Author's note: Hi! New fic; think the summary covers the premise pretty well. One thing to note; in this story, students start Hogwarts at the age of thirteen (the age they would be in third year in canon), and attend for six years rather than seven.

Otherwise, please read, review, and enjoy (although not necessarily in that order).

- Aside from OCs and AUs everything is the property of J. K. Rowling-

-Chapter One- A Letter, A Decision, Some Shopping-

'If I had a choice, my friend…'

Nicholas Flamel quirked an amused eyebrow.

'We always have a choice, Albus.' He said calmly. 'But, in this case, I would struggle to argue that Perenelle and I are not the wisest option.'

'You will take him?'

'We will.'

Albus Dumbledore inclined his head gratefully to the the lady of the house, feeling oddly relieved. The world, of late, seemed to have divided itself into those who were eager to do his bidding, and those who wished him dead. To be begging favours of a man he had known as his teacher long before they became friends seemed a strange middle ground. Exhausted as he was by the burdens of responsibility and long years of war, he couldn't help but feel a little like a child again under the cool, impassive gazes of the ancient couple. He had stepped from a nation ravaged by war, by horrors beyond imagining, into the museum stillness of the Flamels' entrance hall. The fight against Voldemort had barely registered as a ripple across the wards that he knew had protected the alchemist, his wife, and his life's work for hundreds of years. It was those wards he needed now. If he concentrated he could feel them humming around him, curious at this visitor, and ready to step in should they decide he posed a threat to those they were designed to shield.

Albus Dumbledore examined the sleeping infant lying peacefully in the cot floating by his side. Your Aunt might have given you the love of a family, my child, he thought regretfully, but your safety is paramount, and I can offer you no better protection.

'Is that it?'

Nicholas Flamel looked curiously at his ward, unused to such uncertainty from the boy he and his wife had raised.

'It is.' He confirmed.

Harry James Potter came and sat at the breakfast table, his eyes not for one moment leaving the envelope of heavy cream parchment with its emerald ink address.

'Would Beauxbatons not be a better option?' He asked, making no move to reach for the letter.

'Or Durmstrang. Even Koldovstoretz.'

The two of them looked up as Perenelle swept into the room, immaculate and imperious in robes of pale blue silk.

'Hogwarts and Beauxbatons do not teach true Dark Magic.' She continued, giving her husband a brief kiss on the lips, and her ward an even briefer one to the temple.

'Koldovstoretz teaches only Dark Magic.' The alchemist declared. 'And Durmstrang under Karkaroff isn't much better.'

Harry looked between his two guardians. He knew this was a conversation they had had numerous times over the previous year as his thirteenth birthday, and with it the necessity that he attend a school of magic, approached.

Nicholas Flamel was a Light Wizard, an alchemist, dedicated to order and rationality, to clarity and knowledge and measured progress. Naturally, he advocated Beauxbatons, the school he himself had attended, and had always been a generous benefactor of. His wife was a Dark Witch, a woman whose blood and magic sang for freedom, for flux and change and chaos. She, too, had attended Beauxbatons in her youth, but had watched through the centuries with disapproval as its curriculum became ever more constrained by the increasingly partisan French Ministry. A school where the wild magics still held sway was where she would choose to send Harry.

It was perhaps a shame, then, that neither of their desires would out. If little else in his future was certain, Harry knew that the next few years of it lay at Hogwarts. Where his parents had gone. Where all the wealthy and powerful children born to wizarding Britain attended school. Where Professor Dumbledore, the man who had settled him with his guardians, ruled.

Harry reached out across the table and drew the letter towards him. The Flamels paused in their debate to eye the movement. He could sense their resignation.

'It is decided then.'

Perenelle's words held no hint of question, and so he did not dignify them with a response as he carefully slit the envelope and examined its contents. A polite invitation offering him his place, a list of classes, and a second list containing the required equipment and reading.

'We had best give you these, in that case.'

Harry looked up curiously, taking the parchments from the alchemist.

'These are?' He asked uncertainly, not quite sure whether what he seemed to be reading was true.

'Adoption papers.' Perenelle Flamel confirmed.

Harry looked at where the couple's signatures were sprawled elegantly on their dotted lines, to where the gold wax seal of the Flamels and the black blood seal of Gringotts sat at the bottom of the parchment, and, finally, at the space for his own name and stamp.

He wasn't quite sure what to think, or to say. The Flamels and their house elves had cared for him, had been there for as long as he could remember. They had fed and clothed and educated him, given him every advantage and protection. But they were not his parents. Lily and James Potter still smiled and kissed him goodnight from their photo at his bedside. It was strange, perhaps, to feel more for two faces in ink than for his guardians, but the Flamels had always kept a little emotional distance. He had wanted for nothing save love and affection. And so he hesitated. He was the last Potter. His name was one of the few things he still had of his parents.

'Harry.'

He looked up to see Nicholas Flamel eyeing him understandingly.

'This is not a blood adoption,' the alchemist began, 'unless you desire it to be. You will remain your parents' son. Perenelle and I offer you our name, however, for a number of reasons. We have sheltered you here as best we can, and you have been completely shielded from the public eye. If you return to Britain as Harry Potter, as the Boy Who Lived, then you will be under immense scrutiny from the moment you set foot in Hogwarts.'

Harry nodded. He knew that. It was perhaps the strongest force pulling him towards Beauxbatons or Durmstrang. It was also, however, a fate that he had resigned himself to.

'A student bearing the name Flamel would not attract much less attention.' He pointed out.

Perenelle smiled slightly.

'Perhaps not initially, but I suspect your fame would die down far more quickly.' She paused, allowing him to see the sense of her words before continuing. 'But that is not the only reason. Nicholas and I care for you. I do not pretend that we have been, or could ever replace, your parents. We are too old, too set in our ways to have been the mother and father you truly deserve, but I hope that we have cared for you to the best of our ability. We do care for you Harry, care for you deeply. We do not offer you our name to help you avoid the press. We offer it to you because we believe it will help to keep you safe, because Harry Potter is a target, and Harry Flamel is not.' She paused for a moment. 'We offer you our name because we would be proud if you bore it.'

Harry didn't really know how to respond to that. He felt a strange lump in his throat as he listened to Perenelle. He sat and thought for a few long moments, as the couple waited patiently with what looked oddly like hope in their eyes.

'Thank you.' He said eventually. 'I think I would like to be a Flamel.'

Even as he spoke he worried that he was betraying his birth parents, felt like a coward for not deciding to bear their name with pride and damn the consequences. But he knew the couple spoke sense, and he felt that he owed them somehow, that he was indebted for their care, and that his name was all he had to give.

I will not remain a Flamel forever, he pledged silently to himself, before reaching inside his shirt to pull the fine chain from around his neck. A gold signet ring dangled from it, bearing a blood red ruby engraved with the Potter coat of arms.

He took the quill wordlessly from Nicholas, signing his birth name, his blood name, before pressing the ring into the molten crimson wax Perenelle dribbled onto the parchment. He took a deep breath before taking the needle, but calmly punctured his forefinger with it and allowed the drop of blood that welled to fall onto the great black Gringotts stamp. He felt a faint pulse of magic from it as it approved the blood, and watched as the document duplicated itself before the original rolled itself neatly and disappeared.

Isabella de Cisneros wrinkled her pretty pureblood nose with distaste.

'Why must you two compete all the time?'

Sebastien Rosier snorted at her, unimpressed.

'To get better.' Harry told her, before grinning. 'And to keep Sebastien in his place. If we didn't regularly pull his head from his arse he'd end up living in there.'

His friend glared at him, before kicking off from the ground.

'Come on then, Potter. Isabella will judge.'

Harry rolled his eyes before following Sebastien into the air, delighting in the momentary feeling of freedom.

'How high?'

Sebastien smirked, sandy hair blowing about his face.

'I don't know, pretty boy, how high are you brave enough to go?'

Harry didn't answer him, instead taking off in a steep climb, leaving his friend trailing in his wake.

'High enough?' He asked with his own smirk when Sebastien eventually caught up.

'I suppose this will do.' The other boy admitted grudgingly, though Harry knew perfectly well he'd expected Harry to stop a thousand feet before he had. At the height they were hovering, the entirety of the island the Flamels called home sprawled before them. A couple of square miles of cliffs, rolling hills and shallow beaches, it lay a few score miles off the southeastern tip of Cornwall, an Unplottable no man's land hovering between the jurisdictions of Magical Britain and France. The Flamels' villa was clearly visible sitting in its bay upon the southern shore, its graceful terraces and colonnades, fountains and spires tiny from such a height as they glowed in the summer sun.

'So, last to pull up wins.'

Harry returned his attention to his friend and nodded his agreement.

'On three. Two. One.'

The boys dropped from the sky like stones, pressed flat to the handles of their brooms, each knowing they had to keep pace with the other or risk being called a coward.

The speed was dizzying, exhilarating. Even with the charms on his Nimbus 2000 displacing most of the air in front of him, the wind that clawed at Harry's face was almost painful as he urged the broom on. He could feel Sebastien level with him, a few feet away, could sense the other boy struggling to keep his broom from corkscrewing. He grinned, feeling his teeth chill instantly. He knew he was the better flier. Sebastien was brave, foolishly so, but Harry was talented, and that trumped whatever the other boy had to offer. The ground was getting closer at a terrifying rate now, filling his vision with green grass and pale sand and dark sea.

Just a little longer…

Harry yanked up on his broom's handle at the last possible moment, desperately steadying it as the tail kicked out and he span in a semi-circle, inches from the ground, reaching down to run his hand…

In the exhilaration of the moment, it took a second for the thud of his friend's landing to penetrate his consciousness.

Shit.

He flung himself down next to the crumpled form, Isabella sprinting across the hilltop to reach them.

'Missy!' Harry called desperately, yanking out his wand to cast the only human-stasis charm he knew on his friend.

The house elf popped into existence next to him, taking in the situation with wide, horrified eyes,

'Take us to the house.' Harry ordered, taking hold of his friend with one hand and the elf with the other.

The last thing he saw was Isabella's shocked, flushed face surrounded by blue, blue sky before they landed on the soft carpet of Perenelle's elegant sitting room.

'What on earth-' he heard her exclaim as she took in the situation at a glance, before standing quickly from her chair and coming over to them, her wand appearing in her hand as she automatically strengthened Harry's stasis spell.

'Missy,' she said calmly, not taking her eyes from the still form, 'would you bring the silver bowl with the blue enamel from my study? Oh, and you might collect my husband, too.'

The house elf disappeared with a crack as Perenelle Flamel fixed her gaze severely on her ward.

'Quidditch?'

'The Wronski Feint.' Harry agreed miserably.

She nodded sharply.

'Then you will be the one to heal your friend, to punish you for your foolishness.'

Against his will, Harry felt his eyes widen. Nicholas would have used potions to fix Sebastien, keeping him safely unconscious whilst they did their work. Perenelle's methods involved Dark Magic, and such spells always exacted their price.

Missy reappeared, carrying a broad, shallow dish of hammered silver, inlaid with swirling patterns in dark blue enamel.

'Your friend has suffered a severe concussion.' Perenelle began clinically. 'In addition to a shattered wrist, broken shoulder, and two cracked ribs.'

Harry winced in sympathy, feeling his dread at what was about to come increase.

'I will open a healing connection between the two of you.' She continued. 'You are uninjured?'

Harry nodded, though he couldn't help feeling a little offended that she would think he could injure himself on a broom.

'Excellent, then your body will provide the template for the repairs Sebastien's requires, as well as the magic to effect the healing.'

Harry's jaw clenched. He knew such connections were powerful, but also that the exchange never only ran one way.

'Is this really necessary, my dear?'

Perenelle Flamel ignored her husband as he came into the room, instead waving her wand to draw some blood from the unconscious boy and spill it into the silver dish. Harry gave in to the stare she directed at him, and used his own wand to mirror her action, watching as his blood joined his friend's.

The alchemist's wife began murmuring unintelligibly in Latin, cupping the bowl in her hands and swirling the contents slowly round.

'You had best take a seat.' Nicholas advised, guiding Harry gently to a chair.

Harry was only too grateful for the advice as he began to feel dizzy, a throbbing pain starting at the back of his skull. He gritted his teeth as the intensity increased, and barely suppressed a gasp as his right wrist jerked with a spasm as the magic examined its construction. He leant back into the soft upholstery, breathing heavily at the sudden burn in his ribcage.

'Done.' Perenelle announced a few agonising seconds later, lowering the dish and vanishing its contents to sever the connection. Harry felt the pain begin to fade, but he'd been exhausted by the heavy drain on his magic having been used to heal such severe injuries so quickly. His eyes were just beginning to drop closed when they were forced to jerk open.

'You left me!'

He swallowed as he stared into the angry caramel eyes of Isabella de Cisneros, the furious youngest daughter of the Portuguese Ambassador to Magical France. He gestured helplessly at Sebastien, who was stirring slowly in the background.

'He was injured.'

Isabella tossed her head, dark curls flying, apparently unimpressed.

'He doesn't look injured.' She declared, eyeing their friend, who was slowly sitting up on the floor.

Harry gritted his teeth and moved over to help Sebastien.

'I won.'

Harry couldn't help but snort with laughter at the boy's proud expression.

'Almost.' He replied, dropping a handful of grass into his friend's lap. 'I think we drew, just one of us took less collateral damage.'

'So, Hogwarts.'

'Hogwarts.' Harry agreed, lying across his bed and staring up at the canopy.

'It is a shame we will all go to different schools.' Isabella said, curled up on a big cream cushion in a window seat looking out over the sea.

Sebastien nodded, although Harry knew his friend was excited about going to Durmstrang. The Rosiers were of French extraction and had lived in England for many generations, but they were a Dark family, and had sent their children to Durmstrang for as long as anyone could remember. Isabella was a little older than the other two and had already spent a year at Beauxbatons. She had returned from the Pyrenees at the beginning of the summer, tanned and insufferably superior.

'Will you know anyone at Hogwarts?' Isabella asked curiously, stretching out languorously, her hair gleaming in the afternoon sunlight flooding through the window behind her.

'No.' Harry told her shortly. 'Why do you think you two are my friends?' He didn't wait for a response. 'Because you're not involved with British wizarding society.'

He cursed himself for his bluntness when he saw Sebastien flinch slightly.

'And so your identity is safe with us.' Isabella concluded, before smiling at him wickedly and sitting up. 'Are you quite sure that's the only reason you're friends with us?'

Unfortunately for her, Harry wasn't diverted by the tempting picture she was presenting.

'Well, I'm struggling to think of any others.' He responded blandly, giving in to a small smile when he saw her pout.

'So you're going to have to make some new friends?' Sebastien asked, scowling slightly.

'Jealous, Rosier?' Isabella asked.

The boy shook his head, flushing.

'Of course not.' He scoffed.

'Diagon Alley?' Harry repeated.

'Indeed, although, if you don't want to go then I can have the elves collect your school things?' Perenelle baited him.

Harry frowned at her, and she chuckled.

'However, before we go, you will have to become Harry Flamel.'

Harry struggled to mask his confusion.

'You look too much like your parents.' Perenelle told him bluntly. 'And your scar needs to be hidden if you're to have a chance of anonymity.'

'Glamours or potions?' Harry asked resignedly.

'Glamours, I think.' Perenelle declared after debating for a moment. 'Even Nicholas would struggle to brew a potion that would hold you in the same appearance semi-permanently, and nothing save for a powerful blood-based spell will hide a curse scar like yours.'

'I agree.' The alchemist said. 'Although I do have a potion that should help to smooth out the magical fluctuations of any glamour, and so help to prevent any of those particularly sensitive to magic from suspecting your appearance is an illusion.'

It was odd, Harry thought, watching a stranger blink as he did, smile with him, and stand from the chair in front of the mirror as he himself got up.

Nicholas had informed him that there was no way to alter his height in the long term without significant risk, and so he had kept his slightly above average frame. Perenelle, it turned out however, was superb with glamours. The magic, which fell somewhere in between the branches of Charms and Transfiguration, was notoriously difficult to do well. And yet she had seemingly managed to strip away a few pounds of muscle from Harry's body, pushing him away from the obvious fitness of his flying and exercise-formed body towards a skinnier frame. She had softened his features slightly, giving his nose a slight bend and returning a small amount of baby fat to his cheeks. His eyes had been dulled from their emerald green to a more olive hue, and his dark brown hair lightened to a dirty blond. Skin tanned by hours on a broom in the sun and swimming in the sea paled to match that of someone who spent most of their time indoors.

'Very handsome.' Perenelle nodded, pleased with her work.

Harry wasn't quite so sure, but knew that most of his uncertainty was due to the strangeness of his appearance.

'Will you be disguising yourselves?' He asked, his voice sounding slightly strange to his ears as it spoke through new lips, and a mouth whose shape had changed slightly.

'Nicholas and I will both take some ageing potion.' She replied calmly.

Harry couldn't help but grin at the thought of his nearly seven hundred year old guardians taking something to make themselves look older. The Elixir of Life was a strange substance, he mused, glancing at Nicholas, who was looking at him as though he could read his mind. The old alchemist's hair was as white as chalk, but his face seemed ageless; hollow-cheeked but unwrinkled, parchment skin stretched over bone but glowing with health. And his eyes, those cool blue eyes, had seen more than any man had a right to.

Perenelle was the same. She was clearly not youthful, for the vitality her face possessed was not that of the young, but the spark of a long life lived and loved and reconciled with. Her fine, dark eyes were impossibly knowing, cast into frequent shadow by hair that was long and lustrous, black as obsidian.

'Ready to go now?' The subject of his musings asked amusedly.

Harry blushed slightly at being caught, but inclined his head.

'Excellent.' Perenelle waved her wand and Harry felt his robes flutter briefly, adapting to his new shape.

The Leaky Cauldron was… interesting, he supposed. It was certainly very dark, and probably quite dirty. It smelled of stale beer and strong spirits, and was dotted with customers that Harry couldn't help but think his guardians wouldn't want him consorting with. It was also, however, the location of the least conspicuous publicly accessible Floo to Diagon Alley. Even so, as the three of them stepped from the flames in their expensive robes, drawing the curious looks of most of the pub's occupants, he couldn't help but think another entrance would have served just as well.

He followed the Flamels as they swept past the stares and through to a small courtyard open to the sky.

'I hope I remember this.' Nicholas muttered as he drew his wand and tapped a series of bricks. Harry watched as the wall began to shift with a deep grating sound, rearranging itself into a broad archway.

Diagon Alley was certainly not an alley. The street they stepped out onto was at least forty feet wide and looked to stretch for almost a mile, its neatly cobbled surface baking gently in the sun.

The ambient magic in the air was intoxicating, clinging to scores of witches and wizards as they made their way about their business, radiating from the brightly coloured shop fronts and humming around the stalls of the dozens of street vendors.

'Robes first, I think.' Perenelle decided. 'They may take several hours to have finished.'

'How long is it since you've visited London?' Harry asked curiously as he absorbed the sights around him.

'Nineteen forty-three, I think,' Nicholas said after a moment. 'I love the city, truly, but I have no desire to be dragged back into its politics. I believe my last visit must have been during the war against Grindelwald. The goblins demanded that I provide them with some additional liquidity because the European governments were all burning through their gold reserves and much of it was going overseas.'

'You agreed?' Harry asked curiously.

'I did, in the end. It does no harm to keep the goblins on one's side, and I made sure that all of the gold was returned in the years after the war as countries repaid their loans. It would not do to disrupt the international supply too much.'

Harry frowned slightly, having never thought particularly hard about the issue. He had known that as soon as the goblins found out about the existence of the Philosopher's stone in the 16th century they had launched an expedition to seize it from the Flamels. Harry had always assumed greed to have been their motivation, but he supposed now that they were as likely to have wanted to destroy it. The power it wielded could, in the wrong hands, he realised, throw the global economy into chaos.

'Good morning!' A neatly robed blonde witch with gleaming pins in her hair greeted them cheerfully as Perenelle led the way into a smart dark green fronted shop called Twilfit & Tattings.

'Do calm down, dear.' An older witch who bore a striking resemblance to the younger admonished as she joined them, sweeping her eyes over the three of them, and lingering on their clothes.

'French?'

Perenelle inclined her head gracefully and allowed a soft French inflection into her voice as she replied.

'Indeed. Our grandson will being going to Hogwarts in September, and we require that he be suitably outfitted with the necessary uniforms.'

The older woman nodded briskly.

'If you would follow me, young man. Ariella will be happy to provide refreshments if you would like to wait?' She asked, glancing back at the Flamels.

'Thank you, but my wife and I have another matter to attend to, and so will leave Harry in your capable care. Half an hour?' Nicholas replied.

A brisk nod was the only response as the woman took her charge through to a wood-panelled fitting room.

'Robe off if you please, young man.'

Harry shrugged the garment of navy silk off his shoulders, and noted the approving look the woman gave it as she examined it on her way to hang it carefully on the wall.

'Monsieur Moreau?' She asked.

Harry nodded.

'My mother's preferred couturier in Paris.'

'And mine.' The woman agreed as she flicked her wand to send a silver measuring tape fluttering around him. 'What was your name, young man?'

Harry knew she had heard his own name earlier, and so was asking for his family's, curiosity apparently sufficiently aroused by the costliness of his clothes.

'Harry Dubois.' He said, giving the name Perenelle had suggested he use for their shopping trip. He would not declare himself a Flamel until he arrived in the relative privacy of Hogwarts. Here in London there were bound to be dozens of reporters, and just as many enemies of his new father.

'Astana Tattings.' The woman introduced herself at last, nodding at his own name with no flicker of recognition.

Just under half an hour later Harry stepped back out onto the street with his guardians. He had a room filled with clothes Perenelle had bought him in Paris and Milan, and so had no need to search for any of the casual and formalwear his list had suggested he bring with him. Madame Tattings had promised that his school robes, shirts and trousers would be ready by the early afternoon. Harry followed Nicholas and Perenelle as they led him to a luggage shop that he couldn't help but feel, judging by the display in the window, was patronised by very few schoolchildren. He left the shop burdened by a pair of elegant cases, bound in fine Hungarian Horntail hide and chased with silver, whose internal volume was twice their natural external volume, which itself could shrink to the size of a muggle briefcase when locked. The expansion and Featherlight charms came with the trunks, but when the shopkeeper had offered security protections the alchemist had politely refused, informing Harry that he and Perenelle would be ensuring that no one was able to access his luggage.

Aravut's Apothecary was next, where Nicholas insisted upon purchasing Harry a solid gold cauldron and set of scales, informing him that equipment made out of any other material would interfere with whatever he was brewing. Harry, having had some experience of making potions with the alchemist, knew that he would never match his guardian's instinctive talent, but was nevertheless grateful for any advantage that his tutelage could provide. Nicholas examined the list of ingredients first year students were instructed to provide themselves with, before pronouncing it 'adequate' and going on to add several dozen additional substances and bits of animal to the ebony case that would contain Harry's supplies.

Flourish & Blotts, a huge bookshop with five floors of shelving and volumes on every subject imaginable stretching out into the far distance, provided the set texts for a first year Hogwarts student. Harry collected a few additional books as they wandered around, but he knew that the Flamel library was without equal and that his guardians were more than happy to allow him access to whatever material he was interested in.

'Now, a wand.' Nicholas declared as they left the shop.

'I already have a wand.' Harry protested, frowning.

'Not a wand with the Trace on it.' Perenelle reminded him. 'All wands used by minors in wizarding Britain, as well as France, and most of the world's other magical communities, must have a Trace on them. Of course, the governments can only detect the magic when it's not shielded by wards, but turning up at Hogwarts with a wand that has no restrictions would cause trouble.'

Harry knew they were right, but also that he wasn't going anywhere without the wand he already owned.

'I will rejoin you gentlemen shortly, I have something to do quickly.' Perenelle said suddenly, looking distracted.

Nicholas nodded his wife off equably before leading Harry further down the street.

Ollivander's occupied a narrow shopfront, its name and the ancient date of its founding picked out in faded gold leaf upon peeling black paint. A brass bell rang softly as they entered, dust motes swirling up from the wooden floor to spiral in the faint beams of sunlight breaking through the grimy windows.

'Ah, Mr Potter, I've been expecting you.'

Harry narrowed his gaze at the old man with flyaway hair who'd ridden to the front of the shop on a sliding ladder.

'Mr Ollivander.' Nicholas greeted the wand maker calmly. 'I trust we can keep my ward's identity between ourselves.'

Beetle-black eyes fixed themselves on the alchemist.

'Of course, Lord Flamel, my silence is absolute.'

Nicholas seemed unsurprised that he'd been identified as he moved further into the shop, looking curiously round at the tall shelves stacked with hundreds upon hundreds of narrow boxes.

'Harry requires a wand.'

'Of course, Lord Flamel; I sell nothing else. Now, let me see.' Ollivander said, rounding his counter to come and stand in front of Harry. Harry noted with surprise that the old man was only a couple of inches taller than he was as he stood under the wand maker's examination.

'You're glamoured, of course.' He murmured. 'So my measuring tape will be of little use.'

Harry almost jerked away as the man grasped him suddenly and began spidering his hand up his forearm.

'I thought so. Already bound to a wand. Might I take a look?' He asked politely, even as he held his hand out expectantly.

Harry reluctantly twisted his wrist at an amused nod from Nicholas, allowing his wand to snap from its holster into his hand, before handing it over.

'Magnificent.' Ollivander murmured as he took the wand over to rest on a purple velvet cloth before drawing out an eyeglass and examining it in minute detail.

'Thirteen inches, blackwood of some kind, I suspect African. Completely rigid, of course, and the core… the heartstring of a?'

He trailed off.

'Nundu.' Harry supplied.

'A nundu!' Ollivander exclaimed with apparent excitement. 'Fascinating. I fear I cannot identify its maker…' Here he paused again, clearly fishing for information.

'I would be very surprised if you could.' Nicholas said. 'She died some considerable time before you were born.' He said no more, to the wand maker's apparent disappointment.

'Powerful, yes, very powerful.' Ollivander nodded to himself as he returned the wand to its owner and scuttled off to search through the teetering stacks of boxes.

'Try this.' He exclaimed suddenly, dropping a box onto the counter and removing a long, dark wand.

Harry took it cautiously and felt a soft prickle of magic.

'No.'

Ollivander nodded, not seeming disappointed.

Another half dozen wands followed in rapid succession, covering the counter with open boxes and brightly coloured bolts of velvet. Multicoloured sparks and smoke rings filled the dusty air as Harry waved and discarded the suggestions.

'Tricky customer, eh? Don't worry, we'll get you sorted out.'

'Might I suggest something a little more flexible, more suited to Light magics?' Nicholas suggested politely from the conjured chair he had settled himself on.

The wand maker looked startled before he nodded and darted off.

Three more options were refused before Harry grasped the handle of a bone white wand that seemed to reach out eagerly for him even before he touched it.

'This one.' He declared, giving the wand a twirl and conjuring a brief fall of rain that disappeared before it reached the ground.

'Hmm.' Ollivander said, eyeing him. 'A curious combination, that one. I had quite given up on finding anyone to match it to. Water ash and phoenix feather, twelve and a half inches, flexible.'

'How much do I owe you?' Harry asked, placing his new wand carefully back in its box.

'Fifty-five galleons, young man.' Ollivander told him gravely.

Harry counted out and handed over the gold wordlessly, waving Nicholas off when he came over to pay. He'd had access to a Potter trust account since birth. He'd been gravely offended when, after learning of its existence at the age of eight, he'd offered to pay for his upkeep and had his guardians laugh at him. He knew that the Philosopher's Stone could provide an essentially limitless supply of gold, but his pride still felt deeply uncomfortable accepting the Flamels' charity.

'Right, is that everything now?' Nicholas asked, looking down at Harry as they walked back out into the sunshine.

'Aside from a familiar, which I…'

'Now have.' Perenelle finished for him as she rejoined their pair of them.

Harry's eyes were drawn to the wicker crate she was holding, which seemed to be shaking in her grasp. He knelt down in front of it as she placed it on the ground, and carefully undid the leather straps holding it closed. He jerked back hastily and barely missed having an eye gouged out as the flaps burst open and a sleek black cat leapt out. The creature calmed down almost immediately upon being freed, however, and began wending its way around his knees, purring softly. Cautiously, he reached out and picked it up, cradling the cat gently and stroking it behind the ears. It began to purr more loudly, and twisted to fix glowing golden eyes on him, approval in their depths.

'He's an Egyptian pureblood.' Perenelle said. 'Only a couple of months old, with some growing to do. I saw him staring at me from a shop window and knew that the two of you would be perfect for one another. He reminded me of you, somehow.' She said, almost fondly, before snorting. 'The shopkeeper had no idea what he had; gave me the creature for forty galleons, when by any right he should be worth a few thousand.'

Harry's lips quirked with amusement as the cat seemed to nod its head smugly in agreement with her words.

'Well, I think…' Perenelle broke off, turning her head sharply.

Harry looked at her curiously, and jerked to his feet when he heard what sounded like screams coming from the direction she was staring in. He clutched his new familiar to his chest and followed her gaze to see trails of smoke curling into the air above shop fronts a couple of hundred yards away.

'We need to leave.' Nicholas said calmly as people began to rush past them, apparently fleeing the disturbance.

Harry flicked his wand into his hand, and tried to juggle both cat and weapon in his grip. He didn't know what was going on, but force of habit and training had him immediately prepared to defend himself.

'No.' Perenelle said, clearly mistaking his intention. She was staring up the street, ignoring the witches and wizards pushing around them, shouting with alarm. 'That fire was not caused by accident.'

They watched as a great stream of flame burst into existence above the heads of the fleeing crowd and poured into the front of a big, bright red shop.

'Shit.' Harry said, and for once he wasn't reprimanded for his language.

'We're going, now. The aurors will be here…' Perenelle broke off again and staggered back a step as a great wall of orange flame swept across the street barely twenty feet in front of them.

A hand grasped Harry's shoulder.

'Portus.'

He felt a vicious jerk behind his navel before he was spinning through the air in a whirl of light, his new familiar yowling and clawing at him as he tried to escape his arms. Harry barely managed to remain standing as they landed on the floor of a marble pavilion perched atop a steep hill on the Flamels' island home.

The building overlooked the Flamels' villa, connected by a long, shallow staircase cut into the hillside and sheltered by a delicate colonnade. As it lay beyond the main house's wards, it was used as an arrival point for those travelling to the island.

Harry felt those wards examining them carefully as they walked slowly down to the villa, his new familiar protesting as they poked at him. Nicholas and his wife had spent centuries designing and building the magical barriers that shielded their home, fuelled by limitless resources and their own brilliance. Nicholas himself had acknowledged that there might be flaws in the system, but that scores of wizards and witches, and goblins and vampires, had tried to find them, and none had ever succeeded.

'Well, that was an exciting first visit to Britain.' Harry remarked lightly, cat at last settled in his lap contentedly as they sat down in a large drawing room facing the sea.

'Indeed.' Perenelle replied drily, summoning a house elf to bring them refreshments.

'Do you have any idea what happened, darling?' Nicholas asked his wife mildly.

'I sensed one, perhaps two, people. They were using powerful Dark spells, but I suspect that we will know nothing more until the English papers arrive in the morning.'

The Daily Prophet landed on their breakfast table shortly after sunrise the next day, neatly pressed and on a silver platter.

'INFAMOUS COUSINS ESCAPE AZKABAN AND ATTACK DIAGON ALLEY' Announced the headline in bold black print. It surmounted three photos. The topmost filled the whole width of the page, and showed a few second loop of great flames rising ominously above the shells of a row of shops. The two photos below it pictured a man and a woman with shared aristocratic features worn gaunt by starvation, gnashing their teeth and yanking at the chains that held them in their cells, their dark eyes deep and mad.

During the early hours of yesterday morning, the peaceful bustle of London's Diagon Alley was torn apart by a brutal and destructive attack perpetrated by two of the most vicious and notorious criminals in this country's history. Assumed by almost everyone to be safely confined to Azkaban for the rest of their days, the Prophet can in fact reveal that Sirius Black and Bellatrix Lestrange escaped from the prison-fortress some two weeks ago. Reliable sources have informed us that this information was kept secret by direct order of the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, himself.

Minister Fudge's attempt to protect his own standing and reputation has now been revealed as the act of dangerous and reprehensible cowardice it was. Uninformed witches and wizards going about their innocent business were forced to flee cursed fire wielded by two mass-murderers.

'It's a miracle I wasn't killed!' Says Horatio Aravut, owner of Aravut's Apothecary. 'Sirius Black came into my shop and knocked me unconscious!' Mr Aravut's apothecary was the only premises on the upper part of Diagon Alley to escape the flames, although his stock was destroyed almost in its entirety.

The two criminals were forced to flee the scene of their crimes by the eventual arrival of a squad of aurors dispatched by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but we note that it took nearly a quarter of an hour for them to do so, and that both Black and Lestrange remain at large.

'Someone clearly wants to bring down the Minister.' Perenelle noted.

Readers need hardly be reminded why Sirius Black and Bellatrix Lestrange were incarcerated…

The article continued in that vein, going on, in spite of its claim, to describe in minute detail the many crimes which had led to the imprisonment of the pair. But Harry had stopped listening to the alchemist's rich, slow voice as he read the piece aloud.

Sirius Black. The man who had betrayed his closest friends. Who had cost Lily and James Potter their lives, and Harry his parents. Now free.

Author's note; Please, let me know what you thought =)