This was supposed to be a drabble-y type thing until BMWF stopped being a little piece of awesomeness.
Why. Won't. This. Story. Shut. Up.
On an actual important note, thanks for being awesome you guys, even though I fear interpersonal communications and do not answer any of you. Just know that you make me really, really happy! = )
Kings Cross Station was incredibly busy the morning of September 1st, but to Harry Potter, who had gotten stuck with the more populated absolutely unavoidable patrol routes during festival times due to Kyouya's fierce hatred of crowds, it wasn't entirely overwhelming. As he walked, however, he could appreciate how it would have overwhelmed him a few short years ago and kept a casual eye out for anyone who looked too terribly out of place, though he was incredibly early.
Kyou-chan was on his shoulder, as he refused to put her in a cage on principle, and he had a sneaking suspicion that she would react remarkably similar to the real Kyouya and attempt to 'bite him to death' if he ever considered such a foolish course of action.
"-wish we could see you all the way off, Mia, but we can't pass that Barrier thing." A male voice was saying nearby as Harry made his way closer to the hidden platform.
"It's alright, Daddy. I-I'll be fine." A girl's voice responded.
Young and scared, Harry noted absently, likely never been away from home for a long period of time before, trying to be brave, though. Harry had just finished his internal observations when he rounded the corner and saw a rather attractive middle-aged couple and a young girl who could only best be described as an 'ugly duckling'. From his angle Harry could see that her front teeth were slightly over large, her hair was obviously not well-kept, (she probably doesn't take a great deal of pride in her appearance as she's told herself that she's not worth the effort), and her clothes were exaggeratedly serviceable.
However, something about her pinged his intuition, and she couldn't possibly be worse than Kyouya, right?
"Excuse me," he interjected smoothly, noting the almost hostile and haughty aura the girl drew up when she noted his age, he'd have to work on that then, "But I couldn't help but over hear and I was curious as to why you couldn't breech the Barrier?" he looked between the three with his best innocent expression plastered across his face.
The woman smiled kindly at him, but there was anger in her eyes and the man didn't even bother to try and hide his discontent with the situation, "I'm sorry, but are you-?" here she trailed off leadingly.
Harry smiled brightly, "Hogwarts here." He said agreeably.
"Ah, well, we're ah, muggles, you see and-"
Harry's smile grew tight and he clamped down tightly on his anger, but he wasn't sure he entirely hid his expression, so he hurried to explain before any misunderstandings could form, "Ah, please excuse me, I really despise that word it makes me angry, you see, when people try to differentiate between humans as if the ones with magic are human and the ones without are monkeys, forgive my lapse in my control." Harry bowed lightly, careful to not to disturb Kyou-chan, who he was entirely amused to note bobbed her head in a semblance of a bow as well. Kyouya in owl form indeed. "Now, if I might offer a suggestion?"
The woman looked taken aback by the rapid change the conversation had taken and the man was calculating, causing Harry make a mental note to have Papá run a background check on this guy, he might have military training, "What might that be dear?"
Harry smiled his best I'm-totally-not-doing-anything-wrong smile and replied, "The Barrier's primary function is to keep out people of nonmagical origin. Two things are required to pass the Barrier: magic and the knowledge that it is there, however the biggest obstacle that you are faced with is not the lack of inherent magic but rather that your belief that the platform exists on the other side. Since this young lady," here he gestured to the girl who was steadily reddening, "is of some relation to you, your daughter or niece, I am guessing, you should be able to 'piggyback' off of her magic and walk through the Barrier, she will simply need to escort you back through, the issue is that while she can provide the magic your belief must be strong enough to make up for the face that the magic is not inherently yours, but as long as you can believe that the space on the other side exists to the point that it lets you pass, you should be able to do so."
"That doesn't make any sense!" the girl burst out angrily before lowering her voice to an angry hiss, "All the books say that if you don't have magic you cannot pass through. All of them. Why are you being a-"
"Hermione." The man cut in sharply, his eyes having not left Harry since the boy had started speaking. "Let's try this his way, alright?"
The girl rounded on the man, angry tears pricking at her eyes, "But Daddy-"
"No, Princess." The man said firmly, grasping her trunk with one hand and taking the girl's hand in his other, making sure to keep Harry's in his line of sight at all times. "What do we have to lose, really? We are only able to go to that Alley of yours once a year, Nessa, take Mia's other hand, lad you mind going first? It might be easier to visualize if we see you disappear and not run into the wall."
Harry smiled blandly, but he was a little offended by the blatant maneuvering, though he supposed that not everyone in the world grew up with the incredibly paranoid seven-plans-for-emergency-escape-routes-for-any-occasion Renato Sinclair for a parent, so he let it slide. Harry lined himself up with the Barrier, made sure Kyou-chan was ready and walked at a brisk pace towards the wall, sliding through the faux-illusion easily, and settled to the side to wait to the young girl and her parents.
Just a few moments later, he was proven correct as the trio came stumbling through the Barrier, and Kyou-chan gave a haughty screech of victory.
(Yeah, seriously Kyouya in owl form)
"It worked." The little girl breathed out incredulously, "It worked."
Harry gently guided the trio to the side and into a little alcove so they would get run into by anyone and took his leave, My work here is done. He thought, rather smug in the knowledge that he had been right about something that older, so-called wiser magicals had been wrong about for decades.
Harry found a nice, nondescript compartment, stowed his luggage, and got out his journal, a blanket, and a pillow, so he could write to Kyouya and Tetsu and nap. Harry stretched out on the coach seat, he figured that with what he had seen so far of magical culture the train probably had self-expanding charms or something of that nature. He threw out a reiki strip, which was a strip of rice paper that held tiny writing that listed out characteristics that he did not want from a compartment mate and Activated it with his Flames, which pretty much would keep out just about everybody, unless there was an actual need for room or something. (It was a Shine Master talent, but Kyouya had gotten one of his cousins to teach it to Harry so that Harry could put them around Kyouya's nap couch in the DC office, the little brat.) Kyou-chan had already flown ahead; apparently she liked the idea of crowding as much as Kyouya did.
Yeah, definitely Kyouya in bird form.
The train starting moving at some point, and while Harry had gotten pretty good at writing while on the move, (a necessary skill for any person who had to spend lots of time on public transit running errands for slave driving old ladies), he really didn't feel like it, so he tucked his journal away in his travel pack, slipped his glasses into the front of his shirt, arranged his blanket a little better, and tossed his arm over his eyes as he settled in for a nap.
Naps were a bonding thing for him and Kyouya, Tetsu didn't really take naps, but the other boy would be nearby scribbling something or another down in one of his thousand or so notebooks, while Hikaru would find a bench and Kyouya would nap high up in a tree or on a ledge.
Harry smiled through the dull throb in his chest and the slow burn in his eyes, I thought of myself as Hikaru again. Can't even take a nap without those damn brats. Eventually he managed to push back the homesickness and the ache and fall into a light doze, lulled by the gentle rhythm of the train.
Eventually he was pulled back to full alertness by the compartment door opening, so he moved his arm enough to peek and see who it was and felt that he was not nearly as surprised as he should have been to see that it was the girl from earlier and a chubby brown-haired boy. She looked like she'd been crying, as her eyes were all puffy and watery and Harry would recognize that resigned but furious look the boy was sporting anywhere.
"Come in," he said with one of the smiles he usually reserved for kids they rescued from idiots who had more muscle than sense, "I see you've got your luggage, let's get you settled then." Harry was efficient, smoothly ignoring their protests as he got them seated and stowed their luggage in the rack, grabbing some toiletries from his travel pack for them to tidy up, plied them with juice and some snacks, and only when they were fully calm and settled did he stop fussing long enough to let them speak.
"You're the boy from earlier!" The girl burst out loudly, before immediately cringing then straightening and looking at him challengingly, as if she was daring him to comment.
If she had a Flame, I'd say she was a Lightning of some sort, maybe an Inverted Hard? Damn, she is going to be as bad as Kyouya. "Yup, that's me, did everything go alright?"
She looked taken aback for a moment, but she recovered quickly, "Yes, Daddy and Mummy were terribly pleased to be able to see the train and everything since they are only allowed the one trip to Diagon a year until my Majority, so they were really chuffed to be able to see more of what I'll be learning! I've learned all of our course books by heart, of course, I just hope that'll be enough. Oh, how terribly rude of me, I'm Hermione Granger, who are you?" She finished all in the same breath as she stuck her hand out expectantly.
Harry blinked slowly and felt the familiar feeling of not knowing whether to laugh or bang his head against a wall. "Ok, Ms. Granger, it-"
"Hermione."
Breathe, Harry. At least there are no animal metaphors to wade through. "Do you prefer directness, Miss Granger?"
The girl's honey-gold eyes narrowed in hurt and anger and she rose to her feet and Harry just knew that this was going to go badly and quite frankly he knew this girl had potential, but it was either give her a reality check now or let her be dragged down by this world and crushed for being different. So he rose as well and lightly placed his hands on her shoulder- a gentle, but restrictive hold- as he unleased the full force of his unobscured gaze onto her, "I am not being rude. I am not being unkind. I am not being cruel. The fact is, Miss Granger, you are not in the Queen's England anymore. The split in government between the magicals and nonmagicals occurred before the founding of the current monarchy, meaning that the laws of the government that you are currently under the jurisdiction of are not the ones that you are used to and there is currently nothing you can do about it by law.
By the Avalonian Tenants, our founding laws, the action that just occurred was highly inappropriate because I had not yet given you my name and I am of a technically higher class than you. It is not particularly fair, not particularly right, and not particularly proper, but the fact of the matter is that if you do that to the wrong person they could have you killed and there is nothing your parents or nonmagical England could do to help you."
Harry drew the shivering girl closer to him and allowed her to wrap her arms around him and cry into his shoulder, "I'm not angry, truly, but the fact remains that there are secret traps and pitfalls in this new world that you've stepped into, Little Princess. I am an Heir of a Most Noble and Most Ancient House, there are few of us left, but we have fairly unilateral authority and there are those who would use that authority without thought, so please think before you speak, alright?"
The girl nodded into his cloth-covered shoulder, but didn't make an attempt to remove herself, and Harry- feeling a little bad about how strong he'd had to come on to prove his point- maneuvered them so they were sitting down, with her in his lap, and tugged his blanket around her shoulders and let her cry. "Would you like to know what it was that you did wrong?" He gently queried after a few minutes of quiet sobs.
She nodded vigorously.
Harry sighed and rubbed soothing circles on the girl's back, pointedly not looking at the other occupant of the compartment at this point, "As I said, I am an Heir to a Most Noble and Most Ancient House, and as such I am a prize." He spat the word out and he felt her stiffen, "Ah, I see you're beginning to see the point. Back in the ancient times, families of lesser repute would send their pretty daughter to try to win the hearts of the young male Heirs- because, obviously we can't have the daughters inheriting, heaven forbid-" that made her release a watery giggle. Progress. Was it sad that Harry was missing the animal metaphors?
"Back in those days a sign of favor was using her first name instead of the family one, and with that came responsibilities. Like shelter and food and the like, the Rules of Favor changed throughout the centuries, but they still exist and differ from family to family, and as we're all eleven which is the first year of our second decade this is a really important time for us magical Heirs, so we have to be really careful. It should all settle down in a month or so, but until then try and stick to your first name with all the other boys, alright?" Harry finished, trying to inject some teasing into his tone and he was rewarded with an actual giggle as she scooted off his lap far enough to dig out his travel supplies again.
"Now that that unpleasantness is out of the way," Harry announced after Miss Granger had finished cleaning up, "I am Potter, Harry Potter, it's nice to meet you all."
The two gaped at him.
Harry sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.
By the time the train had pulled into Hogsmeade Station, Harry had managed to convince Longbottom and Miss Granger that he wasn't a super-powered force of nature, but that his Mum and Dad were just really good and Family Magic was awesome.
The two boys had also explained why those from Old Lines always introduced themselves with their family name first, as it brought the Family Magic to bear, and therefore the protection offered by the ancient magic. If two magicals introduced themselves in the modern manner of first-name then family-name then an Heir would have no protection against an alliance sealing to their Family as the Family Magic wouldn't be able to react.
Family Magic originated in Avalon, in the original Council of Friends, which had been fourteen families strong- and then there had been a further twenty eight 'Ancient' and another twenty-eight 'Noble' Houses that also bore Family Magic. These lines also had other lines that were Oath Sworn, Conquered, or all manner of other things, so after The Fall and the subsequent Shattering, a lot of the lines went dormant and then years later 'muggleborns' began to crop up. It takes nearly three generations for the Family Magic to return to a single 'muggleborn', and only then can they gain access to the Gringott's accounts for that family, but if a Most Ancient and Most Noble House- like Harry's House- were to added their Family Magic, it would only take about a decade, because the Council of Friends' Family Magic had always been the most potent, no matter how far the lines dwindled.
After explaining all that, Harry also had a healthy fear of Miss Granger's resolve in the pursuit of knowledge and he and Longbottom just sort of commiserated together while she ranted.
Eventually they disembarked and Miss Granger found something new to talk about, much to the relief of the two boys. The ride across the lake was rather fantastic, and the return of Longbottom's pet was met with smiles from Miss Granger and Harry.
The stern witch who met them at the entryway seemed like one of those teachers who were overworked and underpaid, but tried to be fair. Then there were the ghosts, which gave Harry a screaming migraine because spirits were not allowed to linger in the East, as they disrupted the balance of reiki terribly.
Then they were walking into the Great Hall, and Harry could admit to being fascinated with, and he couldn't even be irritated when Miss Granger started babbling about having read about how Rowena Ravenclaw herself made the enchantment, because all he could think of was, Maybe I could get Kyouya to sit still long enough to do the damn budget reports if I put this in the Committee office.
The ratty little hat sang a ridiculous but amusing song that had some hidden wisdom that was more than likely lost on most of the students, as everyone looked terribly hungry. The students' names were called and the tables clappes but Harry really just wanted to go curl up somewhere, preferably with Kyou-chan. Harry himself was nearly physically ill from all the imbalances reiki in the air, the magic being so saccharine it was nearly toxic to him. It was like it was like being locked in a room and having a mouthful of cavities but nothing to eat but gummy bears and nothing to drink but carbonated soda.
Miss Granger's name was called.
The hat flopped down over her eyes as she jammed it on her head eagerly. The headwear shifted around a bit and moved its 'lips' a few times before apparently making up its mind and yelling-
"RAVENCLAW!"
The next name that Harry paid attention to was Longbottom, he clapped the boy on the shoulder in a friendly way as the boy made his way up to the stool, and it took a few moments but eventually the hat burst out with a rather bewildered-
"RAVENCLAW!"
And Longbottom went to join Miss Granger, giving Harry a firm nod of acknowledgement as he did so, much to Harry's bemusement.
When they got to Harry's name, the boy scowled at the deluge of whispers that immediately swept through the room, as well as all the students who were suddenly desperate to get a good look at him, or even the way the Staff members were suddenly shifting forward.
Bastards. Harry thought uncharitably as he reached the stool and shoved the hat on his head.
There was the sound of chuckling near his ear and he scowled harder. I'm not even going to ask you to let me in, I know better. I know just where to put you, better be-
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Oh, and vote for a House. That's not a cliffie. I really don't know where I'm going to put him. I really think Slytherin though. Also, Blaise. I'm just saying.