Using the eraser I've stolen from my cousin, I meticulously erase a stray line on the project I'd started four days prior. The girls hair was a wild mess, much like it usually was. She had a shy smile, and was focused off paper with her eyes, body tilted towards whatever she was facing. In my minds eye, it's Ron, who had been laughing at something I'd said while we sat around the lake at the end of the year. It'd been a rough time, and I think they'd just been relieved that I could joke with them the way that I had.I finish up the portrait of Hermione before I tap the edge with my finger, infusing my magic into the picture. An instant later, the sketch of Hermione is smiling and laughing, waving at me through the page.

"Harry! Get down here!" Dudley's voice has me jerking in surprise, not used to hearing my name in this household. Ever since I'd gotten back from my sixth year of school, Dudley's been… almost nice to me. He'd even done my chores on one of my bad days.

My bad days that were getting progressively worse. I'd wake up and feel like my insides were aflame, like my bones were melting and my head was split open like an egg. I didn't have these days until I started going to Hogwarts, and within my first year I'd managed to have seven of them, an entire day where I'd feel like my entire body was disintegrating and I had to manage it, taking headache potions and pain relievers until I'd overdosed and Ron found me drowning in my own puke in the dorms. After that he'd monitored my potion intake like he was my personal healer on those days. I'd learned of several ways to avoid the effects along the way, But here, in the muggle world, I had them the most and didn't have access to any of those. I'd had one almost three times a week since I'd left after my year of hell at the school.

The year before I'd lost my godfather, and quit listening to Dumbledore in one night. When he came to me last summer and asked me to do something with him, he was shocked that I flat out refused. I told him if he wasn't going to be honest with me then I wasn't going to rely on him to give me information and I'd find it out on my own. Ron, and Hermione surprisingly, agreed with me. Which is why I was here, instead of at the Burrow, where I'd wanted to go. I refused to go to Dumbledore's funeral, and so Mrs. Weasley had banned me from her home. Bill had been furious and had moved the wedding to a location I should be told soon, throwing his mother into a tizzy.

"Here's the salt and the chalk you wanted. Are you sure it's okay?" he asks, handing over the sack from the department store I'd asked him to go to.

"It's fine, Dudley. I'm going out for awhile, will you cover for me if I'm not back before tomorrow?" I ask him carefully. If he said no I wouldn't be able to do this before next week and I couldn't wait that long. But thankfully he nods, and I go up to my room to get ready.

I pack what I want quickly, glancing around the room. I spot the pencil kit and eraser that I had taken from Dudleys waste basket when I was cleaning his room the other day, and decide to take it with me. I pick up the picture of Hermione I'd just finished, watching her wave and her brow furrow in concern as she'd seen me rushing around. I finally tap my finger and freeze the picture to what I had drawn, placing it in my tattered sketchbook.

It wasn't a sketch book really, but I'd made it in muggle school when I learned I had a passion for drawing. It had anything I'd ever drawn and deemed worthy of my time in it, or at least from age 11 on. The older ones Dudley had gotten ahold of and damaged beyond repair. I'd made it using an old trapper binder that Dudley had, some sketch paper that my teacher gave me, and a supervised use of binding glue in the library at the muggle school. When I'd gotten to Hogwarts, a side project of mine had been to use magic to not only attach the paper to the binding of the binder but also add a never-ending charm to it, so that I always had blank paper feeding from a special compartment in my trunk. I could attach and detach the paper easily, and I'd locked it using not only a spell but a muggle padlock as well. I kept the key around my neck, which I used to lock the book quickly before placing it in my bag. I leave the house and head to the left, hoping to pass through the suburbs quickly. By the time I make it to the abandoned home I use when I'm not at school, it's dark outside and my stomach is growling. It was a good four miles away from the Dursley's home, but I don't mind the walk. And after tonight, I won't have to worry about walking anywhere. I enter the home through the window in the backyard even though no one is around to see me. The entire street was abandoned, and the house I used was in the middle of the street. Some gas leak a few years ago blew up half the buildings and the other half had so much damage they just all packed and moved away. And most of them moved to Privet Drive, too, much to my aunts pleasure.

I move through the untouched kitchen, and to the living room which was half covered in the collapsed roof and whatever had been in the bedroom above it. I'd moved the king sized bed to an room in the basement that had been used for storage before I got rid of everything. I pass down a hallway and open the door leading to the stairs. As soon as I open the door, I could hear the whimpering. It didn't bother me any, I've heard worse, and I'm not surprised to find that the spells I'd had my last summoning cast was holding well in the basement. I strip down and once I'm naked I begin using the stand alone shower in the corner that I had found in an upper floor to clean off. I dry myself manually and then begin the tedious task of using chalk to draw my summoning circles on the floor.

I ignore everything as I chant under my breath, moving fluidly. I've done this part of the summoning a thousand times by now, I knew what I needed to do and could do it blindfolded. Once the circle was done I pour my salt evenly, again manually because I didn't bring my wand with me and I'm not yet legal. I make a cross like section in the middle of the salt circle with the salt, marking it with the runes necessary with the chalk when I'm done. Finally, I turn to the man that I had in the corner, bound and afraid. I'd sent my gatherer to find him yesterday, and going by the missing goats blood he was successful. I kick that pan away and retrieve a new one off the shelves.

"I know that you don't know what's going on, and that's fine." I murmur to the man as I pull down the ritual blade as well. The whimpers get louder, but he doesn't scream around the gag like I had assumed he would. He was almost 60, because I hadn't specified an age. Probably dying of some kind of disease, and that's fine. I maneuver him into the middle of the cross-section I'd made, and he finally starts struggling. As soon as I get him inbetween the runes though, he freezes, eyes glazing over.

"See? I made sure you wouldn't feel a thing." I tell him as I move to the side and take a deep breath.

"Call of the Necromancer, I ask for Blaztak. The task of the wielder, I demand a body rune. Blood of the dying, I spill for Blaztak." here I pause and swiftly cut across the man's throat, from ear to ear, deeply. He begins gurgling while he breathes but I ignore him, still moving in my slow circle.

"Hear the call, take the task, and have the blood. Blaztak, I demand your Summons!" I rattle off. It was an odd incantation for the beginning of a ritual, but I keep to the outline clearly given. Now, I can do my real part in the summons. I drop my arms and press two fingers of my left hand into my side where a rune was softly glowing. I draw the rune in the air with my right hand as I move the opposite direction I had been.

"With the blood of a death, I summon Blaztak. With the blood of Anima Mea Umbra, I demand his presence. With my portal, I bring him here." I make a swift downwards motion and shadows begin spilling out of the line I had made. I step back, careful not to touch any of my lines, and grin. The shadows meant it worked, and soon I had a half corporeal being standing in front of me, looking expectant.

"Blaztak." I greet, bowing like I was supposed to.

"Necromancer Anima Mea Umbra, hello. What can I do for you?"

"I would like to learn to shadow walk if you please."

"That will require a sacrifice, as you know." the being says, and I motion to the still dying man. He sees the blood that had splattered in the cross-section of the salt and looks pleased. An instant later he's on the man, devouring him. I wait patiently for him to finish, and when he does he's a solid form. A man of thirty, with silvery hair and cat-like red eyes.

"Very well. The rune will have to be on your feet, so sit." he conjures a chair and I sit obediently. He kneels and uses a long fingernail to carve into the bottom of my foot. I barely twitch, even if it hurts immensely. When he's finished he waves his hair out of his face and licks at each wound, healing it.

"Is there any other rune you would like to learn?" he asks as I stand somewhat unsteadily. I shift on my feet, but no discomfort comes through so I shake my head no.

"Then I suggest you close the summons. How long will I have my form?"

"The other fifth tier I summoned lasted two months before he faded, or so he reported through the last first tier I summoned," I tell him before I begin chanting, cleaning up the mess of salt so that he could walk away freely. Many people believed the salt was to capture the summoning, but really it was to keep whoever I was summoning still long enough to get what I wanted. After that, they were free to walk until the corporeal form disappeared.

"Two months? The things I could do in your realm…" he trails off and steps over a chalk line experimentally. When he doesn't shock or burn, he leaves me to clean up the mess. In terms of preparation and actual summoning, it didn't take that long. Clean up and the actual carving of the runes was what took the most time, it was nearly eight in the evening now. I fall onto the bed, exhausted, and fall asleep.