There's blood under Harry's fingernails that don't wash away no matter how many times she washes her hands.
It's nothing sinister, like murder, but through exposure. She loves using blood as a medium when summoning and the color has stuck on to her nails. She doesn't believe that using brushes helped, because then she'd have to factor in what kind of hair in the summoning.
So no, Harry paints her circles with blood and her fingers.
The red colors on her fingers are distracting and sort of not conducive for dating life, especially when her date asks her, "So your fingers are red. Do you paint?"
She could lie and say yes, she paints, leaving out what she paints, but that had already backfired on her once, when she'd brought the man home and he'd seen the spell books on the wall, the talisman and charms hanging from her ceiling and the cat playing with a skull.
Harry tries dating, evading mentions about what she did for a living and why it translated to red fingers. Keyword: tries. Because all three attempts fail miserably and Harry gives up after number three ran screaming from Fifi toying with her mother's skull.
"I give up," she sighs, scooping up the cat and picking up the skull. She puts it back over the mantle after making sure that Fifi hadn't scratched it. Not that Fifi would, since she was conscientious like that. "I guess I'll die a virgin. And alone."
The skull vibrates Lily's disapproval and Harry sighs again.
"Shut up, mum. You don't have my problems. You don't even specialize in necromancy, so you can't tell me you've done something about it," Harry points out.
The skull buzzes in that specific manner that Harry knows. "I'm not skulking."
The problem with a family line so steeped in magic is that death really isn't a barrier. Harry ignores any other buzzing and goes to her room to gloomily contemplate summoning herself a boyfriend. She needs to get laid at least, because the family line needs to continue.
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The Evans Family are all witches, going back a century. They are also all women with the father's suspiciously dying at one point and or becoming suddenly pregnant without a man.
Harry is pretty sure that she's got a lot of inhuman mixes in her, because when she opens the family spellbook, the spell to summon, one night stand is bookmarked and pretty much annotated with a lot of commentary.
One grandmother even adds, "be sure to be specific about their looks, because mine is pretty hairy."
It's mortifying and hindsight is really twenty-twenty. All those unexplained, sudden pregnancies make sense. (Also, it makes her feel better that it's not only her that had a problem about getting a date.)
"Am I really doing this, Fifi?" she asks the cat.
"Meow," says Fifi sternly.
Harry nods, setting down the spellbook and flicking fingers red with drying human blood.
At the first sentence, the circle starts to turn a molten color, gold flecking up the edges of the circle. It's a good response and she continues, closing her eyes against the brightness and chanting in a soft, unwavering voice. She can feel the world start to warp in response to the summoning, a tear opening in the reality of the world.
By the fifth sentence, the air is heavy and it makes breathing difficult.
By the seventh, the air is freezing and her breathe fogs with every exhale.
When she finishes, it's like dragging a stone over a steep mountain and she's gulping in air desperately. To complete the ritual, she slams her bloody hands on the floor, red smearing on the wood. Like a response, the lights dim so suddenly that it hurts and in the aftermath, only the sound of her heavy gasping breaths are audible.
Then another person breathes, right inside the circle and Harry snaps a hand to light the candles.
Despite how man shaped the creature inside the circle is, Harry does not mistake him for a man. No man would have black eyes that sucked in the lights, reflecting nothing back. His teeth are a hint too sharp and his ears are slightly pointed.
Still, it's easy to ignore all those signs because he is the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life. So far.
Sharp cheekbones, tanned skin and spiky black hair, all of that mashed together to make a very handsome specimen. Look alike. Harry had to remind herself that he is not a man.
"Summoner," he greets, naming her.
Harry knows she doesn't look particularly witch-like, with her vivid t-shirt and sparkly headband. She smiles at him, a wicked smile that's probably hereditary.
"Hello," Harry answers. She's in no rush and she waits while he reads the runes written in blood.
When he gets to the part of getting her pregnant, his eyes go wide. Then he turns to look at her, deadpan.
She knows she doesn't need to explain herself to him, but the need is still there. "It's hard to get dates when I'm a witch. And some human men are just so huffy about unprotected sex." Never mind that she can't catch their diseases anyway.
He smiles. "So, witch. Are you letting me out of this circle?" he asks and his tone of voice makes her want to shiver. "Unless you prefer to do this standing up, we can't exactly lie down in the space you've drawn."
Harry knows she's as red as her mother's hair.
"C - Contract," she squeaks. "Let's make a contract, then I'll let you out of the circle. For the love of Morgana, stop wiggling your eyebrows!"
He gives a wicked laugh and Harry groans, absolutely mortified.
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The contract is an airtight unbreakable piece of paper that bound a summoned creature to the witch until everything is fulfilled.
Harry is somewhat amazed that she could write a contract down with how much blood is rushing to her face. The summoned creature had introduced himself as Reborn, a rather incongruous name for what she suspects his species really is.
"Sign please," she says, pointing to the dotted line.
Reborn reads everything, even the fine print. It had been a bit simple to come up with a contract, there had been a template stuck on the back of the summoning spell as an afterthought. Almost like one of her ancestors had realized contracts were necessary for letting summoned creatures out of circles.
He gestures to her pen and signs it, careful and very deliberate. He puts down a rune that sparks and threatens to light the paper on fire. Harry holds her breath and lets it out when it doesn't.
Harry holds the paper carefully, feeling the weight of magic that had been absent earlier. It's a careful magic albeit an incomplete one. She holds the pen and signs just as carefully on her part, completing the contract and turning the paper unbreakable and solid.
They complete the contract that night, a lovely intense thing that made Harry so grateful that she puts silencing sigils on her walls.
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The problem comes nine months later, when Harry gives birth and realizes exactly who she summoned.
The babies are too beautiful, with sharp teeth and pointy ears.
The lack of bellybutton confirms her suspicions.
"Oh my god," she says, more of a sigh of exasperation than anything. "I have the worst luck."
She had summoned a demon prince.
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Happy Headcanons for the Necromancer!Harry AU
-Harry is a good necromancer, the kind that recycles ingredients and doesn't throw around necromantic energy.
-She volunteers in local organizations that says "Clean up Our City" and "Our Youth Today".
-Reborn, when he finds out, laughs for ten minutes.
-Like seriously, she finds the best ingredients in things people throw out, so it's a win-win.
-Her clients all think she just speaks to the dead. Like, ya know, their spirits. Really, she does speak to them, but resurrection is a whole different pie from spirit summoning.
-Her favorite clients are those looking for closure. Her hated clients are those looking for family secrets. Honestly. Why?
- Lily Potter wrote in her will to have her skull left to her daughter.
-Harry , when she heard, wanted to bang her head on the wall. Her mother, even beyond the grave, still doing helicopter parenting.
-James Potter was an anomaly, given that he was one of the handful of partners of Evan's witches that survived beyond six months.
-Apparently, Grandmother Dorea's shock at such partnership was felt. Her skull vibrated so hard it cracked, much to Lily's relief.
-(Because, 'le gasp!", they got married!)
-Reborn shows up when the twins are a year old and starting to play around with elemental magic.
-He thinks he made a half-demon, but really, Evans blood has so much other mixes in it that they just end up magical.
-They have arguments. Mostly on how to raise the twins.
-Harry wants to raise proper witches. Reborn wants a child to bring down to hell.
-(It ends up with both of them in bed tho…)
-Reborn has minions (lesser demons?) to help Harry around the house. Those minions have scuffles with Fifi the cat and lose.
-Fifi the cat is really not just a cat.
-No one knows what though. She's been around for a long time.
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Harry has Summoning Problems ™
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