Harry Potter and the Time for Childhood

Chapter 7

25th December, 85
Harry woke to his belly grumbling. It did that a lot, and he found it to be an adequate alarm clock. Like clockwork, it'd grumble at 7 in the morning. Angelina always found it funny, but to Harry, it was normal.

Sitting up, he vaguely remembered being moved from the couch downstairs to his bed here, in Angelina's room. He looked over at the clock on the wall near the door, and saw also the calendar under it. When he saw the date, he jumped up, changed his clothes really quickly, and sped downstairs to give Angelina a Merry Christmas hug.

What stopped him, though, was upon entering the living room, several kids, high school kids at that, looked up from a newspaper at Harry. One blurted out, 'How could you stop 3 adults? You're a midget!'

Harry grinned, and went over to Angelina.

'What's the story?' he asked.

'Same old, you know, you've made the front page.'

'What?!'he exclaimed in astonishment.

'Shush. Yeh, Whatever you did, knocked those 3 out real cold. Police are really in a tizzy trying to work out how, without any sign that it was done… forcefully.'

Harry's mind reeled with this. 'I just… stunned… them.'

Angelina frowned, but didn't ask. Harry walked over to the teens and looked at the story. He frowned as he read it, and looking up, he said, 'How the hell were they able to describe me in such detail… I hadn't even met those 2 blokes before. And they didn't see me when I…' He hesitated, and said, 'knocked them out.'

The kids shared a look, before shrugging and asked who the woman was. 'Hm? Oh, Aunt Marge. Bit of a cow really. Not that surprised she'd be stealing from her brother…'

Then, his face lit up and said, 'No more Marge. No more Ripper!'

'Ripper?' one of the girls asked.

'Er… one of her dogs, she lets it chase me.' He shrugged, not mentioning the permanent scars on his ankles from when he hadn't been able to outrun it or escape the back garden.

'Hey, look at this. Says you used a phaser to knock 'em out.' One of the teens told them.

'Phaser? What's a phaser?' Harry asked.

'Hm? Oh… it's… a weapon from Star Trek.' One of the teens mumbled.

The others started teasing him for being a 'trekkie', so Harry and Angelina took the paper and sat away from them.

As the morning wore on, the Foster Carers came in and handed out presents. Harry felt uncomfortable, as he had not been allowed in the room when the Dursleys opened their presents for the last few Christmases, so this was a new thing for him.

Evidently, they knew this, as one second, he was staring at his lap, and the next, he felt a weight on his legs, and he was looking at a present with his name written on the label.

He smiled, and timidly opened it. Only to be confused. He looked up to Angelina and ask, 'Why did you get me a photo frame?'

'To put the picture of us two in, silly.'

That just confused him more, as his brain had shut down the moment a present with his name on was noticed in his lap…

He scarcely paid attention as Angelina pulled him up to their room, until a flash of light dragged him out of it and Madam Fisher left the room chuckling to herself, camera in hand.


Harry sat down on the bed, closed his eyes and took several deep breaths in preparation for meditation. On the other bed, Angelina was doing the same. He concentrated on the feeling of his magic just before and after casting the spell, trying to memorise the feeling of pushing the magic out. After awhile, he felt his own, pond, of magic, swirling around inside him. Opening his eyes for a moment to take a drink, careful not to loose the feeling of his magic, he focused on sending a little of the swirly magic to a glass of coke on Angelina's bedside table. He smiled slightly as it began to float, the attempt much easier for him then previously. Then, he put his hand up as if to grab something in the way he would if someone passed him a glass, and the glass calmly moved from the table to his hand. A minute later, the glass was back on the table and He was trying to ignore the burning-like sensation coke always caused when going down his throat.

It was just an hour later when he decided to try something else behind the levitation tricks. He remembered how the stunning spell felt when the magic left him, and tried to get a bit of that to happen, but to just hover in front of him, still tied to him slightly…

It was the sight of Harry, eyes closed and forehead covered in perspiration, with a misty red orb in front of him that Angelina opened her own eyes to shortly before 9pm.
"What the-"

Harry opened his eyes and smiled ... only for his smile to fade when the orb did. "... Well at least i could hold it... that long" he mumbled to himself.

"What was that?" Angelina asked.

"I was just trying to imagine that stunner thing, as a ball hovering in front of me... I could feel my magic better... Maybe doing more big stuff makes it easier to do the little stuff?"

"...Well just don't set us up to be robbed, to get me to do it too." Angelina said after a few minutes of thinking. "I quite like not being in the papers thank you very much."

"I'll try." Harry joked.

"Maybe it's like a muscle... the more you use it, the stronger it gets."

"Maybe." Harry thought for a minute, "We can try doing the big stuff later, i'd prefer to be able to do the easier stuff easily before i go onto the harder stuff. This ball of stun is fairly easy to get out but not so easy, yet not hard, to control..."

Angelina nodded, and they went back into their trances.

An hour later, Harry opened his eyes to see a wisp of red coming from Angelina's chest, but that was all. He went back into the trance to focus on the ball of stun again.


29th December, 85

"How about this?" one of the kids asked.

"Nah, too boring."another replied.

"Actually we like it." some girls said.

"You would." the first boy snootily shot at them.

"Huh...?" the girls, confused, asked.

"You're a girl, all of you are girls. Girls would like that. Pick a real film." the 2nd boy translated and said.

"I'll have you know that-" one girl began, but Madam Fisher interrupted, "Children, We're here for 3 films. Pick one for you girls and one for you boys, and one to watch together. Dont argue."

"Sorry miss." the group mumbled.

Harry looked on at the group continue to argue but much quieter, not getting any more of Madam Fisher's attention, as she headed off to look for one too.

"How about this?" Angelina asked him. When he turned to look at what she had picked out, he grinned. "Yes?" She asked.

"Yeah." Harry agreed, but hesitated and said, "A few might not - they aren't into Scifi."

"I meant for us to get..." Angelina replied.

"We don't have any money." Harry pointed out.

"I do, never went to the sweets shop when i got pocket money. Should have enough to rent this... Besides it should give us some ideas to use for our, tricks." Angelina pointedly told him.

Harry nodded after thinking it over. "Sure. Now what do you think about this..." He held one up.

"For who?" She asked, as she shot a glance at the thing.

"Everyone." HArry answered cucinctly.

"... Oh clever. Romance and action... drama and so on. appeals to everyone. Nice choice." She mumbled in reply, while looking through over Scifi titles.

"What's a nice choice?" Madam Fisher asked from behind the two, causing them to jump in fright.

She just chuckled, as the two handed her their choices. She barely blinked at Angelina wanting to get Star Wars for the two of them.


9th February, 86

"You want me to what?"

"Imagine the lightsaber, but made of magic, coming from this stick..."

Harry just gave her an incredulous look. "It took Merlin years to do that sort of thing according to those books..."

"Oh pish. you're just doing your little stun thing but like a pole..." Angelina argued back.

"Fine. But don't blame me if this goes kaplooey like when you tried to do it last month."

"I got it down last week..."

"Yeh, and you've been trying to do it since watching Star Wars."

"... So?"

"... Whatever. Fine. I'll give it a go."

"Thanks. So, what color do you think you should have?"

"... Green."

"Because of you're eyes?"

"Yeah. Your's has a tinge of green aswell as the blue, you know."

"Oh? I didn't notice."

Somehow, the way she said that caused Harry to blush, ending the conversation there. They focused back on their work. Over the last 2 months, they had done a variation of their usual schedule, alternating trying a stun ball with the easier tricks, and at one time combining them. While Harry did even more work in that regard however, Angelina was trying to recreate a Lightsaber. She had gotten a lad to make her a prop hilt out of some scrap metal they had found. they couldnt make another for Harry though, so it was just Angelina attempting it. She had taken a full month of practise before anything happened, and that didn't exactly go right. After that though she had gotten it down good.

After an hour in the trance, Harry came out of it, pouting. "It's not working."

"You'll get it eventually."

"I suppose so. In the meantime, wanna try some target practise?"

"What do you mean?"

"See if your lightsaber can block my stunners."

Angelina's grin was hesitant, as she nodded in agreement.

At first she kept missing the bolts of red light harry was sending, but when she connected with one, it was rebounded, and she danced a jig in delight.

"I did it I did it." she shouted quietly.


A/N: the film they rented was Return of the Jedi. as for the other titles i didn't mention... well i dont know what films where out in 85/86 - i was born in 88.

Anyway Half this was written just today - 20th jan 08. the rest was ... er.. june or something. Meh. Don't kill me.

Might work in extra sentances and that to pad the chapter out when i edit it.

Note: gone back and edited the other chapters (4/5/6) but they've not really been changed. Spellchecker didn't find any errors, oddly enough.