Chapter 3: The Real Lives Begin

2nd July 1991 - Hogwarts

Minerva McGonagall stormed up the spiral staircase that led to Albus Dumbledore's office. The woman was almost fuming as she consciously had to consciously stop herself from crumpling the three envelopes she held. Just as she was about to raise her fist to bang out her frustrations on his office door, it swung open revealing the decorative room.

"Come in Minerva," she heard Albus call. She sighed through clenched teeth, he always had some way of knowing when someone was outside. One of these days I'll figure it out, she thought begrudgingly.

A bemused smile played across the old man's lips as his Deputy walked into the room. Said smile faltered slightly, however, when he noted the look of irritation she wore.

"Albus there are a few worries concerning this years entries," she started, not holding back in her snippy tone. Albus quickly noted the three envelopes she was shuffling absentmindedly. "In particular, regarding Harry Potter's." Minerva was now positively glaring at her old friend.

Albus leaned forward, wondering just what had shaken Minerva so regarding his admissions letters. Perhaps his reply had revealed he knew nothing of Hogwarts and wanted an explanation. Or maybe, in an unfortunate turn of events, the boy had mentioned the mistreatment he'd received at the hands of his relatives. Albus was not unaware that the Dursleys had not been a successful fit for Harry Potter's welfare. In fact, in the first few years he'd received many complaints and warnings from Arabella Figg, a member of his Order, who was living across the road on Privet Drive to keep an eye on Harry. She had sent reports of him looking malnourished and abused, however, Albus took it as exaggeration and figured the boy could do with the character building. It would shape him into a better leader when we need him, the old wizard had figured. Besides, those reports stopped a long while ago, so issues must have resolved. Now though, there was some problem?

"Where is Harry Potter, Albus?" she asked simply.

He looked at Minerva quizzically. She knew, as he did, that Harry was with his relatives. "In Little Whinging, with his relatives?" he had meant to state it as a fact, however in that moment her demeanour had him suddenly unsure.

"Here is his letter," Minerva said, placing one of the envelopes on the desk so he could see it.

'Mr H. J. Potter' it read.

Albus blinked. "Did you not fill out his address?" he asked, bewildered at the plain envelope.

"You know as well as I do that they are magically written and sent off to students, Albus."

Albus Dumbledore was confused. It had been many years since he had felt so unknowing, and he definitely did not like it.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked, barely louder than a whisper so Minerva almost did not hear him.

"I was hoping you could tell me," she snipped. "The letters all flew out at 10:00AM exactly and within half an hour the owl that had taken Harry Potter's returned with it." She took a deep breath, understanding a simple explanation for the abnormality that she had been hoping for was not coming, and this was slightly more serious than she had originally assumed. "You might like to know it wasn't the only one."

Two more envelopes were placed before him reading 'Mr D. L. Malfoy' and 'Miss H. J. Granger'. Albus picked up the two other envelopes and looked up at his colleague expectantly. "Did you not just reset the quill to fill in their addresses?" he asked. However, he did know that an address was not necessarily required in the first place, an owl could find the intended recipient with only a name. Hogwarts letters were always addresses to a child's home, so as to seem more official.

Minerva sighed. "I tried, but all it wrote were their names again, as if these children have no homes. I just don't understand!"

Albus could see her getting exasperated and gestured for her to take a seat at one of the guest chairs opposite his desk. Minerva willingly obliged, collapsing into the chair and placing her elbow on the arm rest so as to keep her head up. Albus took a moment to Floo-call Arabella Figg, asking the woman to perhaps head over to the Dursleys to check that Mr Potter was there. "Harry ran away a couple years ago, Albus," was the woman's curt response. "I didn't tell you because I figured you'd picked up the kid somewhere what with all the so-called protections you had on him. I also wanted no part in sending him back to those awful humans."

Now it was Albus's turn to fall into his chair, shocked beyond belief. The boy had run away and not even recently, years ago. He shook his head in deep concern. Harry Potter could have been anywhere and with anyone. His plans that had been years in the making were unravelling before his eyes and he could do nothing to stop them. Rummaging around his desk, he eventually found the amber coloured jewel he had tied to the wards around No.4 Privet Drive. Indeed it was pulsing and glowing, as it was supposed to if Harry spent more than 48 hours away from the property or stopped calling No.4 his home. Clearly it was his fault for keeping such a clutter on his desk that he had lost the jewel and missed his warning.

"Well," Albus began slowly, "we know that young Master Malfoy died in the Mer Incident of 1987." He paused for a moment recalling the tragedy and Minerva nodded solemnly. In the early Autumn of '87, a peaceful Mer city outside of Cornwall had suddenly decided to revolt against wizards treating their city as a glorified museum. Hundreds of witches and wizards had either been brutally murdered and lay at the bottom of the ocean or swept into the magical tsunami and washed out and scattered on the ocean bed, most unrecovered. Lord and Lady Malfoy tragically announced that their young Heir, Draco, had been present that day. "Though I cannot fathom why a letter was drawn up for him in the first place…" Dumbledore added after a while of thought.

They both pondered on the question, but came to no solid conclusion. Had the boy somehow survived? Was there another D. L. Malfoy somewhere out there? Had the magic finally reached it's expiry date? Nothing made any sense.

"Hermione Granger," Minerva said suddenly. "The final name, she is a muggleborn. From Central London."

"Curious," Albus said, inspecting the three envelopes for the fiftieth time. "A Pureblood Heir to an Ancient and Noble House, our half blooded Boy-Who-Lived and regular muggleborn. There is no connection!" He threw down the envelopes in frustration. "We must find Harry Potter," he turned and looked Minerva straight in the eyes. "The matter of these glitches is irrelevant. The Malfoy boy we know is dead and the muggleborn witch is of little importance. Harry Potter, however, must be found. If word were to get out…"

Minerva nodded now wringing her hands, equally concerned. Albus, however, took little notice of the witch. He was too busy rushing to the fireplace and calling all Order members to scatter over Britain, both muggle and magical, in search of Harry Potter. Albus shuddered at the idea that Harry might be somewhere in magical Britain, his plans to get the subdued and supposed timid boy under his thumb would be all the more tough. He shuddered at the thought.

14th August 1991 - The Leaky Cauldron

"Oi, watch where you're going," Alex scowled at the red headed boy as they bumped shoulders. As he tried to reshuffle the dirty dishes on his tray, he gained a nonchalant shrug from the boy as he rejoined his large family at their table. Alex glared at the dishes and stormed off towards the kitchen, choosing to take out his frustration on them rather than the actual subjects of his irritation, namely the annoying red head and his massive family.

Alex knew exactly who they were, but did not want to even let himself care enough to put names to faces. This family was, after all, Scarlett's previous life. They were no more to any of the kids than just an abnormally large and obnoxiously loud family currently occupying a great deal of space in Uncle Tom's restaurant space.

Alex turned his back to the side door and shoved it open, quickly spinning around to make it through the doorway with his arm full of dirty dishes.

"There we go," he huffed, dropping them slightly carelessly down onto the side table in the kitchen. He noted how the group of elves present in the kitchen winced but shrugged, knowing full well the plates and glasses were spelled to be unbreakable.

"That is the end of Master Alex's shift, no?" the smallest elf, Midge, piped up, running over to claim cleaning the dirty dishes as her next task.

Alex smiled fondly at the little creature. "It is indeed," he sighed. "Freedom at last!"

"Master Alex should enjoy his afternoon," little Midge all but sang, "and he should be doing so without caring about the pesky red people!"

Alex nodded and said his good bye's to Midge and the other elves as he quickly washed his hands and left the kitchens. With a quick detour to the bar, he confirmed to Uncle Tom that he had finished his work for the day and was heading upstairs to the others, should the man need him or any of the other kids. With one final glare at the youngest red haired boy, he started making his way up the stairs.

"Who's that boy?" he suddenly heard a food filled mouth exclaim from the proximity of the table he'd just been glaring at.

Walking slightly slower and glancing down out of the corner of his eye when the staircase turned, he discovered it was indeed a question posed by the youngest Weasley and his hand was currently raised and pointing quite rudely at Alex.

"He's Tom the barman's nephew," one of the older ones said. "I've seen him work a couple shifts here and there. Seems like a good kid."

"I don't like him," Alex heard the annoyance mumble loudly. Probably has his mouth stuffed with food again, he speculated silently.

"He looks about your age, Ron, you might end up in the same classes at school in September." Alex heard this and scoffed, returning to his quickened pace once more as he continued to climb the stairs. As if we're going to that dusty old fortress, he thought.

Coming to the top of the stairs, Alex took the corridor to the left. Passing by door after door, home to the inn's current guests. Laughing at the strange sounds he heard as he passed. One room was blasting some classical music, while the next sounded like a rabid beast was eating someone. His right hand traced along the walls as he observed the paper changing from grey to pale blue as he went right into the next corridor, then blue to green as he hooked another left, before finally walking along this corridor to the dead end he so desired. Well, it wasn't exactly a dead end. Flipping his wand from the holster on his wrist he tapped the six key spaces on the wall and watched with a smile as the wooden boards slid apart, revealing a dark staircase with a soft grey carpet. Stepping inside, he slid his wand back and forth in a horizontal motion to close the wall once more as he slid off his shoes and lazily kicked them into the cupboard on the right. Watching with satisfaction as the wall solidified and his shoes floated into their appropriate place on the racks in the cupboard, Alex made his way up the stairs.

About two stairs up, he felt the small shiver as he passed through their security wards. He smiled proudly, the group had- with a fair amount of help from Tom- pooled together what they knew of runes to create a privacy ward for sound, notice-me-not to avoid strangers questioning who or what occupied this space and finally, what Scarlett had named their 'tracker-jacker' ward. It was essentially a ward that intercepted any tracking on their real selves and their old selves and bounced their locations to places all over the world.

Walking up towards the light, Alex could already hear the Weird Sisters new album being played and the sounds of someone singing along. Esme, he presumed, from the extreme lack of tone. Entering the room he couldn't help but laugh. Esme was standing on Oliver's bed, using one of their model staffs as a microphone, and wailing along to the track currently blasting from the speakers. Though muggle technology tended to malfunction around magic, Alex and Esme had a hobby of rewiring items, including the speakers, to run of the energy of magical crystals instead. It had been a project of mass success.

Alex looked around and noted Scarlett lying upside down on the brown armchair, tears streaming from her eyes as she cheered Esme along in her little show. Meanwhile, Oliver sat in mess of pillows against the opposite wall, seemingly reading a book on Arithmancy, but Alex could see even from there the smile the boy was trying to hide as he couldn't help but be amused by the raven haired girl's antics.

As the song drew to an end, Esme doubled over out of breath gasping, "Thank you, thank you very much," before falling onto the floor face first. Oliver finally gave up his pretence and dropped the book as he had no way of stopping the eruption of laughter as she face planted with the, luckily, carpeted floor. "I meant to do that," she groaned pushing herself up off the floor.

If there was one thing Alex could say about Esme Levesque it was that she appeared with all the airs of elegance, however, when she relaxed she was in fact the clumsiest person he had ever met.

"Bravo, bravo," he clapped as he finally made his presence known.

"Hey Alex," Scarlett sang from her perch on the chair. "How was your shift?" she asked, twisting her body to get herself into an upright position, trying not to fall off head first as Esme had just so wonderfully demonstrated. She pushed her hair from her face casually, as it had ended up like a curtain on her head, and let it fall in it simple auburn locks just to her collar bone. Her bright eyes still sparkling with the laughter from the few moments ago.

"Same old," he grumbled. Really, he liked helping out Tom most of the time. It kept up the family image they portrayed, but also he liked people watching. He picked up on new names and faces, while over hearing small pieces of gossip. "The Weasleys suck," he directed this last bit at Esme, as she sat now on the floor by Oliver's bed, pulling her long and ridiculously straight dark mane of hair into her signature high ponytail with a few strands left out at the front to frame her face.

The girl rolled her eyes as she tossed the ponytail over her shoulder. "Yeah, they do," she agreed.

"I had to serve them last time they came," Oliver piped up in a bit of a drawl, crossing his arms as if to indicate his displeasure. "That youngest one, Ron?" Esme nodded. "He's got a real mouth on him."

"You can say that again," Alex huffed taking a running leap onto his bed where he flipped onto his back stretched out his arms. Staring at the ceiling he added, "One of them mentioned I looked around his age and would probably be going to Hogwarts with him," he laughed. "As if I'd go anywhere near that place, especially if he's going to be there."

They all laughed at the red headed nuisance's expense, not feeling a single shred of guilt. After a moment's silence Esme said, "I wonder where they got all the money for tuition fees."

She had a point. It was no secret that the Weasley family had it tough with money, and it was also well known that Hogwarts wasn't cheap.

"I'll bet," Scarlett began, "Dumbledore is paying for the tuition to cheap the family loyal."

They all stared at her, the girl just had this way of always finding the answers that should be so obvious yet just weren't.

Alex shook his head as he sat up. "Ridiculous idea, yet most likely right. Seems exactly like the kind of thing the old coot would think up."

After Dumbledore's treatment of Alex back when he was Harry Potter, namely leaving him with the Dursleys, and some mishandling of the Potter Vault, that he'd somehow gained access to, Alex and the rest of the group were not his biggest fans.

"Can we do something, please?" Scarlett suddenly erupted. "I don't know about you lot but I'm ridiculously bored." She sighed dramatically, walking over the the window looking over Diagon Alley. "We've been locking ourselves in here for a month, barely leaving and I'm sick of studying."

The other three were stunned into silence, Scarlett was their group bookworm, study-crazed dictator and, overall, clever one. This sort of outburst to get away from work was quite abnormal.

"Oh come on," she rolled her eyes at their dumbfounded expressions. "We haven't seen an Order member subtly," here she mimed putting the word in quotation marks, "searching for Harry Potter in over a week. Even so, they've looked at you, Alex, without question. No one suspects you or us, Tom's nephew," she gestured to Alex, "nephew's best friend," then Oliver, "Maria's little sister," then Esme, "and Maria's and Esme's cousin," finally herself.

Their cover stories had come together quite simply. Alex had already been announced as Tom's nephew long before the other kids turned up at the Leaky Cauldron that day, so that stuck fine. However, with all the others turning up in the same day, they had to be introduced to the Leaky crowd slowly over a longer period of time. They started with Scarlett Dray, with her auburn hair, and looks not immediately muggle or magical, she fit perfectly as Tom's barmaid Maria's younger sister. Their skin had a similar tan like glow, and Maria's hair was only a shade darker than the young girl's. They explained the eleven year age gap with a story of them being half-sisters and sharing a mother, which fit perfectly as Maria's mother had never known her father and her mother had only months before died from cancer. They explained their differing surnames by simply claiming Scarlett chose her own, feeling too pained by the memory of her mother.

Next came Oliver Hawthorne's introduction as Alex's best friend moving in. They decided to put the story as a kid who had become estranged from his parents due to them having a difficult marriage but wanting to move to Spain. Oliver was the kid who ran away to his best friend's house and stayed there while his parents, aware of his location, moved without him and kept in touch occasionally to check in.

Finally, after having been the last one confined to the Loft for an extensive amount of time, needing to avoid being seen, Esme Levesque was brought in to the picture as the cousin of Maria and Esme. They went with the idea that Esme had lived with her father in Paris, hence she could in fact speak fluent French, but the man was sick and had attempted to trade her for a magic carpet. The girl had, at such a point, run away to her late mother's family in England and had heard nothing from or of her father since.

Though they tried to keep low profiles, the crowds at the Leaky loved the rag-tag group of kids and they had become somewhat notorious as a group. They came and went as they pleased, with a few rules on curfews and such from the responsible Uncle Tom, as he became known to them all, who had in secret taken guardianship of all four.

Now, however, they were sitting in the Loft and due to whispers of Dumbledore having lost Harry Potter and the search being underway, they had become a bit more cautious in their comings and goings. However, Oliver, Alex and Scarlett had all received Hogwarts letters. To their surprise, they were in fact addressed to 'Mr O. M. Hawthorne', 'Mr A. L. Withers' and 'Miss S. E. Dray'. Letters for Draco Varian Malfoy, Harry James Potter and Hermione Jean Granger had not arrived. They knew then that they were well and truly hidden as Oliver Matthias Hawthorne, Alexander Lucas Withers and Scarlett Elise Dray. They assumed that a letter would come same time next year for Esme Margot Levesque rather than Ginevra Molly Weasley- they always cringed at that name-. The three had, nonetheless, responded with polite no's to the letters from Hogwarts, claiming to be taking up their education elsewhere. It wasn't uncommon for families to choose Beauxbatons Academy, the Durmstrang Institute or other schools, or even home-schooling over Hogwarts School. Their rejections would barely be noticed.

"Come on," Scarlett pleaded once again, snapping Alex from his train of thought.

Alex shrugged, "Why not," he smiled. "You two coming?" he asked Oliver and Esme as he headed over to the cupboard to grab a new robe, as his current dirty brown one smelled slightly of the kitchens still.

"Yeah of course," Esme jumped to her feet, while Oliver put on a bored expression but got up nonetheless.

"Oh good!" Scarlett clasped her hands together, smiling. "Because I have an adventure in mind."

They all turned slowly to look at the petite smiling girl. Any time Scarlett came up with an adventure, it usually involved a bit more than a trip to Flourish and Blotts. "What kind of adventure?" Esme asked slowly.

"Grab a dark cloak or a hooded robe," she proclaimed. "We're headed for the Lower Alleys."

The Lower Alleys was the name given to the alleys that lay beyond Knockturn Alley. It was not much discussed what lay there, as most people did not care to venture far enough down Knockturn to know what lay in the area. The four had gone as far as Shyverwretch's, a small shop, about half way down the alley, that carried venoms of poisons, in particular a rare moon snake's venom, which Oliver had needed for a potions.

"I'm in," Alex suddenly announced. "We've lived here four years and still don't know what's there so why not." He grabbed his black robe with the hood that he knew was slightly too big on him. As he threw it on, he felt the ends of the sleeves fall just below his hands and the hood completely shadowed his face from anyone who would try get a closer look. The other three all had similar robes of their own- Madam Malkin had had a bad day with sizes, they had figured- and put theirs on too. Standing in front of the floor length mirror in the closet, Esme remarked, "We look like shadows."

"Or Dementors," Oliver added with a smirk, though the others couldn't see it due to the oversized hood.

"Everyone got their wands?" Alex checked, ever happy they had had their Traces stripped from them by one of Tom's slightly dodgier old friends when going through their transformations. They didn't make a scene in public that they could use magic while underaged, but it was nice to feel protected when they went on excursions like this.

They all gave confirmation, pulling off their hoods, rolling up their sleeves and unbuttoning the robes, they headed downstairs looking innocent enough that Tom would not notice them adorning the strangely large robes that they otherwise never wore.

And I'm back! Sorry been far too long (and yes, I know the chapter is a bit short but there's more to come soon!)

Would love feedback so please review or PM me :)

Any interested Beta Readers also feel free to get in touch.

Until next time, thelonglostpotter x