Unlikely Mentor
Chapter 6
Disclaimer: This work of fan-fiction is not intended for personal profit. All characters utilized herein which are not creations of myself belong to J. K. Rowling.
The first inkling Harry had that the Ministry was doing more than just ignoring him was on the third page of the Daily Prophet he was reading that early July: a news article about a man trying to pass off an old Cleansweep as a Nimbus 2000 by using clever glamour charms reported the Magical Law Enforcement Squad investigator saying, "You might say that fellow was telling a tall tale worthy of Harry Potter!"
Harry fumed, "Bloody fantastic. Some smart-arse is probably going to start calling me a delusional megalomaniac pretty soon. That's Voldemort's job description, not mine!" He tossed the paper across the room and tried to re-center and clear his mind like his book suggested. He did have to admit, whatever he'd been doing, it seemed to make his dreams less vivid: one time he had dreamt he was in some sort of maze of corridors, but they didn't draw his attention, and they had vanished and been replaced by a more enjoyable one in which Harry had been practicing broom flying on a warm spring day. That hadn't lasted, and he'd woken up to a chilling replay of that horrible night when Voldemort had returned. Thankfully Dobby's excellent tea helped calm his mood and let him relax as he sipped it while reading the Prophet.
At that moment, the door to his bedroom burst open. Harry, displeased at the intrusion, turned and saw it was Dudley. "What do you want?" He spat.
"Hey, I heard you yelling this morning. You're gonna be in for it when I tell Mum," said Dudley nastily.
Harry had a sinking feeling he knew what Dudley would say next—
"Oh, Cedric! Don't die, Cedric!" Dudley said in a mocking, dainty high pitched voice. "Who's he, your boyfriend?" Dudley sniggered.
Harry burst out of his chair. "Shut UP! You've no idea what you're talking about!"
Dudley reared back in mock surprise. "Oh, I'm so frightened! As if, I could probably give you the old one-two! C'mon, then, huh?"
"Try it, Big D. Do your friends know your mum calls you Duddy Dinkydums? How about Ickle Diddykins? Think I could call you those around your friends? You know, while we're sharing each other's deepest secrets." Harry almost snarled; Dudley was setting him on edge enough to almost make him grab for his wand, heedless of the underage magic laws…
Dudley, flushing, backed up from the door.
Harry sneered. "Go beat up some kids like you and your mates with one brain cell to share among them like you usually do. I heard you telling Polkiss you wanted to do Mark Evans because you thought he cheeked you for saying hi. Of course, that's just what normal people do, you know." Harry paused. A sudden surge of anger roared through him as he yelled, "As opposed to telling you you're a pig's arsehole that walks on two feet! NOW GET OUT OF MY FACE!"
Harry slammed the bedroom door, rattling everything in the room. He sat down on his bed, seething as he tried to get a handle on that sudden fit of rage. It was so strange, thought Harry. Even when Dudley provoked him in the past, he had rarely, if ever gone in for outright swearing at his cousin. The fit of anger he'd had unsettled him enough he decided to go outside, something he hadn't really done much of the first few days back.
But first…
"Dobby!"
The little elf materialised in front of him. "Does Harry Potter feel all right?"
"Oh, yeah. I'm all right," Harry said, not really meaning it. "Listen, I need a favour. Is there a way I can put a silencing charm or something on this room so nobody can hear me when I'm sleeping in here at night?"
Dobby's ears drooped. "Dobby cannot remove the Trace, so you cannot do that." Dobby perked up. "But Dobby could do this! And Dobby will not activate the Trace, either, since he will use house-elf magic!"
Harry grinned. "Brilliant! Okay, do what you need to do."
Dobby waved his arms briefly, and just for a moment the walls, door and window seemed to glow, then fade back to their normal colours. "Now, nobody will hear you unless they is in the room."
"Can I still hear stuff outside?" inquired Harry.
Dobby nodded. Harry grinned. "Great, thanks so much!" Harry stood up and said, "Listen, I'm going to go out for a bit. You can stay here if you like, or if you've got stuff to do you can go back to it."
"If Harry Potter doesn't mind, Dobby would like to accompany him." Dobby looked a bit bashful, and Harry hesitated. He said gently, "You'd need to be invisible or something, because… well, most Muggles probably haven't ever seen anyone like you, you know."
Dobby grinned. "Dobby knows how to remain very well-hidden! And yes, Dobby can make himself invisible if he has to."
Harry nodded. "Well then, see you outside."
He tried to not think about how nice it would be to just smash Dudley's face in.
/\/\/\/\
Shortly after, Harry was enjoying the midmorning sun; there was a breeze in the air that kept it fresh and cooled him off just enough to appreciate the warm day as he ambled down Wisteria Walk. He had pretty much calmed down by that point, as he didn't feel like he wanted to just smash something. Mrs Figg, as if by some unknown signal, bustled out of her house while Harry was still just a little too far away to easily see her window.
Oh, God, thought Harry. If she invites me in to tea so I can look at those bloody pictures of her cats again, I might die of boredom.
And sure enough, Mrs Figg waved hello and said, "Oh, Harry! Won't you come on in for a bit?"
Harry pasted a smile on his face and said, "Er, no thanks. I'm just out walking."
Mrs Figg grimaced. "But it's so hot out! Wouldn't you rather be inside?" To one of her cats, she barked, "Mr Tibbles! Behave!" The offending cat immediately quit nibbling at the bottom of her shoe, and sat and stared at the two of them.
Harry, by now desperate to leave, knew he was being a bit brusque as he said, "Well, er, another time. Really got to go—bye!"
He walked very quickly to the nearby park, breathing a sigh of relief that he wasn't in that stuffy house having to listen to her go on about those bloody cats. However, by a thicket of bushes, he felt as sudden tug on his trousers. He stopped abruptly, then knelt down as if to tie his shoe. Dobby's voice quietly reached his ears: "Dobby thinks there is something different about Mrs Figg."
Harry snorted. "You're joking, right? She's this batty old lady who breeds cats. She shows me these stupid pictures of them and rattles on like they're such wonderful little people."
Dobby's voice grew insistent. "Dobby is not mistaken. House-elves needs to know how to sense magical auras of their masters and mistresses, so they senses everybody's magic. Mrs Figg is a Squib!"
Harry, feeling a little bowled over, said, "Assuming you're right, how would I even know the difference between her and a Muggle?"
"Dobby trusts that you will find a way."
Harry snorted as he stood. The little elf's unshakable faith that Harry could do anything he wanted was, he thought, a little misplaced. There wasn't a Squib-revealing spell, and in any case, he didn't see that it made much of a difference. With that firmly fixed in his mind, he made his way to the swings. Luckily, so far, Dudley and his friends had only broken one of the set of four (so far), so Harry sat on one, and idly pushed himself back and forth and let the sense of melancholy envelop him as he let his mind give in to the overhanging sense of deep loss and sorrow for losing Cedric Diggory.
It wasn't fair! If Harry had just been quicker on the uptake – been a little faster in his thinking – he could've sent Cedric back, alive, or at least gotten the older boy to go into hiding while he, Harry, faced Wormtail and Voldemort. Dark thoughts like this chased round and round in his mind for a seemingly timeless interval.
/\/\/\/\
Harry broke out of his funk as an invisible hand shook his knee. "Harry Potter! You is ought to get back to your house. Dobby cannot stay much longer as he needs to go back to Hogwarts to help clean the classrooms."
Harry blinked owlishly. All he could see in front of him was a slight haze and two smallish footprints in the sand. He carefully eased to his feet, watching as the footprints suddenly formed in the sand as they moved away from him. He muttered, "Thanks. Just be careful, okay?"
He looked up; the sun had visibly shifted in the sky, and Harry thought it could have been anywhere from an hour to three he'd been out. He'd barely noticed the fitful breezes gusting at his face, but realised he might have a bad sunburn on the back of his neck. If so, he decided he could ask Hermione how to deal with that; he'd rather get his teeth pulled than ask Aunt Petunia for anything to help a sunburn.
As Harry ambled back home, he tried keeping a keener eye on his surroundings. Was anyone he saw someone who didn't belong in the neighbourhood? A stranger who might be more than he or she seemed?
He sighed in defeat as he tried cataloguing the people he saw: there were just too many of them. Was it the brown-haired woman who normally jogged 'round the area at the crack of dawn? Or was it the gardener he could see down the road, carefully trimming a hedge? Was it the attractive girl he saw in the doorway of a house giving him a repulsed look at his tatty clothes?
He gave it up as a bad job and trusted that Dobby would tell him if he sensed someone magical.
When Harry got back to Privet Drive, he found to his irritation that the Dursleys had locked the door against him. He banged loudly on the door, knowing that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, if nothing else, at least hated being the focus of negative attention, which he was promising in spades by standing outside bellowing, "I live here, so bloody well let me in!"
Uncle Vernon whipped the front door open and gracelessly gestured Harry in. He slammed the door and bellowed, every hair on his mustache seemingly bristling to match Vernon's attitude, "That's the last time I let you in after Dudley gets home! Next time you can bloody well sleep in the shed for the night. You understand me?!"
"Yes, it's easier to pretend I don't exist, isn't it?" Harry didn't bother waiting for an answer and went up the stairs, leaving Uncle Vernon to stomp back into the dining room.
He went into his bedroom and flopped on the bed. To the room at large, he said, "Anybody magical out there, Dobby?"
The elf appeared beside the bed with a small pop, and he said, "Does you remember when you said you smelled tobacco?"
"Bloody hell, yeah, now that you mention it, it was when I was passing the alleyway going to Magnolia Crescent. Caught a whiff like someone'd been smoking a pipe there recently."
"A wizard was under an invisibility cloak, Dobby is sure of it!"
A sudden uneasy gnawing at Harry's stomach made him sit up. Who were these people? Why was he and Hermione the sudden subject of intense observation by unknown parties? Could Voldemort have already begun setting the pieces in motion for Harry's capture, or worse?
Harry had found the down side of getting what one wished for.
Author Notes: Hope you're all enjoying it. I could still use a beta reader if anyone's feeling up for the job. :)