Jan 18, 2006 Made a few changes. Nothing big.

Thanks for the reviews, a special thanks to my story editor for her help.

"Harry Potter Makes His Own Destiny"

Chapter 12 "Wizards And Muggles And Aurors, Oh My"

On Tuesday Harry was a little anxious all day waiting for his friends to arrive. He had never had friends before, not to mention he wasn't even sure if Nat's friends would like him. To take his mind off things, Pip started talking about magick from his point of view a little before lunch.

"Master Harry, yous says you wants to get ready for the wizard world, what does you want to know?" Pip asked to get Harry to stop pacing the freshly cleaned floor on his newly healed leg. The cast had disappeared this morning, but his arm remained in its cast because he kept re-injuring it.

"Okay," Harry thought for a moment before plopping on the couch. He patted on the cushion next to him in a friendly way, inviting the house elf to sit down. "How old are you?"

Pip blushed at the unexpected question, " I didn't expect yous to ask about me. Well, I has been working at Hogwart's for at least fifty or sixty years, and I doesn't really remember how old I is, but, I tells you what Mr. Dumbledore always says, he says he is old enough to know better and too young to care. So that is my answer too."

Harry wasn't too satisfied with this answer but figured there was nothing he could do about it so he changed the subject. "I've been reading about how you can't apparate inside Hogwart's, but something tells me that house elves have no trouble getting around to take care of things."

Pip was so happy that Harry changed the subject he just blurted it out. "The wards on the school are for spells and such, but not natural ability like house elves and phoenixes." Pip glanced around nervously and said "Oops, Pip shouldn't have said that."

"Are you saying that there's a chance I might could do it?" Harry said as he got a little excited.

"I is not saying no more on that." Pip folded his arms in an uncharacteristically stubborn way. "Ask something else."

"Fine, I'll ask something else, but when I get to school I'm gonna find out how to apparate and do it on my own."

Pip just glared at him and said, "If you gets yourself splinched I isn't gonna help you."

"Splinched? Whats that?" Harry asked.

"Well, splinched is when you apparates but only takes part of you to where you want to go. It takes a lot to put somebody back together when they does that."

Harry got a very apprehensive look at the thought. After erasing the image of an arm and a leg left behind from his head, he continued in a serious tone with a new question. "Okay, so tell me about Voldemort. I can't find any history on him. Who was he before he went dark?"

"You is too curious for your own good." Pip said getting angry.

"Come on, you said you were there when he was a student. He killed my parents and he tried to kill me, is still trying to some people say. I deserve to know this, don't I?"

"Errrr," Pip growled, "alright, I will tells you. He was a scheming little boy that gots people to talk about things they shouldn't." Pip sighed as he lowered his head, the knowledge weighing heavily on him. "His name was Tom Riddle. He was at Hogwart's maybes fifty years ago. He was raised in a muggle orphanage because his mum, who was a witch died and his father, who was a muggle, disowned him. He was very very angry, about everything. But he keeps that to himself. But most of us house elves knows. We knows what he did at school. We knows about the time he framed another student for the bad things that was happening. But we wasn't allowed to say. That person still suffers some from that."

"Really? Who was it? Is there any way we can help him?" Harry was getting a little anxious.

"He..." Pip stated, shifting nervously in his seat, afraid of opening a bigger can of worms, "He is the one that rescued you from the bad Dursley's."

"Hagrid? He framed Hagrid? We gotta do something. Hagrid is the only adult I really trust. It ain't right."

"Harry you has a good heart, but a house elves word ain't no good in court," Pip said, looking at the floor. "Most wizards don't listens to us house elves."

"That sucks," Harry said as he vowed to find a way to help his large friend. "Go on, anything else about Tom Riddle?"

"Not much, he was using his other name for a while before that happened. But after he left Hogwart's, he begins to change. He was nasty in school, but he gots real dark then. He even looked different. When he started to take over his face looked more like ... more like your little snake friend. But not cutes like Archimedes ... nasty!"

A vivid image came to Harry's mind spurred by Pip's words. It was of a pale face with a snub, snake like nose. There were unblinking, red, glowing, slit-pupiled eyes. It was followed by a high pitched laugh and a flash of green light. Harry let out a frightened yell. "I remember Pip! I remember what he looks like," Harry said through moist eyes and slightly ragged breath.

"Is you alright Master Harry?" Pip asked worriedly.

"I'll be okay, thanks Pip. But can you tell me why he came after my parents? What happened? It doesn't make sense," Harry responded, wiping his eyes with the palms of his hands.

"Well, tis said there's a prophecy about you and him. Thats why your parents was in hiding to protect you." Pip started getting really nervous but Harry just sat there open mouthed.

"I knew my parents were protecting me, but this is too much." After a few minutes, Harry spoke again. "What did the prophecy say? I gotta know this."

"Then yous must ask Professor Dumbledore, we house elves ain't allowed to be talking about that. I is sorry Master Harry, but that is the rule. We keeps our master's secrets. Now, it is getting on about one o'clock, I will gets you your lunch. and then I will gets things ready for your friends," Pip said apologetically.

After lunch Harry went out to the garden to work and think on things until Moody, Nat and her friends got there. As Harry weeded, watered, and sprinkled fertilizer around, he knew would have to have a very long talk with Dumbledore. How could he let Hagrid suffer at all if he knew the truth. The wizard court needed to change from the sound of things. Harry decided he would definitely be spending time in the law section of Hogwart's library.

Moody was the first to arrive. He sat on the sofa chatting with Harry waiting for Nat and her friends to show up.

"Harry, thanks to your idea, I've started writing about my experiences. I'm gonna get a ghost writer to fix it up when I'm done with the general stuff. What do ya think?" Moody asked a little excitedly.

"That's a great idea Mr. Moody, I would definitely read it," Harry said as he wondered if he meant a real ghost.

"Just call me Moody, Harry, I ain't comfortable with mister." Moody said back. "You sure you and your friends wanna hear my stories? I ain't too good at story tellin. Thats why I need a ghost writer."

"Sure thing Moody, now my friend Nat is a witch, but she's bringing some muggles with her who know about us. So I'm sure they will love it, nothing like this probably ever happens to them," Harry said when the doorbell rang.

Pip showed Nat and her friends into the sitting room. Harry introduced himself and Moody, then Nat introduced her friends. First was a boy with expressive eyes and shaggy brown hair. Nat introduced him as Johnny. Nat then pointed to a girl with straight shoulder length brown hair, her name was Paulette. She then moved on to another girl with wavy dark blond hair, her name was Georgianna, but everyone called her Ge-ge. The last friend was a pale boy with long blue hair, dark clothes and various piercings. The spiked dog collar around his neck made him look rather feral, but his eyes were as friendly and curious as the rest of them." This is Rick, he's from Australia. He looks like a stray, so we call him Dingo." Nat's eyes twinkled and Rick smiled at the shared joke.

Nat had brought some chocolate frogs, some butterbeer, and some pumpkin juice. Pip had setup various chips and dips for everyone. Harry ordered a large amount of pizza too. Everyone was relaxed when Moody started his story.

"Well, I don't know how good I can tell this, but here goes." Moody started with a short explanation of Voldemort and his reign of terror as he gained more power. This was new to the muggles, and certainly the most interesting way Nat had ever heard it. They all sat in rapt attention. Moody started getting in to spirit, he gestured broadly. His magickal eye rotated, always scanning for potential danger. When he got to an intense part it would swivel toward his audience, boring into them.

"This was from a time not long after Voldemort was done in by young Harry here." Harry blushed at that. "Anyways, we had just caught a deatheater who wouldn't talk about what was going on. Those were what Voldemort called his followers. This one was a slimy little git. Took us a half hour to catch him. Kept apparating all over the place, luckily we were able to follow. Every time we would get close and put up an anti-apparition charm, he would send curses flying our way. We would have to duck or block. But it always gave him enough time to get out of range of the charm and apparate again. Finally we surrounded him and all of us together were able to put up an anti-apparation charm large enough to hold him. Thats when he threw a dust bin lid at me. I wasn't quick enough to duck, and it gave me this scar," he said as he pointed to small two inch scar on his forehead. "but that gave another auror enough time to stun him."

"When we got him back to the ministry he wouldn't talk. But they left me alone with him for a bit. Couldn't use the unforgivable curses, but we could scare him, this was before I got my eye. Now thats a story all its own. Anyways, I was threatening him with removal of his appendages, that I would make him look like me." Moody showed them his wooden leg and Moody's wickedly mirthful smile looked sinister on the scarred face, but his natural eye twinkled. "He started talking once I told him that ole dorkmort was gone and wouldn't be helping him. Voldy couldn't stop me if I was to take off a few parts off of one of his followers. The git told us that a few other deatheaters were goin after the Longbottom's, to try and find the location of their fallen lord. The Longbottom's had a kid about your age Harry, anyways, we took off to the Longbottom's place. We caught 'em alright, but it was too late, they had tortured the both of them for information. They had used the cruciatus curse. Thats one of the unforgivables. They tortured them to insanity."

Moody paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. "Real sad case too, the Longbottom kid was raised by his Gran. Last I heard he wasn't too magickal, didn't show any promise until he was 7 or 8 I think. Seems one of his uncles dropped him on his head and he bounced. His Gran was happy, but I don't know what became of him since."

They all stared wide eyed as the old man went on. "I thinks thats about all the yappin I can do in a night," Moody said as he took a swig from his flask and started to get up. They all protested, wanting to hear about his adventures.

"Hey wait," Harry said stopping him,. He didn't want this first party to brake up so soon. "It's still early, could you show us the unforgivables? At least maybe show us how to throw off the imperius that I read about. That one shouldn't hurt us."

"Well I don't know," Moody said then got a mischievous look in his eye, "alright, you need to know these things, and the ministry won't let you learn 'em at school."

"Yeah," both Harry and Nat said in unison. The quartet of muggle children looked excited about the chance to witness serious magick.

"Alright Harry, you read about them, how much do you know?" Moody began.

"Well, I know that the cruciatus is supposed to hurt really bad, I guess really really bad if you can go insane from it. The imperius is suppose to make you not care about anything so that you're open to do what ever you're told by the caster, and the last one, avada kadavra, is the killing curse. when cast properly, you just die instantly, and no ones ever survived it."

"No one but you my boy," Moody said proudly, patting Harry on the back.

Harry blushed red as a strawberry, "Really? Thats how my parents..." Harry trailed off, his eyes starting to get moist.

"That's okay Harry, they did it to protect you, and I know right now they would be proud of you," Moody said trying to make him feel better. Getting back to business. "Alright Harry, you wanna go first on the imperius? If you can throw it off, they'll never get you to do anything you don't want to."

"Okay," Harry said as he calmly stood in the middle of the floor, waiting. Harry liked the sound of never being forced to do things that weren't his idea, he focused on his determination, trying to ready himself. He nodded. "Ready."

"Alright Harry, just concentrate," Moody said before casting the curse.

Harry felt strange, like he didn't care about anything in the world. Everything felt at peace and wonderful. He heard a voice tell him to flap his arms and make a chicken sound, which Harry felt it sounded reasonable. This voice seemed to be where the cozy well being was radiating from and part of him wanted to stay in this bliss. He was going to raise his arms, but some where deep in his mind, Harry realised this feeling was foreign to him. He had never felt like this fuzzy peace before, it didn't make sense. His mind had always been his safe refuge, his territory and some one trespassing was not acceptable. A stubborn anger started to well up, slowly burning away the blissful clouds. Harry stood there calm and defiant. "No, I don't want to." The last of the blissfulness cleared away.

"I'll be damned, threw it off like nothing the first try," Moody said his normal eye trying to match the size of his other. He let out a long, low whistle. "I'll say it again, your parents ARE proud of you, I just know it." Moody gave Harry a slight hug and a rough but approving slap on the back.

Harry smiled and sat down as the shocked crowd just looked on. It was then Nat's turn. It took her about 4 times, but she was then able to throw it off as well. Moody then taught them a few defensive spells, using Nat's muggle friends as guinea pigs, well only one. Dingo was the only one willing.

"Cool, mate, zap me!" the punk goth stray said.

Pip removed all the cushions from the couch and gathered up all the pillows. With a safe area to land in, every one enjoyed seeing Dingo fly across the room. He seemed to get a thrill out of having spells cast on him, even if it did leave a couple small bruises. Once the novelty wore off, they stopped for the night. Moody had allowed this to go on just long enough to be sure Dingo wouldn't seek out wizards just to be 'zapped'.

It was getting on to midnight when Moody left. Nat said she would see Harry either on the train or at school on Monday, and then she and her friends left as well. Harry went to bed completely happy. He had had a good time with his new friends and the nervousness about school was all but gone. Pip was smiling proudly as he watched with affection a happy eleven year old cuddling his stuffed dragon as he slept. Yes indeed, Harry's parents were watching him with pride as well. The boy-who-lived just might be okay after all.