Disclaimer: I don't own it; just having a go at fanfiction to see if I can em-provvvee my Eeng-lish.
Dreamer's Note: No, I won't call myself an author. Every half an hour before I sleep, I'll have some idea popped up in my mind before I drift away in my slumber. Sometimes, I wrote and deleted paragraphs after paragraphs just to suit my plot in the future of the story. I'm not very good at writing a poem or such thing, so mostly when witchcraft is mentioned in my story, I'll just say, some verses were chanted or the incantation was there, but not the thing itself. Bear with me.
The True Journey of Harry Potter
Chapter 9 – Difficult Issues
In May, 1990, the Squib Society called for the annual gathering. Hermione and Harry were introduced to the other children their ages and a few older ones, all of them magical. The older ones were currently attending a magical school. Ironically, none of the children attended Hogwarts. Learning what Dumbledore, the headmaster, had done to Harry, the parents and grandparents felt it was not safe for the kids to go there, instead contacted Bouxbatons or other institutes except Durmstrang to request for admissions.
There were only 2 children who are going to be attending magical school in Harry's year; one Justin Finch-Fletchley – grandson of Mr. Androix and Eureka Egg, a descendent of a well-known author of 'The Philosophy of the Mundane: Why Muggles Prefer Not to Know'. Eureka said her family would send her to Bouxbatons when the time came, while Justin said that his grandfather would see where Harry was going.
"Of course, Harry," Mr. Androix exclaimed said when Harry questioned him about the statement. "I'd have my grandson around you; so at least, you both can look after each other."
From there, the three kids made a pack. Harry invited Justin to visit him at home to introduce the new member of the pack to Dudley as Dudley was not allowed to attend the society yet; only the magical children were brought in.
Once the seven councilors sat at their chairs on the stage, flame erupted above the podium signaling the Gathering to proceed. However, there was no parchment coming out the fire like usual. Instead, the flame slowly died down leaving a majestic bird in its place.
"Felix!" Harry shouted from the front row causing everyone to look at him and he blushed muttering sorry. Felix, the phoenix sang a soft tune and flew to perch on Harry's shoulder.
"You know the bird, Harry?" Aunt Marge asked.
"Yes, ma'am. He's Felix, err… my phoenix friend." Harry replied omitting that it was his ancestors'.
"So, it was him all the time we got message from Magic at the beginning of the gathering," Mr. Beastry said intrigued of the creature.
Felix moved his head affirmative. When asked about the parchment this time, he gave a negative sign.
"So," Mr. Freeman spoke up, "since it was cleared that we don't have any special issue to talk about. I say we talk about what we originally planned for today's meeting."
Getting 'aye' from everyone, Mr. Freeman proceeded. "I've contacted all muggle-born parents on the list and got our society a big web for future references. Believe it or not, many of them are children of our previous members. Anyway, that's all I have to report now."
"Well," Mr. Cornell continued, "for my part, I have Cornelius, the newly-elected Minister of Magic, through the magical part of my family, agreed to open up a 'Muggle Relations Office' in the ministry facility. We've also placed our people in various positions with the ministry. Our only problem, though, is the toad Lady Umbitch, err… sorry kids, Umbridge and Lord Malfoy."
"Umbridge?" Mr. Granger asked, "As in Doroles Umbridge?"
"Yes, do you know her?" Mr. Cornell asked.
"Of course, she was my wife's second or third cousin. I never knew she's magical." Daniel told his peers.
"Oh, what a wonder piece of news!" Mr. Cornell exclaimed. "She's related to a muggle, which means…" he left his words unfinished and sat down with a thoughtful look. Some shuddered seeing that. Mr. Cornell was a generous man with a very vicious streak personality and everyone knew not to anger the man.
"Alright," Marge quipped in, "next to discuss… is about the children schooling. Harry, Hermione and Mr. Finch-Fletchley are due to receive Hogwarts letters next year. Are we going to send them there or somewhere else?"
Normally, this kind of discussion would depend on the family, but as it was about Harry, an honorary member of the Squib Society and it might affected the society's future plans, they thought it was needed to be discussed. Harry did not mind it at all as he would have a vote in there too, but unknown about his other two friends. Hermione had set her mind on going with Harry and Justin was also in the same line of thought. They did not protest what the society was doing any bit.
"Just call him Justin, Marge," Mr. Androix said, "after all they are going to go together anyway, aren't you, children?"
Harry turned to his friends and saw their head bobbed. He smiled, "yes, sir."
"So?" Aunt Marge looked at him questioningly.
"I think I'll go to Hogwarts, but… we need to do something about me not knowing magic." Harry said. Several members frowned at the statement and asked questions after questions.
"Why?"
"What do you mean?"
"Not knowing magic? What an insult!"
"PEOPLE!" Mr. Androix shouted calling for attention. "Harry should have a reason for that. If you may, Harry?"
"Err…" Harry blushed, "well, you see. I'm placed at my home for a reason. Dumbledore should think that my family doesn't like about magic at all, so I should be naïve of all magic, shouldn't I?"
That started another round of Dumbledore bashing moment in the society. Harry and Hermione looked at each other knowingly, while Justin frowned did not know who this Dumbledore was. In the end, they all agreed that the family would take care of Harry's suggestion and continued in lesser topic of discussion.
Once the meeting ended, Uncle Vernon bent down and whispered to Harry, "I know you said that on purpose, boy." Harry just looked at him innocently and grinned.
-o0o-
Today was Harry's tenth birthday. They were having party in the evening and Harry would be visiting his grandparents in Avalon later. Harry's only friends, Dudley, Hermione and Justin would be at the house after school.
Uncle Vernon had called for a day off again today. He was sitting at the dining table with Aunts Petunia and Marge discussing what Harry had dreaded; should Baron Potter introduce himself to the royalty. That was not the only thing though, for the muggle world it was, but to the wizarding world, Harry Potter was due to inherit his family's legacy as a Lord.
They were considering the pros and cons as Dudley had wrote down for them. The boy was a genius in strategy and planning, although he still had some difficulties with his memory and such. Academically, Dudley might not be very bright, but he did his best and passed his grades with an average marks.
"For the Baron title," Aunt Marge started, "it's not really a problem though since it could be secretly announced, but what really disturbs me is how we are going to do it."
"Yeah, we can't just walked into the Buckingham and tell them I'm the Baron Potter," Harry said.
"We'll need help," Uncle Vernon said chuckling at his imagination of Harry's statement, "and I think the magical world could help us with that."
"Of course," Harry exclaimed, "how could I forget about that? The goblin would have a way or at least I can ask grandmother Morgana her opinion."
"Well, that settles then," Aunt Petunia, who had been listening, spoke. "So, we all agree to do this?"
Everyone said 'aye'.
"How about the Lord Potter title?" Petunia asked.
"That would be quite a problem," Harry said solemnly. "I don't want to tip Dumbledore or anyone in the wizarding world off that I know about magic and my family's legacy."
"Harry's quite right there," Vernon spoke up, "Does it really necessary that Harry take the inheritance now, Marge? Can't it wait a while longer? We've had enough problems pretending with the damn Mrs. Figg for years."
It was true though. They had learnt that the old cat-lover lady was a squib working for Dumbledore soon after Harry's first day of negating the Oduim jinxed items in the house. Harry walked on Wisteria Walk passing her house one day and recognized Mr. Tibble as a kneazle or at leart part-kneazle. After a careful watch, he saw the floo-powder bag hanging beside her fireplace, although it could be overlooked as any hanging in the house, but Harry knew better as he had almost used the same kind of bag to hang on their fireplace but decided against it and used a jug placing on the floor as decoration instead. A few days later, he heard the old lady muttering about Dedalus Diggle being non-sense bowed to Harry in a shop while his aunt was having a horror thought they were found out. How could she know about the man then? True she was there in the shop, but she was not that close to hear him talking. And what tip off Harry the most was that she continued rambling about having to tell Dumbledore about it.
"I know, Vernon," Aunt Marge said sighing heavily, "but the earlier the better, don't you think? Dumbledore had been thieving with Harry's trust vaults thinking no one would recognize it using his position as Harry's magical guardian. If we do this, the old man would be stopped or we could just let him continued as Dudley marked here."
"I'm with Marge here," Aunt Petunia added, "the trust vault, though a very small part of the money was emptied every year before it was refilled again on Harry's birthday. I don't know what Dumbledore's thinking doing this. How could anyone not notice? And to think that Harry lost one hundred thousand galleons a year to the old coot, I just can't accept that."
"There's one thing though," Vernon said pondering, "how come he has the vault's key?"
"As a magical guardian, of course," Aunt Marge replied that. "He'd have Harry's parents' things too. I just want to have enough magic and go cursing him into oblivion."
"Can't you do that with your master witchcraft?" Harry asked grinning.
"No, no, my dear. That'd be abusing power." Marge warned.
Harry pouted a bit before let out a giggle, which joined by the adults.
"Alright! Let's see what Dudley said about this," Aunt Petunia got them back to the talk.
"Hmm… Harry takes the inheritance at Gringotts and let the goblins do the registration through their secret channel. I think our society people in the ministry could be used there too." Vernon read the paper and added in his thought.
"That's right. We do that and let our people keep it quiet. It won't need to be announcing to the public anyway as Harry's still minor. He could just take the title of Lord-Heir, not a full Lordship and wait till his maturity at seventeen." Aunt Marge said.
"But," Aunt Petunia cut in, "that would mean we leave Dumbledore do all he wants with the money!"
"No, Pet," Vernon stopped her before she would go ranting about the old man again. "Let's just say the cruel uncle and aunt of the boy-who-lived found out about the money and take control of it."
"And the naïve boy just let them do out of fear and no one would be the wiser," Harry finished his uncle's line of thought.
"But he would do something about it!" Petunia countered.
"He might," this time, Marge joined the scheme. "But, would he really want to let the public know of his placement of the boy-who-lived? Especially if the relatives also found out that all these years they should have those money and they didn't have it. Where were the money gone to? Would he risk himself being announced theft?"
Four feral grins blossomed in the kitchen.
"Okay, that's settled then," Uncle Vernon announced, "to the next issue; Harry Potter being clueless about magic."
"Dudley suggests Harry acts naïve," Aunt Marge said. "But he could slip up once in a while, though."
"I have thought about that, Aunt Marge," Harry told them. "The books of Mind Magic have a solution, though I'll have to consult with my grand first."
"What's it, Harry?" his aunt asked.
"It's called double-character, Aunt Petunia," Harry replied. "It's like I have two personalities. What's good about it is that I'll have another set of memory to go with it. There's a ritual that could make it happens. But, there's a risk too."
"What risk?" Uncle Vernon asked. He did not like to hear the word 'risk' at all while doing magic ritual.
"I could end up having good and evil personalities with uncertainty when was which or I could end up being a brainless fool altogether. Oh, and the most dangerous risk of all, I lose my magic."
"Shit!"
"Vernon!"
"Sorry, Pet," his uncle apologized sheepishly.
"Talk with your grandparents first then," Aunt Marge concluded. "But mind you, I vote 'no' if you're really going to do it."
"No, too," Aunt Petunia quipped in.
"No, three," his uncle concurred.
"I'm against this myself," Harry added, "but it seems to be the only way."
"We'll see about that, Harry," Aunt Petunia said. "But now, birthday boy, don't you have something to do while we prepare your party?"
The adults shooed him out of the house for the day and Harry decided to go to the public library somewhere around Wisteria Walk.
-o0o-
The sulking boy who just walked past her house got Arabella Figg's attention. Today is his birthday, why is he sulking? She thought. Over the years, Arabella had watched the boy and reported his life to Dumbledore, her boss, monthly. Though he seemed to be well-dressed and healthy, the boy always seemed to be too thin for his age. It could be magic doing for his physical fitness, but with little food, it could be that much, she surmised. Arabella suspected some abuses, but could not find any reverent proofs. What really annoyed her was that the boy was not attending school. She had once tried to pry the reason from Petunia, but the answer was just too unbelievable. Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived, was too dumb and dopey to attend school and he was home-schooled instead. She just could not accept that. So, taking a floo-powder and called to her second cousin, Minerva, they discussed about it. Minerva said that it could not be the case for she had babysat the boy when he was just an infant and found the boy clever and bright. Thus, they ended up agreeing that his relative was abusive and suppressing the boy learning just to their fun. Minerva went so far as talking to Dumbledore about it and the old man just waved it off saying it could be recovered once the boy attended Hogwarts. So, Arabella Figg was out of choice but to observe the boy from afar. She was not called to babysit the boy in ages.
Ending note: I'm almost back to the city soon, but decide to just post these last two chapters I have in my thumb-drive before heading into the jungle once again. More chapters would have to wait for a few days or week yet.
