FullMetal Wizard

Chapter One:Rude Awakening

Discaimer:I do not own Harry Potter, that honor belongs to J.K Rowling. Nor do I own FMA references or likenesses

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Harry Potter was snoring loudly. He had been sitting in a chair beside his bedroom window for the best part of four hours, staring out at the darkening street, and had finally fallen asleep with one side of his face pressed against the cold windowpane, his glasses askew and his mouth wide open. The misty fog his breath had left on the window sparkled in the orange glare of the streetlamp outside, and the artifical light drained his face of all color, so that he looked ghostly beneath his shock of untidy black hair. A piece of parchment fell from his limp hands to the floor.

Dear Harry

If it is convenient to you , I shall call at number four, Privet Drive this coming Friday at eleven P.M. to escort you to the Burrow, where you have been invited to spend the remainder of your school holidays.

If you are agreeable, I should also be glad of your attendance in a matter to which I hope to attend on the way to the Burrow. I shall explain this more fully when I see you.

Kindly send your answers by return of this owl. Hoping to see you this Friday,

I am, yours most sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

Though he already knew it by heart, Harry had been stealing glances at this missive every few minutes since seven o' clock that evening, when he had first taken up his position beside his bedroom window, which had a reasonable view of both ends of Privet Drive. He knew it was pointless to keep rereading Dumbledore's words;Harry had sent back his "yes" with the delivering owl, as requested, and all he could do now was wait.

The minute hand on the alarm clock reached the number eleven and, at that precise moment, the streetlamp outside the window went out. Harry awoke as though the sudden darkness were an alarm. Hastily straightening his glasses and unsticking his cheek from the glass, he pressed his nose against the window instead and squinted down at the pavement. A tall figure in a long, billowing cloak was walking up the garden path. Harry jumped as though he had received an electrical shock, knocked over his chair, and snatched up his ready-packed school trunk. Harry made his way to the staircase quietly. But before he was half-way, the doorbell rang and from the living room his Uncle Vernon shouted,"Who the blazes is calling at this time of night?"

Harry froze with one foot on the bottom step as Uncle Vernon opened the door, then took a few steps back as experience had told him to always stay an arm's lenght reach from his uncle whenever possible. There in the doorway stood a tall, thin man with waist-lenght silver hair and beard.Half-moon spectacles were perched on his crooked nose, and he was wearing a long black traveling cloak and a pointed hat.Vernon Dursely, whose mustache was quite as bushy as Dumbledore's, though black, and who was wearing a puce dressing gown, was staring at the visitor as though he could not believe his tiny eyes.

"Judging by your look of stunned disbelief, Harry did not warn you that I was coming,"said Dumbledore pleasently."However, let us assume that you have invited me warmly into your house.It is unwise to linger overlong on doorsteps in these troubled times." He stepped smartly over the threshold and closed the front door behind him.

"It has been a long time since my last visit,"said Dumbledore, peering down his crooked nose at Uncle Vernon. "I must say, your agapanthus are flourishing." Vernon Dursley said nothing at all. Harry did not doubt that speech would return to him, and soon-the vein pulsing in his uncle's temple was reaching danger point-but something about Dumbledore seemed to have robbed him temporarily of breath, It might have been the blatant wizardishness of his appearance, but it might, too, have been that even Uncle Vernon could sense that he was a man who couldn't be bullied.

"Ah, good evening Harry,"said Dumbledore, looking at him through his half-moon with a most satisfied expression."Excellent, excellent."

These words seemed to rouse Uncle Vernon. It was clear that as far as he was concerned, any man who could look at Harry and say"excellent" was a man with whom he could never see eye to eye. " I don't mean to be rude-"He began, in a tone that threatened rudeness in every syllable.

"-yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often,"Dumbledore finished the sentence gravely."Best to say nothing at all, my dear man.Ah, I see you have already packed, they will be waiting for you at the Burrow."Dumbedore drew his wand and waved it so quickly noone saw it, Harry's trunk vanished.

"Now, Harry, before we depart , there is a matter I must address to your aunt and uncle."Harry nodded but didn't move. Dumbledore turned to Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, who had just emerged from the kitchen.

"As you may well know, after this school term, Harry will come of age before his seventh and final year at Hogwarts-."Dumbledore was interrupted by Aunt Petunia."No he won't be, he's a month younger than Dudley, and he won't be turning eighteen until the year after next."Dumbledore answered."In the wizarding world, we come of age at seventeen, the age when we usually leave school."

Uncle Vernon muttered, "Preposterous," but Dumbledore ignored him.

"Now, as you already know, the wizard called Lord Voldemort has returned to this country.The Wizarding community is currently in a state of open warfare.Harry, whom Lord Voldemort has already attempted to kill on a number of occasins, is in even greater danger now than the day when I left him upon your doorstep fifteen years ago, with a letter explaining about his parent's murder and expressing the hope that you would care for him as though he were your own."Dumbledore paused, and although his voice remained light and calm, and he gave no obvious sign of anger, Harry felt a kind of chill emanating from him. "You did not do as I asked.You have never treated Harry as a son.He has known nothing but neglect and often cruelty at your hands. The best that can be said is that he has at least escaped the apalling damage you have inflicted upon the unfortunate boy standing behind you.

Both Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon looked around instinctively, as though expecting to see someone other than Dudley behind them. "Us-mistreat Dudders?What d'you-?"began Uncle Vernon furiously, but Dumbledore raised his finger for silence, a silence which fell as though he had struck Uncle Vernon dumb.

"The magic I evoked fifteen years ago means that Harry has powerful protection while he can still call this house'home'.However miserable he has been here, however unwelcome, however badly treated, you have at least, grudgingly, allowed him houseroom.This magic will cease to operate the moment that Harry turns seventeen.I ask only this, that you allow Harry to return, once more, to this house, before his seventeenth birthday, which will ensure that the protection contines until at that time."

None of the Dursleys said anything."Well, Harry...time for us to be off,"said Dumbledore at last, turning around and waitig for him to follow.

Just before Harry closed the door, he quietly good-bye to them.

Harry and Dumbledore walked to the end of Privet Drive, at which point Harry held Dumbledore's arm and they Disapparated elsewhere.

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To be continued

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Next Chapter:The Man With The Golden Hand