Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, he belongs to JKRowling. This is fanfiction purely for entertainment and I'm not making any money off it (darn!).

Spread Your Wings

By Ebona Nite

Chapter Three: The Letter

The month of August of 1991 was the most interesting time Harry Potter had ever had. It had started at midnight, July 31st with his birthday, and Hagrid knocking down the door of the tiny hut on the rock his uncle had rented to get away from the swarms of letters. After Hagrid had left and his Uncle Vernon had dropped him off at Charring Cross Road in London, with firm instructions to never darken the doorway of 4 Privet Drive again, Harry had rented a room at the Leaky Cauldron.

He had full access to Diagon Alley now, and with a few extra galleons a day Tom the barkeeper and proprietor had put his name down in the ledger book as "Jimmie Grey." A brief stop off at Gringotts turned into a somewhat longer stop, as he discovered that the Potter account manager was actually Griphook, the goblin who had taken him to his trust vault before, and that he had more than one vault. He had the locks and keys changed, as someone apparently had absconded with the originals, and Griphook started a review of all the vaults. Luckily nothing was missing except the keys.

He'd taken a tour through the three Family Vaults, and had picked out a few items to bring with him, among them a family heirloom invisibility cloak. Grabbing some more money, he'd then made his way to Flourish and Blott's.

He got a large amount of books, and then spent a week researching the British Wizarding society and reading Hogwarts, a History from cover to cover. He was not impressed. Prejudice ran rampant, and pureblood father aside he may as well have been one of the despised muggleborns. Those who didn't despise the non-magically raised tended to think of them with mild contempt and confusion, few wanting or attempting to understand the non-magical way of life and even fewer offering help for the muggle-raised to learn in-depth about the magical world in any other way than trial-and-error, and even then there was cross-culture confusion.

On the morning of August 15, Harry awoke to find an envelope sitting on the dresser, with a letter and pamphlet inside.

Dear Mr. H. Potter,

Greetings young magic user. As you have been raised in a non-magical environment and may not know that magic exists, we have sent along a pamphlet with information you may find useful and even interesting. For further proof, please speak your full name to this parchment and allow one drop of your blood to fall on it; further information will be revealed once your identity has been confirmed. Feel free to browse the pamphlet before you commit to bloodletting. And do be careful when you prick yourself, the parchment only needs a single drop, anymore would be overkill, perhaps even to yourself.

Harry gaped at the parchment a moment. The letter was unsigned, but whoever it was he liked their sense of humor. Not to mention their obvious security. Although he was wary of giving out his blood to just anything.

He did, however, "browse the pamphlet" as the odd letter suggested. It was very good, much more than Hogwarts' "you've been accepted" letter. It talked about accidental magic, magical communities and their hidden natures, several different magical schools including some nearby day schools and Hogwarts. The last page spoke about security spells of different levels, up to and including voice, magical signature, and blood/DNA scanning which were used a lot in Gringotts. In fact, Harry had already done a blood and magic scan to get his vault keys changed and reissued.

Not seeing what else to do, and suspecting this was in fact a very late acceptance letter for another magical school, Harry carefully gave himself a small papercut on the edge of the mysterious parchment and spoke his name. Immediately more writing begin to appear, as he stuck his stinging finger in his mouth.

Thank you for your trust, Mr. Potter.We have been attempting to contact you with similar letters since you were eight and a particularly strong and focused burst of accidental magic brought you to our attention.

This made Harry think back a moment. He thought he knew what they were talking about – he'd been eight when he'd somehow transported himself to the school roof to get away from the Harry-Hunting gang led by Dudley. It was probably that incident they meant, whoever they were.

We would like to offer you a place in our school, Atlantis Academy. This is, indeed, located on Atlantis.

Non-magical and magical people alike have legends about the lost island-continent of Atlantis. To the non-magicals, it was destroyed and sank into the ocean. The magicals, however, have more truth in their stories though even they do not know everything. Atlantis was hidden by strong wards, they say, and is the site for a prestigious private magical academy, which every so often chooses a few of the strongest witches and wizards from around the world to attend. The Hogwarts Founders were reportedly schooled there.

I can confirm several of these points, and dismiss the rest. Atlantis was not hidden, it was removed from your dimension, set into its own "pocket-universe" and then expanded to include several smaller islands and archipelago. It holds a university as well as a grade level school, and his home to its own community. Non-magical people are a minority, but some do live there, a few even work as teachers.

Atlantis was removed by two seraphim (what you might know as six-winged angels) who then founded the community and the academy and university. The Hogwarts Founders did indeed go to the academy, which is where they came up with the idea for a school for witches and wizards. We of Atlantis have much more interaction with the world than most of Europe realize, as not everyone stays and many enjoy having jobs off the Island.

We do sometimes invite strong magical beings from the Outside to attend and even live here, but not always the strongest. More often we look for gifts and abilities along with personalities and attitudes that can fit in with our community. For you see, Atlantis is home for all magical beings, not just humans, including vampires, centaurs, merfolk, and others. Our academy and university are open to all beings and offer non-magical as well as magical classes.

We would like to offer you a place in the Atlantis Academy. This letter is only a brief introduction; for details and in-depth discussion of the school and community, we feel a face-to-face meeting with one of our staff members would serve far better as it would allow you to ask whatever questions you would like and gives you time to make your decision. Should you wish such a meeting, please write your reply and send it in the envelope that came with this letter. Just say "Atlantis Academy Recruiters' Office" and the envelope will take your reply to us.

Sincerely,

Sharon Toar, Head of Atlanis Academy Recruiters' Office

Harry didn't need to think about it this time. It already sounded better than Hogwarts. He wrote a quick reply, requesting the meeting, and sent the envelope.

Now it was off to the bookstore to see if he could find anything about Atlantis and its academy.

Author's Note: Sorry the last chapter was so short. It was more of a preview than a full chapter. I'm going to try to slowly work up to longer chapters, but it depends on how much I can manage to write in one go before losing my train of thought and needing a break. Anyway, I hope to get another chapter out sometime this week, but it depends on how busy I get. I intend to get August finished and send Harry off to school in the next chapter, with any luck I'll manage all of that in a single long chapter. Ta ta for now!