Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, that book series belongs to the genius JKRowling. This fanfiction is purely for entertainment and makes no money. But I did find a nickel on the ground!
Spread Your Wings
By Ebona Nite
Chapter Four: Meetings
The next morning as Harry was finishing breakfast in the Leaky Cauldron, a tall woman with shocking green hair walked in from the muggle side of the pub. She attracted several stares for her hair as she made his way straight over to Harry.
The young woman stopped in front of him. "Harry Potter?"
"Er, yes?"
"Althea Marone, Atlantis Academy recruiter. I believe you requested a meeting to discuss the academy and community."
"Oh! Right, please sit down. I'm just finished now."
The green haired lady smiled. "Well if you are finished, there is one other human magic user in Britain I'm meeting today. I thought you might like to get to know another potential student, and perhaps you can ask her or her father little more about the magical community here; I'm afraid I'm not too up to date with British current events, as I'm more used to recruiting in America."
Harry nodded, left the money for the food on the counter in front of Tom, and followed her out of the Leaky Cauldron into Diagon Alley. Apparently they were meeting the girl and her father at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. A bit too early for ice cream, in Harry's opinion, having just eaten breakfast, but then again from what he'd observed it was one of the few places in the Alley you could sit down away from the crowd.
Althea led him over to a table in the corner, where a man with blonde hair and bright orange robes sat, a small platinum-blonde girl reading an upside-down newspaper next to him. "Mr. Lovegood, Luna Lovegood?"
"Yes, hello! You must be the recruiter sent from Atlantis." Mr. Lovegood stood up to shake her hand and introduce himself as the girl named Luna folded up her newspaper and lay it aside. She turned large dreamy blue eyes on Harry.
"Oh hello. I'm Luna. Are you also going to Atlantis?"
"I'm considering it. I'm Harry by the way, nice to meet you." Luna nodded and hummed a little, staring off into space over his left shoulder. "The wrackspurts are leaving you alone. That's good."
"Er… wrackspurts? What are they?"
"They float into people's ears and make their brains go fuzzy. A lot of people have them. It's good to see you don't." Luna smiled, a tad vaguely, at him and turned towards Althea. Harry blinked and then shrugged it off and sat down. It wasn't like he'd done any researched on magical creatures, so for all he knew "wrackspurts" existed. He'd have to find a book on creatures and magical pests sometime soon. Obviously dragons really existed, which meant unicorns and fairies probably did too, but who knows what other things might as well! Maybe he could ask Luna later.
"Okay. I've set up some privacy wards so we aren't bothered. A little about me first: I'm Althea Marone, age 20, just graduated from Atlantis Academy myself, and my hair is green for a year because I lost a bet. I've been working as a recruiter for the last two summers. Ask me any questions you think of, and don't be afraid to interrupt. That's what I'm here for! Besides, I have this spiel memorized. Okay, here we go." Althea cleared her throat and adopted a lecturing tone.
"Your letters should have given you a brief summary of the history of Atlantis. It was once a large island about the size of Madagascar off the coasts of southern Europe and northern Africa in the Atlantic Ocean. It was and still is home to a variety of magical creatures and beings, though a relatively low population of humans. About 3000 years ago two seraphs, or really 'seraphim' is the proper plural but both are used, grew concerned over a vision one had had of population growth of humans magical and non-magical alike as a growing threat to magical creatures and their habitats, and of persecution of non-human beings. So they removed Atlantis as a preservation. More about that is gone over in history class.
"The island was expanded and several smaller islands and an archipelago were magically made, and the topography somewhat changed in places to include a wider variety of environments for different species. Some salt-water and fresh-water lakes put in, small mountain range added, larger variety of trees planted, stuff like that. It's our own little continent, completely sovereign to itself, not part of any other country. The Island is still out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but now in a sort of "pocket dimension" parallel to the Outside, or the rest of the world. There's a way of flying, swimming, or sailing in over the ocean and crossing the dimension barriers, Going Sideways its called, but you have to be a citizen to be taught how."
"Can we become citizens?" Harry asked.
"All students have temporary citizenship and a choice to keep the citizenship as permanent after graduating. Most Outside students eventually choose permanent citizenship though usually with dual citizenship with their home country, but it isn't required. You can stay on Atlantis over breaks or go Outside, whichever you'd like." Althea answered.
"Anyway, around the early Roman Empire the concept of a school with multiple students per teacher was invented. So we took that idea and the Atlantis Academy was founded in 389AD; the Celeste University was founded a few centuries later when the master-apprentice system for specializations in higher learning began to decline in popularity. Somewhat before the concepts of Universities in the Outside, we got to pioneer that idea! The Hogwarts Founders were indeed Atlantis Academy graduates, and a little-known fact is that Salazar Slytherin, whose reputation has been quite tarred and feathered and raked through the mud here in Europe, was actually an angel."
"You said seraph before." Harry pointed out. Althea nodded.
"We call them 'celestials' as a general term. They can evolve from any being, including those of completely non-human forms, though it is a common misconception that even the non-humanoid beings look like humans with wings. The evolution is mainly in magic and power, with the addition of wings. Phoenixes are magical birds conected to purity, healing, and life; celestials have a similar connection with Light or Good (nothing is entirely Black and White, you understand, but phoenixes and celestials get pretty close to the Pure Good concept as anything can be). Angels have a single pair of wings, Archangels have two pairs, and Seraphs have three pairs; the number of wings indicates power level. Merlin was an Archangel, for instance, and Salazar Slytherin as I said was an Angel. The Hogwarts wards are as powerful and lasting as they are because of him. And it took two seraphs working together to move Atlantis into another dimension, without killing any beings or creatures, but not cut it off entirely from its home dimension."
Harry nodded and thanked her for the information. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Luna staring intensely at him, her earlier dreamy expression gone, but it vanished back into the dreamy look as she noticed his glance. They turned their attention back to Althea as she began speaking again.
"Atlantis is home, as I said, to a large variety of creatures and beings -- we in fact classify as beings several which are "creatures" in other places like Britain. All beings, including non-magical humans, are welcome to study at Atlantis Academy and Celeste University. Humans, werewolves (generally called Lycanthropes if born to werewolf/lycan parents), vampires, giants, goblins, dwarves, elves, fae, leprechauns, harpies, brownies (or house-elves), satyrs, veela, nymphs (like dryads and naiads), merfolk, centaurs, sphinxes, and celestials are all classified as Beings in the Atlantis charter. Hags are not included, despite human-level intelligence, because their physiognomy requires them to eat infants and raw liver from other sentient beings without the ability to substitute animals like sheep and cattle."
"What about vampires?" Luna asked.
"Vampires," Althea said, "do not have to kill or Turn in order to drink blood. And many prefer willing blood donors anyway. They can also drink animal blood though it isn't as filling and they'd need greater amounts more often, and still live (or unlive?) just as well. There are those, particularly adult mundanes, who've been Turned and then go insane and bloodthirsty, which happens occasionally with the bitten (as opposed to born) werewolves too. But vampires and werewolves police their own kind. Hags just plain kill beings to eat, so there are none on the Island and our charter does not include them in the Being classification, unlike Britain which includes hags but leaves out centaurs, merfolk, house-elves, and to a large extent werewolves. Harpies, goblins, sphinxes, and other species may have violent tendencies, but can control themselves and interact peacefully – for the most part – with other beings, hence their status as Being in our charter. If you think about it, humans have violent tendencies as well - just look at all the wars we fight, all the criminals and gang activities! No species is a hundred percent perfect.
"Should you become students, you are welcome to choose species-only dorms or inter-species dorms. Most of our students live on Atlantis, but occasionally we find beings on the Outside that not only show above average power levels and gifts, but have the proper attitude to accept going to a school with such a wide variety of species.
"There are a wide variety or magical and non-magical classes, languages, physical training and fighting courses, etc. In fact, we not only have mundane – that is, non-magical – citizens, we can give them a complete non-magical education with some magical history, languages, and theory classes that don't require actually having magic that they can take as well.
"Terms like 'muggle' and 'squib were deemed derogatory a while back, so now non-magical people are called Mundanes, and those born magical to Mundane parents are called Newbloods. What are deemed 'squibs' on the Outside can actually be born to Mundane parents as well; we call them Magic-Locked. This is because they actually have a magic core, just no direct access to it. So they can do passive things, like fly on a broom or use the Floo or make potions, but no spellcasting. Magic-locked people born to mundanes often become psychics, as they can see magical creatures and sometimes have precognition or empathy, or similar powers. There's specialized classes for all these different powers.
"To get along in Atlantis you need to be open-minded. The world is not Black and white, different species have their own ways of doing things or understanding the world, and everyone is welcome to their own opinions, religion, etc as long as you don't break the law - like murder or torture or stealing. You must be able to accept and respect others, to make your own opinions based on your own observations of people instead of mimicing others' prejudices. You have to be able to reach out to new horizons for yourselves, to accept that the world cannot be researched through books alone. And sometimes even observation falls short; you have to actively go search for new things because not everything will come and show itself right in front of you, no matter how long or patiently you wait. Reading is good, believing is great, but exploring and keeping an open mind is sometimes the best way to learn, by discovering things yourself.
"There we are, that's the end of my spiel. Any more questions?" The green-haired woman grinned at them.
Harry and Luna both had a few more. They learned the Academy took students as young as 6 for primary and mostly non-magical classes, began most magical classes at 10, and at the age of 13 they could start choosing electives. Graduation depended on when you felt you had taken all the Academy-level classes you wanted and had passed all the core classes, between the ages of 16 and 20, though average was 18. The University took 4 to 8 years depending on what classes you took and what you wanted to specialize in, and you had to have graduated the Academy, at least passing all the core classes, first. Mostly you stayed with your age group, though there were always a few who were one or two years younger or older, usually those recruited from the Outside.
Luna could claim citizenship for her father by right of family ties (which worked for very close 'like family' friends, godparents, blood-brothers/sisters, adopted family and clan members as well as blood-relatives), just as soon as she became a student and therefore temporary citizen, provided she and her father wanted to claim permanent citizenship and her father passed screening against prejudice (Althea said she was sure he would); this would not negate their British citizenship but would allow them to insist on being handed over to Atlantis officials and justice if they found theirselves persecuted for anything, whether they were innocent or guilty. Not that Althea expected any of them to get arrested, but sometimes these things happened. And yes, Althea read and enjoyed The Quibbler very much.
Harry had, over the last week, gotten a subscription for The Daily Prophet and The Quibbler. He'd found the latter to be very much like a tabloid, but had enjoyed it immensely for its entertainment value. Besides, it reminded him to keep an open mind about everything. Just because muggles – er, mundanes, Althea was right 'muggle' did sound derogatory – didn't believe in unicorns and dragons didn't mean they didn't exist; there was always a possibility that there were things out there the majority of the magical world hadn't discovered yet either, and therefore didn't believe in.
Harry told Luna so, and in that instant made a friend for life.
Both children told the Atlantis recruiter they accepted without too much more thinking, and Harry asked if he could claim citizenship immediately. Just in case someone tried to send him back to the Dursleys. Luna said she'd wait on the citizenship and think about it, as she and Daddy were perfectly happy in England for the time being. Mr. Lovegood hugged her goodbye and extracted a promise to write often from her, and extended an invitation to Harry for Yule break. Anyone who could accept his "loony" daughter so quickly and matter-of-factly was alright in his book. Harry gathered his things, enticed Hedwig into her cage with an apology and a promise to let her out as soon as possible, and then they were off.
Althea took the two to the train station, and bought them all three tickets to the south-most coast. As the train started out of the station she began to explain the reason for their non-magical transport. While citizens learned how to get into Atlantis's pocket-dimension by their own means, Harry and Luna needed to be brought in "the long way" and then keyed in with their temporary/permanent citizenship before being taught themselves. Family could visit, but would also have to be brought in. On the coast of southern-most Wales was a gateway setup she would take them through, transporting them straight onto Atlantis. Owl post, Floo, portkeys, and apparition from the Outside didn't make it in, but especially enchanted stationary (like Harry's letter), along with email, telephone, and internet connections worked. She had no idea how the 'technomancers' had managed it though, so she could't give an explanation. They would shop in one of the markets on the Island for school supplies. And stop off at the Academy infirmary to get them both a regular check-up and let the Healers start a medical file for both.
Althea drifted off after a half hour, but Harry and Luna were much too excited to nap and began getting to know each other a little better.
Harry found himself telling Luna about Dudley and Harry-Hunting, about the cupboard under the stairs, and about being kicked out after Hagrid took him shopping for Hogwarts supplies.
A sudden thought hit Harry, "Luna, what about your things? I mean, I have my trunk and all the supplies I bought for Hogwarts with me, but we didn't even stop by your place to pack for you!"
"Oh don't worry Harry. I have everything in my pocket."
"Huh?" Luna's pockets didn't look full at all to him.
"Daddy and I talked things over when I got my letter. Atlantis Academy is a prestigious school, best in the world. Some say Atlantis was even the birthplace of magic! I wanted to go right away, but Daddy convinced me we should meet the recruiter just to be sure. So I packed last night, and Daddy shrunk my trunk down so I could put it in my pocket, and we made a list of questions to ask. But I already had my mind made up, I think Daddy knew that." Luna smiled.
Harry blinked. Hadn't that been about what he did after finding out about Atlantis Academy? Except for the shrinking his trunk thing, Althea had done that for him right before getting to th train station. "And I forgot to ask Althea," he remembered suddenly, "how I got their letter this time when they'd been trying for years. Do you think I ought to write to Hogwarts that I'm not going there after all?"
"Well... did you ever get fanmail?"
"Why would I - oh the whole celebrity thing. No, never."
"Well when you were sent to the Dursleys someone probably put up mail wards then, probably to keep fanmail from bothering you or because Death Eaters were still around and might send cursed mail to hurt you. Maybe the Ministry. And you were at the Leaky Cauldron when you got your letter from Atlantis, instead of your home."
"I suppose that makes sense..."
"You said Hagrid picked you up, right? Did you tell him directly you definitely wanted to go to Hogwarts?"
"Well, no. We both just assumed -"
"And did you send the Headmaster or Deputy Head an acceptance letter?"
"No, Hagrid did that."
"But not you. And that means you didn't really accept. You probably wouldn't have registered as a student until you were actually Sorted. But now we are both students of Atlantis, since we both accepted the offer directly."
"Oh. That makes sense. I guess I'll ask her about sending them a letter when we get off. Well I've told you about me, your turn!"
"It's only fair... When I was seven, Mummy blew herself up experimenting with potions and charms for her job. I was there; I saw. It took a long while to get over it." Luna slowly confessed. She paused a moment before going on. "Ever since then I've been able to see creatures no one else does, and sometimes I just know things. Daddy believes me, and writes about them in his paper, if I can explain them well enough. I used to have a friend, Ginny Weasley, who lives nearby. But after… the accident… when I started to see things, I tried telling her about them. She started calling me "Loony" and teasing me. We haven't really been friends for a while now. It's lonely sometimes. But I have Daddy."
"Is that why you were recruited? Because you see magic creatures others don't?"
"I think so. I think it may have been the charms, or the potion, or maybe both Mummy was working on. I know I got hit with some of it, and spent a whole week in St Mungo's hospital. I think what I have is called 'Second Sight'. I can see auras too, and some creatures look like they are made up of auras and no body, and when no one else can see them and tell me what they are I give them names. That's how I found out about wrackspurts and nargles. I've never seen a Crumple-Horned Snorkak, but Daddy says he found a skeleton in Sweden when he was younger that wasn't too old but wasn't any other magical or non-magical creature he knew or could find out about. So that's what he called it, and he's been trying to find live ones or evidence of extinction ever since. But nobody ever asks about that, they just say Daddy and I are making them up. Or they're the Quibbler fans who believe anything, even the tabloid columns. At least we print disclaimers for the made-up stuff on the last page, unlike the Daily Prophet which is owned by the Ministry and sometimes prints propaganda or cover stories, and recently hired that awful muckraker Skeeter woman."
Luna said this all without her customary dreamy look. Harry was beginning to understand that it was a mask she wore, to hide from the teasing with an uncaring, inattentive attitude. He vowed he'd always listen to her and accept her, even when he didn't quite believe her. She was his first and so far only friend. And that made her the most important person in his life.
Author's Note: Erratic chapter lengths, I know, and next chapter is another short one. You can think of the short ones as interludes maybe. I've hit a stride right now, though I can't guarantee I'll keep updating so quickly. I may burn out and take some weeks or a month off, but I'll try to actually stick with this fic all the way through.