Introductions
Dudley Dursley was not a kind boy. He didn't find it particularly helpful to be - after all, his father gave him chocolate when he was rude or cruel. Boys around him laughed when he made others cry. His aunt would clap whenever he would leave another bruise on his cousin.
So no, he was not a particularly kind boy.
Then again, with his life, he didn't need to be. And that suited him just fine. In fact, it's what lead him to chasing his cousin through the streets, trying to tire Harry out. You see, his aunt would be arriving later that day, and she had a particularly foul little beast named Ripper, who loved to chase his cousin more than Dudley himself liked sweets.
And Dudley did so love his sweets. His school nurse was concerned, as they had run out of knickerbockers to sell him, as he was as voluptuous as his sweet tooth was large. His mother insisted he was just big boned, and Dudley could not spell knickerbocker; he did, however, find the idea of being a kickerboxer quite appealing and was constantly asking for lessons.
His mother didn't quite understand why her son was obsessed with his school's relatively out-of-fashion pants, as he could rarely remember the difference between the knickerbockers and kickerboxers.
Ah, drat, he was lost. Truthfully, he often relied on his cousin, one Harry Potter, to help him find his way home. Typically the small boy would run to and from their neighbourhood, which was quite helpful, as Dudley was relatively unsure of the words that he would see on maps. Oh! There Harry was, panting. Dudley was panting quite hard as well, as he did not typically enjoy running after his cousin, but he knew that if he could tire Harry out enough that Ripper could get Harry, then he would be given an extra scoop of ice cream by his aunt. He wondered if it had pralines in it. Or was it prawns? He could never quite remember the difference between those two.
* *
"There he is," Dudley shouted. "Get him!"
Harry groaned as several boys charged after him. He would be back to running again, it seemed.
With so little food in his system, he knew that he wouldn't be able to keep up for long. He hoped that he could make it to the small park not far from Dudley's home. It was only a few minutes run from where he currently was, if he cut through the small stream behind Mrs. Figg's lot, he thought.
"Come on, Harry," he muttered to himself.
After several minutes of running, he finally made it to the park. Just as he was going to climb into the upper branches of the tree, however, he felt a meaty hand grab his ankle. With a sharp tug, and a cracking sound, Harry fell to the ground, holding back a whimper as he looked at his ankle. It was bent at an unfortunate angle.
"Gotcha," an unattractive, pimpley blond boy said. "Dudley is going to want the first punch."
A moment later, Harry saw a round figure waddle his way up to the group, mimicking his father after three nights straight of pot roast. "Good job, Piers," Dudley said. "Now, let's get hi…"
Before he could finish his sentence, a young, female voice shouted out. "Wow, a cow! I've always wanted to see a cow. Moo! Moo!"
Dudley, Piers, and the rest of their gang paused, looking at each other. "A cow?"
The group collectively turned to face the new voice. She sounded disappointed. "Moo? Moo? Moo."
"Why are you mooing, bitch," Dudley said.
It was good that his mother was not there, as her prized child or not, she would have washed his mouth out with soap for calling a lady a bitch.
"I heard cows were smart," she said, looking him up and down. "Evidently not. And you're big enough to be a beached whale, but I'd never insult a whale like that."
Dudley blinked.
"Circe's tit rings," the girl muttered. "I'm making fun of your weight. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to do, because you're too fucking stupid to understand."
Piers chuckled at that.
Dudley smacked him.
"Ow, Big D…"
"I can assure you all, Big D is not an accurate name for… this," she said, making a motion at Dudley. "Maybe Big Double-D's."
Dudley looked as if he was about to yell, but the girl held her hand up. "I'm not done talking. Now, I was going to keep insulting you all, but I'm getting bored. You pitiful virgins can all fuck off, because I'm tired of sharing air with stupid."
"I'm not gonna take this from some girl," Piers yelled.
He charged at the girl, and she ducked to the side, grabbing his arm as she went. Before anyone knew what was happening, Piers' arm was bent at an unnatural angle, and he had fallen to the floor.
"Who said anything about me being a girl," she asked. Dropping their voice to a much lower octave, they said, "I'm the real Big D around here."
They finished what they were saying with a powerful kick to Piers' ribs. Harry listened as at least two ribs were cracked. The predator smiled.
"I guess we skipped to the part where you run," they said. With a flick of their wrist, they had a knife in their hand. "I could use some practice butchering pigs."
Needless to say, the boys ran.
The stranger laughed, a deep yet tinkling sound that reminded Harry of wind-chimes. "Let me help you up there," the person said. "Oh, what am I thinking? Stranger danger. I'm Sylvian, but you can call me Sylv. Or, Sylvie, I suppose, depending on the day" they said, shaking their currently-full-bosomed figure.
Harry watched as the person's form changed into a more masculine shape. They extended a hand, which was now attached to a well-muscled… Young man? Person? Girl? Harry didn't quite know how to think of the individual in front of him.
"Well are you going to take my hand or not," Sylvian-Sylv-Sylvie asked, looking fondly annoyed. "Come on, we've not got all day."
"I… uh… my ankle," Harry said, not entirely sure how to react.
With a frown, the young blond looked down. "Oh, that doesn't look good. And I thought what I did to that kid's arm was bad," they trailed off.
"Ouch," Harry said.
"No shit, Sherlock. Clearly not a Ravenclaw, are you," they said.
"Oi, you know about Hogwarts," Harry asked, surprised.
They just rolled their eyes. "We'll have to move you the hard way, then."
"The wha-," Harry started, before being scooped up in their arms.
"Him. I use he-him-his," the boy said. "They's fine as well, but if you're trying to figure out what to call me, I'm a dude. Call me Sylv."
"How did you know," Harry asked.
He received an impressed look in return. "You're not subtle, kid. Now, let's get that ankle looked at."
The young man waved his hands around the broken ankle, and Harry felt magic settle into his bones. "Now for the catalyst," Sylv said, pulling out what seemed to be a small corner of a brownie. "Eat that."
With the amount of self-preservation that Gryffindors are famous for, Harry did as he was told. He promptly screamed, only to have Sylv put his hand over Harry's mouth. A moment later, he felt blissful and pain-free. "What was that," Harry asked.
"That," Sylv said, winking, "was a family secret. Can't tell you, I'd have to kill you. Probably shouldn't have shared any in the first place, but you were looking just so little and broken. Truly, it was like a baby bird that had fallen out of a tree."
"I had it handled," Harry said, frowning.
"You were starting with a broken ankle, Shortstack. I'd hate to see what you think 'handling it' looks like."
"You threatened them with a knife! I'd have been fine if I had a knife," Harry protested.
Sylv just smiled. "Sure you woulda been, Shortstack."
"How'd you change like that," Harry asked, trying to change the subject for the sake of his pride.
"What, you've never met a gender-bending badass anti-hero before," Sylv asked, now laughing. "Metamorphmagus. I can go from a boy, to a girl, to anything and everything in between. I was going to make a joke about how they'd never touched a tit before, so they were just jealous. Guess I forgot that bit."
"You were certainly memorable."
"Actually, I was quite forgettable," Sylv said, winking. "They won't remember a thing, other than that Piers got into a fight with a particularly vicious pigeon. Though if you moo three times, they'll instantly be so scared they'll piss themselves. If you ever find yourself in that situation again, figure you might want an easier way out. So, Shortstack, you gonna introduce yourself?"
"But you know about…"
"Magic? So what?"
"Everybody knows who I am," Harry muttered, sounding almost grumpy. "You can't tell me you don't recognise this."
Sylv shook his head. "So, you've got a cool scar. Listen, kid, even if I do know what that scar means, I'm giving you a chance to introduce yourself on your terms. So, I'm going to ask again, going to introduce yourself?"
Harry opened his mouth then closed it again. He did this a few times, not unlike a goldfish, as he processed what Sylv said. "I'm Harry. Just Harry," he decided.
"Nice to meet you, Harry," Sylv said. "Now, let's get you home. I just fixed you up, don't want my hard work to go to waste."
On the walk back, Harry asked, "How did you do magic without the Trace?"
"The what?"
"The Trace."
"Spoilers," Sylv said, winking.
* * *
Sylvian watched as a corpulent woman and several small, yappy dogs entered the house where he'd left Harry. He wasn't stupid - if the bully he'd beaten into submission earlier could get away with breaking someone's ankle, something was seriously wrong in that house. He'd not left his perch in the trees across from Harry's house since, letting his magic flow through the neighbourhood.
He could feel a squib a few streets over, and Harry's family appeared to be squibs as well. Interestingly, he could feel the sticky web of a ward wrapped around the property in front of him. The strands of spellwork were oily, slipping over the place like a bad omen. Looking closer at the house, any magical reservoirs that Dudley and his mother may have had were being constantly drained.
It was as ingenious as it was horrific.
A ward like that would need a powerful source of energy, and he couldn't help but wonder if Harry felt weaker as the summer progressed due to the ward, not the lack of food. He wasn't stupid - Harry barely looked old enough to be thirteen, let alone the almost-sixteen he was supposed to be. And for a wix to look malnourished, something had to be going on with their core. Theoretically, powerful wizards could draw on the energy of the universe to make up for the missing nutrients; if Harry was powerful enough to take down a Dark Lord, then something was going seriously wrong here.
He was shaken from his thoughts as he watched Harry's uncle's sister blow up into a balloon, floating out the back. Harry's uncle screamed, loud enough to wake the entire neighbourhood, had Sylvian not instinctively cast a silencing spell. There was no doubt that the Statute would have been broken, with how loud the man was screaming.
Thank fuck he'd been here.
Harry raced out of the house, trunk, owl, and wand with him. Unfortunately, the most vicious of the little rat dogs followed behind him. This must have been the Ripper that Harry had mentioned.
Jumping out from his tree, Sylvian pulled out his bow and arrow, knocking and releasing before the small creature could sink its teeth into Harry's calf. The minute the arrowhead touched the thing, it went up in flames. "Harry," Sylv shouted. "Over here!"
As Harry ran over, Sylvian flexed his magic, calling the Knight Bus. It took seconds for the bright purple bus to appear, and Sylvian just grinned at Harry. "Hop on, Shortstack. He's with me Stan," he said, ushering Harry into the bus. "Diagon, you know me."
As they raced away, a pair of yellow eyes emerged from the bush, growling and chasing after the bus, before the Knight Bus disappeared. The last thing the Grimm saw was that new boy, the one who'd killed the threat, looking back and winking.