AN: A Harry Potter fusion, based on a prompt from cyanclouds for her Secret Santa fic on the USUK LJ comm.
So that was how Alfred F. Jones came to be a member of Gryffindor House, and from the first day he was Arthur's faithful shadow, dogging his steps with wide and worshipful eyes. Arthur was, in turn, his affectionate and protective guardian, shepherding Alfred around, warding off too-curious schoolmates with a glare, and actually hexing one who had demanded to see the famous eagle-shaped scar on the Boy Who Didn't Die's forehead. They sat together at meal-times, Arthur tutored Alfred, and if Alfred had a nightmare he was known to crawl into Arthur's bed, shivering, until Arthur's whispered lullabies soothed him to sleep.
Alfred did very well at Hogwarts, with his "Artie" beside him. Arthur loved it, too, having his adorable little Alfred - he never thought of him as "the Boy Who Didn't Die" - always beside him, always there to laugh at his jokes and listen to his stories and follow his lead. Arthur had been alone for so long - now that he wasn't, it was a heady feeling.
Rumors swirled around the school about Alfred's past. Some said he'd never left the United Kingdom at all, but was merely said to have done - hidden in some ancestral castle, or in the Ministry, or in Hogwarts itself. Some said he'd been smuggled across the Channel, to France, or to Belgium, or to Spain - and one even suggested Germany. Most believed he'd been smuggled across to the Colonies (the wizards, slower to change than their Muggle brethren, still called it that - to the few American wizards' annoyance) but exactly where was still a hotly-debated question. Had it been in New York - and in a luxurious town-house on Fifth Avenue, or in a ramshackle flat in Hell's Kitchen? Boston, Salem, Philadelphia? Perhaps - but this was seen as unlikely, as the vast majority of America's small population of wizardkind live on the East Coast - San Francisco or Los Angeles?
Only Arthur knew the truth - only he knew about Alfred's wandering lifestyle all over the States, mostly in small, sparsely-populated areas - an isolated homestead in New Mexico, a ranch in Texas, a farmhouse in Kansas, a little apartment in North Dakota - the longest stay in a cabin in Alaska, where his caretaker hunted, fished and trained sled-dogs, and went into the nearest town (two hours' ride on snowmobile) only once every month for supplies.
Arthur, remembering his own roaming, housed-but-homeless childhood, would cuddle Alfred close after every small-voiced, hesitant mention of Alfred's past. And he would share his past in return - telling Alfred things he had never told anyone before, his dead parents and empty house, his loneliness, and his family-that-was-not-family. And Alfred would look up with great big eyes that understood, and Arthur thanked God every night for bringing his new little brother into his life.
Alfred eagerly followed Arthur's lead in all things, liking what he liked, admiring what he admired, taking his every word as gospel and his every action as scripture. It made Arthur beam with pride when he saw Alfred repeating something he said - such as when he overheard Alfred saying that of course scones were better when thoroughly seared, an attitude he had copied wholesale from his older hero. People had grudgingly admired Arthur but no one had ever wanted to be like him before.
But even he admitted that there were a few undesirable side-effects to Alfred's unquestioning and complete hero-worship, the most undesirable of which was Alfred's gaining of his very own archrival.
This was one thing Arthur wished most whole-heartedly he had not passed onto his younger brother (he hardly thought of it with qualifiers anymore) because he thoroughly despised his own archrival. They had been enemies since before they had even come to Hogwarts, an enmity that was legendary even in the long, contentious history of Gryffindor and Slytherin.
Francis Bonnefoy, son of the French Ambassador to the British Ministry of Magic, was everything Arthur was not, a mirror image exactly in reverse. He was charming where Arthur was abrupt and stand-offish - elaborately coiffed and maintained where Arthur's only nod to appearance was to keep his uniform scrupulously neat - the easygoing, smiling Slytherin prefect to provide a better-liked alternative to Arthur the scowling Gryffindor one - a Quidditch legend who passed some classes effortlessly while not caring a fig for those he did not - popular among his peers and much sighed-over by girls and boys in every House, and delighted to grace the beds of most of them. And last of all, he was a much-beloved son, doted upon by his parents and most of his family - a stark contrast to Arthur the unloved, Arthur the iceheart, Arthur the orphan - a fact Francis liked to toss in the other boy's face as often as possible, in as many sly, subtle little insults as he could manage.
They had loathed each other for as long as Arthur could remember, from their first meeting - when Arthur's parents had still been alive and had brought their only son to a Ministry ball, where one-year-older Francis had used wandless magic to try and 'repair those unsightly things on Arthur's face' and ended up burning Arthur's brows right off - and with each passing day their enmity grew and grew.
And Francis had a cousin in the same year as Alfred.
Young Matthew Malfoy, related to Arthur's bane through both his mother and father, had actually once been rather sweet, Arthur recalled dimly - utterly forgettable, but nice and polite. He had met Matthew at another Ministry function, this time after his parents had died and his current group of grasping relatives had used Arthur's prestige to wrangle an invitation, and the little boy had greeted him politely, and then never did anything again during the dinner that Arthur could remember - which was, in Arthur's opinion, a vast improvement over his cousin. This of course changed, and by the time he entered Hogwarts as a first-year he was a smaller, quieter copy of Francis, whom he worshipped as Alfred worshipped Arthur.
Arthur blamed Matthew's corruption on Francis, on whom he blamed most things, ranging from the overly elaborate menu that did not include good plain British cooking as often as Arthur would like, to Gryffindor's loss of the House Cup for five years straight (a loss, Arthur was convinced, that had been accomplished through means most foul), to bad weather conditions in the UK and the breakdown of morality worldwide.
And so he blamed Francis, ultimately, when Alfred and Matthew ended up having a fist-fight in the middle of a hallway.
Now, Francis was too canny to make an enemy of the Boy Who Did Not Die. In fact he had instructed Matthew to try and cultivate the young hero's friendship. But he was such a horrible person that of course Arthur had complained about him several times to Alfred, cementing in that young heart a fervent and undying hatred of anyone his beloved Artie hated so much, and of course he was around Matthew so much, corrupting him further, that of course Alfred associated the other first-year with that evil prefect who had called Artie an unloved orphan - an insult that made Alfred blink back empathic tears - and so of course Alfred had spurned Matthew's rather condescending offer of alliance, and it was really all Francis's fault after all.
So Alfred - surprising everyone who remembered the trembling, teary-eyed child from the Sorting, and who had only seen a studious, dedicated little boy in classes after - and Matthew fought at every occasion after that, in squabbles that made everyone recall with painful vividness the legendary feud between Arthur and Francis, which bid fair to be echoed in exacting fashion by these two new first-years.
Once, Arthur had gently tried to suggest to Alfred that just because he, Arthur, hated Francis with many good reasons, it did not follow that Alfred needed to follow in his footsteps. Alfred had only looked at him with wide eyes and announced indignantly that Matthew had insulted Arthur as "not fitting company" for Alfred, and so he would hate the Malfoys and Bonnefoys and any other type of Foys forever and ever and ever. Arthur had grabbed Alfred and hugged him tightly for being angry on Arthur's behalf - because no one had ever been before - which was very nice but not exactly conducive to convincing Alfred not to regard Matthew as evil.
Most students (and most teachers, as well, although they could not admit it) were actually glad that the Malfoy-Jones (or Bonnefoy-Kirkland, part deux) feud had erupted, for the simple reason that it made them feel better. In the first place, it was entertaining. Secondly, and more importantly, it proved that Alfred could, when pushed to it, stand up for himself. The idea that the wizarding world had been saved by an utterly helpless milksop was not appealing; the flashes of temper and fighting spirit were much more in keeping with their idea of a hero.
The latest incident seemed to cement their new-old view of Alfred as The Hero, rather than as That Boy We Thought Was A Hero. It involved Malfoy, Alfred standing up to him, and impressive broomwork, all elements that combined to make a very satisfying story to tell in the Great Hall.
The Gryffindor and Slytherin first-years had been having their first flying lessons, and somehow Matthew managed to snatch Alfred's new silver cross necklace - a present from Arthur, charmed with multiple layers of protective and tracking spells - and fly away with it while the instructor was busy with the other students. Furious, Alfred had chased after him, and it had devolved into an aerial duel which ended with Alfred snatching the silver cross from midair.
And then the Head of Gryffindor, watching, had decided that the best way to handle the situation was to offer Alfred a place on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team.
When Arthur heard the news, he fainted.
tbc
