Chapter 4: Socius Mea

I woke up, to a mildly temperate room, and the smell of Eggs and Potatoes downstairs. This was a first for me, because I'm usually not allowed near electronics. They usually fry within the first few seconds of me being there. My house doesn't have an AC unit, a heater, a water boiler, or anything electronic. I guess you could say then that I had a weird time adjusting to living in a magical inn.

I walked down, and sat at the breakfast table.

The servers brought out Eggs, Sausage, Potatoes, and Biscuits for my breakfast, which I will say, it's been a long while since I've ever had a hot breakfast. No surprise then that everyone looked at me funny when I took my sweet time scarfing it down.

When I was finished, I paid the waitress, and looked out as the Potter kid from last night walked over and sat across from me.

His hair was disheveled, probably a cowlick so he couldn't get rid of it, he had a pair of round glasses, he was fairly slim, and he had a scar in the shape of lightning on his head.
I could tell from his expression that he was not expecting to be here. He looked... lonely? Like he was missing out on something. I knew the look, Thomas gave it to Justine a lot.

I wiped my mouth with my napkin and turned to this Potter kid.

"So, your name's Potter?"

He turned to me.

"Yes. Harry Potter. Sometimes known as the boy who lived, or other things, but you get the idea."

I nodded my head.

"Cool. Name's Dresden."

Harry nodded.

"McGonagall told me about you, you're from America, right?"

I shrug.

"Yep. I'm gonna be your uh... what is it... Defense against... uh..."

"The Dark Arts?"

"Yeah, that's the one. I was hired to be your teacher in that subject."

Harry tilted his head.

"You are?"

He scratched the back of his head.

"Hermoine would probably bombard you with a bunch of questions about what you're gonna try and teach us... Ugh, I hate not being 17."

I placed my hand on my chin, and listened.

"Why? Most people enjoy their time as a teenager, they usually don't wish for things to be faster."

Harry shook his head.

"It's this law the Ministry has in place. We're not allowed to use magic freely until we reach 17 years of age. They track all your movement and magic usage until then."

I sighed.

"Oh. It's one of those situations."

I grabbed a cup of coffee, and started to drink it.

"You know, it's not so bad, being under watch of the government. Just a pain in the ass."

Harry looked at me.

"What do you mean?"

I set down my coffee cup.

"Just because we live in different parts of the world doesn't mean our laws aren't similar. Long ago, I had to live under death's scythe a good portion of my life. It wasn't fun, and it wasn't nice, but it's something we both had to deal with, right?"

Harry nodded.

"Yeah, I guess so..."

I nod.

"Hey, chin up, you'll be 17 soon enough, right?"

He nodded.

"Yeah, my birthday's at the end of the week."

I nod, picking up my staff and pushing my chair in.

"Well, that's good, after that you'll be free to go wherever, right?"

Harry nodded, and started after me.

"McGonagall said you're supposed to protect me from the Death Eaters that might come after me."

I looked back at him.

"Say what now? What's a 'Death Eater'?"

He shook his head a little.

"Death Eaters. Followers of V- Uh, he-who-must-not-be-named."

I looked at him closely.

"Who? Wait, is saying this guy's name Taboo or something?"

Harry nodded.

"You could say."

I nod.

"Alright. Well, let's get going then. We wanna stay on the move so they don't know where we're lodged."

Harry nodded following after me.

After fetching Mouse and explaining to Harry what a Foo Dog was, we went outside, and I took Mouse for a walk.

Harry talked about a lot of things that had happened over the weeks, such as his Aunt and Uncle, the war, his two best friends, and a wedding that was supposed to be going on.

"We'll have to give them our congratulations later then. Wouldn't be safe to be in one place for so long."

Harry looked at me.

"Why so?"

I nodded to the sky.

"It's how tracking spells work most of the times. If it's extremely precise, they'll be able to track you at any time, but if it's as you say, than it'll take them a couple of hours to track you down, and get to where we are. By that time, we'll be long gone, and somewhere else."

He nodded, appreciating some of the stuff I knew about the tracking spell on him.

After some more walking, we stopped at an Italian restraunt.

"So, you up for Pizza?"

Some days passed since I first met Harry Potter, and in the time we've gotten to know each other, the kid's proven to be really chill and funny. He laughed about the stories I told, and was a little concerned when I told of what happened to my hand, but he didn't seem to mind what was going on. At least, he wasn't as concerned as he let on. I don't know what it was, but there was a nagging feeling that he was trying to hide something.

It was a fine day, and when I got back to Diagon Alley, students started to flood the streets.

I assumed because school was supposed to start in a couple of days, that these kids would've gotten their stuff by now, but no it seemed as though the streets were to be twice as crowded than normal.

Hard knock life, eh?

I got back to the leaky cauldron just in time. Harry was sitting down at the table, socializing with a group of kids that looked his age, alongside a massive group of redheads.
I walked over.

"Hey Harry. I see you're quite the popular Dungeon Master over here."

One of the Redheads, presumably their father as he had a suit and was the oldest, came over and extended his hand.

"Good day Mr. Dresden. I'm Arthur Weasley, Harry here's been telling us all about you and what you've been doing here! It's not common we have foreigners come in as Hogwarts teachers."

I shook it, and nodded my greetings.

"Pleasure to meet you Mr. Weasley."

Harry motioned to everyone else.

"These are all good friends of mine. This is Ron, Hermoine, Fred, George, and Ginny." He motioned to all of them as he called on them.

I waved my greetings.

"Harry Dresden, Professional Wizard."

We all sat talking, and after a while, talking about many things, what would work out for the year. It was eventually time for all of us to go, and once everyone was gone, and Harry was asleep, it was time to hit the hay, and I knew I'd need it. Tomorrow was the day I head to Hogwarts.