fic: Wizard's Familiar [Harry Potter]
Title: Wizard's Familiar
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Harry Potter
Prompt: Only wizards and witches have (visible) daemons
As long as Harry can remember, Amnelion has always crept along at his side. In the cupboard he would dance on the ceiling as a spider. At school he would be a mouse curled up in the crook between Harry's shoulder and neck, whispering right answers into his ear while Harry chewed the end of his pencil and fretted over maths tests.
During summer breaks when Harry could slip out of the house while Aunt Petunia was busy with Dudley, he and Nell would hide in corners of the local park, Nell turning into a great hog and wobbling around imitating Uncle Vernon.
One of the neighbors spied him one day, laughing and chatting with air. She mentioned it to Aunt Petunia, who turned white and dragged Harry away from the half-trimmed hedges. "You're seeing things that aren't there!" She hissed, and slammed the cupboard closed.
Harry knew better than to try to leave his cupboard without permission; Vernon still installed a deadbolt the next day. "Touched in the head," he muttered while he worked. Harry heard it all through the half-open vents. Nell curled up against his side, nervous rabbit nose twitching.
"They have them too," Nell said. "They just don't know it." He described the wheezing bulldog that shadowed Vernon's footsteps and the shrewd-eyed bird that hopped on the fence while Petunia spied on the neighbors. He spoke of Dudley's animal that changed like Harry's did, favoring fat sturdy animals like his father. Harry couldn't see them, though. For the first time, he wondered.
Every night Vernon locked Harry in, saying he couldn't trust someone so disturbed around his family. Harry tried to ignore Nell after that, pointedly turning away every time he tried to talk and carefully folding himself up to avoid contact. The problem was that ignoring Nell hurt, like he was trying to tear something fundamental out of himself.
He held out until Dudley decided to play another round of Harry Hunting, still thin enough at this point to chase him up and down the streets of Surrey with his gang in tow. Nell flew in front of him, a small fast bird, and cried out where the safest routes were. Harry eeled between a gap in the fence that Nell had spotted and dashed another block down, ducking behind some garbage bins to catch his breath.
Nell landed on the top of the bin and changed into a snake, extending his head tentatively forwards. Harry held out his arm for Nell to wrap around, softly stroking him in silent apology. Uncle Vernon called him crazy, but Nell knew things that Harry couldn't, heard conversations that Harry hadn't; he couldn't be just in Harry's head.
What he was? Harry didn't know. But as he whispered softly to Nell and Nell flicked his forked tongue against Harry's palm, he knew ignoring it could never be an option.