Chapter Text
Grunnings and Associates Corporate Headquarters
Woking, Surrey
Friday, 19th of July, 1991
The universe may occasionally tilt in the breeze from a butterfly’s wing, but, as it turns out, it’s just as susceptible to the twitch of a roving eye. Friday, the 19th of July, 1991, and Rhys Manning, Senior Partner at Grunnings, Incorporated - a happily married man, but as appreciative of a nice view as any other bloke - can’t help but take note when his executive assistant, Sylvia Gibbons, shifts in her chair a bit so that she can get a better view of the figures on the boardroom’s projection screen.
And when she crosses her silk-stockinged legs to accommodate her new position, Manning’s eyes crossing with them…
The universe twitches.
In another version of his life, one where Rhys Manning is not quite so happily married, he mightn’t have felt quite so immediately guilty, but as it is, this is not that life… His forcibly self-diverted gaze falls, instead, on the vision provided him through the sliding glass doors behind Sylvia’s chair. A stout, red-faced young man - a temporary import from the branch plant in Greater Whinging: Surrey, now working for the summer months out of Corporate Headquarters in Woking while his home offices are being renovated in the wake of a rather dismaying sewage leak - is waddling past, stuffing an entire bath bun in his mouth as he peruses a report. Even from the distance, Manning can see the spray of crumbs fleeing in terror from the gluttonous hellmouth that is the man’s constantly rotating maw.
The sudden and shocking contrast of aesthetics is, quite simply, more than any normal human being could ever hope to withstand.
“Dursley,” Manning says decisively, once he’s recovered and his executive assistant is introducing the next order of business. Sylvia Gibbons lowers her reading glasses at him. He tries very hard not to think on just how well they go with her silk stockings.
“Dursley,” she repeats, in tones that imply quite clearly that she’s absolutely positive that her ears are deceiving her. “Vernon Dursley? From Greater Whinging?”
“Yes,” Manning says. “It’ll be good for him. He’s got his promotion to Director, yes, but he’s still a bit rough in spots, in terms of his people skills, and I think that such an experience could help him refine his…”
He pauses as Sylvia, and the rest of the upper management team, eyeball him in perfect, unanimous bewilderment.
“Potential,” he finishes lamely.
“Potential,” Sylvia repeats. “Ah. Well. The team does call for one more from under your purview, and Dursley’s definitely that, Rhys, so if he’s really your choice…”
“He is,” Manning says firmly. “I’ll tell him myself.”
Thirty minutes later, Vernon Dursley is staring at Manning, maw unattractively ajar and eyes popping as he is informed that he’s been selected as part of the Verification of Investors Team for Grunnings’ latest Very Significant Venture: i.e. the construction of its new branch in Swansea, Wales. The Verification of Investors Team isn’t actually a Very Significant part of the Venture at all, as the majority of the work has already been accomplished. The particular trip is actually (garnered signatures and rubber-stamps aside) nothing but the traditional excuse for running up the new plant managers’ brand-new corporate expense accounts on backslapping, bird-watching and self-congratulatory group swilling down the local pub.
Dursley, Rhys Manning thinks, will fit right in. And more importantly…
Manning himself, as an absolutely indispensable fixture at Corporate Headquarters, won’t have to watch crumbs mating merrily in his junior co-worker’s repulsively animate mustache for three whole weeks.
*
Number Four Privet Drive
Tuesday, 23rd of July, 1991
7.30 AM
Vernon Dursley leaves for Swansea, Wales, on the morning of July 23rd, 1991. His wife, Petunia, is teary, but proud: dithering dotingly over her handsome, puff-chested husband in full view of all of her neighbours as he prepares to take his temporary leave of Number Four Privet Drive. Vernon kisses his wife and hugs his grumpy son goodbye, exhorting him to ‘take good care of your Mum now; Dud; you’re the man of the house while I’m gone, after all; yes of COURSE I’ll bring you both a little-something-something, WITH THAT GREAT BIG BONUS I’M GETTING FOR MY VERY IMPORTANT REMOTE ASSIGNMENT!”
Inside the house, ten-year-old Harry Potter rolls his eyes so hard they very nearly pop as he scrubs down the frying pan from breakfast, mouthing along with his uncle’s every predictable word. He listens as the taxi door slams and the tires squeal, and braces himself as his sniffling aunt and whinging cousin re-enter the house.
“There, there, Duddikins,” Petunia consoles her son. “Three weeks isn’t that long at all. Daddy will be back before we know it, and…”
“BUT I DON’T WANT HIM TO COME BACK IN THREE WEEKS, MUMMY! I WANT HIM TO COME BACK NOW! HE PROMISED TO TAKE ME TO THE RUGBY GAME THIS SATURDAY AND NOW HE CAN’T BECAUSE HE’S GONE, AND I WANT TO GOOOOOO!”
“I know, Duddy, but he’s promised to take you to a game when he’s returned, and just think of all the lovely prezzies he’s going to be bringing you besides! Helping with the incorporation of a new branch of a business like Grunnings is an opportunity not to be missed, and…"
Harry tries his best to scrub quietly and invisibly (and quickly) as Dudley continues to whinge, his habitual petulance and the particularly aggravating circumstances merging to promote that whinge to a full-bodied incoming Class Five Tanty. He finishes up just as the Tanty achieves landfall, diving into his cupboard even as it slams over the metaphorical coast and floods the house in all of its dubious glory.
He huddles there for the next seven and a half hours, daring only to emerge twice in order to dash up the stairs to the loo and back, and to nick a cereal bar and a bruised apple from the half-eaten bag at the back of the lower drawer in the fridge. He doesn’t even dare turn on the light, though as he does have fresh batteries for his torch (he nicked them from the corner shop on Wisteria Walk when fetching up a fresh case of Coca Cola for Dudders last week) and a brand-new library book (Treasure Island) to keep him occupied, it’s actually not that bad.
By the time the house is quiet again, it is three in the afternoon. Harry pokes his head out cautiously, ears perked, as he listens for signs of life. All is quiet and still. He emerges fully, making his way to the loo again, and then back down to the kitchen. There are no signs of Petunia and Dudley, but there are a plethora of fast food menus on the table, along with the cinema schedule. Harry examines the schedule closely. There’s a triple- feature Monster Extravaganza playing at the theater across town - the theater that is coincidentally, right across from Pizza Hut. He glances at the clock again, and sighs as he slumps in the chair.
Three films, plus pizza… They won’t be back till nine, at the earliest.
He pokes about a bit in the cupboards and fridge. There’s not much that won’t be missed, but necessity is the mother of invention, as the saying goes… In no time at all, he’s whipped himself up a nice little neo-charcuterie platter of assorted odds and ends. He doesn’t dare nick one of Dudley’s precious cans of Coke, but there is the remainder of a case of sparkling water in the garage left over from Uncle Vernon’s last cocktail party, and it’s not half bad once doused with a few teaspoons of sugar and a bit of orange squash.
Once done eating, he tidies up meticulously, and peers out the front window again. The front drive is yet blessedly empty.
Bliss ensues. Harry Potter makes himself a cup of tea to drink in the actual sitting room, parks himself on the sofa to finish his book, watches a bit of telly, takes a long, hot bubble bath (cleaning the tub afterwards; he’s feeling liberated, not stupid) and, in general, luxuriates in feeling as if he’s actually a legitimate resident of Number Four Privet Drive. He even takes advantage of the opportunity to wash his pyjamas, sheets and blankets with actual washing powder instead of water and a bit of grudgingly allotted vinegar.
All in all, he thinks, it makes a quite acceptable, if inadvertent, early birthday present from his reluctant relatives.
By the time Dudley and Petunia return, Harry is tucked cosily back in his cupboard. Surprisingly, they don’t wake him, just stagger blearily up the stairs to their own beds: Dudley feeling quite sick from everything he’d ingested, and Petunia with a blazing headache from both the effects of the triple-feature Monster Extravaganza and her attempts to soothe her own precious little monster’s distress at his beloved father’s unaccustomed absence. By the time Harry is forced awake the next morning, it is well past ten, and he’s feeling the effects of the best rest he’s had in months.
It doesn’t last long, of course. It can’t. Especially when he’s ordered up the stairs to the loo and gazes with dismay on the wreckage of his hard work from the night before. Dudley has been violently sick in the night, and, Aunt Petunia, safely and temporarily assured of the more sanitary facilities available her and her precious Duddikins in her ensuite, had simply closed the door and left the mess for Harry to clean.
*
It takes him two full hours to finish the job, and by the time Harry has finished up, he wants nothing more than to a) soak himself in bleach, and b) do his relatives in. He settles, instead, for stomping violently down the stairs, a small act of rebellion that is ultimately and completely ineffective, as Petunia is currently in Dudley’s room telling him how wonderful he is while sitting beside his bed and helping him sip tea. Through a straw, no doubt, Harry thinks rebelliously again, so he’s yet able to double-fist the chocolate biscuits she’s just baked him.
For breakfast.
She’s even moved the telly in from her bedroom so that the great pig-in-a-wig can watch cartoons while so rudely ignoring her dithering.
Harry glares over his shoulder as he continues his stomping through to the kitchen. His aunt has left the dishes from her baking for him, of course, and he, as he (rebelliously again), shoves them all in the dishwasher without rinsing them first, hears the chime of the bell beside the letter-box. Swearing to himself, he shakes in the soap and slams the dishwasher door shut, sliding the lever into position and literally punching the buttons. Only then does he stomp out to the hall to retrieve the post from the mat.
He sorts through it as he stomps back to the kitchen. Really, he thinks, it’s very therapeutic. Ineffective again, since he’s so very small and scrawny, but still. He tosses the bills and letters on the table, and is just about to chuck the rest in the bin when the advert on the bottom, sealed in a posh faux-parchment envelope and scribed in some kind of silly, sparkly green ink, catches his eye.
It has his name on it.
MR. H. POTTER
There’s more, but Harry doesn’t get a chance to read it before Aunt Petunia starts howling shrilly for him again. He sighs and gives it over, chucking the thing in the overflowing bin with the rest of the rubbish before lugging it out for collection.
“HOLD ON, AUNT PETUNIA,” he calls. “I’M JUST PUTTING OUT THE BIN! I’LL BE RIGHT UP!”
By the time he’s gotten the bin to the pavement, gone upstairs, come down again, made poor Dudders more tea, and fetched him up the remainder of the batch of biscuits, Mr. H. Potter has completely forgotten about his very first and personalized odd bit of post.
The individuals who sent it to him, of course, do not forget about him.
Harry is not aware of the fact, because when the chime by the letter-box rings the next morning, he’s out doing Dudley’s twice-weekly cola run. It is Aunt Petunia who steps out into the hall instead, and when she sorts, one-handed, through the small pile containing the second iteration of the large parchment envelope that her nephew had received and tossed the day before, her tea cup crashes down, shattering on the polished tile floor. No one is there to comment on her ghost-white, horrified expression, nor to see her sink down on the stairs, gazing in abject disgust (but mostly horror) at the proof of that which she can no longer rationalize or pretend away.
And no one is there to witness what she does, thirty long minutes later, when she finally pulls herself up and returns to the kitchen. By the time Harry returns, the floor is pristine and polished again, the table is bare, and Petunia Evans Dursley is gone, only a brief terse note with instructions on what to make for dinner left on the worktop beside the kettle.
*
Wednesday, 31st of July,1991
(Harry’s Eleventh Birthday)
When the knock arrives at the door precisely one week later - at the civilized hour of 9 A.M., rather than just after midnight - Harry is, once again, busily scrubbing the upstairs toilet. He will never, he reflects, understand how Dudley (who is, aside from Harry himself, the only one who ever uses it) can be, at his age, and not yet subject to the vagaries of puberty, so deeply and chronically unhygienic. Still, he comforts himself, it’s not as bad as it might be, as, bereft of his in-house, properly male role model, Dudley’s spent most of the week rotating between Dennis, Piers and Gordon’s houses… Almost as bad as it could be, but not quite, and then Harry hears bellowing and crashing, and his name called, or rather, bellowed again in a distinctly masculine voice. Curious, he ventures out, bottle of Vim in one hand and sponge in the other, and stands at the top of the stairs, looking down.
A huge, hairy man is beaming up at him. Harry is hot and sweaty and irritated - it’s his birthday, after all, and he’d thought (stupidly, of course) that, even without a cake or party, he might be excused from cleaning duty for at least the one day. Never mind the headache he’s had for three days now from his daily bath in Vim, he decides that he is in absolutely no mood to deal with the kind of trouble that Aunt Petunia’s frantic, pinched glare is promising him will come from acknowledging the stranger’s greeting.
“Bit busy right now,” he says politely. “Perhaps another time,” and he promptly retreats back to the loo. He can still hear the man sputtering and complaining and shouting, but eventually he leaves… Harry just shakes his head as he rinses his sponge, wipes down the sink and taps, and tucks everything away.
“Bloody nutters,” he says, quite loud enough for Aunt Petunia to hear him doing his best imitation of Uncle Vernon. He washes his hands and grimaces at his witchy-black riot of hair in the sparkling mirror... When he makes his way downstairs, Aunt Petunia is sitting there, looking grim.
“What was that all about?” he ventures from the safety of the hall door. “D’you know?"
“Trouble,” she says shortly. “Here.” She reaches in her purse and shoves a few pounds at him. “Go buy yourself an ice cream.’
Harry blinks at her. “What,” he says inelegantly.
“I need to think. Go.”
He goes, hastily, absolutely certain that he’s slipped into some sort of weird parallel universe, but…
Ice cream.
On his birthday.
Not going to say no to that.
*
An hour later, safely returned, the birthday boy peers into the kitchen. Dudley is still out. Aunt Petunia is still sitting at the table, drinking tea as she stares at the two envelopes now sitting before her on the table.
“Sit,” she orders. Harry approaches cautiously, and sits.
“Erhm?” he offers.
“You,” his aunt informs him. “Are going to listen to me very, very carefully. And then you are going to do exactly, exactly what I say; no arguing, no questions, no… Nothing. Do you understand me, boy?”
“Yes, Aunt Petunia.”
She places the first, opened letter in front of him. Harry blinks at it. It’s the same bit of junk mail that had come in the post the week before. He examines it carefully, reading the entire address this time.
MR. H. POTTER
The Cupboard under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive,
Little Whinging,
SURREY
Gobsmacked, he threads the letter out of the envelope, and unfolds it. Petunia drinks her tea and gazes determinedly out the kitchen window as he reads, green eyes growing and growing to the size of dinner plates behind his smudged, round and sellotaped glasses.
“Is this real?” he says finally. He sounds stupid even to himself. “This can’t be real! I thought it was just some kind of weird advert!” His aunt’s long neck swivels immediately, and her eyes narrow at him. Harry backtracks hastily. “I mean… It’s just… I got one just like it, last week, I think, addressed to me personally again, but I thought it was some kind of joke. So I binned it."
“It’s real,” she says. “Unfortunately,” and over the next thirty minutes, proceeds to tell him how very, very real it all is. Harry, clutching his chronically rioting tangle of witchy (or, rather and apparently, wizardy) black hair in both hands, both elbows on the table by the end of it all, struggles to absorb what she’s telling him.
“This is nuts,” he says finally. “Insane. You’re saying… My mother and father… Were magical? That I’m magical?"
The look his aunt offers him absolutely epitomizes sour.
“They had magic,” she says shortly. “Yes. I certainly never found either of them, or you, for that matter, the other.”
Her beleaguered nephew, with absolutely heroic amounts of effort, actually refrains from returning the insult.
“So what now?” he asks instead.
“You’re going,” she says flatly. “Obviously. You’ll be staying over Christmas and Easter, and coming back next summer. And we will not be telling Vernon or Dudley about any of it before the date, do you understand?"
“What?”
“I’ve already sent your acceptance of admission. Now… You and I will be managing the finer arrangements together. And once you’re gone, that’ll be it. No letters, no calls. I said that you’ll be coming back here for the summer, but understand this, boy; you are to make every attempt to make friends, and to arrange to spend the summers with them . If you can’t… Well. We’ll just have to cross that bridge if, and when, we get to it.”
“Erhm. Alright,” Harry says, and because there really is nothing more to say to that - “Who was that man?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I do know a few things though, and we are going to employ all of them all to manage things as simply and expediently as possible. First off.” Petunia pushes the second, sealed, envelope over. This one is addressed in her handwriting. “Go put this in the postbox. I’ll need an answer to certain questions I’ve asked there before we can proceed any further.”
Harry doesn’t think it safe to argue. He takes it, obediently, and trots off, sneaking a look at the address.
Mr. A. Dumbledore
Hogwarts School
Hogsmeade Village
Scotland
He returns immediately. Petunia is drinking more tea.
“We should hear back tomorrow,” she tells him. “He’s very prompt. Until then… Not a word." She waves him off. “Go do something. Somewhere else. Get out of my sight."
Dying of curiosity, Harry retreats.
*
The Next Morning
The chime has barely sounded from the letter-box before Harry is out of his cupboard and down the hall, picking up the post from the mat. Sure enough, there is a letter there, in an envelope made of more of that posh faux-parchment, and written in more of that silly, sparkly green ink.
MRS. PETUNIA EVANS DURSLEY
4 Privet Drive,
Little Whinging,
SURREY
Harry waits till she’s alone, and sneaks it to her. She jerks her head. Later that evening, when Dudley and Piers and Gordon and Dennis are all roaring at the telly, she drags him into the kitchen and hands him the letter and a map. There is a small gold key taped to the letter. He reads it, and gives her an odd look. Again, she just glares.
My dear Petunia,
I am so glad to hear that you have decided to take the initiative to embrace the memory of your sister and brother-in-law after all, and to personally assist young Harry in embarking upon this, his first wonderful adventure as a Magical. Per your request on information for available scholarship funds: the Ministry of Magic pays the full tuition for all students of Hogwarts, regardless of their fiscal status, so the only direct expenditures will be for the items on the list, all personal items that he brings in with him, and of course, his pocket money for the year.
Families that find themselves in particularly punitive financial straits may write to Hogwarts and request that their children’s names be placed on a list at Gringotts Bank again, for the provision of supplementary funding. That will not be necessary here, and I think you will find the amount awaiting young Harry again more than satisfactory for his needs. The key will act as his guarantor.
Enclosed is the requested extra copy of his supplies you’ve requested, and the map of Diagon Alley, and of course, his ticket for the 1st of September at Platform 9 and ¾, King’s Cross, London. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any further need of help or assistance.
Might I suggest you take the Knight Bus, to get into the proper spirit of the thing? The enclosed chit will cover two standard return fares in equivalent Magical currency. Instructions to summon the bus are written on the back of the map of Diagon Alley.
Etc. Etc.
It’s a risk, but…
“Coooo!” Harry says, in Dudley’s best and deliberately obnoxious mimicked Cockney accent. “Don’t ‘e sound the proper nelly swish!”
“Stop that,” she snaps automatically. “You are not a chav,” but he could swear she follows it up with a muttered “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
“What now?”
“Diagon Alley is the Magical shopping district in London,” she says. “I wouldn’t be caught dead there. You’re going to have to manage it on your own.”
“Alright,” he says obligingly. “When should I go?”
“Saturday morning,” she decides. “I’ll arrange a sleepover with Dudley at one of his friends’ houses, so he won’t ask questions.”
“Alright,” he says, again obligingly. “Can I bring you back anything from London? It says here that the entrance to Diagon Alley is off Charing Cross Road. I could, I dunno. Stop in at Marks and Spencer, and pick you up your favourite tea? It’d save you the postage, anyway.”
She opens her mouth to snap, then says… “Harrods. Marks and Spencer is fit only for builder's.”
*
Friday night arrives, and she gives him money for her tea, instructing him to be gone before she awakes. Harry realizes when he retires to his cupboard that she’s actually handed him two twenty pound notes, perfectly stuck together. He peels them apart, remembering her words.
I want the change, and the receipt.
He pockets the extra twenty, pleased.
The ride on the Knight Bus is an absolute nightmare, if a short one at this hour. The driver and the escort are barely awake. Harry slips off, identifying the location of the pub before deciding to go to Harrods for Aunt Petunia’s tea first. He finds it without any trouble at all, and as he’s heading to the till to pay, can’t help but notice all the signs for Back-To-School and End-of-Summer Clearance Sales. Harry looks down at himself. He doesn’t know how much money the scholarship fund will provide, but his trainers are literally falling off of his feet.
He heads up the escalators to the Boys’ Section. There, he finds not only Back-To-School and End-of-Summer Clearance Sales, but an Early Bird Three-For-One Two-Hour Bargain Blitz! He browses a bit, choosing a nice blue summer-weight crewneck, a pair of navy khakis with loads and loads of pockets, and a black and cream rucksack that all come in together at seventeen pounds. On his way out, he passes by the shoe section and knocks a pair of pre-selected trainers and a six-pack of athletic socks into the rucksack.
Really, he reasons, as he ducks into a loo stall and changes his footwear hurriedly (shoving his old shoes and socks into the steel bin in case any of the guards decide to take a peek in the rucksack again for extras), Harrods needs to work on its security. Anyone can take anything.
They’re honestly lucky he’s so naturally restrained, and only took what he needed, instead of everything he wanted.
Mightily pleased with his haul, he grimaces at himself in the mirror. His hair, he thinks, is right out of control these days… His glasses are even worse. There’s nothing to be done with either just yet, though, so he simply lets the thoughts go and bounces a bit with each step as he trots along, just for the thrill of hearing his new trainers squeak like a pair of joyful mice.
He heads back via the Underground to the toilets at Charing Cross Station, changes into his new clothes, scrubs up a bit, and heads back down the road to the Leaky Cauldron.
*
Gringotts Bank
Diagon Alley, even during the earliest shopping hours, is overwhelming. The bank, in its own way, is even more so.
“Erhm,” Harry says, standing on his toes and attempting to peer over the counter. Only his eyes and hair show. “Hullo?" A goblin - female, and fairly youngish as far as goblins seem to go - leans in, and peers back.
“Yes?" she says, with the obviously obligatory Aura of Snide Condescension. It’s not terribly convincing, perhaps because of her own youth - she’s obviously an intern - or perhaps just because she hasn’t had a chance for her own first bracing cuppa.
“I’m headed to Hogwarts,” Harry informs her. “I have a letter. It says there’s a list here, for…” He consults it. “Families-in-particularly-punitive-financial-straits?’
“There is,” she says. “Let’s see it then."
Harry hands over the letter, and the accompanying key, obligingly. The goblin examines both, eyebrows raising.
“Word of reference and advice, young human? Assumptions - in life, never mind here at Gringotts Bank - will get you taxed.”
“Uh?”
“The phrasing here, while informative, is deliberately misleading. I expect that the authorities up the school suspected that you might not be coming in alone today, but then again… That you just might. As the latter is the case here, and not the former - since you’ve not got anyone with you who’d try to nick what you’ve got coming to you,” she translates. “I am free to tell you that you have your own vault here."
“I… Do?”
“You do. I take it that this is your first time on the Alley?”
“Yessir. Ma’am,” he hastens. “Erhm. Miss? I’m sorry, I don’t know the proper… Erhm.”
“Honorific,” she informs him kindly. “My name is Lobhammer. Miss Lobhammer, if your sensibilities are really that much further developed than this letter would imply. Very well. Come with me.”
The Gringotts carts are nearly as bad as the Knight Bus. Harry gawps as they arrive at their destination, and sees what lies within.
“What…”
“Your parents left this for you,” Miss Lobhammer tells him. “For your school expenses. Your guardians are Muggles, and as the fact of your inheritance was implied, rather than specifically referenced, in the letter, we’re operating on the assumption that they don’t know about it. I’ll leave it up to you as to whether or not you think it a good idea to tell them, but…”
“No, no,” Harry says hastily. “It’s not. It’s really, really not. We’ll just… Leave that there, then. Wow. That’s a load of money. Though… Is it? I don’t actually know how much of it I’d need.”
Lobhammer sighs, and produces a pair of cloth bags.
“Pick one and fill it up,” she instructs. “Heavy on the gold. You won’t need as much as you’ll be taking, but you’re young, and it’ll save you the weird looks you'd get from coming in on your own should you find you require multiple trips back.”
“What’s the difference?” he asks of the bags. “They look almost exactly the same.”
“The first one’s the standard. It’ll cost you ten sickles. The silver ones,” she elaborates. “There are seventeen of them per one of the gold ones - those are called galleons - which in turn are worth about five pounds each. The little bronze ones are called knuts, and there are twenty-nine of those in a sickle. Again, this first bag - the one without the leather emblem on the front - is exactly what it seems. The second one, with the emblem, is bigger on the inside than the outside. It holds about twenty times as much, and if you have money in it when you get home, you can empty it out, turn the bag inside out, and whatever you'd put it back in it will change to Muggle currency.”
Harry’s eyes go wide. “You mean… Real money?”
There is a pause at that, then…
“Sure, kid,” she says wearily. “Why not.”
“How much is it?” he asks, tactfully diverting again.
“Twenty galleons. The gold ones,” she tells him. “I’d strongly advise it; it might seem a bit pricey, but it’s an absolutely sound investment for those who travel regularly between the Magical and Muggle worlds. It’s also got a lifetime guarantee, will save you a load of trouble and those extra trips here, and won’t open for anyone but you besides, once you key it to your wand anyway. Also, if you lose it, just say ‘Ragnuk’s gems, where’d I put the bloody thing now’ while holding your wand and thinking about it, and wherever it is, it’ll go straight back to your vault. Just tap the leather emblem on the front, three times.”
“Oh. Well… Brilliant. Absolutely. I’ll take one.” He scrabbles hastily, and hands over twenty gold coins before scooping up and filling it to the brim. It takes a bit of time.
"Don’t lose that key now,” Miss Lobhammer advises as he drops it in his rucksack. “Or pass it around. It’s got magics on it that are arranged so that if you hand it off willingly, anyone you give it to can use it."
“Okay.” He tucks it carefully in his smallest trouser pocket, zipping it shut. Miss Lobhammer eyes him. “The letter said that all my school fees have already been paid?”
“Mm.”
“Then what’s all this for, then? I can’t spend this much.”
The goblin gives him an odd, long look. “Are you in a hurry?" she says finally.
“No? Not really?”
“Alright. Come with me, then. I need to make a call, and then there’s someone I want to introduce you to.”
Harry follows obligingly, hoping that wherever they’re going, there’ll be tea and biccies. It’s a quality bank. Uncle Vernon says that quality banks always provide tea and biccies.
*
There are no tea and biccies. There are, however, large numbers of interesting weapons on the walls of the private waiting room, and Harry amuses himself as he sits, swinging his legs and admiring his new trainers, by wondering how many of them have ever actually seen real action. Outside the door, the goblin sounds harassed.
“...Potters are steel-level clients, Flit, and the proper protocols, theirs and ours, are obviously not being followed!’
She comes back in.
“Everything alright?" Harry inquires, looking up.
“Yes,” she says, and then... “No. Was this letter delivered by owl, courier, or through the Muggle post?”
“Owl?” he says, puzzled.
“No to that, then. What about a courier? Did anyone deliver it?” she probes.
“Aunt Petunia didn’t have to sign for it or anything, if that’s what you mean. It just came through our letter-box, same as the first one, with my note of admission and first list.’
“And the key was with it.”
“Yes."
Her lips tighten. She retreats back in the hall. Harry sighs.
Twenty minutes later, there is a knock. He blinks. A tiny, crisply bearded man in a grey suit and blue robes is standing there, looking rather bleary and irritated.
“Harry Potter?”
“Yes?’
“I’m Professor Filius Flitwick. I teach Charms up at Hogwarts. How do you feel about coffee?"
There is a pause.
“It’s for adults?” It is cautious. “I like tea, though. With loads of milk and sugar.” And biccies.
“Excellent. We’ll get me some coffee, and you tea, because it’s too damned early, never mind my day off, and I cannot even with Albus bloody Dumbledore. Then we’ll sort all this - and you - out.”
“Yes sir,” Harry says obediently, sliding down. “Does he know you’re here, then? Professor Dumbledore, I mean?”
“No. I’m not here as a representative of the school. As Lobhammer called me in, I’m here on Gringotts’ business, which means he can go blow it out his spangly arse. Which is not my official Hogwarts position, if anyone asks, and is directly attributable to the fact that it’s my day off, and I’m here because he buggered up.”
“Oh,” Harry nods. “Alright then. I’m sorry. I can buy your coffee,” he offers generously. “And brekkie too, if you’ve not had it yet.”
“Aren’t you sweet.”
“I try,” he says modestly. And… “Oh. Wait.” He feels weird about offering Miss Lobhammer money, but she has been very helpful. He digs in his rucksack instead, and presents her with a tin of Harrods Finest Luxury Gold Extra Strong Tea. “Here. This is for you.” He can always, he thinks, pick up more for Aunt Petunia on the way home.
“Uh?” She takes the tin. “What’s this about?”
“It’s early,” he explains. “And you’ve helped me; loads more than you had to, really, it looks like, and you. Erhm. Look like you could use a cuppa too? Either that or one of the sharp things on the wall in there, but it’s probably a load of trouble to sign one out. Also, tea’s less of a fuss to clean up than blood. Even if the Persons Responsible do deserve it.”
“You’re not wrong,” she concedes. “On any of those things.” She watches him go. Flitwick, despite his irritation, looks amused.
“Are you related?” Harry asks him, as they step out. “To Miss Lobhammer, I mean?”
“No. We’re just good friends.”
“Ah,” Harry says, waffling between ‘delicately’ and ‘profoundly’ as adverbs there and settling on (he thinks) a rather masterful mix of both. Flitwick shoots him another vaguely amused look, but says nothing. He just leads him down the Alley and off to the left a bit, to a lovely garden café.
“Coffee, please," he instructs the waitress. “And tea for the young man. Loads of milk and sugar. Also, breakfast. Full English there, and the pancakes for me, ham on the side and with lemon and shimmerseeds instead of lemon and sugar. I’m in the mood to massacre something, but unfortunately, I’m stuck with projecting.”
Five minutes later, Harry is digging happily into his fry-up. Filius Flitwick sucks back three cups of coffee like a dying man before setting about hacking up his ham and (very sparkly) pancakes with equal vigor.
“Much better,” he says, finally. “Alright. So. What’s the deal, and why are you here alone, child?"
“My aunt said she reckoned I could manage on my own,” Harry says, swallowing bacon hastily. “When we got the letter again, as it’s a bit early for her too, and she has my cousin and uncle to think on.’
“Mm. It’s typical that students coming in from Otherside have a Magical escort. What’s happened to yours, then?”
“Um. I don’t think I got one? Or … Maybe I did? There was a big giant hairy bloke with the first; he showed up on my birthday, but he was a bit rough, and she sent him off with a flea in his ear.“
“A big giant…” He lowers his fork. “He sent Hagrid?’
“Who’s Hagrid?”
“The groundskeeper,” Flitwick says. “Nice bloke, if you don’t count that every first and second word out of his mouth are ‘Dumbledore says.’ And the third, fourth and fifth are ‘Great man, Dumbledore.’”
That takes a moment.
“Dumbledore says ‘Great man, Dumbledore?’”
His escort just spoons more shimmerseeds on his pancakes, viciously.
“Was that the coffee too?” Harry ventures. “Or you missing your lie-in?"
“What do you think?”
“I’ve never met him,” he concedes. “But he did leave me on the doorstep of my aunt’s house, in the middle of the night on Hallowe’en, with a letter telling her that her sister and brother-in-law were dead and that I was her problem now if she didn’t want her own husband and son to die.’
Flitwick lowers his fork and knife and stares at him. Harry can’t help but note the way the knife is morphing to a little axe. It looks just like the one on the wall over the desk in the receiving room.
“Please tell me that ‘on the doorstep’ means, at the very least, on the other side of the magically unlocked door and inside the front hall?” he says finally. “Where it was warm, and no random psychotics and/or child sex traffickers might have picked you up and carried you off?’
“Fraid not. She was expecting the milk, and there I was. Still bleeding,” Harry confirms. “He couldn’t even be bothered to stick a plaster on my head.” He lifts his hair in demonstration. Flitwick closes his eyes and props his own head on his fist, still clutching the axe. His lips move soundlessly, and with great fervor. Harry eats a sausage, and watches his lips closely. He is fairly sure that the words aren’t in English.
“Right, then,” Flitwick says finally, and returns to his pancakes. “First things first. We’re going back to London Muggleside.”
“What? Why?’
“Because you can’t be wandering around the Alley with that on display.” He nods to the scar. Harry doesn’t quite understand why not; loads of people have scars, but with that axe yet in his hand, he isn’t inclined to ask the little Professor questions. “Nothing magic will cover it up, but a bit of non-Magical make up should do the job nicely. We’ll get it, duck into the loo at the Leaky, get you done up, and then I’ll glamour the rest of you before we get on shopping for your things.”
“Glamour the rest of me?”
“Disguise you,” he explains. “With magic. You look almost exactly like your dad, save for your mother’s eyes, and people will notice. And comment, and if we don’t want them following us around and regaling you with their completely redundant observations there at every turn, we’ll have to make a few adjustments. Also, I don’t need Dumbledore on my arse about you when someone spots us. As I said, he doesn’t know I’m here with you, and given what you’ve just told me, I really think I prefer we keep things that way.”
“Oh. Can’t you just glamour my scar too?”
“No. It’ll come through, like I said. If we cover it though, first, with a bit of Revlon or whatnot, it’ll work well enough. It’s a loophole in the standard curse-clause.”
“Huh.” Harry files that away under ‘useful things to know’. “Alright.”
"Might get you a haircut too,” he adds, around a full mouth of pancake. “You’re looking more than a bit shaggy there, even for a Potter.”
“It doesn’t like staying cut."
“Did you like the cuts you’ve got?”
“Erhm. No? Not really?”
“It’ll stay if you like what you do with it. The other’s a reflection of your irritation with the end result.”
“Oh. Oh. That makes sense.”
They finish up. Harry insists on paying. Flitwick smiles at that. He pops his wand, and Harry’s eyes grow as he morphs into a human man in a blue trench coat, still looking like himself, just… taller. And more human, somehow. It’s subtle, but it’s there.
“Will I do?” he asks.
Harry nods. They head out. The knife, abandoned on the table, still looks like a tiny axe… Harry deftly nicks it as he slips out of the booth (along with a napkin; it’s still a bit sticky after all) and drops it in one of his pockets. If Professor Flitwick notices anything, he’s nice enough (and amused enough) to pretend not to.
It doesn’t occur to his new charge until later that he might have left it like that for him on purpose.
*
Ollivander's Wand Shop
Mission accomplished, they return to the Alley. Harry’s newly dark auburn hair is freshly cut, rumpled on top and trimmed neatly on the sides. The scar is invisible, and he now has brown eyes and a heavy sprinkling of freckles. He looks like a completely different boy. Professor Flitwick takes him directly to the wand shop.
“Hey, Garrick,” he greets the old man before him, closing the door firmly behind him. “Look who I’ve got!”
Garrick Ollivander blinks.
“Well now!” he says. The mildly creepy, misty-eyed aura drops off him as abruptly as if hosed. “If it isn’t Monty’s boy! Hullo, Monty’s boy!”
“Hullo,” Harry returns obligingly. He doesn’t ask how the old man has recognized him. “Though I thought my dad’s name was James?”
“It was. Monty was your grandfather,” Flitwick explains. “He and Garrick and I were best mates at school. And after.”
‘Oh. It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Ollivander. Any friend of…"
“Granddad’s. He would definitely have been a Granddad. As opposed to Grandpa, or Gramps, or what-have-you. As it is you,” he returns. He pulls out a measuring tape. “Alright. Let’s get ‘er done. Arms out. Whiskey’s in the drawer under the cash,” he says as an aside to his friend. “Help yourself.’
“I’m on the job,” Flitwick says sadly. “I’ll be back later tonight though, to help you along.”
“Brilliant. You a rightie or a leftie?” he addresses Harry.
“Erhm. I’m right-handed, if that’s what you mean,” Harry says. He crosses his eyes as the wandmaker measures the distance between the tip of his nose and his chin. “Erhm.”
“Hold still, you. Alright. There we go. Mm. Mm. So. What do we think, Flit?”
“Good manners,” he says judiciously. “Curious, self-sufficient, no obvious prejudices… Asks sensible questions, and hasn’t worn my ear off yet with the age-standard whinging. Canny, and can pick up on a hint. Lobhammer liked him enough to call me in when it was obvious that he was up the creek and on his own. Also,” he adds. “He gave her a Manager’s Gift. On instinct, not with prompting.”
“You don’t say. Looks good in blue, too.”
“It’s a definite possibility,” Flitwick concedes. “Though Dumbledore did send him Hagrid."
“Hag…” The measuring tape stills. Ollivander stares, flabbergasted. “He did not!"
“His auntie sent him away with a flea in his ear, but yes. He did. And now that that’s gone and fallen through, he’ll set him up with the equivalent on the train, mark my words.”
Harry’s hearing works perfectly well. He listens avidly, and then something occurs to him.
“Professor Flitwick?” he ventures.
“Yes, Mr. Potter?"
“How do you get to the train? He - Professor Dumbledore, I mean - sent me a ticket, but no instructions. Is there really a Platform 9 and ¾?”
Flitwick sighs. Expressively. Garrick Ollivander rolls his eyes. Hard.
“There is, but it’s invisible, and there are no signs. Look for the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10,” he says. “And run through it.”
“Run… Through it?”
“Yes. Just pretend you’re a monkey, and barrel away. No one will notice, and there’ll you be. Oh, and make sure you bring a lunch. There’s a trolley, but they don’t sell anything but sweets, and as everybody’s always too nervous to eat breakfast, someone always sicks up for eating too much crap as a result. You don’t want it to be you.”
“Mm,” Ollivander agrees. “Trust us, you never, ever live that sort of thing down. You’ll grow up and old, and think you’re done with there, and on your two hundredth birthday, there’ll you be at your own party, with all your two-hundred year old mates, all of whom will have forgotten everything that they’ve ever known about each other except the face of that one kid that sicked up all over the train.’”
Harry giggles because really, he can just picture it.
“I will,” he promises.
"Excellent." Ollivander tucks the measure away. “Alright. Let’s see." And he proceeds to bustle about, picking out wands at apparent random and shoving them all at Harry with instructions to wave them about a bit, and for a while there, things are quite exciting and chaotic, and even if it is all a bit alarming, he’s enjoying it all immensely. Flitwick just watches and cheers whenever he actually blows something up.
Finally…
“Nothing for it, then,” the wandmaker says, and passes off one last box. “Holly and phoenix feather.” Harry reaches in to pick up the contents. He waves it about. Nothing explodes, but it doesn’t matter, because…
“Ooooooh!” He actually shivers as warmth courses through him. The world suddenly smells like a fairground, heavy on the caramel popcorn and candy floss. “That’s a bit of the nice, isn’t it?”
“Bugger,” Ollivander mutters. “It would have to be that one.”
“Uh?”
“The phoenix involved there only gave one other feather,” he explains. “Should have burned the damned thing as soon as he shat it out his tail. Or maybe just the buyer. Definitely the buyer."
“Rowena’s rack, Garrick,” Flitwick says in exasperation. “Really?"
“Yes. Bloody thing, and I’m not referring to the wand, gave him the bloody scar.”
There is a queer silence.
“No backsies?" Flitwick inquires.
“No backsies,” Ollivander confirms sadly. “On the other hand, there’s always the theme of ‘good twin, evil twin.’”
"Isn’t the evil twin dead, though?" Harry ventures.
“One can always hope.”
“Well,” he says into the silence that follows that. “It’s not this feather’s fault. I mean… There’s bound to be at least one in every family, right? And every tail?’”
“There is,” Flitwick confirms, self-reviving at that, rather forcibly. “There absolutely, absolutely is. Well spotted, well done you, yada yada. I’ll be back right after closing, Garrick. Wrap ‘er up.”
“How much?" Harry asks, digging for his bag.
“On the house,” Ollivander says firmly. “Nope. Nope, nope, nope. You have absolutely, absolutely, paid enough, Monty’s boy.”
“It’s Harry,” Harry offers. Ollivander peers at him.
“You sure?” he asks. “You don’t really look like a Harry to me. No more than Monty looked like a…”
Flitwick clears his throat pointedly.
“We promised,” he says repressively. “He’ll find out eventually, but we promised, as his best-mates-forever-unto-and-past-the-realms-of-Whatever-There-Is-To-Be-Going-On-With-After-We-All-Croak, that That Name would never cross our personal lips. Ever. He even made Em promise that, in their wedding vows. Alright. Off we go. Ta, Garrick. Hang in there.”
The bell tinkles. Harry looks around. The streets are beginning to fill up a bit. More than a bit. Flitwick mutters to himself.
“Alright,” he says, pointing. “You’re faster than I am, and they’ve got anti-Summoning charms on them besides, but… See those cauldrons over there? The ones with the big 1 on them?’
“Yes?” A crowd is converging on them, even as he speaks.
“They’re actually the standard sized, just enlarged. They’ve got all your supplies but your books and clothes in them in the one package. We have about seventeen seconds before they’re all gone, and we’ll have to scrounge for everything individually, so…”
Harry bolts. Seconds later, he has the last in his arms, smirking at a blond boy on a similar mission. His tall, blond parents sneer at him disdainfully. Flitwick cheers.
“You stay,” he directs. “Pay for it all, and meet me in front of the bookstore. I won’t be long, they always have a few bundles put aside for me.”
“Because you’re a professor?’
“Because I’m short,” he says. “And easily stepped on, and part goblin too, and their insurance doesn’t cover the taxable technicalities of offended stone-bloods.’ He catches the dubious look. “I’d never actually use the clause,” he says. “But I could. Really, it’s because all of the kids they hire for the season tend to be Ravenclaws, and by the time they graduate, they’re all really tired of being stepped on, in every sense.”
“Ravenclaws?” Harry queries.
“One of the four student Houses in Hogwarts. My House; I’m the Head there. Books first, though, and I’ll tell you all about it - and everything else - while we’re managing the rest.”
Harry trots off obligingly to the line, clutching his cauldron. Seventeen people offer to buy it from him on the way over. Three try to grab it from him outright. He kicks two of them (hard), and bites another (harder), when she goes for the handle right in front of his face. It’s all very satisfying, really, especially the bit when he spits her blood right back at her and grins, all crimson-toothed, and pretends he’s a goblin.
*
The Leaky Cauldron
Several Hours Later
They sit at the corner table of the pub as Flitwick conducts all of Harry’s new belongings (including a select few that weren’t anywhere on his list) into his brand new trunk. Harry thinks he loves his new trunk. It’s not nearly as fancy as a load of the other ones from the shop, but it’s got his chosen initials added onto it, plus a few extra charms that, as he’s in the company of one of the finest Charms Masters in the world, didn’t cost him an extra knut. Harry’s not terribly worried about his knuts now, but he admits that the (highly illegal) expansion charms inside are a nice touch, never mind the ones that will keep everything inside neatly folded and pressed and properly organised. Then there are the ones that will keep all of his belongings in the upright stable positions no matter whether someone were to deliberately turn the entire endeavour upside down and shake it like a stubborn ketchup bottle, and…
“There we go,” Flitwick says. “You’re good to go.”
“How am I supposed to get it all back? I mean, you put the permanent feather-light and maneuverability charms on it, and that’ll make it easy enough to carry, but won’t it look a bit odd? I’m not very big, and people will look at me funny.”
“Ah.” Professor Flitwick smiles. “Not a problem. Allow me.” He closes the trunk again, pops his wand, and inscribes a strange shape carefully on the lid. “Bibbity bobbity boo!” Harry gapes, delighted, as it shrinks down to the size of a matchbox car. The little man picks it up and presents it. “There. Tuck it away in your pocket. Good for the school year; it’ll grow and shrink back to size when you touch the rune with your wand.”
Harry grins so hard it hurts as he tucks it in his pocket.
“Thank you so much, sir,” he says fervently. “So much. For… Everything.”
“My pleasure, child.” His escort pats his cheek. “And remember: the other Houses will tell you that we Ravenclaws are all great big nerds, but when it comes down to it, we’re not just about books and grades. They’re nice side benefits, but really, we’re just all over the kind of mental creativity and talent for original thinking that lead to impossible answers and the unexpected solution.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Harry concedes. “They sound like very handy skills to have.”
Flitwick winks at him. “You’re sure you’re alright to get home by yourself?” he asks.
“Yes. I’ll be taking the Knight Bus.”
“Urgh. That’s just creativity gone bad.”
Harry laughs, and waves as he pops out. Instead of heading off to call the Knight Bus, though, he pops into the loo and carefully spreads his remaining money on the counter, flipping the bag inside out. When he tucked all the coins back in, and then reopens it, a thick sheaf of notes awaits him.
Blimey. There must be five thousand pounds here!
I reckon I could go back to Harrods for that sale. I need to get Aunt Petunia more tea anyway, and I could just put in all my trunk.
He makes his way back. This time though…
“Are you lost, love? Do you need me to page someone for you?”
“Um. No,” he says, turning to face his Designated Target. “My mum’s about. Somewhere. Gone off to shop for the new baby, she said, downstairs, I think, and gave me my list and the money to get started with. I’m going to boarding school this fall, and…” He pats his pockets in mock dismay. “Um.”
“Oh dear. Well, let’s see. Do you remember what was on this list of yours?”
Harry looks purposefully blank. “Everything? We’re anticipating a growth spurt, she says. Well. She might be, and I’m hopeful, but… No luck so far. At this rate, the baby will be bigger than me by the time it’s born.”
“We’ll get you set up,” the saleswoman reassures him. “I’ve done this for loads of other boys before; this last week is the one where all the lads from Eton have come through, so really, it’ll be no trouble at all.”
“Thank you,” Harry says gratefully. “Thank you so much. Erhm.” He reads her name tag. “Da… Erhm?”
“Daphne,” she says, laughing. “Daphne Phillips. Spelling not your thing, is it? And you would be…"
“Harry. Erhm. I’m sorry, I’m sure you’re very nice, but Mum’s always told me not to tell any grown-ups my full name, unless they’re coppers, of course.”
“And she’s absolutely right. I’ll tell you what, Harry. You can just call me Daff, and I’ll call you Haz, how’s that?”
“Haz,” Harry repeats. “Yeah, alright. Nobody’s ever called me that before, but… I like it. Haz,” he repeats experimentally. “Haz. HazHazHazHazHaz.”
“Right this way, HazHazHazHazHaz,” Daff says. “We’ll get you started with toiletries…"
*
“Toothbrush, paste, floss, shampoo, conditioner, soap, hairbrush, comb, stationery, stamps, name-tags, button kit, dress shoes, jumpers, shirts, denims, slacks, socks, underwear, pyjamas, slippers and dressing gown," Daff recites as she packs it all up. “And of course, the full supply of emergency jerky, fruit rolls, cereal bars and biccies. They’ll be sure to provide towels and things up your school, so that’s the lot. If we miss anything, that’s what care packages are for.” She winks, and tweaks his ear. Harry counts out the notes, and trots off happily. His final stop is at the opticians' on the second floor.
“Scuse me?” he pipes. The assistant looks up.
“How can I help you?”
“My mum. Um. She wants me to have an appointment,” he says. “To get my eyes checked. And new glasses, before school?”
“Does she? Well, we’re all booked today; when do you think you’d be available?”
“We live here in London,” he lies. “Not too far away from here. So… Any time, really, she said, since I’m on hols, and as long as I have my glasses before my train on the first of September.”
“Ah.” The man flips the book. “Let’s see. How does this Thursday at one sound?’
Harry nods, and takes the offered appointment card, tucking it away. Returning to the loo one last time, he changes into Dudley’s old clothes, tucking his new things away in the trunk, and shrinking it again and heading out to hail the Knight Bus. Petunia looks up sharply as he enters. Dudley gawps from his habitual position at the kitchen table.
“Freak! Your hair!!”
“I got tired of looking at it,” Petunia says before Harry can say anything. “Did you bring back the change?”
“Yes, Aunt Petunia.” He presents her with her re-purchased tea and the change. As Dudley lumbers off to the telly…
“Where are your things,” she snaps quietly.
“In my pocket. The shop lady…” He gestures. She looks pained, but in the end, her eyes just stray back to his hair again. He's not quite sure how to decipher her expression, but... “Erhm. There was a bit extra from the allotment they gave me, so I thought… They had a student there at the shop, so it was half price?”
“Mmph,” is all his aunt says. “Go to your cupboard. And remember, not a word on anything to your cousin and uncle.”
Harry scuttles off, settling in happily as he extracts one of the several new books he’d stowed in his rucksack, along with an entire pack of Harrods Finest (Special Edition!) Treacle Tart Cream Biscuits and a huge bottle of Coke.
*
Tuesday, 12th of August, 1991
The night before Uncle Vernon is due back from Swansea, Dudley is on one last sleepover at Piers’ house, and Harry finally dares to ask the question that he’s been wondering on since the subject of his Magical heritage was first broached.
“Aunt Petunia?”
She glares at him from her seat on the sofa. It’s interesting, Harry thinks. For all of her simpering over her husband, and her cooing to Dudley on how much he’s sure his father misses both of them, she really doesn’t seem all that happy about his impending return.
“Um,” he says. “What… What are you going to tell Uncle Vernon, when I. Erhm. Once I leave?”
“That you’ve run away,” she says shortly. “In a few weeks, I’ll tell him that They called and said they found you, and are taking you to the school. He won’t be able to argue if you’re already gone.”
“But… What about when I have to come back?” he says, bewildered. “Next summer? And I’m registered at Stonewall High, I… Won’t you have to report me missing? What will the neighbours say if I just show up again?”
“You’re not registered at Stonewall,” she says. “And I’ll tell the neighbours you were to go to another school, straight up. And that you didn’t like the idea, so you ran away again. No one will wonder if the police don’t look too hard for you, trust me. Not with the reputation you’ve gotten yourself as a troublemaker.”
Harry sinks down on the chair opposite. He doesn’t even have the wherewithal to be indignant at that last.
“As for you showing up here again… You’re to try to find friends to stay with, as I said. And if it comes to it,” she says stiffly. “I’ll just write to Dumbledore and explain the situation. That you’re not... That while this is your home…” It sounds reluctant and pained. “You need to find another place to live. Permanently.’’ He blinks at her. “It’s for the best. Vernon… It couldn’t end well. One way or the other. If truly necessary… We’ll move. He said the protections are tied to the house. If we’re not in the house… We’re no good to them.”
“What?”
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Petunia Evans Dursley snaps. “You’re a smart boy. Old enough to understand. And once you’re there… They won’t let anything happen to you. They’ll find a way. They’ll have to, won’t they?”
Harry Potter looks down at his feet. For whatever reason… Probably because he is, after all, only just turned eleven… It has not really occurred to him until this very moment that his aunt, when making all of her secret plans, had actually intended from the first that he leave Privet Drive for good. That she was taking advantage of the situation to ensure that she’d never have to see him again, and that…
“What if you get hurt,” he says to his trainers. "Because I'm not here."
“It’s better to get hurt,” she says. “Than to live under someone else’s thumb. At least you go out on your own terms.” He looks up at that. She is not looking at him, but out the front window. At … What, he wonders. Or maybe where. Again for the first time, and now that he knows the whole story, it occurs to him that Privet Drive, once her beloved sanctuary of normalcy, has really been just as much a prison for her as it has been for him.
“You just worry about yourself,” she tells him harshly again. “And we’ll worry about ourselves. And don’t trust him. I don’t.”
“Who, Dumbledore?’
“I told you, didn’t I? That he left you on the doorstep?” she says bitterly. “On Hallowe’en night, with a note? A note, telling me that your parents… That my baby sister … Had been murdered? The man lives in some kind of self-narrated fairy tale, boy, and he’s decided that you’re his hero. Well, let me tell you something. Your mother and father were heroes. Your world… It was full, by all reports, of heroes, during that war that they kept going on about, and there are precious few of them… Precious few of them… Who were left alive at the end of it. And he was clear, very, very, very clear, wasn’t he, when he left you here with instructions that you be kept safe, at the possible - no, definite - expense of my own family… That it wasn’t over? What’s he so bent on keeping you alive for, then, if the monster who killed your parents, and who, presumably, was after you too, has already been defeated?”
Harry says nothing. Petunia Evans Dursley turns her head and looks at him, then turns her entire body to face him.
“Don’t be brave, boy,” she tells him fiercely. “Your parents were brave. They died. Be smart. Be smart instead, and live. On your own terms. No one else’s. Ever.”
And she gets up and leaves the room. Harry watches her go up the stairs, and sits back on the chair, staring up at the ceiling.
*
1st September, 1991
6.30 A.M
The next morning, Harry Potter dresses quietly in new grey denim jeans, a deep red and blue striped t-shirt, socks, underwear and trainers, and a nice soft silvery grey zipped jumper that looks and feels like smoke. He checks his pockets for the trunk, and struggles with his hair. It’s stayed cut, but it’s starting to look a bit rebellious about it again... His new glasses are nice, and the world is sharp and clear as after a hard rain. He sticks his tongue out at himself as he reviews his rucksack… Books, ticket, money, wand, and eleven sickles in his pocket for the Knight Bus. He still doesn’t see why he has to take the train all the way to Scotland when he could just floo to Hogsmeade, but…
He pauses. He doesn’t actually have to take the train. He could just go to London, and spend the day there, and floo to Hogsmeade, and blend in with the crowd at the village train station. He wouldn’t meet anybody on the train, but… Would that really be so bad?
He’ll play it by ear, he decides.
He makes his way to the kitchen and nearly jumps out of his skin as he sees Aunt Petunia sitting at the table in her dressing gown, hands around yet another cup of tea. He glances around. She gestures. He sits gingerly. She rises and goes to the refrigerator, and pulls out a brown paper sack.
“Your lunch,” she says. “For the train.”
“My…” He cuts it off, and peeks in. There are two ham and cheese sandwiches, an apple, and a packet of crisps.
“Thank you, Aunt Petunia,” he says, and tucks it all in his backpack. She sighs, and pushes something else over.
“What…”
“It’s the blanket you were wrapped in,” she says shortly. “When they left you here. Your mother made it herself. The embroidery is completely terrible, mind. She was always completely wretched at needlework.”
Harry unfolds it in wonder, smoothing his hand over it, and noting the hand-sewn tag - ‘Handmade for Haz, with love from Mum’. He folds it again, and tucks it away. He can’t help but smile at the remembered fond and briefly granted nickname… Daff hadn’t been the first to offer it to him after all. He wonders if that’s why it had appealed to him so immediately, in that a part of him had remembered. Petunia watches him, and when he looks up, there is a ten pound note there.
“Buy yourself breakfast. Something healthy, not just Mars bars and a can of Coke.”
He nods wordlessly. Her eyes travel over him.
“You look like my father with your hair like that,” she says abruptly. “Your grandfather Richard.”
“Was he smart?’ Harry dares to ask. “Or brave?”
“He was trusting. Too trusting. And far too easily swayed by wonder. It blinded him to reality, and yes, prudence.”
She drinks her tea.
“Be smart,” she says, yet again. “And aware of your surroundings. Trust your instincts. There was a line in one of Lily’s old history books, about a wizard that went bad once. He loved the line ‘For the Greater Good’. Remember this, if nothing else - ‘For the Greater Good’ is just another way of saying ‘and never mind what’s good for you.'"
Harry nods, unsure. She rises, and goes to the closet, and retrieves a dark green duffle coat, hooded and lined in a pale creamy yellow, that he’s never once seen before - a bit heavy for English weather, more than likely, but perfect for the cooler autumns and early winters of the Highlands of Scotland. It is brand new, made of high quality light wool, and fits him perfectly. He slides it on, and shoulders his rucksack as he stuffs the tenner in his pocket. Upstairs, the pipes rattle.
“Go on, then,” she says. “Before they come down.” He ducks out. She stands at the door and glances around, and back. She stands, arms crossed tightly across her thin chest, the milk bottles at her feet. He wiggles his fingers at her.
It could be his imagination, but he thinks he sees her own fingers twitch at him before she retrieves the bottles and closes the door.
Harry Potter steps up onto the pavement opposite Number Four Privet Drive, and raises his wand.