So, I promised myself I wouldn't write anything else until I got out another chapter of Protomage (after all, it's been like eight months), but I couldn't think of anything and this little plot bunny just wouldn't quit hopping around. So, here goes. I can't honestly say how far I'll get with this, but I've got a few chapters planned out, and vague ideas after that, and I'll probably get out a few chapters fairly soon.

I would also like to ask for help. I'm an American, and I know very little about Britishlanders. I would appreciate help with everything from vernacular to culture to food. I REALLY need help with places. What I do know mostly comes from TV and books (which, admittedly, is better than most Americans, who just get their knowledge from TV). Anyway, unless I can get a real life Britishlander to help me write HP fics, my stories are going to be strangely American sounding for something that takes place in Britain.

Anyway, without further ado, I present: Vermin Lord.

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"BOY! GET IN HERE!" bellowed Uncle Vernon.

Harry sighed. He'd been wondering why it had taken so long. In the past, he'd been beaten immediately whenever something weird happened. This time, he'd just been locked in his cupboard while Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia talked in low voices. Which was odd, because Dudley had actually been hurt when his clothes caught on fire earlier in the day. Dudley had been beating him up as a "birthday present," when Harry fell to the ground. The next thing he knew, Dudley was on fire. The school nurse had even had to take him to the hospital! Harry was sure Uncle Vernon would beat him more than ever, even though Harry hadn't had anything to do with it.

Harry walked into the kitchen, where his uncle would be waiting to deliver his beating. To his surprise, Uncle Vernon was sitting down at the table with Aunt Petunia, grinning.

Harry froze. This was far more terrifying than the threat of being beaten.

"Come with me, boy." Uncle Vernon said, getting up and moving towards the living room.

Harry followed Uncle Vernon outside to the car.

"Get in," Uncle Vernon said as he opened the door for himself.

Harry, without uttering a word, did so.

As the car pulled out of the driveway and onto the road, Uncle Vernon began whistling (or rather, trying to whistle- he wasn't very good at it).

Harry sat silently, trying to figure out where they were going. Houses passed the window, until they pulled out onto the highway. As they pulled off of the highway into an area with seedy looking shops and buildings, Uncle Vernon began talking.

"I suppose you're wondering what kind of punishment this is, boy, being taken for a drive. After all, you did try to kill Dudders. Well, I had a nice long talk with your aunt, and she's agreed that enough is enough. We took you in, we fed you, we clothed you, we provided for your education, all out of the goodness of our hearts, and how do you repay us? By trying to murder our only son. Well, no more. I've been waiting for this day a long time, boy. I'm finally going to be rid of you, once and for all." He lapsed into silence at this point.

Harry sat there, looking at the back of his uncle's head. Frankly, he wasn't sure whether to be relieved or horrified. On the one hand, the Dursleys had always been terrible to him. He'd been beaten daily (his uncle claimed it helped "keep the freakishness out of him), barely fed, and often made to work until he nearly passed out from exhaustion (if he did pass out, he would receive another beating for his laziness). On the other hand, he'd heard stories of life on the streets. It was supposed to be even worse. But, how could something be worse than the Dursleys?

He stared out the window as Uncle Vernon pulled up beside a parking deck.

"Get out, boy. And good riddance." His uncle laughed.

Mechanically, Harry climbed out of the car and stumbled to the sidewalk. As soon as he made it off the road, Uncle Vernon sped away, laughing uproariously.

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Eventually, Harry wandered into the parking deck. As he settled down for the night, he felt something. He didn't know what it was, but it felt like it was in his mind. Or rather, next to his mind. As he looked around, he saw a small grey mouse crawling across the concrete. The thing next to his mind seemed to move with it. Harry reached out towards his hand, willing the mouse to come towards him so that he could get a closer look. To his surprise, the mouse suddenly changed direction and crawled straight to him, before stopping and looking up at him. Harry willed it to crawl onto his hand, which it promptly did. Staring in wonder, he brought the mouse up to his eye level.

What was going on? Could he control this mouse? Why? Was there something special about the mouse? Was there something special about him? Suddenly, Harry realized something. "Freak," the Dursleys had called him. They had starved him and worked him so hard so that he wouldn't have enough energy for any "freakishness," they'd said. They had beaten him to keep the "freakishness" out. Whatever it was, they knew about it.

He thought about this as he lay down against a wall. The Dursleys had known there was something different about him. What was it, though? Could he control animals? No, he hadn't been able to do anything to stop Ripper from biting him. Just mice then? What if he could control mice? They could run errands for him. Find him food. Stand guard when he slept (he'd heard stories of bad men attacking people on the street whenever the Dursleys threatened to throw him out of the house).

As he considered the possible uses of being able to control mice, he tried to reach out with his mind. When he began to feel too "stretched out," he stopped and considered what he felt. He could detect a little over a dozen things, including the mouse in his hand. Three of these things "felt bigger" than the others. He called them all to him. To his surprise, he got not only eleven mice, but three rats, as well.

Keeping the first mouse, who he decided would be special, in his shirt pocket, he had the other mice and rats spread out around him and attack anybody who came close.

That done, he settled down with his new friend, who he decided to name "Alphonse," and went to sleep.

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Over the next few weeks, Harry began to work on his abilities. He quickly discovered that he had a sort of telepathic connection with his creatures. They weren't intelligent enough to communicate much, but they could tell him if something was in the area, and some very basic information. They could tell him if it was small (mouse or rat sized), big (bigger than a large rat)or really big (bigger than a medium sized dog), and if there were one or lots of something. He could also transfer his mind into one of his vermin (as he began to think of them rather affectionately) to gain control of its body and senses. If he did this he could also control any vermin that were within a few feet of it. This ability was useful for stealing food and supplies. Another thing he could do was give them orders, which they would carry out to the best of their (admittedly limited) abilities. This was mostly useful for setting guards (he didn't want to be hurt by those bad men he'd heard about). He did find out that he had to give his vermin orders to eat whenever they got hungry, otherwise they'd just stand guard (or whatever) until they just starved to death. He also learned the limitations of his ability. Once a rat entered his control, if it left a certain area, he would lose control over it, unless he had direct control of its body. If he had direct control of it, he could send it as far as he liked (as far as he could tell). Interestingly, the creature had to be about three times closer to him for him to begin controlling it than it did for him to continue controlling it. At first, he had to get within about forty feet of a creature to sense it and to begin controlling it, which meant that he could continue controlling it as long as it stayed within roughly 120 feet. Over time, he extended this ability until he could reach out his mind (to begin control- he could reach much farther with the creatures he already had) across the entire parking deck, and quite a ways beyond. When he got to the third floor, he was excited to learn that he could also control the colony of bats that lived there. He immediately set them patrolling the edges of what he'd begun to think of as his territory, which basically meant the parking deck.

Using his ability to directly control rats, he was able to make a relatively nice life for himself. There was a small department store a few blocks away, and at night he'd take over a pack of vermin and go on raids. At first, he focused on the essentials- blankets, a pillow, clothes, and food. After he'd made a nice little den, which basically consisted of a pile of blankets up against a wall, he began to branch out and steal things like books and magazines. He tried to get a small TV, but it was just too heavy for the rats, and for some reason, he didn't like the idea of stealing money to buy one with. It was fine to steal things, as long as they were in a store; after all, nobody was using them, but other people worked for their money, and they needed it- not everybody could steal as easily as he could.

Eventually, over time, his life became fairly routine. He would wake up and do some exercises (he didn't want to wind up looking like Dudley), then eat breakfast. Unfortunately, he couldn't get a refrigerator, so he was stuck with packaged food, which tasted fine, but wasn't terribly healthy, so he'd do some more exercises after eating, too. Then he'd set his vermin to patrol his territory, with orders to alert him of anything big or really big, while he read a book or magazine. Sometimes he would read about science or math, in an attempt to continue his education, but usually he preferred history and fantasy.

The patrols turned out to be very useful. A few times, the vermin alerted him to something big, which turned out to be stray dogs or cats. The cats he would order his vermin to kill (after all, cats killed mice and rats, and those were his friends), and the dogs would be watched. If they tried to harm his vermin, they would be killed. If they didn't, they were left alone. After a while, the dogs in the area learned that as long as they didn't attack anything, the parking deck made a nice little haven, and he had a small number of dogs living on the ground floor of the parking deck. He couldn't control them, but they were friendly and fun to play with.

One day, after he'd been in the parking deck for about three weeks, as he was reading The Crystal Shard, an interesting book he'd stolen from a nearby bookstore, the vermin told him that there was something really big entering the parking deck. Looking through the eyes of one of his rats, he could tell that it was an old man in too big jeans, held up by a piece of string, a torn up T-shirt, and a dirty brown coat. Over his shoulder was an old, worn out backpack, and on his face was a dirty grey beard. Harry's first instinct was to order his rats to kill the man, and he was about to do so, when a though struck him. This man may not be one of these bad men. He may be just like Harry- alone and friendless.

So Harry decided to go and talk to the stranger. He marked his page in the book and got up, making his way to the ground floor (his den was on the third floor, where he'd found an old, moth eaten couch and a table and chair- apparently he wasn't the first to use this parking deck as a home). Harry moved stealthily, his bare feet hardly making a sound against the asphalt, as he made his way to the man. He also had as many vermin as possible move in around the man, in case this turned out to be a mistake.

By the time Harry had reached the entrance to the ground floor, the man was halfway into the parking deck, and looking distinctly nervous (he had heard all the skittering and chattering, and seen a few of the bats swoop around).

Harry snuck around to the man's back, and spoke up.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, his voice raspy from disuse.

The old man jumped and whirled around, reaching for a knife hanging from the piece of string he used as a belt.

"Who'r you? What'd'you want?" the man asked.

"My name is Harry. I want to know why you're in my home," Harry said as the vermin skittered around him.

"'m just looking for a place to stay. Got inta town a few days ago, 'n' needed a place to sleep. I 'membered this place. Few friends 'n' me dragged an old couch in a couple o' years ago."

"That was you?" Harry asked, surprised. The old geezer didn't look like he could've lifted the chair, much less the couch.

"Well, mostly 'twas Jeff. He alwus did th' heavy liftin, 'fore he kicked it in a fight. Then Tiny bought it 'n ta winter o' '88- poor bugger caught 'monia, and din't never recover. Frankie went 'sane after that- Tiny was his twin, y'see, and they was real' close. 'nyway, I'm all that's left of the old crowd," finished the old man, looking sad.

Harry considered this.

"How long have you been on the streets?" he asked.

"Oh, 'ver since I was j'st teenager. Ran away from home one day 'n' got lost. By th' time my parents found me, I'd made some friends 'n' decided I liked it on the streets better. Told 'm tah git lost. Biggest m'stake I ever made. 'Twas fine for a few months, but when winter came, I nearly froze, then I fell in with tha wrong sorts, 'n' by the time I realized how bad off I was, I couldn't find m' way home."

Harry thought for a moment, then made his decision.

"Would you like to stay here with me? As long as you don't harm me or any of the animals here, I can promise food and shelter, as well as books to read," he offered.

"Thanks, son. I could use a place to stay. I'm gettin' tired of movin around all the time," the man said, before offering his hand. "M'name's Eddie. Eddie Guff."

Harry looked at the old man's hand, before stepping forward to shake it. "Harry Potter."

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There it is. A big thanks to Opinionaided's (Thumb, to newer users) L.J., for helping me remember what the hell parking decks are called. Originally I just put "big parking building thingy," because the name had slipped my memory.

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