Title: Investments

Fandom: Supernatural x Harry Potter

Rating: T

Characters: Lots of them

[A/N:] Thanks for the response, guys, have a long, Harry-centric chapter. One of the things I like to do is check the stats to see who's been reading from what country— shout-out to that one guy reading this from Zimbabwe, you're pretty cool.

Disclaimers: Since I forgot, I do not own the genius that was created by Kripke and Rowling alike; I also don't own the chunk of paragraph from HP and the Sorcerer's Stone that I used here to set up the chapter.

Investments

A Supernatural x Harry Potter crossover

By S. Voltaire

Ever since he was small, Harry Potter had known he was different.

The Dursleys had taken great pains to make sure he knew it, at any given moment of the day, and even though they might have been related by blood, you really couldn't call them his family in anything but name only.

When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look.

Whenever he wistfully thought of these peculiar strangers, though, they unfortunately brought to mind the… other strangers. These strangers weren't anything like the oddly colorful ones, who seemed to place themselves in his life almost deliberately and knew him when he had never seen them before in his life. No, these strangers were… normal-ish. They didn't know him, he didn't know them. They never gave the slightest glance in his direction when they chanced to walk by in the streets, and Harry was perfectly fine with this, for these relatively normal strangers all had, in fact, two different faces.

It was not in the way one might think, being neither two heads on one set of shoulders or an extra face on the back of the head. At times Harry had doubted whether or not he was simply seeing thing. The stranger, being either a man or a woman, would be really rather normal in all first appearances. But, with enough attention, it would become clear that a peculiar sort of shadow seemed to drift in patches around their bodies, and within this shadow the stranger's features would wobble, going from solid to a thin, transparent look as if the skin on their faces was stretched tight across an ill-fitting surface. And finally, underneath the transparent flesh would finally be…

It was under no uncertain terms that Harry began to refer to them as the two-faced monsters.

Curiously, (or worryingly, he hadn't quite decided) no one else seemed to notice them in the way he did. He knew because Aunt Petunia had once cuffed his ears and screeched about there being no such thing as two-faced monsters, when that very day a monster had nearly knocked her over at the supermarket, without apologizing or even looking back. Thus he had filed it away under things not to talk about, next to 'his parents' and 'questions' and 'speaking in general.'

Harry supposed that in the end it was just another factor that made him the freak his so-called family insisted he was, and who was he to argue? Strange things always seemed to happen around him whether he wanted it or not, so who was he to say that the colorful strangers or two-faced monsters were any different from him? They simply were. Whenever he felt himself become particularly depressed by this, the boy would remind himself that he just lived here, as he had been doing for the last nine years of his life.

Wait, scratch that;

Ten years, as of this morning. Double digits and all.

Harry allowed himself a brief moment of happy thoughts. He was still shut up in his tiny cupboard under the stairs, and as such Aunt Petunia wouldn't see him smiling in the dark; she usually discouraged him from smiling, since if he looked too happy she thought he was up to something and would be overly suspicious for the rest of the day.

Thinking of his birthday experiences in general, the last time this date had rolled around he'd received a half-empty package of chewing gum that Dudley later swiped to share with his friends, so Harry did not hold much hope for any sort of meaningful gift from his relatives. Really he almost wished that they'd simply forget the date. Then he could pretend it was just another day in the Dursley household, and maybe stop having the tiniest of wishes that on his birthday something good would finally happen to him.

At that exact moment Aunt Petunia's bony knuckles rapped themselves sharply at his door with a sharp rat-tat-tat on the wood, followed by her shrill voice;

"Up! Get up! What are you, sleeping the day away?"

… Well, on the bright side, he'd been allowed undisturbed for half an hour longer than usual. Maybe that was his present this year.

With a stifled yawn, and the click of the lock on the door being undone from the outside, Harry crawled out of the dark cupboard, blinking at the sudden light. He hurriedly fixed his glasses on his nose as Aunt Petunia came bustling out of the kitchen to grip his shoulder in her long fingers, hurrying him along.

"There's breakfast on the table," she said shortly, propelling him to the family table where Vernon Dursley sat reading the morning paper, "Hurry and eat. The garden needs weeding and the lawn needs cutting, so don't laze around!"

Breakfast was a single piece of toast and a glass of water. Curiously, there were two other objects placed at his usual corner of wood, and Harry blinked as he picked one of them up—

"A coat hanger?" he said slowly, and the tips of Uncle Vernon's newspaper rustled.

"Your birthday present. Hang your clothes up so I don't have to iron them so often," Petunia said in clipped words, and Harry nodded meekly. His second present was a large and lumpy pair of socks that looked far too big for his tiny, narrow feet; they must have come from Vernon.

"Is that ungratefulness I hear, boy?" Uncle Vernon barked from over his paper when Harry gave no inclination of making noise at all, to which the boy hastily shook his head.

"No, thank you. They're… They're brilliant. Thanks," he added the last word for extra measure. Mr. Dursley glared at him from the over the edge of the news, but in the end flicked it back up with a grunt, letting Harry know that he'd dodged the bullet on that one.

Then it was outside to weed the garden and cut the lawn.

Luck was on his side, for his cousin Dudley had spent the night at a friend's house, not coming back until the evening. Because of that Harry didn't have to deal with having dirt kicked up in his face, or discarded weeds stuffed down the back of his shirt. The prized garden of the Dursleys was expansive, and as Uncle Dursley left for work and the sun crept across the sky piles of weeds grew in uneven piles as he worked his way around, inch by inch. Sweat was rolling down his neck as he worked, accompanied by an unpleasant tingle that undoubtedly spoke of sunburn.

He finished well in the afternoon with an aching back and sore hands. No one could say he never spent enough time outdoors. That left the lawn, something Harry looked forward to even less than the weeding. The Dursleys owned the kind of lawnmower operated by human power, and seemed to take vindictive pleasure in allowing the grass to grow just long enough for it to take all of the boy's strength to cut a few feet, let alone the entirety. Then they would usually yell at him for letting it grow so long in the first place.

Maybe he'd open a landscaping company when he was older, Harry though dully as he fetched the ancient tool. He'd have all the experience necessary by the time he started secondary school.

The sun continued its slow journey across the sky, quite ignoring the skinny and rather undersized boy toiling away under its rays. He'd only barely finished half of it when the postman came round on his delivery, sometime around four o'clock. He was new and still learning the route; Petunia had taken to complaining bitterly about the late hour of the mail and how he ought to have been sacked ages ago. Today, the postman seemed harried, trotting along a pace away from running. He fairly stuffed the day's mail through slot as Harry watched, then hurried away with the slightest of waves.

Unfortunately, he'd dropped something, and he was gone before Harry could shout. So he dropped the mower, taking the opportunity for at least a minute's break (he was fairly certain of blisters in the morning) and fetched the piece of mail where it lay. It turned out to be a magazine, one of the gardening variety that had lots of pictures Aunt Petunia liked thumbing through in order to criticize the contents. The cover had a very nice lawn on it, one with a perfectly kept turf that even had the stripes of green in alternating colours. If only he could make the Dursley's lawn that way, Harry thought wistfully. Not that it would make his job any easier.

Aunt Petunia only swiped the magazine from his hands, insulting the postman for his poor work and slamming the door back in Harry's face. She hadn't even spared him a glance, and as Harry plodded back to his labour, he couldn't help but allow the faintest curl of annoyance to rise in his belly. He was tired, sore, and hot, no one had given him any refreshments since breakfast, his hands were blistering and his neck was burnt, and today was his tenth birthday.

And the lawn still needed to be finished.

Harry was not only annoyed, now. Instead he felt rather angry, as he aimed a vicious kick at the metal mower (bruising his toe, but he honestly didn't care.)

"Stupid…" he muttered to himself, then ground his teeth together. With mower in hand, he attack the next patch of grass quite viciously, testament to his foul mood.

Obviously nothing good would be happening on his birthday. He probably never would receive a present better than a coat hanger. He would not see the hint of a glass of water no matter how hot it was until he finished with this ruddy lawn which he thoroughly wished would cut itself…

The lawnmower jumped, suddenly gliding much faster over the ground, though it took Harry a minute or so to wonder why that was.

The boy stopped. Blinked. Felt his mouth go dry.

In front of his eyes stretched the Dursely's lawn, very green and very tidy, cut exactly like the nice lawn from the magazine with alternating stripes of colour and all.

Normally one might be overjoyed at this, but not Harry Potter. This was strange. Strange was bad. Only, there was nothing to be done about it now that it had already happened; the anger in his belly quickly vanished to be replaced by a strong sense of dread as Harry looked helplessly on.

There really was nothing to be done about it. In the end Harry put the lawnmower away, and strode back to the house in some trepidation, knocking on the door with a shaking hand.

"What?" Petunia said crossly when she came, "I said you weren't allowed back in until you finished, and not a moment soon—"

"I'm finished," Harry spoke, and Aunt Petunia glared at him.

"You are not. I looked out the window a minute ago. You aren't even halfway finished."

Oh. That made things a bit harder. Harry simply gestured uselessly at the yard, and suspicious as always his aunt looked up, mouth opening to spew out more annoyance— and stopped, the words freezing in her throat.

The lawn lay innocently in front of her.

"How… but you… how did…" the woman spluttered, trying to find the correct phrases, then abruptly snapped her mouth shut. "You," she growled. Harry shrank back, cowering under her narrowed gaze. "You… did something funny, didn't you? Didn't you?"

It didn't really matter how he defended himself, or how nice the lawn looked. Petunia Dursley simply seized her nephew by the hair and dragged him all the way back to his cupboard, furiously berating him for performing his strangeness in broad daylight.

And so, still tired and thirsty, Harry was thrown into the small space, the lock echoing being him with a muffled snick.

Surprisingly they let him out for supper. Both Vernon and Dudley were home by then; Harry had known from the loud shouting as Petunia no doubt told her husband about the occurrence with the front lawn. Dudley had also banged loudly at his cupboard as he ran past. Yet still they let him out a few hours later, when he was sure he'd be in there for another week...

Maybe because the lawn was still a very nice lawn in the end?

…or maybe not, as when Harry was finished washing up (You smell like fertilizer! Fix it!) the Dursleys were all seated at the table, Vernon Dursley's eyes glinting in an unpleasant sort of way that promised nothing good.

Ah. Open ridicule then.

Feeling very small, Harry fairly shrank into his seat as the first minutes passed in complete silence. The only noise was forks and knives scraping against plates. Nobody looked at him except Dudley, who had sensed the mood in the air and was wriggling gleefully at his chair in anticipation.

It began after Uncle Vernon chewed his way through a large piece of fish, mustache twitching in the effort, and swallowed it down.

"So," he said evenly, "It seems to me, that you've gone and used another bit of your freakishness."

Harry stayed silent, not looking up. Uncle Vernon scowled at that.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you, freak!" he barked, looking not unlike an extremely ugly bull dog, and Harry reluctantly raised his head enough to stared vaguely in the man's direction, not actually meeting his eyes.

This seemed to satisfy. Uncle Vernon took another large bite of his meal, bits of fish getting caught in his mustache.

"Funny way you used it," he continued, "At least it did something useful, I suppose.

Cut. Chew. Swallow.

"If only the other things you did were actually useful. Then you wouldn't be such deadweight on honest society. Honestly, you'll probably be going bad in a few years' time with the way things have been going."

Uncle Vernon smirked.

Did he have a point with this, Harry wondered vaguely, or did he think he was being clever? If the latter he'd have a very boring supper to sit through.

"Say, that would be an excellent idea," Vernon boomed suddenly, loudly and pompously. "You and your lot should all be rounded up for the safety of us honest folk and kept from ruining things for those who actually work for a living. Better yet, you should all be thrown in cages." He grinned evilly, seemingly delighted by this impromptu plan. "Wouldn't it be nice? A freak for every household—"

There was an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach again.

"—who'd have to do whatever they were told. No more freaks running around unsupervised, causing trouble. Why, they could do the work, for once, and let us take an actual vacation, for once. And they wouldn't have any choice in the matter. How about it, boy? How's it sound to you?"

Petunia was smirking with her thing lips. Dudley didn't really have a clue what was being talked about, yet decided to throw in his two pence with "Yeah! I could have one as a pet, and he'd have to clean my room and do my homework—"

Normally Harry wouldn't have risen to the bait. But today, out of all days, his body had decided for once to be angry. And rightfully so. Why did he have to put up with this? What did he ever do to deserve this?

He. Was. Bloody. Tired.

"Funny," Harry said hotly, a peculiar pressure building behind his eyes, "I thought slavery had been outlawed ages ago."

It was very quiet as Uncle Vernon stared at him in a sort of disbelief.

"Did you just talk back to me?" he snapped, a spot of red rising in his cheeks. "You do nottalk back when I am speaking,boy!"

"Or what?" his nephew snapped back. How odd; he was feeling particularly rebellious today. The throbbing in his head had seemed to increase with his temper. Meanwhile, Vernon Dursely had turned a lovely shade of plum, while Petunia looked like as if her face had met a sack of flour in a dark alleyway.

"You—! I'll—I'll—" he stuttered in his rage, but Harry only leveled a glare at him, for once meeting his eyes dead on.

"Let me guess, throw me in a cage? No thanks. Actually, I'll do you a favor and kip over to my cupboard if you need me."

With that, he stood, tall and defiant and took a few steps away from the supper table.

In a flash, rather impressive given a man of his stature, Vernon Dursley had jumped to his feet and seized his nephew's arm in a terrible vice-like grip, drawing out a yelp of pain.

"How dare you turn your back on me!" he roared, spittle and bits of fish flying out of his mouth in rage, "After all we've done for you—"

"All you've done for me?" Harry yelled right back, despite the slight dip in his bravado now that Uncle Dursley was actually rather furious and the worrying crackle he felt in his arm as a huge meaty hand squeezed. "What about all I've done for you?"

"We don't have a single obligation to you considering your deadbeat parents got themselves killed and you dumped on our doorstep!"

"Which I have every intention of making right, mind you."

In the middle of his tirade, Vernon Dursley froze. Harry froze in the middle of trying to wriggle away. Petunia froze for a scant second before shooting out of her chair with a high pitched scream, knocking a glass to the floor and shattering it as Dudley blinked stupidly, looked round, and tumbled backwards in his chair.

There was a man sitting in at the head of the table, where Vernon had been sitting moments before, fingers laced in front of him and looking very put out by the scene.

"Who in hell are you?" Vernon spluttered, the whites of his eyes showing as they bulged out of their sockets.

"That," the mysterious man said in amusement, "Is a rather excellent question. Name's Crowley. And let me tell you, I've had one a hell of a time trying to find this place." He chuckled, finding something his words amusing.

Meanwhile, Petunia and Dudley had managed to scuttle around and hide behind Vernon's back, cowering in his shadow while he attempted to push them out of sight and propel Harry forward in some odd attempt at a human shield. He did not, to Harry's agony, release his arm, and the boy stifled another whimper of pain. The strange man, Crowley, frowned at that, dark eyes flickering downward to drink Harry in with an exceedingly calculating gaze.

"W-what do you want? How'd you get in here without us noticing?"

At Vernon's blustering front, (though his knees were visibly jelly) the man Crowley looked back up fixed him with a hard stare, no longer frowning, but clearly not smiling, either.

"Wouldn't you like to know," was his reply, "But seeing as I'm on a bit of a time crunch, would you mind releasing the boy and talking a spot of business with me? Rather urgent, I'm afraid."

"The only business I have with you is getting out of my house before I call the police!" Vernon Dursley shrieked, a vein pulsing on his bright red forehead, while squeezing ever tighter on Harry's arm. Crowley's neutral expression abruptly slipped.

"Well. The thing is," he said darkly, slowly rising from his sitting position, "I don't exactly care about the words of a human-shaped mass of lard such as yourself. The only thing you should be doing is letting. The boy. Go."

Vernon Dursley began to choke. First, small, split up by coughs as he face glowed an impossible red. And when he still made no move to release his nephew, the large man suddenly found his throat utterly and totally blocked for air.

Petunia shrieked as he collapsed to one knee, retching as his eyes came in danger of popping out of his head and he clutched uselessly at his throat. He needed no further prompting and with a powerful shove, sent Harry spinning away and crashing into the wall as he himself staggered away, mouth gaping like a—

The moment he released the bony arm, the blockage cleared, as Vernon Dursley spat out the cause of his mysterious attack: a fish bone.

"Oh my. Tut tut, someone needs to watch what they eat. I've heard people can choke to death on those."

Based on the position of the now-mild voice, the man Crowley was very suddenly standing not at the front of the table, but behind Harry now, who jumped and stared with wide eyes up at this stranger who'd broken into the Dursley house.

"You…" Vernon rasped in the meantime, realization dawning on his face as he wheezed, "You're… you're one of them, aren't you?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," said Crowley, with a smile and a very white flash of teeth. He then proceeded to ignore the cowering Dursleys entirely and turn instead… to Harry.

"Well now. Let's have a look at you." The man tilted his head. "What's your name, lad?"

Because he was feeling utterly lost and horribly torn between afraid and intrigued…

"I-I'm Harry, sir."

Crowley adopted a look of horror.

"Harry? They named you Harry? Who names their child Harry, honestly?" he complained, loudly, and the aforementioned Harry felt even more confused.

"Er, my mother, I think," he said awkwardly, to which Crowley sigh heavily in annoyance.

"Figures," he muttered, "Should've pegged her for the Harry type. Honestly."

He spent another minute mulling this over before his expression cleared again. "Well, doesn't matter," he now said quite cheerfully, "What matters is I found you, dear boy! Finally! Ten years of searching without a single word leaking out to unwanted second parties and I've found you. I've never lost track of an investment for so long in my… career. Which brings the question, Harry… How would you like to leave this place and never come back?"

The world fell away from Crowley's brilliant smile as Harry deemed to forget everything but the question he'd scarcely believed he'd heard.

"Y-You can't do that!" Vernon Dursley had more or less recovered by now, and taken to trying (and failing) to look threatening. Petunia still cowered at his side, and Dudley had disappeared somewhere else in the house. Crowley rolled his eyes.

"Course I can. I've got every right considering I'm the boy's father," he complained.

Petunia clapped a hand to her mouth.

"You are most definitely not James Potter!" she shrieked, to which Crowley raised an eyebrow.

"Never said I was, darling. How about it, Harry? You'll never want for anything, I promise you that. Better than you'll ever get from— what have you been doing to your hands?"

He was referring to the dirt under his nails and the angry red welts promising blisters.

"Gardening," Harry said faintly, as Crowley scowled again.

"Gardening. Come with me, and you won't even have to lift your finger for anything in the world."

"Now l-look here!" Vernon was attempting bravery again, and Crowley's eyes rolled skyward for the second time. "I— will not tolerate having your kind coming barging into my home threaten my family, and take away what doesn't belong to them—"

"Oh, shut up."

Crowley's voice wasn't angry. But it wasn't happy, either.

"Do you know why you aren't currently drowning in a pool of your own blood, you pompous prick?" He said coldly, and Vernon Dursley went still as a statue. The ground was trembling very faintly below their feet. Harry at once felt a thrill, and a stab of fear. Vernon looked as if he would faint.

"You see, for some reason there is a rather powerful spell designed to protect you despite all rhyme and reason around this house. If I just so happened to mean you harm, well, I wouldn't be standing here…" Crowley smiled thinly. Dangerously. "…Too bad that it doesn't protect you against accidents. Say, that near-unfortunate moment with your dinner. How tragic would it be, if you and your family all went to bed and left the gas on as you did so? Or," he was taking slow steps forward, spreading his hands wide as he went, "Perhaps you feel inclined to fix the roof, and unfortunately take a little tumble off the sides. Or my favorite… wild, rabid dogs suddenly accost your wife and son on their way to the market? Surely that would be tragic."

The man Crowley was grinning, a feral edge to his voice as he stopped, directly in front of the two Dursleys.

"Your move," he said very, very quietly, "And remember… there is not a being on this earth that understands loopholes better than I do."

Petunia Dursley fainted with a faint groan. Vernon Dursley nearly stumbled as she sagged against him, looking close to fainting himself. He would not— could not— speak another word to the thing in front of him.

For one minute more in good measure, Crowley dared them to act, and when they did not, he brightened, clapping his hands together. Then he returned all his attention back to Harry.

"Actually, when I mentioned that bit about time I meant it." A sheepish shrug of the shoulders followed. "We really should be going, so if you would…?"

He waited, looking at Harry expectantly.

And Harry hesitated.

He looked to the Dursleys, white and silent in their fear. He thought about Dudley, vanishing without a word.

He thought about the horrible birthday he'd been having this day…

…Until now.

"Are you really my dad?" he asked slowly, looking up at this stranger who claimed it so.

"In the flesh," was his reply. "Are we going now, or…?"

It didn't take long for Harry to make up his mind.

"…Okay."

The smile that stretched across Crowley's face was different than the ones before; with the odd tint to his eyes, he almost looked… predatory.

"Ah, Harry, what wonderful things we'll accomplish," he breathed.

Then, they left.

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[A/N:] "You're a demon, Harry." Heh.

Were the Dursleys thuggish enough? I actually had a tough time trying to write in their view. I'm also not sure why the hell these chapters keep ending up lengthier than they were intended; Good chapter, Y/N? I'm sort of afraid of what'll happen when I crank one out at 1,000 words or less.

Anyway as you might have noticed I changed my penname since I've had it forever and want a new start. So now I'm the Angel of Friday Night, nice to meet you. (Took me two minutes to come up with, why?)