Chapter Text
Harry is eight when he catches the flu. The Dursleys, thus, decide that the best course of action would be to lock him out of the house.
“Get out of here, freak, before you contaminate us normal people with your freakishness!” Aunt Petunia screams.
Harry ducks just in time as a pan goes flying where his face had been a moment ago. He stumbles out and slams the door shut behind him; Aunt Petunia is still shrieking about having to sanitize the house.
For the life of him, Harry cannot understand how a simple flu could be freakish. Dudley had had it just last month, and Aunt Petunia had doted on him without a single complaint. It was probably his fault. Maybe Dudley hadn’t sneezed as loudly. Maybe Aunt Petunia didn’t mind regular colds, just freak colds.
He shivers as a strong gust of wind rushes past, his baggy clothes fluttering around his thin frame. It’s cold. He walks aimlessly through the neighborhood. There’s no Dudley or his gang to chase him tonight—just quiet. Peaceful, almost.
He doesn’t realize when his feet carry him to the main road. It’s empty—no cars, no people, just silence. The only light comes from the full moon overhead, casting the world in cold silver.
It must be nearing midnight now, he thinks. The air feels like it’s holding its breath.
A howl pierces the night— low, guttural. Harry freezes. For a moment, he forgets to breathe. Then instinct takes over, and he runs. He doesn’t look back. He just runs, as fast as his little legs will let him.
The thing which is chasing him – for it is not a dog, nor a wolf and definitely not a human – is catching up. He hears the soft pads of feet gaining behind him, but it’s the growls that make him whimper.
The monster catches up, slamming him to the rough road. He flinches as his elbows scrape painfully against the asphalt. If werewolves existed, Harry would bet this was one.
Claws dig into his leg. Harry screams, white-hot pain exploding through him. He kicks wildly, trying to fight it off. The thing slashes at his chest, like it’s trying to tear his heart out. He lets out another scream, trying to form words.
His breath catches. His vision blurs.
Then everything goes dark.
The first thing Harry registers is noise. Five voices, overlapping, rising and falling like waves crashing over his head.
“…he’s bleeding out, you stupid piece of shit, we can’t just—”
“Not our problem. Dump him back where you found him.”
“Are you insane, Art? He’ll die!”
“Exactly, Olly. Why deal with someone else's mess?”
A sharper voice cuts in. “He’s just a kid.”
“Exactly,” another replies, almost sneering. “He won’t survive a week here, Kelly. You want another mouth to feed?”
Harry’s eyes snap open. The world tilts— ceiling, shadows. There’s too much light yet not enough to see clearly. His chest burns, his leg aches, and the scent of blood and smoke and old brick overwhelms him.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. He’s not sure he could, even if he wanted to.
Someone shifts near him. A pair of shoes steps into view— worn leather, scuffed and cracked. Their owner crouches.
“I think he’s awake.”
“We have eyes too, Xan.”
The voices stop. Just like that—gone. The silence is louder.
Harry's breath quickens. He forces himself not to sit up, not to flinch. He doesn’t know who they are, what they want. His fingers curl into whatever fabric he’s lying on—rough, scratchy. A blanket?
Someone else speaks – a girl maybe – softer. “You alright, kid?”
“Shut up, Maddie!”
Harry doesn’t answer. He can’t tell if the voice is kind or just bored.
He blinks slowly, trying to piece things together. His last memory is teeth and claws and pain—and then nothing.
Now he's here. Wherever here is. Surrounded by strangers.
His throat is dry. His head hurts. But above everything else, Harry feels one thing.
Trapped.
“I think he’s overwhelmed.” A hand reaches out to him, first into his blurry line of sight and then to his shoulder. Harry flinches anyway, instincts sharper than memory.
“Don’t you see, Maddie? He’s got no bite to him! We can’t babysit the kid! Besides, he’s what – six?” The same voice, still arguing, still bitter. One against four.
Harry looks up sharply, ignoring the way the room spins, “The dogs who bark don’t recognize the ones who bite. And for the record, I’m eight.”
The boy scoffs. His ears are pointed in a way that is decidedly not human.
“Don’t move so suddenly.” A tall and lanky boy darts forward, hands steady but unsure. “I’m no good at healing. Your wounds could open up again.”
‘Maddie’ pushes a misshapen glass of water into his hands. “Drink,” she says simply. She doesn’t look much too older than Harry, himself. He realizes that he’s only a few inches shorter than her.
“I don’t think I will.” Harry eyes the people around him warily.
They’re all nearly the same age as him. The boy still hovering over him seems to be the oldest.
“I’m Olly. I was the one who found you. Do you remember anything?” he asks.
He sounds concerned. But there’s a sharpness in his gaze — it tells he’s alert for any threats Harry might pose.
“I remember that... werewolf... coming at me and clawing at me. Nothing after that.” Harry admits.
“You aren’t sure it was a werewolf.” The raven haired boy in the corner observes. “Oh, I’m Xan, by the way,” he smiles, but it’s so glaringly empty and superfluous that Harry almost recoils in shock.
“I’m Kelly.” The only other girl in the room except Maddie tilts her head, studying him. “The asshole who was shouting is Art.”
Art makes an oddly strangled noise in the back of his throat. He looks like he’s one second away from tackling Kelly to the floor.
“You don’t smell like fresh magic,” Xan says, stepping closer. His curiosity is too blunt to be polite.
“Magic is a figment of imagination,” Harry protests.
“An orphan and a waif, then,” Olly mutters, “How do all of them end up in Knockturn?”
“I know the names of my parents,” Harry says stiffly. “And I had a place to sleep—until I got locked out for catching a cold. So—”
He lifts his chin.
“— an orphan and recently turned waif.”
It sinks in as he says it. He really has nowhere to go now. No cupboard. No bed. No door that might open in the morning.
And apparently... Magic exists. And he has it.
“You’re staying, aren’t you?” Art drags his hands down his face in exaggerated frustration.
Harry leans forward, eyes sharp despite the lingering pain. “I’ll cut you all a deal,” he says. “Show me the ropes. Teach me how to survive here— and I’ll help you live a much more stable life.”
Olly narrows his eyes. Suspicion is practically written into his bones. “And how do you plan to do that?”
Harry shrugs, casually. “Every place has people willing to do anything for a bit of food or coin. I know how to sniff them out. You can help me and share the benefits or...” he lets the sentence trail off, “...well, more for me, I guess.”
Harry has no idea what he is saying. He’s parroting lines he remembers from a movie, one he heard through the cracks of his cupboard door.
Maddie gets up and announces, “I don’t care what you guys say. He’s staying.”
And that is that.
The wand wasn’t supposed to be the hard part.
It had taken two weeks, a cracked rib (Art’s), four bruised egos and a lot of scoffing on Harry’s part before they finally got their hands on one. Second-hand, wonky core, and snapped cleanly once before someone patched it up with Spellotape. Useless for anything delicate, but Harry didn’t need delicate. He needed force. A conduit to channel his reserves.
Kelly slipped it into his hand like it was a knife. “Don’t blow your own face off,” she muttered. “We can’t afford another Art. His medication was hard enough to look for.”
“Thanks for the concern,” Harry replied dryly.
Olly, behind her, was fussing over Maddie’s scraped palms. “At least let me fix that before you go picking more fights,” he said, dabbing with something that smelled suspiciously like stolen burn salve.
“Didn’t pick the fight,” Maddie chirped, grinning. “It picked me.”
Art grumbled in the corner, arms crossed and lip curled. “Still think this whole thing’s a waste of time.”
“You would have walked away if you really thought so,” Harry said, not looking at him.
Art scoffed, but he didn’t deny it.
“Go on then. Let’s hear your master plan.” Xan’s eyes gleamed. His smile was all teeth.
“There’s so many creatures and half breeds here in Knockturn. All of them have no other place to go, no other way to earn. The Ministry and the wizarding population could care less about them. We give them a way to survive, and in return, they give us a way to thrive. I saw a factory in Muggle London last month. It’s been abandoned for five years apparently. We can seal it down and turn it into a ring of sorts for them,” Harry explained, watching carefully as the others understood what he was getting at.
“And why would they come to this ring? There has to be a good reason,” Kelly asked shrewdly.
“Vampyres feast on blood and we have plenty of that. Werewolves need money and I’m sure we can figure something out. Hags just want their weird ingredients to do whatever it is they do with them. We give them that, but only if they fight for us. It’s going attract audience too. And in the audience will be gamblers. They can put their stakes and bets but they do it through us. We just need to spread the word in the right places,” Harry smiled. It wasn’t pretty.
“We can’t be seen as the Maw’s hosts or whatever. That will be an invitation for them to attack it,” Olly warned.
“No, it needs to be established that the Maw is owned by creatures and wizards alike,” Harry reasoned.
“We will be seen as children!” Olly argued hotly.
“The children of Knockturn! And that is exactly what we need. We have a half incubus,” Harry gestured towards Xan, “a half Fae,” he nodded towards Art, “and a half veela in the form of Maddie and some sort of weird werewolf in me. If nothing else, all of us have enough stubbornness and magical power to blast people apart.”
“You don’t count. You just have enhanced senses, bloodlust, scars and anger issues from that incident,” Art rolled his eyes.
“Let’s put that theory to test. I bet I could snap your arm in two like a twig,” Harry got up, jaw clenched in anger, chair falling back.
Art got up just as quickly, ready to take on the challenge.
Maddie glared at them both, “Sit the hell down, both of you nutjobs!”
The rune book came from a dying cursebreaker’s attic. Maddie heard about it from a hag in the back of a Knockturn alleyway pub who wanted a place to gamble her husband's teeth.
“We can’t read this,” Olly had protested, staring at the cramped, archaic runes on yellowed pages.
“I can,” Harry said.
“You can’t,” Kelly said.
“I’ll learn, Kelsey.”
It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t safe. But it worked. Late nights under candlelight, the pages spread across dusty concrete, Kelly and Olly standing guard while Harry whispered half-understood syllables into the open dark.
And the cursebreaker’s shop blew apart as he practiced carving the runes.
The factory was nothing at first. Just broken walls and old machines that hadn’t groaned in years. The roof leaked. The floor was a graveyard of rusted bolts and lost time. But it had walls, space, and a lock on the main door that Harry managed to magically seal shut with a burst of will and too much blood.
They cleared the place together. Olly barking orders, Kelly organizing piles of salvage, Maddie singing to herself as she swept broken glass into corners.
Art stayed by the doorway most of the time, knife in his belt and another stolen wand tucked away under his sleeve, not helping unless explicitly told. But Harry noticed how he took the night shifts without complaint. How he scowled at Xan whenever the half-incubus disappeared for too long.
Xan, of course, was the only one who never worked— but always appeared when something interesting was about to happen.
“Blood smells better when it’s earned,” he said once, watching Harry paint runes into the ground with chalk and spit.
“You’re disturbing,” Kelly said, wrinkling her nose, not looking up.
“I do my part,” he said. “Chaos keeps people talking.”
And it did.
The Maw took shape from the bones of the place and their blood and sweat.
They roped off space for the ring using chains from old conveyor belts. Scrap metal and tarps turned into makeshift walls. An old boiler room was converted into a private “healing” station—Kelly’s idea— where minor hexes and bruises could be patched up for a fee. Maddie painted signs in jagged, childlike strokes. Olly organized a schedule. Harry burned the first rune into the entrance floor with the broken wand, grinning when it held. Art fixed the lights with some sort of overpowered Lumos and frustration. Xan kept the rumors going.
The first fighter was a werewolf with a missing eye and too many debts.
The first audience was three hags, one goblin, and a toothless vampire.
It wasn’t much, but it was something.
They spread the whispers through Maddie and Xan, mostly. She was the least threatening, the easiest to overlook. He knew all of the shadiest corners and dirtiest people. She slipped coins to barkeeps, told jokes to beggars, whispered to bloodthirsty beasts about a place where they could win something again. He ensnared people with words, threatened shop owners and mocked those with fragile egos.
“No names just yet,” Harry reminded everyone. “The Maw is faceless. The rules are simple.”
“Bet, bleed, or walk,” Maddie recited, swinging her feet over the edge of a broken platform.
Art carved the words into the factory wall in dripping red. Xan made sure the blood was real.
The first few weeks were slow.
Too many fights ended too quickly. No one stayed to bet. The air was too tense. The rhythm was absent. They opened the Maw day and night. The kids took turns sleeping in shifts, eating barely enough to stand. Harry lost weight. Maddie got sick. Kelly picked fights with everyone just to feel something.
Xander laughed through it all. “We should burn something. Want me to stir the pot?”
“Not yet,” Harry said.
Olly nearly punched him once. “This was your idea. It’s falling apart.”
“No,” Harry had said, sitting in the dust. “We’re just still invisible.”
Then the rich, Dark sadists came.
It started with a well-dressed man with a cane and a sneer who looked down on everything but the ring. He placed a single sickle on the table and watched a vampire tear into a banshee like it was art.
Then another came. And another.
By the end of the month, the walls of the factory echoed with chants and roars. The entrance fee tripled. The Maw opened at sundown and stayed alive till sunrise. Bets flowed like wine. The children had coins in their pockets for the first time in their lives.
Harry sat on a crate, the wand at his side, watching it all unfold with hollow, dark-ringed eyes.
“This isn’t survival anymore,” Kelly muttered, standing beside him.
“No,” he agreed. “It’s control.” Harry smiled wryly.
And just like that, the boy who had once slept in a cupboard beneath the stairs became the ghost-story prince of Knockturn Alley.
Then came the brawls.
The bets devolved into fighting with no one to truly supervise the fights.
So, Harry learned to infuse magic into his muscles, his voice, his eyes. He still looked like the nine year old he was, but could pull apart two men brawling on the floor with his arms.
He got challenged for the Maw a lot because of how quick he was to anger. But he didn’t need a wand to channel magic into himself, did he? He lost in the beginning, people enjoying betting against him.
Then he began to win. Every match, no matter who or what it was against, that he fought, he drew blood.
Harry stopped getting in that often. People learned not to pick fights when he was there to monitor.
He became a storm, a force to be reckoned with. Olly, Art, Kelly, Xan and Maddie became his team, his family and the violent sea to his storm.