A Darker Form of Magic, book one: Dark Affinity

Chapter One

Warning: There is an OC, but they only show up during the summers.

Harry may seem a little out of character, but I wanted to write him where he grew more carful over the years with the Dursleys,

Disclaimer: Anything that you recognize, I do not own.

Cross posted on AO3

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The field was still warm from the day's sun as Harry laid down in it, staring up at the vast night sky. The bugs and frogs buzzed and croaked almost pleasantly in the distance, a soft melody that was just about as close to a lullaby as the boy knew that he would ever get. But he couldn't sleep just yet.

Grass rustled by the boy's ear as another sat down in the field next to him. Harry didn't need to look to know just who the newcomer was. There was no one else that it could be after all. No one else would really be crazy enough to sneak out at night to meet the green eyed boy in a field at night, especially not for so many nights over the past school year.

"Nice night," Jude Finley observed as he fitted himself at the younger boy's side, their arms pressed closely together in a way that neither of them ever allowed for anyone else to do so.

Jude's voice was gruff as he spoke, even at the age of eleven. Harry liked it that way though as opposed to his more joyous classmates, the ones that could hardly ever be found without a laugh in their words. Harry understood the gruffness of the other much better than anything else. It matched his own after all.

"No shit," the lightning scarred boy cursed, ignoring the older boy's false gasp of deslblife. Jude had no room to be making such noises, both of the boys knew that much. "Oh, shut it Finley. You're the one that I learned it from."

"Fuck it," the older boy cursed indignantly. Out of the corner of Harry's eyes he could just make out the older boy threading his fingers through the tall grass. "You're right."

Harry hummed gently, biting down the remark that he normally was. "How did you get away?" The black haired boy asked the brown haired one instead, even though he'd already heard the answer before too many times to count.

"Out the side door," the other boy lied. Harry knew that it was one as sure as he knew the name of the brightest star in the night sky.

There were fresh scraps on the older boy's arm from getting it caught on a tree limb while he was climbing out of the window of his room on the second floor of the Boy's Home that he lived in. It was a lie that Harry knew Jude told and stuck to after the green eyed boy had become angered with the reckless blue eyed one for twisting his ankle the first time that they had met like this.

It was a lie that Harry let the other tell him so that they wouldn't fight.

"How did you escape?" The older boy asked even though Harry knew that he already knew the younger boy's lie. He just didn't know that it was one.

"Through the patio door and over the fence," Harry told the other easily. And really it wasn't much of a lie at all as he'd done just that. It was a lie of omission as he'd done so much more before that.

The cupboard door had been shut and locked tight when the Dursleys had gone to sleep for the night, but that didn't really matter so much when Harry was a freak, as his relatives so kindly called the boy. The door had thrummed and heated almost as if it was alive when Harry had placed his hand upon it and vanished the structure altogether for long enough for the boy to slip across the threshold before it came back. After that, everything had gone exactly as Harry had said.

It wasn't all that long ago that Harry had learned that when he really wanted things to, he could make seemingly impossible things happen. He could remember running once, as far and as fast as his legs could take him, which was much farther than most boys his age given his practice despite his sorry state, as Dudley and his little gang had chased after him. 'Harry Hunting,' they had so joyously called it.