It was dark. Dark enough that it took his eyes awhile to adjust. Dark enough that he focused on every sensation that crawled and brushed against his skin. Dark enough where he felt weight as he flexed his arms and hands and fingers and frowned when a leg and foot twitched but not the other.
He laid on even ground. His face brushed against thin creases and he realized it was floorboard. If he concentrated he heard beneath the floorboards were the groaning of rusted pipes and around that were earthworms and spiders and the throaty hum of magnetic fields and grinding earth more ancient then even his Creator.
Amun was his Creator. Gradually bits of knowledge came to him like puzzle pieces. Amun’s eyes were ruby red and his thin lips were almost always frowning. He was a short man with a large shadow. He screamed at him as he made the decision to leave. If he couldn’t have him then no one could. He had laughed in Amun’s face. Now, he was here on these floorboards.
Then he heard soft footfalls, something small and unnoticed, a child perhaps? He lingered on the thought for long moment wondering what type of child approached him. He realized he was hungry. Though the trend of children, even street children, went from useless mini adults into something precious it wasn’t often someone raised an immediate alarm with unaccompanied children. By then, it would be too late. He was hungry.
Doors were thrown up, sunlight spilled in banishing shadows. He hissed and hooked his arms around his head.
“You sparkle,” the child said in awe. Their footfalls were louder on the floorboards and their heartbeat was excited. “That’s really weird. How come you sparkle in the sun?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “Can you close the door. It’s really bright.”
The child closed one door. “If I close the other one, I’ll get in trouble. Aunt Tuney will come out here and yell at me and she’ll see you and yell at you. You’re a stranger. I’m not supposed to be talking to strangers.”
In the low light he lifted his head and groaned. It hurt to move. It hurt to blink. It hurt to think. He was hungry.
The child settled down beside him with almond shaped green eyes. For close to two hundred and fifty years, he ate many children. By his standards, this child was rather tiny with bird bones and red cheeks. They were an unaccompanied child but not a street child. There was no dirt clinging to them, no signs of malnourishment though they wore ill-fitting clothes that would fit better on someone three times their size. Above all else, he noticed their hair — an uncombed black tangle of curls cupping their face.
This child was young. Too young for him to discern if it were a boy or girl. It did not matter. They were a child and he was hungry. All he had to do was gather the strength to lift from the floorboard, say a few words, and be satisfied.
“What’s your name? My name is Harry James Potter and I live with my uncle Vernon and my Aunt Tuney — her real name is Petunia, but I like Tuney better — and my cousin Dudley – I call him Big D because he’s fat – and my parents died in a car crash and do you know what I dreamed about last night. Last night, I had a dream about giants and flying motorcycles.”
He blinked with a furrow. It was unusual he waited long enough being this hungry to hear a child speak. He was positively blown away by how much information this child gave away.
“I’m Benjamin,” he said slowly. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Why are you in my uncle’s shed?” Harry asked.
“I was running,” Benjamin answered after a long moment, “I was running away and some bad people caught up to me. I escaped and I –“
“You ended up here?” Harry snorted. “You’re stupid.”
“That’s mean.” Benjamin frowned. “I won’t want to be your friend if you’re mean to me.”
He wasn’t sure what motivated him to say those words. He wasn’t interested in being friends with this child. He was still very hungry, he licked his lips with each sweet beat of Harry’s heart. It was like a human making friends with their sandwich, or a piglet.
“I’m sorry,” Harry rushed out. “I won’t call you stupid, but it was stupid. Uncle Vernon doesn’t like strangers, especially strangers not from here.”
“How do you know I’m not from here?”
Harry gave him a dubious look. “You talk funny. Where are you from? I live here. In Surrey.”
“Fascinating,” Benjamin said. Harry smiled big. “I’m from Egypt.”
“Where the pyramids and mummies and alligators are? That’s wicked,” Harry said. “Jack went to British Museum for a field trip and he saw King Tut. He said the Ancient Egyptians pulled out people’s brains when they were dead and they really liked cats and they believed in magic.” Harry leaned forward with a bright grin. “I believe in magic too and not Big D’s stupid telly magic like Magnus the Magician who pulls rabbits and flowers out of his hat.” Harry rolled his eyes. “But like real magic where people can turn into dogs and cats and use wands.”
“Amun said there used to be magicians in Egypt. Egypt was the center of magic until Cleopatra VII,” Benjamin said. “He thought that kind of magic died off until he met me.”
Harry nodded. “See, I knew it. There is magic. Don’t let Uncle Vernon or Aunt Tuney hear you say that. They’ll box your ears red.”
The concern for him was cute. He did not remember much of anything before Amun, but the child’s warning invoked something similar to nostalgia. Someone had done the same to him once before. For what he couldn’t say. Back in those days children were hit for simply being a child and useless.
“What’s that in your hand?”
“My lunch. I told Aunt Tuney I was really hungry today. She gave me two sandwiches and a bag of crisps,” Harry said. “I have some crisps from yesterday too. I wanted to know if you were hungry, but you were sleeping yesterday.”
He had not slept in over two centuries. What likely happened was his body had shut down in order to heal the worst injuries. The healing process was mostly done, and now, he was stuck with hunger. It made him tremble. It gnawed are his insides, made his throat itch, and venom like drool to leak from his chapped mouth. Yet, he waited. The certainty of attacking the child lessened as the child chattered.
“It’s your food,” Benjamin said. “Eat up. You won’t grow big and strong.”
“But you haven’t eaten anything,” Harry said.
“Don’t worry about me. When I am strong enough I will find food of my own. You can enjoy your two sandwiches,” Benjamin said. “It sounds like you really liked what your aunt made you.”
“I do,” Harry said. “She makes yummy food even if she only makes Big D’s and Uncle Vernon’s favorites.”
“Why doesn’t she make your favorite food sometimes?”
He shrugged and nibbled on his sandwich. When the boy finished his second sandwich and his bag of chips, both of them winced with the shrill sound of “Boy!”
The child leaped up from his spot, gathering his trash and sticking them into his pockets. He looked from him to the door with raised black eyebrows. “I gotta go, Benjamin,” Harry said. “If Aunt Tuney has to search for me I’ll be in real big trouble. You’ll be here tomorrow, yeah?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Benjamin said.
The boy nodded. He waved at Benjamin, then he stepped out of the shed, closing the door behind him. Benjamin was left in darkness with his hunger and his flexing limbs.
He heard the child interrogated by his Aunt Tuney. Why had he taken so long in the shed? He didn’t belong in there and if got hurt it would be his own fault for being so stupid to go there in the first place. The child answered back he was looking for ball and he wasn’t able to find it. Aunt Tuney grumbled. Her Dudders did the boy a great service when he donated his ball to the boy and there wasn’t extra money to waste on toys if the boy was careless enough to lose them in the first place. The child promised to do better and Aunt Tuney accepted this apology with a snotty sniff.
Benjamin stared the ceiling. As he came close to remembering boxed ears, he had remembered the dread of childhood. His humiliation and shame for being born lesser. It echoed in him until he stood firm and told Amun he no longer wanted to be part of his coven. He paid the price for holding his own.
He was hungry.
For three days and three nights, the child came to the shed and offered him food and conversation. He turned down the food and grew amused with the conversation.
His heart ached for the unfortunate child. He came to the conclusion the child was starved for affection and companionship. Sure, he was novelty – a sparkly person in a toolshed – but he was a stranger. Beyond that, he was a lethal danger. He had been around plenty humans enough to know, however, enticed they were by his natural beauty their instincts on the whole won out. He was dangerous – the apex predator on the planet – and this child inched closer and closer to him with each passing day.
Some humans smelled like flowers. Some humans smelled like garbage. This tiny child smelled like power, sweet and pungent, while not at the top of the food chain, he knew there was something great stirring in the child’s blood begging to be unleashed. The best he came up with was the child was like air before a powerful thunderstorm. Being near him made his throat ache and the fine hairs on him rise. He wasn’t certain if he bit into the child he’d drain him dry instead he might pull back and see what his venom enhanced.
Curiosity and hunger warred against each other for days. It made his ache and the healing process extremely sure. He decided when he regained feeling in his other leg, then he would decide what he would do with the child. He knew the best option was to eat the child and be done with it, but he had gone and done the impossible, he liked his meal and he coming around its humanity. But, if he changed the child it would be breaking the only law that made any sort of sense to him. No child under the age of twelve was allowed to be turned.
Harry wasn’t older than six. He would be an insatiable little menace. There was no way Harry could go one day without revealing he was vampire, or not bow to his lust each time he was hungry. There was the option to leave him as human. He sat on that option. It was appealing, but he would have to go sooner rather than later, the word on what he had done would travel to Volterra. The Volturi would come for his head. It be such a headache to fight, Harry would be caught in the crossfire, and then, the aftermath. What was he supposed to do when he killed them all off? Rule as king? There was no way he wanted to any of that. He just wanted to be left alone.
Groaning aloud he stopped Harry in the middle of his dream synopsis. It was the full moon and there were three animals tasked to care for a hurting wolf: a dog, a deer, and most bizarre — a rat.
“You don’t like my story?” Harry asked.
“I do,” Benjamin said. “I was just thinking.”
“What about. My dream has a happy ending, don’t worry,” Harry said, lowering his voice into whisper, “They’re friends with the wolf.”
“Fantastic.” Benjamin smiled. “Thank you for the reassurance. I’m thinking on another great matter.”
“I can help,” Harry volunteered.
Benjamin’s smile widened at Harry’s earnest enthusiasm. It had been awhile since he spent time talking with a human, interacting with human, remembering there was more to them then the blood that flowed in the veins. The ease and extension of the empathy and support was a warmth Benjamin was drawn toward.
“O.K. There are people after me,” Benjamin said.
“Are they bad people?”
“The worst.”
“Hide so they can’t find you.”
Benjamin’s eyebrows lifted. “Hide so they can’t find me,” he repeated slowly. “I don’t go to the police or tell someone?”
“No,” Harry said. “They don’t do anything. You just get in even more trouble. That’s why hiding is good because you get away, then you can find a way to beat them.”
“Strategize.”
“O.K.” Harry shrugged.
Benjamin laughed.
