Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling has ownership of Harry Potter together with several publishing companies, Noboru Yamaguchi owns Familiar of Zero and all merchandise connected to it. This story though is mine.
Autor´s note: Well... here it is. My very own first fanfiction. I intend this story to be in the Zero no tsukaima universe with the feeling from the later Harry Potter books. I have most of the story planned out and it will be huge, like 100k+ words from first estimations. Most of it is still in my head lying around, waiting to be written but I am sure this will change. As this is my first published story I would welcome any comments and criticisms about speeling, Grammar or plot problems to improve myself.
Please enjoy
„Tell me just one last thing" said Harry."Is this here real? Or is this just happening in my head?"
Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice was clear and strong in Harry´s ears, though a bright green fog descended on them which blurred his shape.
"Of course is it just happening in your head, Harry, but why in the world should this mean that it is not real?"
And with a bright green flash Harry disappeared, but he didn´t return to the forbidden forest and Voldemord. No, Harry went to another place where he was needed, even if he didn´t know jet.
Again Harry lay with his face on the floor. He smelt fresh grass, still wet with dew, which was strange for the forbidden forest and he felt sunshine on his back which was strange for the middle of the night.
Voices chattered in an unknown language. It sounded somewhat like French, but he heard enough from Fleur that the sound was a bit of, perhaps a dialect?
Slowly he opened his eyes for a bit, taking the strange scene in. He didn´t see much, missing his glasses, he noted. His only piece of clothing was the dark cloak he found in... Kings Cross. He saw walls enclosing what might have been a castle, a group of people in dark clothing, and a small person with unbelievable bright pink hair a bit away from the crowd. She, Harry concluded from the high-pitched voice, argued loudly with another person, this one was bald, in this strange not-French.
Finally they came to a conclusion, and the girl walked slowly, hesitatingly to Harry. He was by now sure that this little girl and these children, he judged by the voices had nothing to do with Voldemord.
By and large the scene was very strange to Harry. He expected to be brought back in the forbidden forest, back to Voldemord to fight again, but the environment was so cheerful, so bright and innocent. The sun shone brighter than ever since the Dementors started breeding, and the air was warm and pleasant.
The Pinkette was directly in front of him now and somehow this calmed Harry immensely. He decided to stop playing dead. Slowly he stood up, clutching his cloak around his body, and met her eyes.
`He looks poor, like a commoner,`were the first thoughts coursing through Louise´s head, as she looked up at his composed face. `And in a lanky sort of way good-looking.` He was tall when standing up and his middle-long black hair fell messily in his brilliant green eyes.
She was not happy with the way of events. In her fantasy it was always a brilliant flash of magic and she would behold her magnificent familiar, a proud dragon or a wild manticor. Not this man, no boy.
"Familiar, be honoured," she spoke disdainfully to him."Normally a noble like myself would never lower herself like this. Get on your knees!"
There was no understanding from him, only the same stoic mask. Slowly, as if talking to a child, he spoke a few words in an archaic sounding language. The boy seemed to expect her, or somebody else, to understand his gibberish as he looked at the other students questioning.
The confusion in the students only seemed to strengthen his composure,and enraged Louise. Nobody ignored Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, nobody looked elsewhere when she was talking. No longer caring for etiquette she chanted the words of binding under her breath and forcefully grabbed him at the collar, pulling his face down to eye level and slamming her mouth on his.
Harry staggered back in shock. He felt is if his brain got fried. It was not usual to forcefully kiss somebody who just appeared out of thin air. All thoughts of Lord Voldemord, the Deatheater and the war were blown out of his head by the sheer absurdity of the situation. Just what was going on with this girl? Why didn´t the other people react surprised? It was like this was normal to them.
Suddenly a searing pain coursed through his head. Harry sunk to the ground and groaned in horrible agony, pressing his hands on his forehead. It was even worse than being touched by Lord Voldemord. Slowly the Pain ebbed away and Harry was again able to think coherently again. He could feel lines cut in the skin of his head, his curse scar was a ridge parting the distortion in half.
"What have you done to me," murmured Harry more to himself than to anybody else.
"I bound you as my familiar, peasant," the girl exclaimed with a bitter tone in her voice. "Feel honoured that I touched you."
"Well done Miss Valliére," said one of the people from the crowd, from the sound it was an adult man. "While you had problems with the summoning and your Familiar is a bit... odd, your binding was excellent, though you could have spoken more clearly in my opinion."
"Thank you Professor Colbert," the girl answered dejectedly. " I think I will return to my dorm, the... summoning has exhausted me."
She turned sharply to a Tower in the castle wall and stormed off, leaving a whispering crowd and a confused Harry back.
Harry turned to the man who might have been a teacher, the crowd looked like a class on a field trip at second glance, and steeped hesitantly to him.
"Well... would you mind explaining what just happened?"Harry asked hesitantly. At least he was pretty sure that this situation had nothing to do with Lord Voldemord.
"Ah, right." said Colbert with just as much uncertainty. "Well this is hard to explain. You must know, we are in the Tristain Academy of Magic. I am not sure where you are from, but Miss Valliére, the girl from before, used magic to summon a familiar and... well that is you."
"So you are telling me that because this girl used some strange magic I was brought here?" Concluded Harry with trepidation. "What are you going to do? I cannot stay here as the familiar to some brat! Aren´t you her Teacher? Find some way to send me back!" by now Harry nearly yelled at the professor.
"Now, now. There is no need to be angry. I am sure we can find a compromise" appeased Colbert with little success. "Miss Valliére would of course let you get home to visit family and to let you take care of your things, but you have to see, you are her familiar. You cannot just abandon her!"
"I would not abandon her, if she had not dragged me in this business. Let her look for another familiar" argued Harry heatedly.
"That is impossible! She can only have one familiar and the bond cannot be broken without the death of one of the partners."
This calmed Harry down at least." Then she will have to live without a familiar," he said slowly.
Colbert let out a big sigh. "You should still discuss this with Miss Valliére. It concerns her as well. I think she would not be against releasing you from the contract, she didn´t look very happy with a familiar as... complicated as you are."
" Now I am sure I could help you with searching for a way to break the contract, just because it was never broken before doesn´t mean nothing can be done." He got a sly gleam in his eyes. "But would you mind if I had a look on your runes? I could swear I have seen them before. And a human familiar, even if a commoner is still a very interesting research subject. And your language. You didn´t speak Tristanian until after the runes appeared. Do they act as a translator? Will you let me study them, please?"
"Of course, of course," said a bemused Harry, the man acted very much like Hermione with a secret dangling in front of her eyes. "Later if you don´t mind. I think I should have this talk with my... master first if you don´t mind."
"Ah, of course. Kirche," He called to one of the remaining students, the others having already left with their own familiars. Even Harry with his very stunted sight could see the rather voluptuous figure of the redhead woman who answered the professors call. A small girl with blue hair, a red dog-like thing and what seemed to be a blue dragon followed her. "Would you mind bringing... ah I didn´t catch your name."
"Just Harry," said Harry with a small smirk, reminiscing of his first meeting with Hagrid. These people seemed friendly enough, but it was always better to be save, and getting recognised as the boy who lived was not high on Harry´s list. First he wanted to get a bit more of a grip on the situation. This place was strange. Harry had never heard of Tristain, or a magic school this size, other than Hogwarts.
"Yes. Would you mind bringing Harry to Miss Valliére´s room? They should discuss the terms of their summon."
"That would be delightful," said Kirche cheerfully, with a suggestive wink to Harry. " I´m very interested in Harry myself.
"I am Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt-Zerbst," she introduced herself. "And this is my familiar, Flame." Harry recognised it now as a Salamander from his creature lessons, thought it was several times bigger than any he had seen before.
"Tabitha," the second girl said softly and pointed at the dragon. "Sylphid." Harry found it hard to believe that a dragon could be so, well so not-threatening looking. No spikes, no thorns, no finger-long teeth. Perhaps Hagrid always saw dangerous beasts like this.
As they three humans walked away, the familiars staying on the greens, Kirche began showing Harry the castle and chattering away at an insane speed.
"Louise is probably in the dorms crying her eyes out,because of her summoning. Nothing against you but she was under some pressure to perform. The girl can´t do magic to save her live, well except to make an explosion or two, but that is all she´s good at. She is even called the Zero because she hasn´t performed one spell in her live correctly. Every time she tries to use magic something explodes.
"Well not that it matters to you, you only want to get away from here right? I would want to get back too, if I were summoned somewhere out of the blue. Tell me how was your home? Your clothing is a bit... well you can´t really call this clothing, it´s only a cloak. Is this normal where you come from? Hehe, or did Louise interrupt something dirty and you had to throw something on in a hurry?" She said teasingly with good humour, thought Harry couldn´t really get a word in with her.
"No, it´s not normal." He said with a sheepish grin, letting her make her own conclusions. "I was in a bit of a situation. Would you tell me where I could get some clothing? It is a bit draughty in here and this is not the thickest cloak."
"I could look if I have something in my room, perhaps my ex left something and it´s on the way anyway."
They went on, Kirche asking Harry about his situation, Harry trying to evade her questions and Tabitha silently walking beside them. By the time they arrived at Kirches room she was convinced that Harry was definitely interrupted in something and Harry was convinced that nobody would suspect him of having fought anything worse than a rabid girlfriend. He was still not sure how Kirche came up with that scenario.
Her room was plainly speaking a mess. Clothes were scattered around the room, the queen sized bed was unmade and yes there were men´s clothes, till the underpants, in very different sizes. Not caring to ask why several different men took of their clothing in the room a blushing Harry snatched some pants, and shirts from the floor and shooed the two girls out to dress. He noted that Kirche indeed had intended to stay and watch Harry change. Perhaps it was normal in this place, or the Englishmen were just to uptight. With his new clothes and his cloak he looked very much like any other student from this school.
When he emerged from the room Kirche smiled mischievously, which made Harry fear for his dignity. It was a bit like this smile the Weasley twins got when they made one of their more humiliating pranks. His light mood took a blow from this thought. Fred Weasley was dead. He died a few hours ago, fighting for a free world. And so did Harry in a way. Voldemord was nearly mortal again and Ron and Hermione would take care of the last horcrux together with Neville. In a way Harry did his duty. A horrifying thought crept in Harry´s mind.
" Now go on. Louise´s Room is just to the left, on the end of the corridor," Kirche pushed him in the direction of a wooden door, like any other door in this corridor. Harry hesitantly walked to the closed door. He opened it slowly and walked in the room. Louise was crying inside.
It was a heartbreaking sight, the small girl huddled in the corner of the bed and sobbed in her pillow. Tears streaked down her cheeks and she shuddered with every breath. Harry must have made some noise because she flinched and glared at him with red-rimmed eyes. Her eyes widened as she took in his appearance.
"What do you think you are wearing?" Asked she in a deadly cold voice, hardly a sign of weakness remaining from the picture she gave seconds before. "How dare you wear these clothes?"
"These?" asked Harry in honest confusion. He thought that they would have a conversation concerning both their lives, and not hat she would freak out on him for wearing the wrong clothes. "What is with these? Kirche gave them to me so I suppose they are normal here..."
"Normal for nobles!" interrupted Louise. "A commoner like you must not dress like us! It is against Brimir´s law. A commoner is a commoner and a noble is a noble and these borders must not be breached! It is a sacrilege."
"Ok," Harry appeased her in a calm voice. "I didn´t know that and I´m sorry for insulting your laws, but can we talk about my summoning? I will change later but this is more important. Ok?"
"What is there to talk about?" said Louise in a moody, but calmer tone. "You as my familiar would usually do things like protect me or fetch things like reagents for me. But you are a human so I suppose you could act as my servant for now."
"I´m afraid you misunderstood," Harry said. This conversation could be more complicated than he thought "I have no intentions of staying your familiar for any longer than necessary. Your teacher Colbert already promised to help me in breaking the contract in a way that doesn´t involve one of us dying. I only wanted you to understand that I expect you to help us in this because you are after all the one who started this whole thing."
Louise stared at this... this outrageous person. How dare he. How dare he demand of her to break this bound. She wanted to be nice to him, give him a chance as a servant to high nobility. Most commoners would love to have this chance, but first he came in her clothed in a nobles garb, spitting on Brimirs law, even if it was a trick by Kirche, and then he had the gall to demand her to break the bond. But she was a benevolent master. She would give him one last chance.
"I will not break the bond. I need a familiar to prove my magical ability therefore I will give you a place as a servant to me." said Louise with forced calm. "I´m high nobility and I can provide for you. But I will not tolerate this behaviour from you any longer. You will apologize immediately to me for making demands."
The two stubborn teenagers stared at each other, neither willing to back down. The boy spoke first, in a composed but passionate voice.
"I need to go back. My home country is in a civil war and I was summoned from... from an important mission that could influence the outcome oft the whole conflict." He looked in Louise´s eyes. His gaze had a burning quality to it, a need so strong it could move mountains. "I must go back, the lives of my friends, my companions and thousand others depend on it."
Louise couldn´t hold The commoner´s gaze any more. "But... you are my first magical success. You are evidence of my ability. Nobody can mock me because I can´t use magic from now on."
Louise´s mother had taught her rhetoric and she could hear that her arguments were weak, her tone soft and unconvincing. She knew she it was only token resistance because of her pride.
When The boy spoke again his voice was soft and gentle. "I know it is hard to be different from the others, but you will not earn their respect if you depend only on one success." He looked in her eyes again and this time his brilliant green eyes were warm and comforting. "Whether or not I am here you will have to prove yourself again and again. And who knows, perhaps the next time you will summon a familiar that... well that is better suited to you. Till then I will help you as good as I can."
And Louise believed him. That a commoner who appeared out of nowhere would help her. That she could depend on him until she was on her own legs, because she had no doubt that the boy would do exactly so, even if he had to return to her once he saved his country. He didn´t seem to be such a bad summon anymore.
"... You are right. My mother would say the same.`Don´t rest on your laurels. If you´ve proven your worth, prove it again.`... She would be disappointed in me." Louise looked at the boy. "What is your name?"
"Harry James Potter."