Summary: Hogwarts is a castle of many hidden wonders. Magic resides within its fortress walls, and it is wondrous, oh how wondrous. But it is all too easy to be changed by it, from an innocent child enchanted by the wonder to someone altogether different.
I own neither Danny Phantom or Harry Potter.
Book One: Humanity
Chapter One
Growing Up
"We're moving to England," were the monotone words my sister told me so many years ago. I remember being shocked, angry, indifferent. I hadn't known what to think. I was scared; all my life I had lived in America. What would England be like?
So of course, I had complained to Jazz about it, jarred at the news being broken so suddenly. My words weren't, perhaps, the nicest they could've been.
It was the reaction of a child. Young, and excusable. But still one of those tiny, irreversible moments that stuck with me. In the past. Unchangeable.
It might have been one of the many reasons Jazz became a psychologist.
Another could have been my parents' occupation: ghost hunting. To her, it was fascinating how our parents had skipped off the beaten path and did what they loved to do – or so she says now, anyhow. Back then, I got the feeling she didn't approve so much.
Anyhow, England. That was where it all began, I suppose. The story of my life.
How quaint.
Growing Up
It was an average day in the Fenton household.
The family was gathered around the dinner table. Not eating exactly, as one might expect, but rather fighting off green blobs of ectoplasm that had somehow come to life in the oven. In the hands of each family member was a rather toy-like gun, blasting out green bolts of goo haphazardly. The most unusual of the four were the adults, wearing obnoxiously colored jumpsuits, and in the case of the woman, goggles. The children, on the other hand, were dressed in more suitable clothes to the modern times, and looked considerably less enthusiastic.
That is, it was an average day until the owl crashed into the dinner table covered by ectoplasmic entities.
All action stopped. Everybody glanced at each other, suddenly uncertain. The ectoplasm took this chance to spring through the wall and escape.
"I'll catch the ghost!" cried Jack Fenton, the man, as he sprung out the door. The woman, Maddie, stood rooted in place as her husband flew out of the house.
Then she smiled. Order was once again returned to the Fenton household.
"Look, it's a letter!" She took a step to the table and picked up an envelope from the very angry-looking owl. She turned it over and scrutinized it closely. "It's addressed to you, Danny."
Her son's mouth gaped open.
"To me?" he repeated incredulously, before a wicked smile appeared on his face. He'd never gotten many letters before. It made him feel accomplished, like an adult. His parents got letters in the mail all the time. He only got the occasional birthday invite though, and that was before they moved to London. Even better, it was delivered by an owl. "Cool. Who's it from?"
Maddie frowned and turned it over again, lifting her goggles from her face in order to see better. "I'm actually not certain."
A noise of exasperation could be heard from around the other side of the dinner table. Jazz, Danny's redheaded older sister had finally decided to butt into the conversation. "Mom, it's just on the top right corner."
Danny's face mimicked his mother's as it contorted into a grimace. Stupid know-it-all sister. How would she know anyway? It's not like she got many letters either.
"Jazz," Maddie said, seeming exasperated, "It's just not there."
"What?" Her eyes widened comically, and she snatched the letter from her mother's hand. She seemed to take it as an affront to her person, nose wrinkling, when she discovered the exact thing her mother had.
Danny's laughter was abruptly cut short when she tore open the letter, destroying the seal.
"Hey!" he protested. "That's my letter!" But his sister didn't even seem to notice, so elated as she was with her apparent discovery.
"Aha! It's a letter from..." Again, the nose wrinkle, and an exasperated sigh as she let the letter fall to her side. She looked directly at him. "Sorry Danny, I think it's a hoax."
"A what?" He was annoyed. Couldn't his sister just talk like normal people?
"A joke," she explained, and the condescension of it all grated on his nerves. "Or a trick, if you like." She frowned. "It's not a very nice thing to do – "
"I'm back!" shouted a voice from the door, and whatever Jazz was going to say was forgotten in all of their minds, for Jack Fenton was indeed back. His ectogun was auspiciously missing, although he was covered in goo. "What the – Why is that owl still on our table?"
And indeed, the owl was still standing in the center of the dinner table, looking vaguely cross.
"Umm..." ventured Danny finally once the silence had been almost tangible. "Maybe it wants us to send a reply letter?"
"Letter? What letter?" Jack asked boisterously. Then he spotted the parchment curled in Jazz's fingers, and he brightened. "You got a letter, Jazzy-pants?"
The teenaged girl, only just age thirteen, rolled her eyes. "It's not mine, Dad. It's Danny's. But it's a ho – joke anyway."
Maddie had glanced at her daughter sharply at the "correction" she seemed to have made, but saw nothing to suggest that had been intentional, or even that her girl had even realized what it sounded like. Good. She wouldn't live to see the day her daughter was corrupted by modern society.
"Well, what's it say?" Jack asked, not even faltering. To the children it might have looked like overenthusiastic optimism bordering on annoying, but to Maddie it was part of what made her love him.
"Well," Jazz hedged, and the wrinkle of the nose was back. "It really isn't –"
"Can I just read it?" Danny asked bluntly. Everybody turned to him in surprise.
"You haven't read it yet, Danny-boy?" Jack asked, seeming genuinely shocked. "But it's your letter!"
"I know," the boy grumbled under his breath, and held out his hand toward Jazz. His eyes widened pleadingly. "Jazz, can I please just have my letter?" He knew it was no birthday invitation by now, and after all that suspense, he just wanted to see what was so ridiculous about the letter.
Maddie nodded approvingly, and Jazz bit her lip.
"But –"
"Please?" Hopeful smile.
"Oh, alright." The older sister sighed and passed over the letter, parchment slightly curled from the tension that had been placed on it in her tight grasp. "But it's really just nonsense."
And after taking a glance at it, Danny couldn't help but agree. As he read through the letter, his eyebrows only rose higher in astonishment and disbelief.
Well, he was flattered that someone would attempt to play such an elaborate joke – no, hoax, as Jazz would put it – on him.
When he was done, he chuckled. "Mom, you should read this," he said and passed it over. Soon, an incredulous laugh erupted from her as well, and smiling, she passed it to Jack.
"Danny's been invited to attend a wizard school?" For once, there was a frown planted firmly on his face. "I don't like this, Mads. It feels like they're making fun of us. We're ghost hunters, not wizards. And using our son to do it?"
That sobered them all very quickly. Danny fidgeted nervously as everybody's attention turned to him. Nope, he didn't think the letter was very flattering anymore.
"So what are we going to do about it?" he said finally, and looks of surprise flashed across all their faces.
"Do about it?" Maddie echoed. "Why would we need to do anything about it?"
"Well," Danny shifted uncomfortably – he had never liked being the center of attention, even within his own family – "they said they were going to send a representative, right? Do you think somebody is actually going to come?"
A thoughtful look passed his mother's face. "You have a point there," she said, and he couldn't help but feel a slight swell of his pride. "It does seem to be a bit too much trouble to go to just to play a joke on us." Her eyes roved from face to face until they rested onto Jack. "I think we should write back."
Jack was beyond livid. "You want to write back to them, Mads? They're insulting our career!"
Maddie glanced meaningfully towards Jazz and Danny, and he immediately quieted down.
"Not with the kids here," she said, and just like that, they were utterly excluded from the conversation.
"Well," Danny said, the words feeling thick and forced in his mouth, his earlier pride taking on a bitter tint. "I'll go to my room then." Yeah, maybe he could play some video game. Maybe one of his friends would be online. This didn't matter. Like Jazz said, it was just some stupid hoax.
"I'm going too." Jazz's announcement surprised him, and when he turned to look at her, he saw a strange determination on her face. His parents, however, were looking at them sadly.
"Hey, this letter thing isn't anything big. Don't worry, alright? Your dad and I will sort it out."
His mother's reassurance just made him angrier. "Yeah, yeah," he scowled, and trudged up the stairs to his room. Jazz wasn't far behind, an affronted air lingering about her.
And suddenly, he realized that he was very, very hungry. The dinner had escaped through the wall, and they had never had the chance to eat.
Growing Up
The next morning, there was a visitor. She was a tall, stern-looking woman with her hair wrapped in a bun and tightly stretched lips into a thin line. Her most striking factor was the austere black robes that enveloped her body.
Danny thought it was ridiculous, but he made her so nervous that he didn't say anything about it. She seemed to be more concerned with his parents, however, so he quickly poured his own cereal (which was for some reason glowing slightly green), ate it quickly, and ran back upstairs to the haven of his room.
The peace and safety only lasted until a knock came on his door, just ten minutes later.
"Mr. Fenton?" An unfamiliar voice called past the wood and plaster. It was likely the woman. "I would like to talk to you."
"Now?" he asked, dismayed. He glanced at his computer screen. He had just logged in game, and already a friend he met online was chatting to him. "Er... Give me a moment."
Quickly, he opened the chat box and inserted in a quick message, sorry gtg, and exited it out while ignoring the quick response message. He left his computer on, however, since he figured whatever the woman wanted wouldn't take long, and he really didn't want to wait for his computer to start up again.
"Yes?" He peaked his head through the door, slipping out to close the door before the woman could see the state of his room. "What is it?"
He gulped under the woman's intense scrutiny. A nervous glance behind her told him that no, his parents did not accompany her to his room. So. A complete stranger was wandering around their house without supervision, and she knew where his room was. Now that thought was beyond creepy.
"Mr. Fenton," she began, and if he hadn't known it was a custom in England to call people by their last names, he would have found that creepy too, "Do you remember the letter you got yesterday?"
Danny stared blankly at her. Yesterday. What was yesterday.
Ah, right. No dinner. The argument. The slighting of his person. The letter.
"Yeah?" he said cautiously. "What about it?"
Something in her face changed at his question. Was it annoyance? Extreme patience? A fond look? He wasn't practiced enough to be able to tell.
"It's real," she explained, quiet yet intense. "You're a wizard."
He couldn't help it. He laughed. Of course. That's why she wore the robes. It was that hoax from yesterday. Why hadn't he realized earlier?
And he also remembered his father's face, how affronted he had been at seeing the letter and his reasons why. Between that and the woman's unchanging face, his laughter died out.
"I want to talk to my parents," he said.
"Of course." And she turned around to glide down the stairs, as if she owned the place. It rankled him just as her coming directly to his room had.
He shivered, and realized his hands had been shaking the entire time. Scary old woman.
And yet, he followed her as she led him down the stairs to his own parents.
They were sitting on the couch in the living room, looking slightly dazed. Danny was instantly worried just at the sight of them, but the woman didn't look fazed in the least, almost as if she had expected this. That didn't reassure Danny in the slightest bit, but the moment his parents spotted the woman, they seemed to return back to the living. A smile even dared to grace his mother's face.
"Minerva!" she exclaimed, and Danny was delighted to see a slightly disgruntled look on the woman's – no, Minerva's face. "I see you brought Danny." And then there was a slight frown with that sentence, as if she too realized how wrong it all was. "Have you... shown him what you could do?"
Jack, on the other hand, watched the woman as if she were one of those dangerous ghosts he always talked about, but had never actually seen for himself. Or as if he were a hawk, though in this family, the first simile might be more apt.
"No," Minerva replied rather stiffly, but then smiled to make amends for it. "I thought it would be best if you were here to assist as well."
Danny frowned.
"Of course," his mother said, then took a very deep breath. "How would you like to start?"
"A simple demonstration would do." She turned to Danny, and he noticed she was holding a simple wooden stick in her hand.
"This is a wand," she explained. "It allows me to perform magic. Watch."
And she flicked her wand, and suddenly the glass table that seemed to have been cleared exactly for this occasion, turned into a pig.
Danny yelped, and hit the frame of the living room door behind him. Then he grinned, despite the pain.
"Cool."
But he didn't see the point. His parents had given soup sentience, for Pete's sake. Sure, this one wasn't glowing green, but he was sure that could be easily adjusted.
But to her credit, there was a small matching smile on Minerva's face.
"You don't seem too impressed."
To his great surprise, after explaining his reasoning the stern-looking woman laughed.
"Well, Mr. Fenton, you certainly have an interesting family." She included the adults into her sweeping gaze, allowing them to join in the joke. "I can assure you, however, that what I just did has nothing to with... ectoplasm or ghosts. It was magic, and it can do much more than what I have shown you. For example," she flicked her wand in a rapid combination Danny's eyes could barely follow, and the pig turned back into a table. "Wingardium Leviosa," she said, and suddenly the table was now floating.
But then again, so did many of the machines that his parents worked on. Unfortunately, he was also very aware of the fact that this table in particular, that had been turned into a pig and back, had none of the necessary equipment.
His grin grew wider. It was like a storybook.
"So," he said. "Magic."
"Magic," Minerva agreed. "And you possess it."
Somehow, he hadn't thought of that yet. It seemed blatantly obvious in retrospect – the letter addressed to him, her even telling him that he was a wizard. But none of that detracted from the message itself.
He was a wizard.
"I'm a wizard," he whispered, and he felt like his cheeks would fall right off because he was smiling so hard. "A wizard!"
How had he missed that twinkle in her eyes before? Was it really so hard to see behind the stern lines of her face?
"Yes, Mr. Fenton. You're a wizard. And that is why I'd like to extend an invitation to Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, to you."
"To me?" Danny's eyes were as wide as an owl's. "Really?"
"It's a boarding school, Danny," his mother cut in softly. "This is a big decision, but it's also your decision. There are other options if you don't want to leave home for a full year." Home. The house that they had been in for only a little over a year.
But he also had friends here.
His mouth, which had been about to enthusiastically say yes, yes, I'd love to go to wizarding school abruptly shut closed. No, it wasn't a decision he could make in an instant. He met his mother's eyes. Begging, pleading, despite her outer containment. But for what, he didn't know.
Jack too, was uncharacteristically serious. "We'll support you in whatever you decide, Danny-boy."
It was ridiculous. He was only ten years old. He shouldn't be making decisions this big, this early.
Still, a very large part of him appreciated that his parents would take his own feelings into account, especially considering what had happened yesterday. He turned to Minerva,
"I... I think I'd like more time to think about this," he said, voice shaking slightly. "If that's alright with you," he added quickly.
"Of course." She smiled, and pulled out another envelope from her robes, much similar to the one he had received yesterday, and handed it over to him. He took it with his own small, unsteady hands. "This is your official invitation to Hogwarts, if you should decide to go. Included is a list of supplies for the school year, as well as a map to Diagon Alley, where most witches and wizards get their supplies. Even if you decide not to go to Hogwarts, it is a good idea to at least get a wand and other basics." She paused. "Do you think you will have decided in a week?"
Danny's eyes drifted to his mother, uncertain.
"Umm, I guess." A week seemed almost suffocating, trapping him. But he knew he couldn't take forever to decide.
"Excellent. Would it be all right then if I came by at say, 8 in the morning next week?"
This time, his mother did indeed save him from the questioning.
"Of course," she answered graciously. "Thank you for doing all of this for us." A smile danced on Minerva's lips.
"Of course. I daresay that you are some of the most... interesting people I've had the pleasure to meat." Then she paused, her expression thoughtful. "You mentioned having a daughter?"
A surprised look flashed across Maddie's face. "Yes, why?"
Minerva grimaced.
"In some cases, it is... difficult when one sibling has magic and the other does not. It would be wise to think on it some before telling her."
"Jazz wouldn't get jealous," Danny blurted out unthinkingly, and blushed when all the attention was turned back to him. "I mean, she'd probably just psychoanalyze her own feelings about it or something like that..." He rubbed the back of his neck nervously.
Something akin to relief spread itself onto Minerva's face.
"If that is the case, then I'm glad for you," she said, and turned back to the adults. "Anyhow, I'm afraid I must be leaving now. If you have need of assistance, follow the map, and I'm sure Tom at the Leaky Cauldron will be more than happy to help."
As one, everybody began shuffling to the front door.
"Once again, thank you for all the help," Maddie said. "I'm glad someone like you is a teacher at a school my son might go to."
Danny froze.
"It was my pleasure," Minerva said warmly. "Until next week!" And she stepped out through the door, the Fenton family calling out their goodbyes.
When Danny was sure she was long gone, he expressed his sentiments very clearly.
"She was a teacher?"
Oh, boy. She had almost seen his room.
Growing Up
The next week, while supposed to be a relaxing summer break, was in reality an agony of indecision and inner turmoil. They had told Jazz as soon as possible, but her "advice" hadn't helped much for Danny to come to a decision.
The bare bones of the matter was that he felt guilty either way. Guilty for wasting such a wonderful opportunity, and guilty for leaving his parents without him for so long. He thought he knew what that pleading look on his mother's face now meant, having gone of it constantly in his mind. She didn't want him to leave.
But then, he kind of wanted to leave.
London had never truly become his home. Every time he'd look outside, the trees were wrong, the sky was wrong, the stars were wrong. And he would know, seeing how much time he spent staring at them. At one moment he would seem to catch a glimpse of Amity Park here, and then everything just seemed so wrong.
It was one such moment that he was sitting outside stargazing, waiting for a magic solution to appear and satisfy everybody. The irony was that it was magic that had caused the need for a decision in the first place.
He wished he could just be up in the stars. To live his dream, as an astronaut. Where none of these human problems could touch him.
