I'll Do A Better Job Than You Ever Could

Prologue

" - spoken
' - thoughts
§ - parseltongue

Bang!! - sounds

Expelliarmus - spell, charm, hex, curse or magical item

It was a grey and rainy night in Gotham just like home. The dreary weather was quite common, along with the screams for help and gunshots. This is the most crime-ridden city in all of America...

The city where one Harry Potter decided to stay for the rest of his stay in this dimension. And currently he was looking for a very specific someone. He walked through shadows of the the buildings and allies as transport and scanned with his magic trying to find his target because he can feel that he's getting closer.

The pull he was feeling, getting stronger with each step that he took, led him to a warehouse that had the loud sounds of gunshots pouring out of an open door. Clearly not meant to be open, shown by the two dead men outside the door.

'Probably guards, unimportant now,' Harry thought to himself. He didn't come for them or whoever they were trying to protect. But he knew the one who he was, was likely the one who did. He wove a hand over himself that cloaked him with a Disillusionment and Quietening Charm. Then walked past the cooled corpses into the building, blood washing away in the rain. He looked around and focused on the pull that made him walk a long, grey corridor. His footsteps were silent against the tiling, he reached the end of the hallway and reached a fork. He turned his face left... and saw another dead body of a man that was lying by the entry way of it face first. He walked towards it and examined it, the blood was still pouring out from the headshot.

'Looks like he failed to escape,' Harry thought to himself as he walked inside the room and found dead bodies surrounding a long table. There were papers and documents on the table with a few pictures of little girls and boys. He picked up the papers with a gloved hand and looked them over with narrowed Killing Curse green eyes hidden by a hood.

'Looks like a human trafficking ring,' he thought as he read the documents ,'I can't hear any more gun shots but judging from the blood, he might still be here or near by-'

Bang!!

Harry's face whipped around to the right in the direction of the sound. He shoved the papers in his top right cargo pants pocket for later research and ran out of the room. He ran back into the corridor and went the other direction he had not considered yet. He ran past the first corridor and turned right.

He saw an oak wood door on the left of the corridor that was left open a crack, letting out a sliver of light. Harry pulled out an Extendable Ear from his tool belt and threw it by the door. He stood at the corner far enough for the charm not to be seen through but he didn't care much about that, ready in position to leave if he was wrong to start again.

"C-come on man, I-I'll pay you double no! Triple! Whatever who's paying you if you leave me alone!" shouted a man. But Harry could have heard that without the ear.

"I'm not here for money," responded a robotic voice.

'Probably a voice modulator,' Harry thought to himself.

"Please man! I don't wanna die!" The man whimpered pathetically.

"Shoulda thought of that before you decided to sell innocent kids," The robotic voice replied, a slight snarl to his words.

Bang!!

Harry heard the gun go off and the light thump of a body hitting the floor.

He the ear from the door as soon as he heard the sound. Footsteps that were muffled, likely from a carpeted floor, coming towards the door. He sucked in a breath at the figure who opened the door.

He couldn't see his face but his magic was singing at the man he knew to be his son. The shiny, bright red helmet and kevlar body armour with his old brown leather jacket on top, Harry covers his mouth with his hand to cover his sobs as tears roll down his face. Harry tries to blink them away.

When he opens them, a gun gets pointed in his general direction. It could hit him but he was so happy at that moment he wouldn't care.

"I know someone's there," Jason said in a cool voice," If that's you M'gann trying to check on me again, I will be angry."

Harry drops the spells so quickly that you'd miss them in a blink.

Jason, his son, stiffened at the sight of him. Harry is not immediately recognisable with his black leather jacket with green accents on the sleeves in swirls, the baggy black cargo shorts with an Undetectable Extension Charm and the newest thing was the golden phoenix that was emblazoned on his kevlar armour. He knows his son can't immediately tell that it's him with the hood spelled to shroud his face, but Harry had taken some inspiration from the original costume Jason wanted for himself (he and Bruce were the only one's to see it).

Harry slowly removes his hand from his mouth and raises his hand towards his hood, which causes Jason to tighten his grip on the gun but he continues anyway, and pulls it down revealing his face.

Harry hadn't been the same since Jason was gone. His eyes had deep bruises from many sleepless nights and tears were still streaming from his face, but he was smiling so hard and his eyes shone brighter.

Like they used to from a long night from fighting bad guys and safely coming home to see him

Jason dropped the gun with a clatter to the tiled ground of the corridor. His shoulders starting to shake.

"Mama...?" Jason asks in a shaky tone.

Harry chuckles at the familiar call.

"Yeah it's me..." Harry continues with more confidence," Aren't you gonna give me a hug? You still owe me one."

His arms were open when his son-

his son who's alive and breathing and here

-walks into his arms and carefully hugs him like he'll break-

like he'll leave him alone or disappear which he'll never do again

-and Harry hugs back tightly.

"I missed you so much Mama. You were r-right, I shouldn't've done it, I s-should have s-stayed w-with y-you-," Jason broke off sobbing into Harry's shoulder and holding him tighter, like a lifeline.

Harry shushed him, holding his son close to him.

"It's okay, it's okay," said Harry,"I'm right here, Mama is right here and I'm not going anywhere."

Harry said this with an eery glow in his eyes that Jason couldn't see. Harry concentrated and then they were gone, far away from the blood and corpse filled warehouse.

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Published: 28 May 2022