random sounds coming from the roof.

Every now and then he'd pause and look around, goosebumps forming up his arms and back. It felt like he was being watched, and judged. Deemed inadequate.

He couldn't turn to his parents, both had assumed he was the cause of their missing things. Family-owned jewellery vanished along with other valuables like his Grandad's watch. Not that he'd go to them for this, they'd think he was crazy or something!

...

His Uno cards had disappeared. He'd not really cared as he'd not touched them in years. But then his Gameboy and all his games had gone missing too. At first he thought his parents had taken them as punishment, but when he asked them they looked at him weird...

*Creeeeak!*

Owen whimpers and buries himself under his covers, his eyes shoot towards the window where a tapping could be heard, only to find it was a stray branch blown by the wind. "P-Please, just stop this... Please...?" he prayed for the first time in years...

Not that it would help.

----------------------------

In the meantime Harry was having a fantastic time in his temporary home, the loft of that Owen kid who'd spat at and insulted Kaa. Sure, he had to be careful with the fibreglass insulation, but he had all the free food he could want, free entertainment tormenting that brat, and even his first opportunity to play video games!

All those times hearing Dudley sit for hours in front of the T.V on his Sega Genisis, Harry finally got to experience the same...

He may have gotten slightly lazy over the past few days, to be perfectly honest. He'd forgotten how many hours he'd spent playing Legend of Zelda, and he imagined it would only get worse now that he was on Pokemon.

That didn't mean he'd lost sight of his ultimate objective but, he deserved a little break... Right?

His eye twitches as the screen of the device flickers, a phenomenon that always seems to happen if he spends long enough around electronics... Annoying, but there wasn't anything he could do about it right now. Probably a good subject to research in the future though.

--------------------

Harry adjusts his new(stolen) hat as he walks back from the library. The Gameboy had broken last night, prompting him to get back to work. He'd spent the entire day knee-deep in books, and he had to say, his break had helped stop him from burning out.

He'd made significant progress, and he was pretty sure he already had all the components he needed for his newest ritual. All that was left was to devise the method to go about it, the chant, and what he exactly wanted the outcome to be.

Other than that, since he couldn't get back to his 'loft apartment' until it was the dead of night, he decided to start trying to master teleportation. He vaguely remembered the feeling of escaping Dudley and ending up on the school roof, along with the sensation of the Carrow's 'portkey'.

He'd have to be careful though, he'd read many stories of such things going wrong. Even lore in Dungeon of Dragons describes rather gruesome deaths involving botched teleportation.

Even their wizard towers were designed around it. Built the exact right size so that they wouldn't end up inside a wall, or plummeting to their doom after accidentally transporting themselves directly outside the tower.

"Well, no time like the present..." he mutters, standing in an isolated woodland and focussing intently at a spot a couple meters away. A vein throbs on his forehead and-

*Crack!*

He stumbles as he reappears, almost walking into a tree. It wasn't exactly where he'd wanted to be, and it felt like he was squeezing himself through a barbed straw, but the magic had worked.

After making one last check to make sure he hadn't left anything behind, he throws his arms up into the air with laugh, "I did it! I AM THE MASTER OF MAGIC!"

~Weird hairless one, speaking to itself. Egg layer must have dropped it...~ a snake remarks as it slithers by.

...

He chuckles in slight embarrassment at his outburst, ~You're the dropped egg.~ he pouts and mutters childishly before quickly walking away. Ignoring the surprised shout of ~SPEAKER!?~.