And so the rewrite begins! AND BY REWRITE I mean that a lot of stuff in the first few chapters will stay the same, but after that everything might change. I've added details, fixed some stuff but I still don't have a beta so please be kind.

I don't own anything.

In retrospect, he really should have just said no.

There was nothing forcing him to take up the invitation from his new employee. In fact, he was ninety percent sure the offer for dinner had only been made out of courtesy when their businesses merged and the man became a part of Wayne Enterprises, however distant and cordial the partnership was.

Instead he had been hungry and his stomach had spoken for his brain. Which was why he was sitting inside of a little two story house on a normal street in a normal town in England with a man so normal it was making his palms itch.

He had never met someone who was so, so-

Plain. Completely and totally plain. There was nothing interesting about him at all, aside from his superior attitude and portly shape. The attitude was bewildering. It was clear that Vernon thought him to be less than him, but he was also a simpering sap who had no idea how well Bruce Wayne could hear his little quips towards his work friend.

"Born into it, honestly. And did you hear the latest? He's got a kid! Man like that, not fit for it. Not the right sort of person to be hanging around, you know?"

It was his fault, to be fair. He did put on a pretty boisterous persona, and his public face was, well.

Definitely not the 'right sort' as Vernon had dared declare to Oscar by the water cooler. It was one of the most surreal moments of his life.

For a vigilante, that was saying something.

He offered the wife his best smile over a pot of roast beef. It didn't smell particularly mouthwatering. In fact it looked, and tasted, perfectly average.

Everything about it was plain. Bland. Boring.

Except the flash of lightning that waved at him through a curtain of dark hair moped on top of the youngest family members head. It reminded him of some of the multitude of scars that raced across his own body. Twenty percent of his flesh, to be exact.

That particular boy was, in fact, much smaller than Bruce expected for an eight year old.

He was also hilarious.

More than once Bruce found himself stifling a smile at the little boy's sass. Vernon and Petunia were less fond. Petunia less so, seeing as she was almost entirely focused on Dudley, a boy who could stand to go outside a little more. And maybe get a decent nanny, if his parents were so inept. No nine year old should pitch a fit that would put a two year old to shame.

It actually hurt his ears to hear the child shriek for thirds.

Bruce's smile was plastered glass.

The conversation he barely paid attention to. Something about recent government changes. He played the ignorant billionaire once more.

Most of his attention was on the child. Harry. Harry Potter. He knew the name but he couldn't figure out where from. It was prickling the back of his neck until he wanted nothing more than to hunt down a computer.

He would figure it out eventually.

Dinner passed. Desert was bland.

Bruce thanked them with according grace at the door, and when Vernon made vague mention of doing it again he pounced.

"I'm free next Wednesday," he declared, "I'll be by around six."

He didn't give the sputtering salesmen time to object before he was crossing the front lawn to reach his expensive, rented car. He didn't care about the adults. Harry though.

Bruce stopped by the sidewalk to reach down and scratch a little grey cat behind the ears.

"You better get out of here, pretty kitty, before you meet a car up close and personal." He couldn't imagine Vernon, or anyone else in this neighborhood, swerving for a cat.

Bruce slipped into his car and drove away.

"Why would Morgan le Fey be in Gotham?"

He leaned on the desk of one Jason Blood, his eyes on the ancient man. Jason was pacing around his office, gathering seemingly miscellaneous items from around. There was no doubt in Batman's mind that they were for some spell or another.

"I do not know yet," Jason frowned severely. A stray strand of his white shock fell across his brow. The old Knight looked at the Dark Knight. A book appeared in his hands.

"What was that new exhibit in the museum?" he asked, eyes rolling up ever so to show his thoughts.

"The Sword of Beowulf? Or the new Monet's they found in France?" He was already keeping an eye on the latter. It was worth millions, there would be a massive target on the painting.

"Can't be those. Are there any Gala's I don't know about?" the book flipped open and Jason started muttering under his breath in Latin. Bruce mentally translated it.

'Cursed children run where demons fear to tread. Lilac skies and blue flowers mark the palace of the-'

Cursed Children.

"Harry Potter." The name struck him again, all at once. Jason lifted his head quickly, staring at Batman. His brows furrowed.

"What about him?" Jason had told him about the boy a few years ago, a passing mention when the anniversary of the fall of You-Know-Who (Who Bruce most certainly Did Not Know). An infant who had ended a war, and was left with a scar and dead parents to show for the deed. Bruce could sympathize. He'd recently taken in another orphan, in fact, a little acrobat named Dick Grayson.

"I met him last week," he recalled. "I sat across from him at the dinner table."

Jason 'hmm'd at him. "How is the boy?"

Bruce rolled his shoulders. Frowned under his cowl, further than he normally did.

"He's small," he said simply. He would look more into it, this week. He didn't like the size of the seven year old, or the rapid shut downs of Vernon.

"Part of Lydian Hoard is being displayed privately by Sophia Starr," Bruce recalled, his mind turning back to le Fey.

Jason's eyes narrowed. "Do you have an invitation handy?"

Batman's mouth twitched. "I think I can arrange something."

He kept inviting himself back for three months.

He claimed it was for the food.

He was lying through his teeth.

Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived.

"So, Harry," Bruce began one evening, "Know any magic?"

He had volunteered to wash the dishes with the boy while Petunia, Vernon and Dudley all went to sit in the living room and watch the TV. It had taken him a few weeks before they were comfortable enough, or careless enough, to leave the little boy with Bruce alone. Did they think he wouldn't notice how scrawny he was? Or the harshly whispered threats of a cupboard?

Bruce had tried to get the British equivalent of Child Services to investigate, but a week afterwards he'd called and they had no record, nor recollection of his report. It was disconcerting, to say the least.

That had brought him here, today, doing his own investigation.

"Magic?" Harry kept his voice very quiet, looking up at Bruce through round glasses. His hair had gotten wet from a splash back and was plastered to his forehead, hiding the distinctive scar. His eyes were a very bright green, sparkling with a sort of mischief when his aunt and uncle weren't there to pay any attention to it.

"Yeah, magic," Bruce scrutinized the plate in his hand, rubbing circles around it with the scrubber that caught unpleasantly on his callouses.

Harry looked down at the glass he was holding, hunched forwards slightly.

"Uncle Vernon doesn't like magic," he said quietly. "He says there's no such thing and we shouldn't pretend that- um, stuff like that."

"He says we shouldn't stuff like that?" Bruce repeated, offering Harry a vaguely amused smile. He didn't want to scare the boy. He just wanted the truth. Whether he liked it or not.

Harry hunched in on himself a little.

"He says that magic is for freaks and he won't tolerate it in the house."

Anyone else wouldn't have heard the words. Anyone who did would have frozen, the anger boiling in their stomach stilling the hands from the work of cleaning off left over sauce.

Bruce heard. Bruce did not stop scrubbing nor did he grip the plate to hard it broke in his hands, though he could have easily.

Instead, Bruce nodded slowly and handed the plate to Harry with his drying cloth.

"I see," he said. Harry cringed and tried to shuffle away, but a wet hand on his shoulder stopped him. Children shouldn't flinch the way he did when he was touched.

Bruce spoke around icy spikes of fury in his throat. "It's okay," he promised, voice soft, "I won't tell anyone you told me. Was it supposed to be a secret?"

"I- I don't think so. But he doesn't like me talking to other people."

Bruce had figured as much.

"Then we'll just keep it between us, hmm?" Bruce winked at him. Harry smiled back, just a little, and they returned to dish washing.

Bruce left soon after that, mind tumbling with thoughts, plans, contingency plans and questions. He bid Vernon farewell (secretly wondering the best way to fire him) and complemented Petunia (trying to figure out if she was just an enabler or something more) and patted Dudley on the head (Deciding that firing his father might bring wrath upon an annoying but innocent child and dismissing that particular idea) before retreating to his car, parked around one of the perfectly manicured brushes that separated one dull house from the other.

He had to pause to breath, to slow the pulse beating in his neck and think more clearly. Less like Bruce, more like Batman. The cool air of twilight brushed across his jaw, and a soft sound brought his eyes down to the concrete where a little grey tabby sat.

Bruce moved his arms to she could jump up and sit in his lap, perfectly graceful.

Bruce sat in his open car door, petting the grey tabby in his lap. She was friendly, and usually there when he stopped by for Dinner with the Dursley's. Wonderful as it was, Bruce considered the cat to be his favorite part of the evening, besides Harry and his occasional smart remark. Harry, who was leagues too small for an eight year old. He'd checked.

"You don't know anything about malnourishment, do you Grace?" He'd started calling the little cat that sometime ago. He couldn't say exactly when. "You can't be a stray," he declared. His fingers worked along her spine, feeling her ribs. There was a safe amount of muscle worked along beneath his grip, and when she started grooming herself he saw her claws were in working order and her gums weren't swollen.

No malnutrition on this cat.

He plucked her out of his lap and set her on the sidewalk, trading the cat for car keys.

"I wonder if Wizards have social services," he mused, shutting the door before he could see the feline reel back in surprise.

The cat watched him drive away, head tilted in thought.

When the fourth month finally rolled around and Bruce went to Privet Drive he found the door being opened by a white faced Vernon and red faced Petunia, the exact opposite of what he was accustomed to, and a wide eyed Harry being shoved into his legs.

Bruce caught him carefully, minding the way Harry shrunk away from his family and into Bruce's fine dress pants. He turned a frown up at the pair. Dudley was behind them, howling about Harry.

"I think I missed something," he said. Petunia had tears in her eyes but didn't seem to be able to speak, and Vernon. Vernon looked somewhere between terrified and furious, and the result had him quivering with tight muscles. Bruce was ready to take any hit he might go for, already starting to push Harry behind him when the man finally spat out a single sentence.

"Don't come back," Vernon's voice rose and cracked like a teenagers before the door slammed shut in Bruce's face. He blinked once. Twice. Thrice.

He looked down to see both Harry and Grace at his feet, one confused and scared and the other the sort of smug only a cat could be.

Dick was going to love this.