Adult-FanFiction.org : Books

Lycanthrope Factory	By : StarLightMassacre Category: Anita Blake > Crossovers > AB/Harry Potter Views: 23091 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Harry Potter; all rights go to J. K. Rowling. I do not own anything from Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter; all rights belong to Laurel K. Hamilton. I make no money for this piece of fictional writing and never will.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Last Time
Richard breathed in deeply. Harry could have the information they needed to find these people without even realising it. They had to get him to open up, they had to try something to get this investigation progressing and as the only survivor, the only person they could actually ask for this sort of information, was Harry. Harry who was not very open or forthcoming with information and was limited by his inability to speak back to them and had the unfortunate tendency to turn to Asher when he was asked or told things he didn’t like. Which was utterly perfect really, as Asher was perhaps the only person in Saint Louis who wouldn’t press at Harry, who would shield him and protect him and pull up an icy, stony mask of anger and arrogance to keep everyone else away from Harry.
Richard shook his head. Again he wondered at the intelligence of Harry to manipulate Asher to his side, Jason was right, if there was one single person who could both love and protect Harry fiercely, jealously and vindictively, it was Asher.
Chapter Twelve - Protector
Harry rocked back and forth on his knees as he looked up at the ceiling in Jean-Claude’s living room. He was being watched silently by several people as he arched his back and continued rocking on his knees on the floor.
Inevitably Harry got dizzy and he collapsed onto his back, his head spinning. He giggled softly before rolling onto his hands and knees and crawling to where Jamil was sat, where he proceeded to sit back on his heels and lifted his arms up to the werewolf.
With a long suffering sigh, Jamil picked him up and sat him on the settee next to him, but not content with that, Harry slipped easily and smoothly onto his lap and snuggled in. He closed his green eyes and within moments he was sleeping.
“Is he…?”
“He’s fast asleep.” Jamil answered.
“He’s getting worse.” Lisandro commented.
Jason shook his head. “I don’t think so, he’s just getting more comfortable with us and the Circus, so more of himself is coming out and he keeps letting things slip.”
“He hasn’t gotten lost here for a week now.” Jean-Claude said smoothly. “I am very proud of his improvements and he has stopped flinching at the guards.”
“He still has his favourites though.” Wicked said with a grin.
“I suspect that he always will.” Jean-Claude smiled. “He hasn’t been raised or socialised as a normal child would have been.”
Jamil pulled Harry closer to his chest and he shifted the tiny boy to recline back so that he was sleeping more comfortably. He had been charged, by his Ulfric, with protecting this boy with his life while he was in work.
When had he become a glorified babysitter? He was the Skoll for the Thronnos Rokke clan, he had reached a position of respect and esteemed power, he was charged with always protecting his Ulfric, yet here he was, away from his Ulfric, with a sleeping boy clutched on his lap.
Shang-Da, who was Richard’s second Enforcer and thus below him, was honoured with protecting their Ulfric. He didn’t understand it, why wasn’t he the one protecting his Ulfric? Why wasn’t it Shang-Da here watching over the boy? Did his Ulfric trust Shang-Da more than he did him?
Jamil swallowed harshly and crushed the growing rage. He was the pack Skoll for a reason! It was an insult to be demoted to a mere babysitter for a mentally challenged boy. It’s not like Harry was going to go anywhere or even leave the Circus and Asher was awake now, as was Jean-Claude, so why had he been told to remain here until Richard himself came to the Circus after he was finished teaching for the day?
Harry grunted in his sleep and several people immediately turned to him and Jamil looked down, loosening his grip when he realised that he’d been squeezing the boy a little too tightly. Bright green eyes blinked open to look up at him and Jamil cursed himself for waking him up, Harry was only normal seeming when he was fast asleep.
“Jamil.” Harry said softly.
“What do you need?” Jamil asked him, hoping that he wanted to go back to sleep. He had no such luck though as Harry squirmed and sat himself up, wide awake and completely alert. That still freaked him out too.
“Sweet stuff.” Harry smiled up at him, his eyes bright with hope and expectation.
Asher came over with a small jar of honey and a teaspoon and he sat next to Jamil and Harry grinned happily when he realised that he was going to get his sweet stuff. He opened his mouth ready as Asher dipped the spoon into the honey and got a small amount onto it.
“Here you are, mon ange.”
Harry took the spoon into his mouth and worked at it to get every last hint of honey off of the spoon. He licked all around his mouth before he settled back against Jamil’s chest, clenching a hand in his shirt and rubbing the side of his head back and forth over his shirt.
“Better?” Asher questioned and Harry nodded.
“Do you want to sleep some more?” Jamil asked.
Harry shook his head before he slid to the floor and sat at his feet like a small child. Only instead of toys, Harry was just running his hands back and forth over the carpet, giggling as he dug his fingers into the thick carpet and wiggled them around.
“Richard?” Harry asked, stopping what he was doing with the carpet and looking up and around expectantly.
“He isn’t here yet, Harry.”
“But, I needed to tell him something.” Harry pouted.
“What did you need to tell him?” Asher asked with a definite hint of jealousy in his tone of voice.
“Richard asked about the doctors.” Harry nodded.
All the inhabitants of the room stopped, looked at one another and then gave their full attention to Harry.
“Harry, mon ange, if there is something that you can tell us about the doctors, then you can tell me and I will pass it on to our Richard.” Asher encouraged gently.
“Sue-sue.” Harry said softly, with a hint of fear as he twitched with stress. “Susie, sue-san…” Harry shook his head. “She had strange eyes.”
“Strange how?” Jason questioned carefully, getting down on his knees so that he was sitting blow Harry’s eye level. “Were they like Micah’s?”
Harry shook his head, his tufty hair flying. “Not that strange.” Harry said.
“So they were just a strange colour, like Nathaniel’s eyes?”
Harry cocked his head to the side and mouthed wordlessly. “Pale, like blue, only not blue. It was the same colour as the cages. She had eyes the colour of cages.”
“Grey.” Jason said softly. “Her eyes were grey.”
“She was a top doctor. She gave me sweet stuff.”
“So her name is Sue?”
“Sue-san.”
“Susan?”
Harry shook his head and seemed very frustrated with himself. “Sue-san-an.”
“Susanna?” Jason questioned after a huge, silent pause and Harry flinched violently before he nodded tentatively.
“I remember more now.” Harry said softly. “In my dreams.”
“You have bad dreams?” Asher asked quickly.
Harry nodded. “I don’t like sleeping because of the dreams. It was better in the cage with the doctors; I was so sleepy that I never dreamed, all the bad stuff was happening when I was awake, so I was safe in my sleep. It’s the other way around here.”
“You feel safe when you’re awake, but you have the bad dreams when you sleep.”
Harry nodded. “That’s why I like sleeping with my favourites, so they can keep me safe while I sleep, even if I do have bad dreams.”
Jamil sighed and cursed himself for denying this hurt little boy someone he felt safe with, even if it had only been in his thoughts and not out loud. He was surprised to find out that he was one of Harry’s favourites though, he only had a dozen out of the hundred or so people that lived at the Circus and as he was the one most likely to tell Harry ‘no’ he’d thought that he was way off of Harry’s list of favourites. Yet that didn’t seem to be the case, even if Richard and Asher were right at the top of the list and no one else got a look in if either of them were in the room.
“Where’s Richard?” Harry asked suddenly.
“He’s teaching for now, Harry.” Jamil explained again.
“I want him.”
“Come here, mon ange.” Asher encouraged and Harry crawled to Asher and allowed the golden haired vampire to pick him up and settle him on his lap.
Harry giggled and from one moment to the next, he was completely engrossed in the decorative buttons on Asher’s shirt. Like a fascinated child he turned the buttons over in his hands, watching them closely, his mouth slightly parted as his fingers touched, twisted and rubbed at the buttons.
“We need to call Anita and tell her what Harry has said.” Jason said, directed mostly to Jean-Claude.
“Oui, I will do so now, mon pomme.”
Jamil sighed and sat back on the settee. He didn’t often stay this long at the Circus. He was surprised by how ordinary, how boring, it actually was. It seemed that every time he turned around that there was another crisis that needed to be sorted out, but when he wasn’t busy and he was forced to just sit and do nothing, then things seemed calmer, peaceful actually, even if they did have Harry to care for. He just wished that he had something more important to do, other than look after an abused, tortured boy all day.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X
Anita said her goodbyes to Jean-Claude over the phone and turned back to Bradley.
“Harry’s remembering more, he’s admitted to having nightmares and, naturally, the doctors frequent them. The one head doctor who used to give him honey was named Susanna and she has grey eyes, like the bars of the cages, so more of a steel grey than blue-grey. If I remember rightly Harry said she was about forty as well.”
Agent Bradford nodded. “I’ll call the other teams and have them document it down. If Harry is having these nightmares, then he could have more information than he told the others about, especially if they were unwilling to question him properly after the revelation that he is having nightmares. We need to solve this quickly, Anita. Before these people set up shop again somewhere else, even now they could have already left the country.”
Anita nodded, her jet black, tightly curled hair bouncing into her eyes where she swiped it away in irritation.
“I more than understand, I’m all for questioning Harry, it’s mostly Asher and Richard getting in the way of things.”
“There has to be a time when the both of them are away from Harry.” Bradford almost begged.
Anita nodded, thinking hard. “Yes, in the mornings, but Harry is never alone. There is always someone there to protect him, who he can hide behind.”
“As long as Richard and Asher aren’t there, then things might go smoother.”
“Or they won’t move at all. Harry tends to close up if neither of them are with him and he’ll sit where he is vacantly and just continuously ask for one or both of them.” Anita sighed.
“We have to try, or we might have more ‘Harry’s’ on our hands if these doctors are left to carry on their diabolical experiments on innocent people.”
“Tomorrow at mid-morning then.” Anita replied. “About ten or eleven is best. Richard won’t be there and Asher will still be dead for the day.”
“If he can tell us anything, anything at all that might grow into a lead, then it’s worth it. Even if it’s about those Dursleys, it might give us something to go after. We have the blood sample now, but that will only work if we have something to match it to and at the moment, we’re chasing after ghosts.”
Anita nodded. “You know that I understand. I know we need to get these people and lock them up, but to the others, nothing is more important than Harry’s wellbeing, I agree to an extent. The last thing we need is to set him back in his recovery, but I think he’s purposely hiding behind other people to avoid our questions and if we’re going to get these people and bring them to justice, we can’t allow him to do that or there will be another factory set up and more people will get hurt before we can catch those responsible.”
“We’ve been monitoring all missing persons reports closely, logging where they are and if they’re within a certain mileage of any other missing persons, we’ve even got a task force in other countries monitoring for missing persons as well. Just in case they have fled the country. I just hope that they haven’t gone underground or we might never find them and bring them to justice for what they’ve done.”
Anita took in a breath and held it for a moment. She hoped that these bastards hadn’t gone underground or there would be no way to find them unless they figured out a way to smoke them out, but the one thing she wanted was justice for all of those innocent people. The scared, innocent people who had been tortured, abused, experimented on and killed in that inhumane factory, all so a couple of doctors could sate their morbid curiosities. It was sick and wrong and she would see them brought to justice. One way or another, they would pay for what they’d done.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X
“Of course it’s not because I don’t trust you with my life.” Richard told Jamil seriously.
He’d only just arrived at the Circus after a day of work and he was still dressed in formal pants and a crisp shirt and tie, though his sleeves were rolled up his massive forearms. Jamil had pulled him aside before Harry could see him and had asked him, very bluntly, if he still trusted him to protect his life as the pack’s Skoll.
“What is it then? Why am I the one left here babysitting?”
“Because I trust you explicitly.” Richard told him. “Jamil, you are my Skoll, as you were Marcus’, this pack knows you and trusts you and I kept you alive after I took over because I trust you. I am capable of looking after myself, I only need Shang-Da with me to take down any threat that may come up, but if anything were to happen to Harry…” Richard blew out a breath and raked a hand through his long brown hair. “If anything were to happen to him, I don’t know what I would do. I struggle to contain my anger as it is, as you well know as my Skoll. If Harry was hurt or killed, there’s no telling who I would blame or attack because of it, and then where would I and the pack be? No, I need you to stay with him; I need you to protect him, not because I don’t trust you with my life, but because I trust you with his life, I trust you to protect him and thus I trust you with the wellbeing of the whole pack, because if that little boy gets hurt or killed while I wasn’t here to help protect him, I don’t think I’d ever forgive myself.”
Richard clenched his large hands into fists at just the thought of Harry being hurt and he shoved down that inherent anger that it caused to well up inside of him.
“No, I trust him to you, Jamil. You need to be here with him when I can’t, because I can’t be Ulfric if I’m too angry to even think straight. Please do this for me.”
“Of course I will, Ulfric. I understand more now. No one, absolutely no one, will hurt him while you have charged me with looking after him.”
“Thank you, Jamil.” Richard said gratefully, feeling a little more relaxed. “I need to know that he’s safe and Asher isn’t always awake to protect him. It’s like he’s my own child, this need to protect him and love him, I can’t explain it, but it’s how I think I’d feel about my own son and just the mere thought of anything happening to him makes me panic and it makes me angry.”
The door opened before either of them could say anything more and Harry poked his head around the door. He smiled and held his arms out.
“Richard!” He said excitedly. “Jason said you were here, but I couldn’t find you.”
Richard hefted the little boy up and hugged him tightly, giving his forehead a soft kiss.
“How was your day?” Richard asked interestedly and that was it.
Harry went on about anything and everything he’d done, babbling and whispering, shouting out odd words and giggling as he told him about Asher’s pretty buttons.
Richard carried him back out and down the corridor to Jean-Claude’s living room. He greeted everyone softly and he was filled in on what Harry had told them that afternoon, about his new information about one of the doctors, and about the nightmares.
“We have to find a way to make him more comfortable at night so that he can sleep easier and without fear of nightmares.” Richard said immediately.
“He says that it helps when he has ‘one of his favourites’ with him.” Jean-Claude said gently.
Richard nodded. “That makes sense, he always wants Asher and I in the bed with him. He trusts us to protect him even when he’s sleeping.”
He looked to the boy now, fast asleep on his lap as he run a huge hand through the soft, multi-length black hair.
“It’s no wonder he’s been cat napping more and more often if he’s suffering with nightmares.” Richard sighed as he held Harry closer to himself, the boy was wrapped around him tightly, his body slack in sleep.
“He hasn’t said anything else about the doctors, but he is terrified of them.” Jason said sadly. “He was terrified to even mention the one that he did dream about.”
“Of course he’s going to be terrified of them!” Asher hissed scathingly. “He was just a child and they did such terrible things to him.”
“That’s not what Jason meant.” Richard defended quickly. “I think Jason is hinting that Harry doesn’t realise the difference between his dreams and what’s reality.”
Jason nodded. “You saw him yourself, Asher. He was looking around as if this doctor would be hiding behind a chair.”
Asher calmed himself and nodded. “I saw. Perhaps we need to have him speak to someone who can help him.”
“I agree, mon chardonneret.” Jean-Claude nodded. “Having him happy and healthy is now a priority.”
Richard kept up his rhythmic stroking of Harry’s hair and smiled when the boy snuffled in his sleep and his little hands clenched tighter before relaxing again. He didn’t want Harry to ever be afraid, but he couldn’t protect his boy from his dreams and that frustrated him to no end.
He kept Harry with himself and only passed him over to Asher once, when he went for a shower so that he could change out of his work clothes into jeans and a tee-shirt. Asher had been forced to reluctantly hand Harry back over when Harry had woken up and called out for him.
He’d tried to question Harry a little after he’d eaten a simple broth soup, but Harry had closed up immediately and he looked very upset. For the first time he’d left his lap and gone to someone else and he didn’t like the emotions that dragged out of him. It made him equal parts angry and upset and it was only made worse that Harry had gone to Jean-Claude, who relaxed him and brought him back out of his shell by fixing his hair for him, French braiding it to keep it out of his face.
He actually felt ashamed of himself and guilty for questioning Harry, especially as he’d already given them information today and he’d just woken up as well, which likely meant that he’d had another nightmare. He sighed and raked a hand through his hair, he only hoped that Harry either forgot the incident or forgave him for his tactless picking of the moment to question him. He should have waited at least a couple of hours before bringing it back up, but everything was always much clearer in hindsight.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X
Harry hugged Richard goodbye the next morning and then latched onto Jamil, who was going to be staying with him again today. Stephen had bought him a colouring book and a box of pencils and Harry absolutely loved them, even if it was awkward to hold the pencils.
He remembered being in school and using pencils, it was different now, he remembered how to hold them, but he wasn’t used to it, so he was bad at it, but Richard encouraged him to keep practising, because then he’d get better. Before Richard got home he was determined to colour in a picture without going outside the lines, but as his hand quivered and wasn’t that strong after years in his cage, he went out of the lines often without meaning to.
He sat at the coffee table by Jamil’s feet for hours, the werewolf was reading a book with no pictures in it as he coloured and lots of people went up and down the stairs that led into the living room and went down the corridor that led further into the underground living areas or they went up the stairs into the actual Circus.
He went up on his knees and Jamil lowered his book to look at him, but he had only moved to lean over more so that he could colour in the yellow part better.
“Jamil, what are you doing here?”
Harry looked up at Anita and the man with her and he lowered himself down to the floor and pressed back against Jamil’s legs. A hand landed in his hair and stroked it gently and he calmed. It was wavy today because he’d fallen asleep with his braid in.
“I’m looking after Harry today.”
“I thought Nathaniel was going to be watching him. Where is Nathaniel?”
“He’s sorting out lunch for Harry; Lillian thinks that it might be time to start adding in semi-solids, so Nathanial is making him mashed potatoes that are nearly pureed so that he can have something more textured than watery porridge or chicken broth.” Jamil answered easily. “Why are you here?”
“We need some more information to further our investigation.” Anita said bluntly.
Jamil shook his head. “Richard tried questioning him last night. He shut himself up tighter than a clam shell. If Richard can’t get anything from him, you’re not going to be able to and I won’t allow you to distress him while I’ve been charged with his welfare.”
“Just a few questions, Jamil.”
“I said no.”
Harry was surprised when he was picked up and sat on a lap, his green pencil still in his hand.
“Jamil! I need to colour for Richard!” Harry said as he struggled to be put back down on the floor.
“Harry, do you remember what the doctor Susanna looked like?”
At the mention of the name Susanna, Harry went unnaturally still and he stopped struggling against Jamil, instead he sunk into his arms and buried his face against Jamil’s shirt, his pencil falling from his hand to hit the carpet.
“I told you to leave him alone!” Jamil growled angrily, his beast prowling inside him as the boy he was charged with to protect turned to him to help him. “You’ve distressed him now! He was doing so well today.” His voice distorting with his growl.
“What’s happened?” Nathaniel asked as he came into the living room.
“Take Harry into the kitchen and keep him occupied.” Jamil ordered with such authority that Nathaniel didn’t even hesitate to come over and take Harry from Jamil, he smiled as he felt small hands wind themselves into his long, knee length hair and he heard Harry sniffing at it. Harry loved the vanilla smell on his hair.
“Come on, Harry. We’re going to see what we can find.”
“Stephen gave me a book! I want to draw Richard a picture with no going out of the lines, but my hand doesn’t work right, can you help me?”
“Of course.” Nathaniel answered as he picked up the colouring book and the pencils before he carried Harry out of the living room, leaving Anita and Agent Bradford to Jamil, who looked very angry.
“I told you to leave him alone.” He thundered.
“You didn’t care a week ago!” Anita said angrily.
“I have been charged with his welfare by my Ulfric.” Jamil said tersely. “I told you exactly how he reacted yesterday to Richard questioning him and still you asked him about that doctor! I told you that it would just distress him!”
“We need answers! I am done waiting and having him hide behind everyone around him! These people need to be found!”
“Then go out and find them!” Jamil roared. “You don’t need to traumatise a young kid to find them; you’re just not looking hard enough!”
“You have no idea how hard we’re working to find these people!” Anita shouted right back. “This isn’t a walk in the damn park, Jamil! Every body we uncover in that factory has to be excavated and processed and it’s another victim we have to pin to these people, but we can’t do that if we don’t even have one of them to question! We need to find them before they start up another factory and we’re running out of time.”
“Then stop wasting time and get out and find them. You’re not upsetting Harry just because you can’t find any other leads. I won’t let you.”
Jamil turned and left the living room to go deeper into the underground and he found Harry and Nathaniel in the kitchen. Harry was colouring and Nathaniel was stood over him, holding his wrist gently to prevent him from going out of the lines.
“Jamil!” Harry called out happily when he saw him stood in the doorway. “Nathanal is helping me colour for Richard, look.”
“I can see.” Jamil answered trying to keep his voice light and calm.
“Do you think he’ll like it?” Harry asked as he considered the drawing critically.
“I’m sure that he will.” Jamil answered as he went to get a coffee from the machine that was always on for the guards.
Nathaniel helped Harry finish off his one picture before he set a juice drink down in front of him before he went back to making Harry’s lunch.
Jamil watched as Harry figured out how to use the carton of juice to the best of his abilities…he’d stabbed a pencil through the foil and he was sucking on it happily, completely ignoring the straw on the side of the carton.
“When did he progress to drinking actual liquids instead of taking them through his drip?”
“Only a few days ago.” Nathaniel said as he turned to look at Harry adoringly. “Lillian said that it might be better for him to get fluids into him orally rather than intravenously. He could not work out how to use a bottle, he tipped most of the water down his front and we definitely didn’t want to give him a baby bottle or a sippy cup, so we tried him on all different sorts and he likes cartons the best, even if his way of using them is a little…different.”
Jamil chuckled at that, sitting himself down with a mug of coffee, black with no sugar. Harry handed Nathanial his sucked out carton with a grin and Nathaniel laughed as he popped it into the bin and handed Harry another carton. Harry happily stabbed it with a pencil, but he didn’t drink it this time, but he did keep it very close to himself, as if expecting it to be taken away.
“Lillian said that that is a very good sign.” Nathaniel explained. “That he’s come to trust us not to take away his food or drink. He might be a little wary, but when we first tried this he drank fifteen cartons before we realised that he wasn’t actually that thirsty, he just didn’t want to leave the cartons there in case they were taken back off of him.”
Nathaniel ruffled Harry’s uneven hair and the boy looked back and grinned before going back to his new picture. He’d gone out of the lines in four different places already. Jamil watched him closely and he saw for himself why Harry was going out of the lines when after a bit of time his hand started shaking uncontrollably from being held in the same position, curled around the pencil, for too long.
“Harry, come here.” He said softly.
Harry immediately pushed his book and pencils over to him, picked up his juice carton and loped around the table to climb onto his lap.
“Can you do this for me?” Jamil asked as he showed Harry his hand shut tight and Harry copied him. “Now this.” He said as he opened his hand as far as he could, stretching out his fingers and thumb. Harry giggled and copied him, following his lead when he closed his hand slowly back into a fist before stretching it open again.
“Now go back to your drawing.” Jamil encouraged and Harry did so happily, picking up the blue pencil and starting a new area.
Nathaniel looked on curiously and Jamil smirked.
“I think the reason that he’s going out of the lines is because his hand is cramping from being curled around the pencil for too long. If he stops and stretches it out every now and then he should be fine.”
“I never thought of that, but of course it would take less time for his hand to cramp up, especially considering how he’s spent the last several years.”
Nathaniel sighed heavily before he put a bowl of very mashed potatoes in front of Harry.
“Do you want to try something to eat, Harry?” He asked softly.
Harry looked up and cocked his head at a very awkward, impossible seeming angle, resting his ear on his shoulder to consider the bowl.
He put down his pencil and dipped his hand into the potatoes and grinned at the feeling of them before four fingers were placed into his mouth and sucked silently.
Jamil watched him in fascination as he repeated this a few times, before Nathaniel showed him how to scoop a bigger bit of potato onto his finger and Harry immediately wanted to try it.
“Why doesn’t he use a spoon?” Jamil asked.
“He hates having anything cold and metal in his mouth. We tried him on plastic spoons, but he bit one of them far too hard and it splintered in his mouth.”
“Have you tried him on silicone spoons? Those ones that you can get to teach kids how to use them.” Jamil asked.
Nathaniel shook his head. “No. We’re all a little leery of using anything baby related for him, especially with how Anita would react.”
“If it helps him, who cares.” Jamil scoffed. “He needs to learn how to use utensils again and he’s not going to be able to do that if you don’t give him the chance to use them. I can understand he doesn’t want anything cold or metal in his mouth, but those soft plastic and silicone spoons are not going to break and they are going to feel different to metal. It can’t hurt to try him on them at least.”
Nathaniel nodded. “I’ll text Jason and he can pick a pack up.” The leopard said as he did just that, typing a quick text before putting his cell back in his pocket.
Harry soon grew bored of the bowl of potatoes and he went back to his colouring book, but not before Nathaniel had quickly darted on him with a towel to clean his hands, fingers and face so that he didn’t get the potato everywhere, most particularly on Jamil, who he knew would have pitched a fit over it.
“There you are, mon petit pétale.” Jean-Claude spoke softly from the doorway. “Are you well?”
Harry grinned and wiggled excitedly until Jamil set him on the floor, watching sadly as Harry loped to Jean-Claude for a cuddle, his legs bent and his back hunched. He wasn’t even sure if they could help to fix all of the damage that had been done to Harry.
“I’ve been colouring!” Harry said excitedly, pointing to the book. “Stephen gave it to me with colours and I’ve been colouring all day!”
“All day?” Jean-Claude questioned and Harry bobbed his head happily.
“He really has.” Jamil confirmed. “He’s done half of the pictures already.”
“He’s had juice and his lunch as well.” Nathaniel said proudly.
“And Anita came around about mid-morning, when she knew you and Asher would be dead and Richard would be in work.” Jamil said with a hint of lingering anger. “Her and that FBI Agent. They tried questioning Harry even after I told them what had happened yesterday with Richard.”
“Was he alright?” Jean-Claude asked as he held Harry easily to his chest.
“He went a bit quiet.” Nathaniel answered reluctantly. “It took a bit of coaxing to get him back to colouring, but reminding him that Richard would like a picture helped draw him out of his shell.”
Jean-Claude nodded and he carried Harry back down the corridor and into the living room, where the guards had now strategically placed themselves for his protection.
Jamil followed with Harry’s pencils and colouring book and Nathaniel grabbed his open carton and two unopened ones, just in case. Anita was thankfully long gone.
“Where’s Asher?” Harry asked, looking around for his favourite vampire.
“Asher is still in bed, mon petit pétale.” Jean-Claude told him. “I am the only one awake at the moment.”
“Okay. Do you want to see my colouring?” Harry asked, looking up at him with huge, hopeful eyes.
“I would love to.”
Harry grinned and Jamil handed over the colouring book and Harry showed Jean-Claude every scribble drawing he’d done that day.
Harry tore a page out and handed it to the vampire. “This one’s for you.” Harry declared.
“Thank you, it is lovely.”
Harry giggled before going back to his current picture, colouring it in carefully with his tongue poking out. Jamil made sure to stop him from time to time to get him to stretch his hand out before it cramped.
“Asher!” Harry cried out, breaking through the conversation and rushing to the golden haired vampire happily the moment he came through the living room door.
“How are you, mon ange?”
“I’m sleepy, but I’ve been colouring, come see!”
Harry dragged his book off of the desk and showed it to Asher, before pulling out a page and handing it to him.
“This one’s for you.”
“Thank you, mon ange. I will treasure it as I treasure you.”
Harry squealed and buried himself into Asher’s chest, clenching his shirt in little fists. Just a few moments later and he was fast asleep.
“Has he slept today?” Asher asked.
Jamil shook his head. “No. I think it might have something to do with Anita’s visit. She tried to question him about the doctors, even after I told her how it had gone with Richard last night. He might have been too afraid to sleep after that.”
Asher nodded tightly, one fang bared as he cradled his boy on his lap and close to his chest. He understood the need for them to find the doctors, he wanted a piece of them too for what they’d done, but not at the expense of Harry’s happiness and mental wellbeing.
Harry didn’t deserve to spend the rest of his life traumatised and miserable just because Anita wasn’t satisfied with how hard he was already trying. Harry had given them plenty of information already, he had even upset himself yesterday just to give them the name of one of those so called doctors. Harry was doing more than enough to help the investigation and he was needlessly upsetting himself over it just to help out the police.
He would not allow Anita to harm his boy in the name of justice. Where was the justice if they questioned Harry relentlessly to the point of mental collapse just to get the doctors behind bars for what they had done to him if Harry then suffered every day for the rest of his life because of their questioning? Were they then not as guilty for his mental instability as the doctors were? No, Anita and the police needed to find another way, because he refused to let Harry pay that high a price just so that Anita could put several people in handcuffs. In his mind, it just wasn’t worth it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X
A/N: I’m so sorry that it’s been months since the last update, but I promise there will be more soon. I’m planning on finishing this fic by the end of the year, or at the latest, early next year. So it’ll be getting some much needed attention for the next few months.
StarLight Massacre. X
- 11
- 12
- 13
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Lycanthrope Factory