Damon Delaney | First Year | Gryffindor

Damon Delaney grew up in the small-town of Le Claire in Iowa with his parents Aiden Delaney, a man whose job remained a mystery, and Camilla Dufresne, a farmer’s daughter. Damon’s parents have an… interesting relationship. They were the kind who really hit it off when they were young but weren’t made to last. The only thing that held them together was the fact that Camilla fell pregnant with his baby when she was nineteen and he was twenty, and Aiden refused to abandon her nor the child while they were quite literally young dumb and broke. They didn’t want to have a bastard baby and aimed for a quick marriage, but they couldn’t gather the funds until a few months after Damon was born. Camilla’s father refused to let her take Aiden’s surname.

Aiden never told Camilla that he was a wizard… he dabbled in potions but told her he was a chemist. But it was very apparent that something was wrong when Damon was born a metamorphmagus. Camilla was outraged that she was lied to, and their marriage started to deteriorate rapidly following the very hard conversation revealing his magical nature. They remained together out of obligation.

From a young age, it was very apparent that Damon preferred being outdoors in the sun than sitting around the house. He was the kind of unruly kid who would disappear into the woods for hours chasing local legends, return home with frogs and beetles in his pockets, his clothes caked in mud, and new scrapes and bruises all over his skin. He’d go into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich before even thinking to wipe his shoes off on the doormat.

Camilla has very little patience for her son’s antics. She is easily irritated by him, doesn’t understand his restlessness, and isn't particularly affectionate. And, most importantly, is dreading the day he starts exhibiting instances of magic. Aiden, however, is the more stable and caring parent. Damon has many fond memories of spending time with his father at the wharf. It’d be just them, two camping chairs, fishing rods, and a bucket of bait. Damon never could catch anything, but it was the only way anyone could get him to sit still for more than 5 minutes at a time. For Aiden, it transcended mere bonding with his son, and was a gateway to avoiding his responsibilities at home.

Their family isn’t particularly well off. Aiden was never clear about his career and Camilla remained unemployed to “raise” Damon. That was the cause for why Damon developed sticky fingers when he was about 6. At first it’s just little things. He sees another kid with a toy he wants but his parents couldn’t afford, so he simply takes it. Then he’d steal food. Money.

Because he is young, Damon doesn’t understand his family’s financial situation. He doesn’t understand why other kids can ask their parents for things and simply have it the next day, while he is always told “just wait” for weeks on end. He can’t wait. Therefore, he develops the philosophy of “I’ll just take it then”. It works. And when something works, Damon repeats the process. Especially when the world isn’t gonna hand him anything on a silver platter.

Stealing becomes his thing.

Over the next year, Damon became the kid who would steal someone’s lunch and deny it while eating it in front of them. The kid who would pickpocket people and get caught all to immediately start mouthing off. He would get shoved around for it, come home bruised, but would still do it again two days later with no regrets. And being a metamorphmagus only makes it harder for the victim to identify the criminal when he gets a rush during the act and changes his appearance on accident from the adrenaline. How could they describe the perpetrator as black haired and brown eyed, then look into this brunette’s big bright blue eyes, and say it was him?

This just becomes part of Damon’s personality. He learns very early on that he is not physically intimidating, but he relies on his speed and street smarts to get away with it. If he can’t overpower someone, he will outsmart them. If he can’t outsmart them, he will run. If he can’t run, well… he’ll still mouth off.

Aiden in particular is very disappointed in him. He sees his son as this bright, charming, boy with a big heart. He loves Damon enormously. But crime cannot be ignored. He keeps trying to correct Damon, take away privileges, talk it out with him. But Damon gives a different answer each time that varies in sincerity.

“I was gonna give it back”

“They weren’t using it”

“They had two”

One day, Aiden took Damon fishing, like many times before. But the nature of this trip was different. Aiden needed to have a very real conversation with his son. He explained, once more, that this behaviour needed to stop. But, most importantly, he asked him why. He sought to understand what was wrong, how to help. And he didn’t want any excuses like the many times before. After Damon denied that it was solely because they were poor, he answered simply:

“I don’t know.”

It became apparent that Damon couldn’t necessarily control himself when he had the impulse to steal. He didn’t always need it, it’d just be there and he could. And Damon enjoyed stealing. He enjoyed the thrill of the crime, he enjoyed getting away with it, he enjoyed having something he shouldn’t and no one else knowing about it. And that became a real problem.

On top of his less than conventional hobby, Damon spent the majority of his early childhood alone. The other kids in town weren’t too fond of him and not because he was a thief - although that was a large part of it - but it was because he had no concept of personal space, picked up a dead bird with his bare hands and chased a little girl around with it because he thought they were having fun. And some kids wouldn’t let it live down, specifically Jesse Barnes, the town’s bully who was more brute than boy. He was older than Damon by several years, but that apparently didn’t mean he had any remorse about his habitual bullying.

Damon was 8 when he was spending a fine summer afternoon outside, sitting in the grass with a jar full of grasshoppers, meticulously adding more to his collection of friends. That is when that goon approached, calling him names like most of the other kids did. Damon would sigh, his hair already darkening. He had already been warned about fighting. Jesse was not convinced, especially by the sight of his changing hair colour. Who was Damon fooling? He was a demon playing angel.

Even if he tried to ignore Jesse, the larger boy wasn’t having it, shoving him, trying to aggravate him. Usually, it worked.

“If you’re gonna hit me, hit me properly, you pansy, pig-kissing, sack of horse shit.”

And Jesse does. He continues until Damon’s curled in on himself on the ground, barely able to breathe, bleeding from his nose, and covered in his grasshoppers when Jesse poured them all over him.

“You got anything else you wanna say to me, Freak?!”

“Yeah…” Damon heaved. “You’re also ugly.”

Damon regained consciousness almost an hour later to the sensation of being poked with a stick by a boy who also seemed older than him, similar age to Jesse, but held none of that same malice.

“You still breathing?”

Damon responded with a groggy groan and the boy laughed.

“Man. I don’t think I ever saw anyone get beat up worse than that.”

“Shut up…”

The boy laughed again and offered a hand to help him up. That single gesture was several lifetimes in size, and was the start of their close friendship.

His name was Micah Rowe. And he was somehow even more feral than Damon. The two instantly became inseparable, one may even mistake them for brothers had they not looked so different.

When Damon would climb trees? He was trailing after Micah, who was taunting him to climb faster. When Damon would be scrounging around in the mud looking for frogs? He was competing with Micah to see who could catch more. When Damon got in trouble for stealing something? Jesse was right there vouching for him. And, most importantly, Micah fought Jesse off for Damon. And he never got judged for being a metamorphmagus, if he couldn’t help his abilities around him.

Damon also learned one of the most useful skills he will have ever picked up in his life from Micah. It began with a simple “Wanna see a trick?”

Micah was convinced that Damon’s talents were a complete waste without sleight of hand. And Damon becomes stupidly good at it.

Naturally, cards become Damon’s new obsession. Not just fancy tricks either. He starts playing card games with Micah. Poker, Cribbage, Gin Rummy, BlackJack. And they see who can cheat better to clean the other out. But it’s mostly tricks.

Damon approaches his father one day, says “hey, watch this!”, and made a card disappear from his hand so cleanly it was impossible to tell when he’d done it. When Aiden asked where he learned it from, Damon is already pocketing the watch that he took while occupying him with the cards. That was the start of an even bigger problem.

Aiden is the one person Damon trusts the most. He wants his father’s approval, his father wants him to stop stealing, he continues to steal and Aiden continues to be disappointed. Neither of them know how to break the cycle. And the fault is partially Micah’s.

For a while, Micah has been Damon’s biggest enabler. He is the one person who doesn’t express disappointment when Damon steals, even if it’s from himself. In fact, he will often aid Damon in his antics. Micah will distract someone with cards while Damon steals from them and they reap the rewards together.

Damon was 9 when they stole something that seemed innocuous, but was owned by someone who really really didn’t want it stolen. Some sort of family heirloom valuable enough for the owner to come looking for them.

Damon had gotten away with his antics thousands of times before, so he genuinely believed he could handle himself. Even when Micah suddenly no longer thinks this is a game and realises they’re in over their heads. Micah pleads with Damon to return it, says how this guy ain’t messing around. Unfortunately, neither is Damon.

That led to Micah getting seriously injured.

Damon had been beaten up before. He’d been bloodied and bruised and humiliated. But this was infinitely different. This was his best friend. His brother. Suddenly, the abstract consequences weren’t so abstract now. And he was at fault.

Micah’s parents were very upset with Damon. So was Micah. Aiden was told what happened and can’t do anything but sigh. Since Damon’s first petty crime, he’d been trying to teach him morality, but now he’s confronted with the terrifying reality that Damon doesn’t necessarily understand consequences until they happen, and even then…

Camilla soon filed for divorce and didn't even try to fight for custody, leaving Aiden to raise Damon alone. Aiden made the decision to contact his second cousin in Ireland that he was relatively close with, Rose, for help with work and money. The two of them then moved to Enniskillen, which was close to such relatives in Sligo. They didn’t move because they hated Iowa, Aiden just wanted a clean slate. A second chance that Damon absolutely does not deserve.

Aiden thinks that a new country, new school, new people will finally set his son straight. Damon is having a field day and immediately falls into his old habits.

And when he becomes more exposed because he’s allowed to embrace his magical side… his sticky fingers have access to an entirely new arsenal of things that someone like him should not have access to. Wands, potions, magical creatures, enchanted objects, cursed objects. Aiden doesn’t know what to do anymore. But Damon is still loved.

So when Damon has his first instance of magic and later receives his Hogwarts acceptance letter, the reaction is a mix of “I’m so proud of you” and “God help Hogwarts.”




Within the first week of living in Ireland, Damon had already less than legally acquired a wallet. In his defence, the man made it stupidly easy. Too easy, in fact. The Irish were an interesting breed, letting their wallets stick half way out their back pockets for the whole world to see.

Damon saw it.

Damon wanted it.

Damon took it.

The entire process took less than 3 seconds, and he was halfway down the street before the man finally noticed.

“Oi!”

Damon glanced over his shoulder to see the man running after him. A balding man with a big pot belly, surprisingly speedy for someone with such a physique.

“Ah, shi-” Damon bolted.

He tore through the street clutching the wallet tightly in his hand, laughing the entire time despite himself. His shoes slapped rapidly against the pavement as he weaved between people, ducked under outstretched arms, and glanced back occasionally to see if the man was still chasing after him. He was.

“Give that back!”

“Come and get it!”

Damon grinned. That was the problem with being 9 years old. He was very clever, far more clever than anyone ever gave him credit for. Because he was so incredibly stupid at the same time.

In Iowa, Damon knew every twist of every road, every shortcut, every hiding place. When he’d get chased by someone he pickpocketed, they were severely disadvantaged, not only by the fact that they were the only one between them that had something to lose. But because they were in Damon’s playground. In Ireland, he didn't have the time to get accustomed to any of the streets before his impulses took the wheel again.

Damon was well ahead of the man when he cut down a narrow path without looking at where it led. The ground disappeared beneath him. And he screamed, stomach lurching as he dropped over the edge. There wasn’t any time to grab anything- there wasn’t anything to grab. He just flailed in the open air as he quickly descended towards the ground.

Then something in him snapped. Not painfully. More like a sudden pressure behind his ribs that made him forget how to breathe for a second. The air had caught him, his fall had slowed, then stopped, suspended a foot above the ground, strung up by nothing.

The magic released him half a moment later and he landed on a hard patch of grass on stiff legs. His arms remained spread uselessly at his sides and, for a long moment, he couldn’t even think.

Once regaining sentience, he immediately checked to make sure the wallet was still there- it was, every card and coin intact. Excellent.

“What a thrill!” His grin only widened as he ran off triumphantly before the man could catch up.

Three days later, Damon tried to recreate the phenomenon by leaping off the roof of his house. Aiden caught him barely 5 seconds after he jumped. The result was a broken clavicle, a grinning young boy, and a very unimpressed father.

Damon Delaney inherited his magic from both sides of the family, although neither bloodline carries an even remotely similar history with it.

The Dufresnes are a publicly muggle family, although have had a few witches and wizards somewhere up the family tree, whose magical heritage was never properly documented. Any number of Dufresnes found to have magical abilities were promptly cast out from the family, either by voluntarily leaving once realising they could never live safely amongst their relatives, or by being effectively disowned. The magical branches of the Dufresne family tree had become disconnected from their muggle relatives. Camilla Dufresne grew up knowing none of the history regarding these relatives beyond that they were simply “strange” or had supposedly disappeared from the family entirely.

The Delaneys, however, have maintained a much quieter magical lineage. They had never been a particularly prominent nor exceptional wizarding family, magic had appeared sporadically throughout their ancestry. Among the more unusual traits, there have been several confirmed metamorphmagi amongst the family. The gene has been known to skip a few generations at a time, Aiden was not a metamorphmagi, neither was either of his parents, nor theirs before them. Aiden was very aware that any of his children could be born a metamorphmagus, but the concept is easier to accept than the reality.

The first signs that Damon was a metamorphmagus appeared just a few months after he was born. At first, they were subtle enough so that Camilla thought she was imagining things. Damon’s hair seemed to change colour depending on his mood. Not dramatically. He was born blonde, courtesy of Aiden, but it would darken into a light brown when he was fussy, or become a warmer golden colour when he was happy. Sometimes, Camilla would claim that his eyes looked slightly different than they did the day before. And when the conversation became unavoidable, she blamed Aiden.

“What did you do?”

Aiden immediately knew what she meant.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Then why does our baby’s hair keep changing?”

Aiden hesitated and that hesitation told Camilla enough to know that he was hiding something. So Aiden finally admitted that he was a wizard. The conversation that followed was not a pleasant one.

Camilla initially assumed that Aiden was joking or lying or having some kind of breakdown. She refused to believe him when he tried to explain that magic was real and that Damon had inherited the genetics from him. The revelation of Aiden’s magical identity was enough to shake their marriage and everything she’s ever known about him. And the fact that their infant son was exhibiting magic traits made the situation considerably worse. Aiden then explained that Damon was a metamorphmagus. Someone capable of altering their appearance with magic and, for the early years of his life, would largely be triggered by his emotions before he’d understand what was happening.

And that proved to be exactly what happened when Damon reached his toddler years and his abilities became increasingly obvious. His hair was usually the first indicator. It would become warmer and more vibrant in colour when he was excited or happy, while anger or sadness caused it to darken considerably. His facial features slightly shifted as well, although these changes were a little less consistent.

By the time Damon was old enough to understand what his abilities were, he found them more fascinating than anything. He found much amusement when they aided in his mischievous streak. He’d get a rush when he’d steal things and his appearance would alter subtly, just enough to keep him from being identified as the criminal. Even if everyone already knew he was to blame. His parents were considerably less amused than he was.

Damon’s metamorphmagus abilities became a core part of his identity, as well as a vehicle for his mischief he used to navigate the world. Even as his relationship with magic became more complicated, he never viewed his abilities as shameful. They were simply another interesting thing about himself.

For Aiden, however, watching his son grow into his abilities was bittersweet. He was proud that Damon had inherited such magical traits, but was also painfully aware of his complete lack of impulse control and restraint which had the potential to make such unique abilities so calamitous.

Damon had inherited the magic, but how he chose to conduct himself with it was entirely up to himself.

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