Harry Potter :: AU year one, the beginning
Despite his intentions of getting rid of his 'freak' nephew at least for the next ten month, Vernon arrived to the King's Cross only fifteen minutes before eleven and, dumping Harry and his things out of the car, sped away. Sighing, the green-eyed wizard picked his things and started looking for the platform 9¾... Not surprisingly, after the platform 9 there was platform 10, and no signs of the one with the number 9¾... Or... Catching some movement out of the corner of his eye, Harry turned around to see a man and a boy of about his age disappear through one of the walls... Already knowing that in the magical world not everything was what it looked to be, the dark-haired boy decided to try his luck and approached that wall. And he was only half-surprised, when ha passed through the – false – wall, appearing on the platform that had a steam engine pulled train next to it. And there also was a sign that read "platform 9¾" and another one just under it with "Hogwarts express – 11:00" on it. Smiling to himself for solving the quest of finding the train, the scion of the great and ancient house of Potter – though Harry didn't know it. Yet. - entered the last car of the train and started looking for a compartment to sit in. It seemed that he had arrived to late to find an empty compartment as only in the forth car he found one that had less than three people in it. This one had only one girl, who was reading some book, in it, and Harry really hoped that she wouldn't mind his company much – he had no desire to continue looking for another place to sit. Harry knocked on the compartment door.
"Um... Sorry... Can I sit here?" He asked quietly. The girl looked up from her book, and studied him for a couple of moments, before nodding. Grateful that she wouldn't mind him in the compartment, the green-eyed boy slipped in and placed his things on the luggage cupboard. Then he sat across from the silent girl and allowed himself to study her appearance. She looked to be twelve or thirteen, but could as well be his contemporary. She had tanned, almost bronze skin, dark-blond with strange green gleam hair and yellow, maybe golden, eyes, and seemed to be from eastern Europe or maybe Ural. Oh, and she had a strange unexplainable feeling of water about her... She wasn't beautiful in a common way, but no one could deny that she was pretty in her own, exotic, way. Then Harry looked down on the book she was reading. And he couldn't understand what was written in it as it was in some foreign language... Of course, him staring at the book didn't go unnoticed.
"See something interesting?" The girl asked, making Harry blush and look away. He heard tapping of nails on the hard book cover then, telling him that the girl was waiting for his answer. Turning back, the dark-haired boy saw her looking at him with a neutral expression on her face. Deciding that he wasn't exactly in trouble yet, he answered:
"Well... Your book isn't in English... And..." Surprisingly for him, the girl nodded.
"Indeed, this book is in Ukrainian..." She made a small pause, before adding: "...Which happens to be my native language." Harry cocked his head a bit.
"So... Your family had immigrated?" Noticing her face darken a bit, he quickly added: "I, personally see nothing wrong with it... Just... It's surprising." The girl nodded, accepting his words.
"My family immigrated about a year ago when Soviet Union started falling apart badly. England seemed to be much more stable and well-suited for me to go to school at." Harry nodded: this was a good reason, even if he knew next to nothing about the situation in the Eastern superpower as the Soviet Union was often called before it started falling apart... "Anyway, I'm Anna Melnik."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Harry..." The green-eyed wizard though for a moment, about will she react to his surname like everyone else, or not, but decided that he should introduce himself properly. "Harry Potter." The girl narrowed her eyes. Well, at least she wasn't gawking at him like he was some kind of a god – that was most annoying...
"You are one of them, pureblood supremacists, aren't you?" Asked Anna with a barely hidden loathing in her voice. Harry merely raised his eyebrow, not completely understanding, what she was about. "Potters are an ancient family of purebloods. You hate those who aren't as pure as you are, like other pureblood families do, don't you? If so, leave." Well, at least, this explained what the whole thing was about...
"Considering that my mother was... a first generation witch... And the only so-called pureblood I'm sure about is a stuck-up bastard... Of course, not everyone is better, but still, I have no problem with your 'blood status', if that is what you are asking." Anna blushed and seemed to shrink into her seat at his answer.
"Sorry... I must have known better than using labels on anyone... Sorry..." She sniffed. Almost instinctively, Harry reached for her, placing his hand on her book that was lying on her knees.
"It's OK... I'm not angry with you..." But he didn't want to lie, and she had offended him somewhat... "Well, not much." She looked up at him. "Let's forget the whole thing." The girl nodded.
About an hour later, the comfortable – for Harry at least – silence of the compartment was destroyed when a certain pureblood supremacists in the boy of an eleven years old blond boy, accompanied by two human-like gorillas – or were those gorilla-like humans? – opened the door.
"And here's the famous Harry Potter." The blond boy Harry had net at Madam Malkin's said in an i-am-better-than-everyone tone. "I thought about giving you a chance of becoming my friend, but seeing who are you sitting with... You are the lost cause, a complete disgrace of a wizard." Anna glared at the boy, somehow managing to continue reading at the same time. Harry was was just glaring.
"You know what..." The green-eyed wizard said finally. "Get lost. I liked this compartment much much more before you decided to grace us with you presence." The blond boy's cheeks turned slightly pink from anger.
"If I were you, I'd more careful when talking to your betters, or you will end just like you worthless parents. And before you turn seventeen." And before Harry could send something nasty – at least the nastiest curse he could find in his first and second year level textbook – at the boy, the blond and the duo of his gorillas had already left the compartment.
"Thank you for defending me." Anna said, as she looked at her 'savior'. "Though, you shouldn't have angered a Malfoy. They are both wealthy and politically powerful." Harry just nodded absentmindedly, not really caring about the threat Malfoys could be right now. The duo again was surrounded by the comfortable silence again...
Fifteen minutes later, though, they got another group of visitors, much more pleasant, though. They were a chubby boy and a girl with brown a bit curly hair. The duo was just searching for boy's toad. Anna, barely looking away from her book, suggested that they ask someone to summon it, and the duo left to look for an upper-year student to do just that. Harry and Anna were granted only ten minutes of calmness after that, before a red-haired boy rudely entered their compartment. The boy just plopped on the seat next to Harry, paying to attention to the girl in the compartment.
"You are Harry Potter, right?" The boy asked. Surprised by his bluntness, the green-eyed wizard just nodded. "Can I see it? Where he stroke you, you know. Is it really shaped like a lightning?" The boy said animatedly, while leaning closer to Harry, trying to see the famous scar. "I'm Ron, Ron Weasely, by the way. But we're friends, mate, so you can call me just Ron..." Feeling that the redhead was invading his personal space too much, Harry pushed him away a bit.
"No, you can't see it. I will not answer that. And..." The dark-haired boy retorted, in more annoyed that angry voice.
"But, mate..." Ron said completely surprised by his unfriendliness.
"I'm not your mate and I'm not your friend, mr. Weasely." Harry hissed, even more annoyed by the redhead. "So if there is nothing else you want here, please, leave." He then said forcefully. Ron made a hurt expression on his face and, muttering something about the dark side and ungrateful men, exited the compartment... Thankfully, Harry and Anna weren't disturbed by anyone for the rest of train ride.
Finally, professor McGonagall led the group of the yet to be sorted first years – Anna was among them too – into the Great hall of the Hogwarts, where, right in front of professors' table, on the wooden stool sat an ancient hat. The said hat than sang a song about four houses of the school and some other things, but Harry didn't really listen to it. After the applause to the singing hat died down, the sorting started, with Abbot Hannah going to the Hufflepuff house... One by one students were sorted...
"Melnik, Anna." Professor McGonagall read from the scroll in her hands and the girl calmly, or as calmly as one can be during such a life-changing moment, walked to the stool. Then the hat was placed on her head... And there was silence, though it seemed that everyone could hear proverbial cog wheels turning inside the hat. Malfoy was about to let out a remark about Anna being not good enough for Hogwarts, but both McGonagall's stern look and the coughing from the hat made him hold his tongue.
"Very interesting little one you are..." The ancient hat said quietly. "And you'd fit the best in the Helga's house." Then it shouted. "Hufflepuff!" This time Malfoy didn't bother to hold a snide remark back, but, thankfully, he was clever enough to say it quietly, so McGonagall and other professors could only send a glare to the laughing Slytherins... The sorting continued smoothly, until Harry's name was called. The green-eyed boy walked to the stool, trying to pay no attention to those whispers and students gawking at him.
'What do we have here... Mr. Harry James Potter...' The hat said in Harry's hat as soon as it touched it. 'Let's see, where should I place you... You have a bravery in you, but you know better than to rush head first without thinking... And you will do that only for those who deserve your bravery... No, Godric's house would suit you, of course, but it isn't the best choice... You are loyal, mr. Potter, but, again, only to those, who, you think, deserve it, and so far no one is on this list, though two are rather close... This means, Helga's house is out... You like knowledge...' This was true, as Harry spent a lot of time in libraries, hiding from his cousin and his gang. At first he just sat there, then he started reading one book after another, learning a lot of things from them, things that helped greatly in his life. 'But you like it not for itself, but for what power over your life, and the world around you, it gives. Both Rowena and Salazar would have like to have you in their houses...'
'Please, not Slytherin.' Harry pleaded in his mind, mostly because he didn't want to spend next seven years with Malfoy and his pet gorillas. The hat sensed this.
' I see... While Slytherin would have made you great, the current environment would not be beneficial for your learning... It is decided then. You better be...' Then the hat shouted: "Ravenclaw!"
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The Ravenclaw tower was very good, though a bit too much of a library for living quarters for Harry's tastes. The had small personal rooms for each student there, separated into two blocks: one for boys and one for girls. Oh, what wonderful beds were in these rooms... Harry had never slept as good as during this night before.
After the classes for the first day – Transfiguration with McGonagall, History of magic with Binns and double DADA with Quirrell – were finished, Harry went straight to the library, hoping to get a clue about that weird feeling of water he had around Anna. Or the feeling of darkness and dread he got from Quirrell...
After a good half an hour of looking through the book catalog, the green-eyed wizard finally found something that seemed worth looking through: "Magical abilities and bloodlines". The said book happened to be a big and rather dusty tome that was easily trice as old as the current headmaster of the school was. It took the boy quite some time to find what looked similar to his 'ability':
'Magic sense. Rather rare ability which can appear spontaneously in any magic user, though females get it more often. Magic sense allows user, with some training, to get a rough estimation of magical power of someone close to them, sensing powerful wards and spells. This ability also allows picking elementals out. There is a similar, but more powerful ability called Magic sight, which is also a bloodline of the...'
Guessing that the feeling of water he got around his female friend might be because she was an elemental, Harry continued looking through the tome, till he found some information about elementals:
'Elemental powers. These are rare, generally hereditary, powers to control certain element in an wandless way. Usually, elemental powers come from magical sentient creatures, though, the cases of an elemental child with human non-elemental parents were registered...' Harry skipped the text to the list of the creatures who could give elemental powers to their offsprings. 'Fire elementals usually have one of these - or more than one - as their ancestors: drakes, succubi, ifrits,..' The list went on. Deciding to look into those later, Harry skipped fire, earth, wind, lightning elementals and those who had powers that came from the combinations of the aforementioned elements, going straight to the water elementals. 'Water elementals generally have either mermen, naiads, nereids or other aquatic or amphibious demi-humans in their ancestry...' Read the dark-haired boy. Looking at his watch, he noticed that it was already six in the evening and the library would be closing in an hour. Hopefully, he could do some small research about possible ancestor of Anna...
'I don't have much time...' The boy thought as he was looking for the book on magical creatures. 'Which specie should I be looking for?.. It must be aquatic or amphibious. It also must live in Ukraine, since Anya's from there...' Opening the book, which was much never than the tome about the magical abilities, he looked through the list of the creatures ...explained in it. 'Hmm... Slav rivermaid and Vodyanoj look like the most possible ones...' Harry went to the page about the rivermaids and started reading.
'Slav rivermaids, depending on the country, they are seen as neutral to danger level two dark creature. Rivermaids inhabit lakes, backwaters, pools and rivers with slow flow in Ukraine, Belorussia and south-west Russia. Sometimes they can be found near water mills too, though, generally, they stay well away from human settlements. Slav rivermaids are almost complete lookalikes of the human females, having only their golden eyes and dark, mossy-green hair for distinguishing features. They are also physically stronger than humans are and are capable of water-based magic. Also, rivermaids are usually non-hostile towards humans, as long as they or something they hold dear isn't endangered or they have their territory trespassed.
Slav rivermaids are, actually, the same specie with vodyanoj, but they mate more often with human males (whom they lure into their territory, or just abduct. Again, sometimes they come to live in the human settlement with mates) than with males of their own specie.
Rivermaids rarely socialize with their own kind, despite their specie having their own language. They are capable of speaking and learning multiple human languages too. There are almost intelligent as humans are, and they make up with their hardworking for the difference...' As Harry continued reading, he understood that Anna must have had a rivermaid as one of her ancestors, and got her water elemental's powers from there...
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Next morning, just as the lunch break started, Harry approached Anna, as the rest of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were heading from the Charms to the Great hall.
"A-Anya..." The green-eyed boy said more than a little nervously. The golden-eyed girl looked at him, and, feeling his nervousness, immediately began suspecting something.
"Yes, ...Harry?"
"Can we find some place more private?" Anna nodded, still not really understanding, what he wanted... Less than five minutes later, the two of them were hidden away form the general public of the Hogwarts in one of the less-used corridors.
"So... What did you want?" The girl asked a bit bluntly.
"Well... I did some research yesterday and... ?" Harry said really quickly. Anna didn't understand him, though.
"Sorry, what?" Harry took a deep breath to calm down, before repeating his question.
"Are y-you really a d-descendant of a Slav rivermaid?" He asked again. The blond girl narrowed her eyes at him, dangerously so. "I don't have any problems with that. It's quite cool, actually!" The dark-haired boy added quickly, hoping to avoid her possible wrath. Too stunned by how quickly he figured her out, Anna just nodded, before asking him:
"How?" Harry looked into her golden eyes warily.
"You gave all the clues." Taking her silence as a request to elaborate, he continued: "Well... You are a water elemental... You have golden eyes and streaks of green in your hair... And you are from Ukraine. Elementals generally have some magical creature as one of their ancestors, and you birth country, your eyes and hair determine that 'creature' to be no one other than Slav rivermaid." He explained. Anya sighed and nodded.
"Yes, you are right. My mother is the one." She admitted. "But what will you do with this knowledge?" She asked then.
"Nothing." Harry said, reassuring her. "You are my first friend. Why would I want to hurt you?" Anna nodded. "OK. Let's join the rest of our houses at the lunch now, shall we?" And the two of them hurried down to the Great hall...
On their way down, they ran into the mass of Griffindors and Slytherins who were, it looked like, just let free from Transfiguration. And, of course, Malfoy was going to torment the duo once he had spotted them.
"Well, well, well... What do we have here? Potter!" The blond boy sneered. "Oh, sorry, I didn't see that you were with... that girl. And here I wanted to give you a chance of redeeming your face of a wizard. Now I'm completely sure that you are worthless freak if you keep associating with this dirty blooded hussy." Anna had controlled anger on her face while the Harry had it written on his face that he wanted nothing more than to punch Malfoy's face right now, but he held himself back – he didn't need any more problems now. Plus the audience around them...
"You know, Malfoy, I see that you have no brain whatsoever. Who in their right mind would insult their superior." Draco laughed.
"She? My superior? You must be hallucinating, Potter. No thing like her can be superior to a pureblooded wizard like me."
"Yet, she's the strongest in our year." Harry stated coldly, while trying to glare a hoe through his 'opponent's' head. Malfoy sneered again.
"Thank you, Potter. I really needed a good laugh before lunch." And he started walking away, while the rest of the student body – minus Harry and Anna – started laughing. Before they understood that they, Gryffindors and Slytherins, were laughing together... Two groups glared at each other, before walking towards the Great hall, making sure to take different routes. When Harry and Anna were finally alone on the stairs, the golden-eyed girl asked.
"Y-You said that I'm the strongest. Why?" Harry shrugged.
"You are a water elemental." Anna looked at him, not really understanding, how it made her 'the strongest'.
"Yes, but there is no water around." The dark-haired wizard looked into her eyes.
"There is. Human boy has at least sixty six percents of water in it. And there is also water vapors in the air." At this point, Anna's eyes opened wide as she realized the true extent of her powers... "So, let's go eat. Lunch break won't last forever."
"Thank you, Harry." Still a little stunned girl said, before the two of them resumed on their way to the Great hall; Anna trying to be close to her friend...
