Chapter Text
If there was one thing Oleander (curse his parents and their obsession with flower names!) Evans absolutely hated it was visiting his oldest older sister. Petunia was, to put it bluntly, a bitch. Oh she hadn’t started that way, but having a sister who went to a school for witches and wizards and a brother who had weird purple flames that just wouldn’t allow him to stay hurt while she didn’t had soured her. That Oleander had decided to have a fit of teenage rebellion and was making quite a name for himself as Skull de Mort, immortal stuntman and she’d married what might be best described as a heart attack waiting to happen didn’t help. About the only thing the two siblings still agreed on was their dislike of Lily’s husband. Even that was for different reasons. Petunia couldn’t stand Lily getting a good looking heir to a family fortune. Oleander couldn’t say what he disliked about James Potter, but his flames wanted the man far away from his sister.
He roared his bike (a scandalous American made chopper and not his stunt bike, like hell he’d take the bike that was expected to burst into pieces under him regularly onto the highway) down Petty Petunia’s street, smirked at the neighbors who took one look at his plum colored hair and eyes (seriously, Petunia had gotten the normal coloring in the family, he and Lily looked like things out of the Big Book of Faerie Tales), the matching eyeshadow and lipstick, and his piercings and retreated into their houses like he might be contagious. Yes people, individuality is a disease. Oleander watched Petunia open the door and try to sneer down at him before she ushered him into the living room. Before she even said a word to him, the kettle shrieked in the kitchen and she bustled off to deal with it, leaving Oleander alone with a small blond sausage roll he assumed was his nephew and a pile of rags.
At least, Oleander THOUGHT it was a pile of rags until the sausage roll (wasn’t he named Dinky or Diddy or something horribly hipster?) flung himself on it kicking and biting and there was a scream. Oleander didn’t hesitate, he stood up, yanked the Sausage Roll off the weakly blubbering pile, spun him around and smacked him sharply across the ass and scooped the pile up. While Sausage Roll departed wailing for the kitchen (did Petunia never discipline him?), Oleander sorted the rag pile out into another child, a far too small child. Who looked up at him with Lily’s verdigris eyes and whimpered.
Oleander knew he had his quirks, knew that his flames had something to do with them. He channeled most of his restless energy into his stunts, his aggression and need to be moving and picking a fight with something. The first point he’d been introduced to James Potter had ended up in a two against one impromptu battle when something the man had said had gotten on Oleander’s last nerve and James’ friend Sirius had waded into the fight as well. Lily had petrified all of them to get them to stop, but he had been winning regardless of Potter’s claims to the contrary. There were people who would come to his shows, some repeatedly, and he could FEEL them calling to his flames with something, trying to entice or brute force his flames to them. They all left with wistful, disappointed, or angry faces when his flames refused them. But he could feel it from this child (lingeringtasteofLily’sYellownotawakeflames/poisonedtwistednotrightblackflames/warmwarmWARMandAWAKEorangeflames/aSkyaSkyaSkyofhisbloodHISSkyatlasthechooseshisSky…), and his flames raged within him, flickers manifesting around his hands and trailing down from his shoulders.
“Oleander, how dare you hit Dudley! He’s a sweet…” Petunia trailed off at the sight of her no-good circus hoodlum of a brother hold Lily’s freak brat, staring at her with wide unblinking eyes while his freak flames flickered around him and across Harry’s body. She thought she saw a few flickers of orange mixed in with the raging violet inferno, but she was distracted as Oleander snarled at her. At her! Like she was the one doing something wrong and unnatural!
“Petunia, is there something you’d like to explain to me?” Judging, always judging violet eyes. Petunia didn’t measure up to her wonderful siblings, with their freaky natural colorings and abilities. Lily who could charm trees into blossom and Oleander who had more then once done things that would have resulted into death or dismemberment only for his flames to wipe the wounds from his body like they had never been. Lily with her handsome husband and Oleander never held down or back because he was a man not a woman. Petunia had had to settle for normal, and then even that had come crashing down. Lily dead from sticking her nose into some war, her freak brat sent to Petunia because he needed his ‘blood family’. Petunia drew herself up and screamed in Oleander’s startled face.
“I didn’t want him! None of me and mine’s business when Lily got herself mixed up in some freak’s blood war! When she plastered a target across her knocked up duff and then had to go into hiding! Got herself bloody murdered for being ‘not up to snuff’ and then they dump her freak spawn on me! Tell me it’s got to be ME! Ask ME to keep his worthless hide alive because of some prophecy and him needing to ‘call home the place where his mother’s blood dwells’ like I want anything to do with more freakishness! Like Vernon and I needed another mouth to feed! He’s NOT MINE AND I DON’T WANT HIM!” Oleander’s face could have been carved from granite, his flames deceptively still. Harry was sniveling, worthless freak that he was, pressing his face into Oleander’s chest. Petunia stared back into Oleander’s all but glowing eyes (unaware of the faintest traces of red-orange flames in her eyes, corrupted Sky, Wrathful Sky staring down the Cloud that was so insanely strong he couldn’t manifest his flame abilities normally), and wondered if she’d pushed her brother too far and signed her death warrant.
“Then it’s a good thing I stopped by.” Oleander’s low, wrathful purr hinted of dark places and things (back when she still loved them, back before she knew she’d never be like them, Petunia and Lily always wanted to go to Rivendell or Gondor, but Oleander wanted to fight his way through Mordor or Moria.), his hands cradling Harry like he was more precious then diamonds. “Since I’m family, I can take him in, take the burden,” his lips, painted like some dockside whore’s, sneered the word at her. “Off of you, Petunia. You’ll inform the authorities and send me the paperwork of course. So nice to see you again.” Before Petunia could say anything else, Oleander swept out of the house with Harry, leaving her wondering where she’d even send the paperwork to, and what that freak Dumbledore would say when he found out.
* *
Oleander got seven miles out of the suburban horror Petunia lived in before his flames stopped fueling his temper enough for him to realize what he’d done. He pulled his bike over and looked down at the toddler he’d ad hoc strapped to his chest. Said toddler had fallen asleep and was drooling on Oleander’s bike suit. Oleander pulled off his helmet and ran shaking fingers through his hair. He was in possession of a baby. A baby that was not biologically his, and now that he came to think of it Oleander hadn’t even gotten the baby’s name. Something had just snapped in his flames and he’d basically kidnapped his nephew. Because Lily was dead. It hit him about then and Oleander sank to his knees in rubbish strewn weeds, cradling his nephew closer as a grieving howl tore from him. The baby started but didn’t wake up, and Oleander didn’t allow himself the luxury of another noise, just rocking the baby back and forth while he wept.
“Sir, is there a problem?” Oleander jerked in surprise, then gave the sheriff who’d stopped a watery smile.
“No, no sir. I just found out one of my sister’s died and my other sister didn’t want to take in our nephew, and it just… it just…” The sheriff gave him an understanding smile, handing him a Kleenex.
“Bit much for a young man to take in, understandable. Smart of you to pull over to have the breakdown, courageous of you to do the right thing and take the little tyke in. What’s the little fellow’s name?” Oleander considered panicking at the question, then went with first thing that came to mind, since Lily’d always joked about a normal baby name.
“Harry, Harry de Mort in a few days.” The sheriff chuckled.
“Poor kid, ought to change his first name while you’re adopting him.” Oleander looked down at the sleeping baby and smiled.
“Yeah. Yeah I’ll do that.”
* *
A year and an offer of a strange job later, Skull de Mort, having fully shed the name of Oleander Evans, looked in horror at his chubby, useless hands. While the rest were cursing up a storm about their losses, his mind was racing. Luce stepped forward, presumably to comfort him and Skull stepped back. She was not his Sky, would not have been even if she hadn’t betrayed him, and Skull wanted nothing from her. Nor from the others, who saw him as weak, disposable, a lackey. His mind kept coming back to one thought.
‘How am I going to keep Hadrian safe and look after him now?’
He was going to find that asshole in the iron hat and kick his ass.