—of the Copybook Headings
words by H.P. Birdman (unless noted)
It's not a western, it barely even made it past the lobby of the theater, he just had to get away to discover who he was. Everyone knew the ending of the story, but nobody knew the content. When the camera is turned on and those affected are asked, what story will be told? Of that, you will have no control.
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"Not only intellectuals, however, but society at large seemed to Kipling to have fallen into habit of wishful thinking and to have forgotten the age-old, unfashionable wisdom enunciated by the Gods of the Copybook Headings." - Andrew Rutherford, "Introduction" in War Stories and Poems by Rudyard Kipling
—
Chapter One: To a Mouse
—
I noticed the woman across from me was getting slightly agitated, her chipped fingers drumming across her leg while her foot beat a tattoo against the carpeted floor. I gazed past her slightly auburn hair at the gaffer that was behind her.
"Are we almost ready," she asked for me, her voice steady as her leg bounced to an unknown song.
"Just a moment," my assistant said from my rear. I breathed in deeply, willing for my assistants to feel my annoyance. We had been granted a middling six hours - and nothing more! As I had been reminded repeatedly throughout the back and forth that led to this day - with what I thought was the most important subject of this documentary, at least the most important one in which I had been granted access to.
Every second lost felt like a second that the story flittered further out of my grasp.
After what felt like hours the lighting was just right, dancing off the woman across from me while framing her high cheek bones in just the correct light. I waited for the signal from my director of photography as I watched her fingers start to dance with each other, twirling an imaginary something I between them.
"Are we rolling," the question sounded foreign to my brain, as I knew that if these words ended up in the documentary I wouldn't want the audience to know of the precious minutes that were wasted with the amateur crew.
After receiving the affirmative I settled myself into my chair as I noticed her shoulders square and her features sharpen. Good. I wanted this conversation to be a fight, it would make for good roll.
"State your name, your current position, and which side of the conflict you were on," the first of the prepared questions - the ones we had briefed - came rolling off my tongue with boredom. Nobody really cared, everyone knew who this was and if they didn't I feared for the education system currently being taught at Hogwarts.
"Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin," the words came after a slightly pause, her eyes continuing their slide into steel, "Currently Special Liaison to the Auror Office."
The air around us paused assume considered her next words.
"I began the conflict as a member of the Order of the Phoenix," she finally answered as the words formed the intent I had been looking for, "I ended it as a member of the Earl of Hogsmeade's resistance."
I hoped that she didn't see the victory in my eyes. I wanted to immediately ask her for the difference, but knew that it would not be forthcoming at this point. I would need to lead her to it, like a trainer taught a schoolboy to ignore common sense to plunge at the ground at 140 miles per hour on a broom. I instead continued on the briefed questions.
"Our previous interviewees have mentioned that something happened that changed the future Earl Hogsmeade after his fifth year at Hogwarts," I drummed my fingers for effect, "Sources indicated you were part of it."
"The Department of Mysteries break in?" She questioned, as if rehearsed. Which it was.
"Yes," I replied, before asking the first question I hadn't briefed, "What was Albus Dumbledore's reaction?"
She closed her eyes for a moment, as if losing herself back in time before opening them up to a shade of purple that matched her hair, "I don't like to speak ill of the dead but his reaction was to send Harry to his relatives and hope that the time away would allow him to grieve for his godfather in peace."
"Sirius Black, correct?" My innocent question caused her to almost startle, her prepared train of thought coming something derailed. Good.
"Yes," she replied, her eyes slightly unfocused looking at a distant point behind me.
"That didn't happen though," I continued, drawing her back to the moment.
"No," she replied, her eyes focusing on me again.
"Tell me what did."
There. The entire reason I had fought so hard to secure this interview.
"Alastor Moody happened," was the curt reply. I waited for her to continue, and then waited some more. Then some more. I was not going to be the one that talked first, that was how you lost. Right as I felt a gaffer's foot start to tap on the floor as I gazed directly into the eyes of steel before me, her eyes closed and the walls came down.
"Moody was convinced Professor Dumbledore's was making a massive mistake, leaving Harry alone," she began, "He was also convinced that the Professor was up to something - he felt for a person who the Professor had put a great deal of importance on in Harry he was woefully unprepared for what lay ahead."
"Magically?" I interjected, my pen making notes across my pages so I could have anchors to come back to, "Sources indicated that the Lord Hogsmeade was one of the most magically gifted youngsters to have come through Hogwarts since his parents, producing magic as a third year that most adult Aurors have difficulty with."
"Not magically, not entirely," she responded, folding her legs and leaning forward, "He was more concerned with where Harry was mentally. A lot of things didn't quite add up to Moody, but he knew for a fact that Harry was nowhere near ready to be mentally capable of being a figurehead during a war."
"He expected a teenager to lead an Army?" I replied, my pen circling Dumbledore's name before making an arrow over to a question marked 'Leader?'
"No, just be the face of it," she replied, batting my question down.
"So what did Moody do?" I asked, getting to the heart of the matter, Potter's Lost Summer.
"He contacted an old friend."
— A Day in the Life —
Harry woke up suddenly, his eyes immediately searching out for the time. 5 in the morning glared back at him as his eyes quickly adjusted. He stopped himself from falling back into the pillows as he had the previous three days since arriving home from Hogwarts.
He got out of bed, blinked his eyes thrice, and walked out of the smallest room in Number 4, Privet Drive towards the loo where he splashed some water onto his face as had become his morning routine. The water helped chase the creeping numbness away.
"What a mess Harry," he mumbled to himself, observing the heavy black saddles under his eyes that were accented by stress lines emanating from the bridge of his nose, with a garnish of hair languishing in every direction on the top of his head, "Won't find a date to the Royal Ball with those."
He dragged a comb across his head in an attempt to control the misery business that was his hair before giving up the ghost of that issue. As it was it always would be.
He walked back to his room and changed into a pair of Dudley's old athletic clothes that he had nicked from the bin the day after he had come home. They were large on his frame, but that was okay as it was one of the only feelings of being enveloped that he was okay with. He supposed that he would have to do something about the trainers that were falling apart, but for now they would do.
He quietly walked down the stairs and out the back door, stopping to reach up to a loose brick. Opening it easily he grabbed the packet of fags that Dudley had deposited there, took one for himself, put them back, and continued on his way. He gave a slight nod in the general direction of where he knew the Order minder was, and walked away from the home in the prison.
He lit the stick easily with his finger, a small trick that George had taught him at the end of the previous term, and continued walking. If Morpheus would not allow him more than a scant few hours, he would steal it in the tar and the mindlessness of an early morning walk.
Nobody to judge him. Nobody wanting anything. No glances. No smiles. Nothing.
Sweet. Blissful. Nothing.
It was better than letting the thoughts trail back to the reams of paper that were cluttering his too small desk filled with notes on what he knew from years past. Better than letting his thoughts trail to his fifth year's knowledge against a terror that had almost brought an entire realm to its knees.
The blissful nothing that he had attempted to disappear completely into was of course shattered by thinking about what he shouldn't be thinking about in order to disappear.
"I have a fifth years knowledge, how am I supposed to fight with that?" he mumbled to himself flicking the ash off the tar, taking a hesitant drag, and then coughing. He came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the street he was on, letting his mind quickly retrace his steps so that he could return back to his start, his home in a prison.
"Why am I even doing this," he again mumbled, dropping the barely touched fag on the ground, before grinding it out with his worn trainer. He made to walk back, going over in his mind the various exercises to clean it out before he began his day as he had the previous three: starring in the face of five years of coasting and slacking off.
As he quietly entered Number Four, Privet Drive again he made to wave to the Order guard before being brought up short when he saw that it was Moody. His hand still halfway up he finished his wave and could have sworn that he felt the grizzled retired Auror's grunt in response.
He entered the still quiet house and carefully made his way up the stairs before entering the loo again. He slipped out of his trainers, and shed the old hand-me-downs before truly looking at himself in the mirror. Unlike the moments ago that he had just looked at this face, he noticed that his body was more emaciated than it had been before. Had it really only been a few weeks since…?
He closed his eyes, shook his head at his thoughts, and walked back to the smallest bedroom where he was greeted with what appeared to be a scroll waiting on his unmade bed. Finding this curious he unwrapped the twine and unfurled the parchment, noting a faint smell of sulfur in the room.
Harry-
I hope this message finds you well, or as well as can be considering your circumstances. I would like to take a moment to apologize to you, once again, and quite emphatically. As I have said before, I am an old man and I make mistakes. I can make mistakes with the best of intentions in mind but mistakes they remain.
I am not perfect Harry, and I ask that you please remember this. Nobody is perfect, in fact, but that doesn't mean that you do not have a right to be angry about it. I have made my fair share of mistakes in my life in which I deserve righteous anger, and if yours is one I shall bear for the remainder of my life it is a burden I have brought upon myself through my actions alone.
As part of my apology I wish to offer you two tokens. One of these is perhaps my favorite story ever written and something that has given me hope in times of great strife. The other is your father's ring, that your romp around my office caused me to rediscover again. It's been away from your possession for too long, it is with my sincerest apologies that I return it to you.
Finally, while you will be leaving my imposed exile sooner than you think I implore you to please not dwell on the coming roads that must be traveled. You will not do so alone, or unprepared.
With great humbleness,
Albus Dumbledore
As he finished the screed he noticed that a small book had appeared on his bed with a weighty ring on top of it. He looked the well worn book over, before placing it on the stack which was overflowing on his desk. The ring...this had been his father's.
He held it in the palm of his hand and rolled it around for a minute, unsure what to do. This was the ring of a man who had openly defied Voldemort, and had done so much more than he ever had. Sirius had idolized this man up until the moment he died. He had his faults, surely, but in the end he had done what was right.
He was a better man than he ever could be, but he knew that his father would have wanted him to have this. He tentatively tried to put it on his finger and was dismayed that it was too large for him.
Of course it was.
Eventually he grabbed the twine which had bound the letter that Professor Dumbledore had sent him, strung it through the opening of the ring, and fashioned a beggar's necklace out of one day his hand would fit the ring, but right now it would have to wait - like all things.
Shaking his head, he continued about his morning business in the sweet release that was the quietness of the standard issue English middle class house that he was forced to call home.
A few hours later he was startled from his thoughts by an almost polite knocking at the door. He looked down at himself and saw that his third year transfiguration book was open against his chest. He looked for his clock and saw that five hours had slipped away without his even having noticed. He blinked a few times before making sure that his wand was still strapped to his arm before creeping out of the room to see who in their right mind would be visiting this house unannounced in the middle of the day.
His Aunt was the one to the door, happy to ignore the presence in her life that was her only nephew. He took a position on the stairs in the shadows, not wanting to be fully seen. He realized it was with an unusual amount of paranoia that he would think one would do him ill after politely knocking on the door.
"Can I help?" Mrs. Petunia Dursley asked as she opened the door to a man wearing a ridiculously nice suit. Harry immediately spied the family crest that was stitched into the breast, before noting that the man may in fact have giant blood in him as he seemed to tower over his Aunt. He briefly wondered if the man played prop in rugby as he took in his close cropped hair and massive build.
It took both him and his Aunt a second to realize that there was in fact an older gentleman in front of the impeccably dressed man.
"The Honorable Ethan Lethbridge-Stewart, Earl of Waveney, to speak with Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Dursley and their nephew H. Potter," the man announced, his voice in a clipped tone that reminded Harry's ear of some of the more posh classmates at his school.
"Mr. Lethbridge-Stewart," Petunia began after a moment of trying to catch herself.
"Mrs. Dursley," a northern timber came out of the tree trunk, "You may have noticed that I was announced as an Earl, so you would do right to address me as such."
"My apologies Lord Waveney, please come in," Petunia quickly recovered as she let the large prescience and his attaché in. Harry was actually surprised that he fit through the door, and then briefly wondered if this is what Dudley would have looked like if he hadn't been enjoying the misspent youth he currently enjoyed.
"Where might Mr. Dursley be?" The clipped tones enjoined, as Harry felt the eyes of the apparent Earl notice him with beggared curiosity.
"He is at work," Petunia replied, her hands gripping themselves in a want for knowing what to do.
"Easy enough then," came the authoritative burr, his eyes tracing over all the holes, beams, windows, and doilies, "I'm here to speak regarding your nephew, he is to be placed in my charge for the rest of his summer vacation. You will be compensated for the time you have thus kept him and will politely keep your mouths shut about such arrangements."
Petunia gulped, and then stood up out of the slouch that Harry had not even noticed that she was in.
"Now you listen here," the paramour of Vernon Dursley rumbled to the surface.
"No, you listen here," came a third burr, and in stepped - the visage at least of - Alastor Moody, "Everything has already been arranged. We have just cut you out of the equation, the nice way this time."
His second eye traveled over to where Harry was still keeping himself in the shadows.
"Potter, go grab the basics really quickly, we're leaving now."
His heart thudding against the ring that now adorned the cavity of his chest, Harry finally rediscovered his voice that had thus far remained hidden in the shadows with him. The fact that it was in the style of the man in front of him notwithstanding of course, "How do I know it's-"
"I was locked in a trunk, I picked you up last year, and I told you to make sure to not keep your wand next to your buttocks," one eye still focused on him and the other on his aunt, "Glad you listened. Now, we need to make this quick, his Lordship here isn't exactly subtle."
"Petunia, Mr. Wallace will be in touch to set up the details of your compensation," the rumbling bear in the corner interjected, "Harry, please grab the basics and wait in the car with Mr. Moody, I'll be out in a second."
Harry stood rooted to the spot for a moment, before the clipped knocking of Moody's leg on the stairs inspired him into action. He immediately turned and walked into his room to open his trunk.
"You won't be needing that," the scarred retired Auror started, closing the trunk with a snap of his wand, "Grab a change of clothes, your coat, put them in your pack, and let's get a move on."
Harry bristled slightly under the command, the feeling of being ordered around without being given a reason had tainted his life thus far and only led to bad things. Still, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and did as Moody said. He knew that making a scene now would not be beneficial.
"Where am I going?" he asked instead as he stuffed a few of his nicer clothes into his bag, along with the battered book that Dumbledore had sent him.
"Not now lad," Moody replied, guiding Harry out of the smallest bedroom at Number Four, Privet Drive with his hand, "Don't worry, you'll know more soon."
As he left he felt Moody cast a spell over his room and briefly wondered if the Ministry would be saying anything about that, but didn't have enough time to properly consider a response to the inevitable owl as a scarred hand continued to rabbit him down the stairs and out the front door. He hadn't seen the previous pair that had almost been shaking his Aunt down but heard voices coming from the kitchen.
If it wasn't for the hand of Moody behind him and Dumbledore's mysterious words in his letter from the morning he would have rooted his feet to the spot, consequences be damned, and demand answers. Instead, he did as he had done thus far in his life: go with the direction the river wanted him to go.
Right now the water was pushing him out his front door into another completely unknown situation, and he had no choice but to accept that once again he had no choice in the matter. His heart continued to pound against the golden ring that sat on his chest as he saw an impressive black car in front of the house.
It was almost inviting him in for a new adventure.
Moody pushed him along, snatching the hat out of Harry's hand and shoving it on his head before pushing him into the back of the slightly elongated car. Before he even got a chance to catch his breath and appeal to a reason of what was next he spied the previously identified Lord Lethbridge-Stewart leave his former home with the Mr. Wallace half a pace behind him.
It was with an odd detachment as this new scene in his life was building around him that he noticed a slight limp in the mountain man's gait which made it slightly hard for him to get into the car and sit across from Harry, who was also joined his hip shortly afterwards.
"Potter I want you to meet an old friend of mine," Moody said as the car started moving, gesturing with his free hand, "Name is Major Ethan Lethbridge-Stewart, his father is apparently a pretty big deal for the muggles."
Harry looked up at the man who merely shrugged his shoulders (he wasn't sure how the coat he was in wasn't ripping in the man's muscular girth) while he kept his hands clasped on his lap, gazing out the back window.
"What's important is that for the rest of the summer, you're going to be with him," Moody continued, "You're woefully behind where you need to be and he'll get you back up to snuff."
The car continued on it's path in a heavy silence, Harry's eyes darting around while his now companions remaining calm yet vigilant. Body continued to twitch at every perceived bump in the road, while Lord Lethbridge-Stewart gazed impassively out the back window. The slight hum of stringed instruments only contributed to Harry's feeling that the walls of the car were about to cave in.
He finally couldn't take it anymore.
"Excuse me," he said, before coughing into his hand as four eyes immediately settled on him, "can someone tell me what's going on here...uh, sir?"
"Go ahead and call me Ethan, Harry," the now less titled mountain intoned, hands folded and yet looking like they could snatch the soul out of a man in an instant, "I don't much rate anything more than that at the moment."
"Alright, Ethan, and Professor Moody," Harry corrected as the walls seemed to be growing ever smaller, "What the hell is going on?!"
His anger finally breaking its way to the top, Harry prepared to flinch for the expected rebuke. After a moment he noticed that the man sitting across from him was giving him a stern, yet sympathetic look.
"Lad I told you," Moody replied, one of his eyes diverting to outside the window, "Professor Dumbledore and I agreed that mistakes had been made. They needed to be rectified."
Both eyes focused on him again.
"I also figured that you needed to get away. Ethan here can get your mind straight, get your body to where it needs to be."
The natural defiance that only escaped when it felt the need to creeped into Harry's throat again, "I don't need-"
"Bullshit," Lethbridge-Stewart cut across, his hands silently forming into a tent in front of him as he rested his elbows on his curiously well tailored trousers. Harry blinked as he wondered if he was escaping the car with his life.
"You need it," Moody punctuated as the car came to a stop, "Now you're going away with his Lordship to who knows where, and you're going to get some time to yourself, and some meat on your bones."
He was quickly escorted out of the car and into what he realized was an airplane hanger, where an unremarkable plane was waiting with a small crew quickly moving to unload the boot of the car which had driven him.
As he was bundled up into the plane he was momentarily stopped by Moody once again.
"Potter, it wasn't your fault," the grim faced man said as a final salutation before disappearing with a crack. The powerful hand of Lethbridge-Stewart guided him up the stairs and into the cabin. Having never flown before he was secured and helped by one of the plane's crew - who also brought him a small glass of sparkling water.
Looking around he saw that this plane was nothing like he had ever seen before. It looked more like a conference room than an oversized flying bus.
He watched out the window as he left Earth for the first time not of his own volition. It was twenty minutes before he realized that for the first time in his recent memory that he literally was at a lack of constant thought.
"I'm hoping that you won't need to use your wand over the next few weeks but you'd probably do good to keep it on you," the northern burr broke the silence as Harry noticed for the first time the smoldering mountain was across from him, "Alastor assures me that once we can no longer see England that your Ministry of Magic won't be able to track its use."
"Wait, you're not…" Harry trails off, having assumed that he would be in the company of a rather powerful magical user to be allowed to go off as such.
"Heavens no," the man's laugh is more of a rumbling storm than a bark, "98% normal, but not a drop of magic."
"98 sir?" Harry asks, latching onto the one thing his brain could manage.
"Lost the other two percent in the Special Air Service," was grinning answer.
"Where are we going, um, Lord Lef-"
"My Father is the Lord Harry, I'm Ethan," he paused, considering his words, "Unless we're out in public, then it would probably be best if you did address me by my title...I suppose I could infuriate you by telling you we're going on an adventure?"
Harry surprised himself with the bite of his answer.
"Yes."
This time the laughter was more of a bark.
"You're weak, Harry," came his answer after a moment, "For someone that needs to face death on a consistent basis you look like you'd barely be able to run a mile without falling over, much less last more than five minutes in a sustained fight."
The truth of the statement hung over the cabin as the memories of the last few years flew before Harry's eyes.
"To answer your question we're going to a place where there's sunshine, booze, and people that don't know who you are," Ethan continued, before uncrossing his legs and leaning towards Harry, "Now we have about ten more hours up here, why don't you tell me a little about yourself?"
—
"This old friend, was the the muggle Earl of Waveney?" I asked, this was common knowledge that the Earl of Hogsmeade had counted the other Earl as a mentor. What was not known however…
"Yes, he had apparently worked hand in hand with Moody on some minor matter of national security once," the steel eyed woman replied, flippantly.
"So Moody reached out to this muggle to what? Surely not teach him magic," I stated, intentionally trying to goad the woman across from me.
"Teach magic? No," she laughed, reaching down for the glass of water my assistant had placed their earlier and drawing a long sip, "He was muggle through and through."
"Then what?" I implored, leaning forward this time.
"We never found out for sure," she replied, folding her hands over her now still leg as a small pain started to form slightly behind my eyeball, "But what we do know is that when Harry left for the summer he was almost scared of his own shadow."
She paused, making sure that my eyes were on her. Even if I wasn't interested in this story I certainly would have been, she knew how to use her features to her advantage. Even still, her insistence on being the stone I pulled blood from was both infuriating and fascinating.
"When he came back though," she laughed, almost a musical pitch to her lilt, "England did not know what had been deployed in it."
—
"But, Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!"
"To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest With the Plough, November, 1785
Robert Burns