Chapter 21

Harry woke the next morning stressed about the upcoming meeting. Just because it wasn't important enough for Ms. Jennings to drag him to her office when she found doesn't mean that it wasn't important. He reached over and turned off his beeping alarm, then slid into the bathroom before Zeb could wake up and take it. When he was done, he walked out to see Zeb awake and sitting up in bed, looking through a stack of paper that was covered in messy handwriting and highlighter.

"Notes?" Harry asked, walking over to his desk and shoving that day's required supplies into his backpack.

"Yeah, I've got a test today, and I didn't study nearly as much as I wanted to yesterday."

"This early in the semester!" Harry exclaimed, surprised.

"It's part of the horrors of being in one of the higher level math classes- you have to study a lot more, and take a lot more tests." Zeb said, squinting at the paper "And having to try to read your notes to study for said tests. I don't know if this is a number, symbol, or letter."

Harry laughed "Yeah I know! My handwriting isn't that bad, but one of my old dorm mates handwriting was so bad that we all loaned him our notes, because his were undecipherable! I don't know why he bothered taking notes if he knew we would give him ours."

"Probably so the teachers would think that he was busy, and not yell at him for not paying attention." Zeb grinned, before setting the notes on a semi-organized pile on his bed, and heading for the bathroom. Harry grimaced at the pile of notes for a second, as he should probably to some studying of his own. He grabbed his nonmagical American history textbook, and clambered under the still warm blankets of his bed to study until it was time to go to breakfast.

All too soon, Harry was walking with Sophie, the only one of the group with a class in the direction of the principal's office. "It's right over there" Sophie said, pointed at the door clearly emblazoned with the words 'Principals Office'

"Wow. That was easier then I thought it would be." Harry said.

"Did your old headmaster hide his office or something?" Sophie asked surprised.

"Yeah. There were rumors and stuff about how he used muggle candy as passwords, and that there were griffins in front of the door, but nobody but the troublemakers knew where it was. And it was in a seven story castle, anyone trying to find it would have to search for a very long time."

"You had to have password to get in? And find it?!" Sophie exclaimed, horrified. "The principal's office is here with the other offices on the first floor in a logical place so that people could find her in an emergency, and there is no sort of password. You just go see her secretary, and if she isn't busy the secretary lets you in." Sophie assured him.

"Yeah I never understood the reasoning of that. Well, I need to go see Ms. Jennings, and if you don't hurry you're going to be late for class." Harry pointed out.

Sophie glanced down at her watch, swore, and jogged down the hallway, calling "Bye Harry." over her shoulder as she quickly disappeared from sight. Harry snickered seeing people move out of her way, then proceeded forward into the principal's office.

He walked into a long, narrow room with two rows of chairs along the walls. There was a desk at the opposite end with an unknown woman in it, and a door beside the desk with Principal Jennings written on a brass placard on it. "Mr. Potter?" the woman asked. Harry nodded, and she continued. "Ms. Jennings is in a conference call with some other principals of the other schools, but she will be with you shortly."

"Thanks." Harry said, and retreated to one of the chairs lining the walls. He pulled his intro to Latin textbook and opened it to the introduction. He had only gotten through the first few pages of the wordy textbook when the secretary interrupted him.

"She's ready." was all she said, and Harry shoved the textbook into his bag. He walked over to the door, paused in a brief moment of hesitation, slid his hand through his hair, but opened the door and walked in.

The office he walked into looked like a warmer version of his elementary school principal's office. The walls were lined with redwood panels, and her desk was made of the same materials, but it was softened by cream accents and a window looking out over the school. Ms. Jennings was standing beside a fireplace, muttering a few spells. From what he, one pulled the ashes out of the cream carpet, another vanished them, and a third made the flames briefly flare purple. As she turned around, she caught his curious look. "Flooing is so messy, isn't it?" she commented "Add the spinning to that, and the fact that it feels like you have ash in you mouth and nose for ages afterwards, and I don't know why anyone does it."

Harry wrinkled his nose. "You have mentioned almost all of the reasons I hate flooing. What was the last spell?"

"It was a spell created after Grindelwald was discovered by Newt Scamander here in America. It prevents people from flooing into a floo accessible fire. Basically, it's like a lock on a door. If the door is unlocked, people can just walk in. But if I can put a lock on the door, you can't get in. You can floo out, for safety reasons, like escape a creature rampage, but you can't get in. All schools have them, mostly because we don't people just barging into the school for many reasons. If it's a parent, angry about something, then they can make an appointment, and can talk calmly about something. And well, to be honest, school shootings aren't exactly uncommon. If you look at the statistics from such things, you notice that they have been happening about one every few months for few decades. Usually it's kids shooting someone they are mad it, a teacher, a friend, a enemy. We haven't had a magical school shooting yet. All of us teachers hope that day never comes." She sighed heavily, then shook her head and moved towards her desk, motioning Harry to a chair in front of it.

Harry sat commenting, "I do too. It's one thing to fight someone whose hexes you know you can stop, and another to fight someone whose bullets you really can't"

"Exactly. Now, in the slightly more pleasant stuff. How are you settling in here? I saw that you made friends with Mr. Pike and his friends."

"Good. It's going to be weird next Friday, on September 1st, when I would normally be on the train to Hogwarts, but so far, I like here much better! There is less staring. I never noticed how much people stared at Hogwarts until I came here. People stared for the first day or two, but I was also a new foreign student. I'm not the 'Savior of Britain' here, and I really like that. "

"Well, that's good to hear. If anyone gives you any problems about that, tell me or one of your teachers, and we will take care of it. Onto the problem with Britain. Now, they know you are here in America, but they don't know exactly where you are. There are 50 states you could be in, and we aren't exactly allowing people to come in and search. You aren't in any records, at all. You are in our school records as a false name, and one that we made sure did not correspond with anyone you knew, your parents knew, or even you aunt and uncle knew. All of the papers for Sirius' house are the same way. The MACUSA has done it's best to make you impossible to find. Now, that doesn't mean the problems with Magical Britain stop." she explained

"Let me guess, they are trying to find me and complaining that I won't let myself be found." Harry said, contempt showing in the scornful way he voiced it.

"You would be correct. Fortunately, the man that Fudge appointed as ambassador is well known as one of his flunkies, and isn't one of the smartest people on the planet, to put it nicely. On top of that, Fudge isn't the genius of the century, either. He was smart enough to be able to get the position, but that is where his brains stop." Ms. Jennings scoffed. "Internationally, he is gaining a lot of enemies with this maneuver. Many countries are looking at him and deciding to stop helping Britain as much. That doesn't seem to have stopped him. His propaganda paper, as everyone knows the Ministry controls the Daily Prophet, has been blaming you for everything from rising newts eyes prices to conditions in Azkaban. MACUSA is suing them for slander, but that will only stop the hatred in the newspaper."

"I've dealt with the Prophet and their instantly changing opinion for years, I've learnt to ignore them. It's the people glaring at me that I hate. A paper can't hex you anytime they see you. Admittedly, the Prophet might influence people into hexing you, but people would do it anyway without that encouragement. As long as I don't have to deal with the people, I will be fine." he sighed, thinking of all of the times that a majority of Hogwarts had hated him for one thing or another.

"Unfortunately, the Prophet is influencing people's opinions. You could probably win awards for the most hated person in Britain right now. Fortunately, most other countries are supporting you over Fudge, and their people are too. When you tell people that Britain expects a 15 year old kid to save their ass when they get in trouble, they tend to not like it. Also, when Britain declared that you had killed Voldemort, most countries demanded to see his body. When they didn't, they assumed, as there was no body, he must still be alive. Miss Fleur Delacour and Mr. Victor Krum are telling their governments what had happened in the last task, and what you had told them, and their governments are not happy."

"So basically, while Britain hates me, everyone else is on my side." Harry summarized.

"Basically, yes." Ms. Jennings smiled.

"Well, at least I have allies." Harry sighed as a bell rang somewhere in the school.

"Unless you have something else to discuss with me, you should probably get on to your next class." Ms. Jennings smiled.

"No, and thank you ma'am." Harry said, standing up.

"I'm just doing my job.," she said. "Oh, and someone mentioned that you never got one of the maps that we hand out to the first years, so here it is."

"Thanks." Harry said, grateful that he wouldn't have to rely on his new friends to show him around everywhere anymore.

"It should've been given to you on the first day. Now, you better hurry if you don't want to be late!" She said, and Harry slid out the door, with his farewell ringing behind him as he glanced down at his new map. He had classes to get to before he could do anything else

Hey everyone! Two chapters in seven days- it's a miracle! Massive thanks to my beta, angelcarstairs4679 for helping me with this! Also- on the school shooting bit- yes, this takes place in in 1995. There is a long history of US school shootings- google Wikipedia US school shootings, and you'll notice that they've been happening for a long time. I have been in several active shooter situations while at school, and it is terrifying. Even though nothing ever happened, the thought that runs through you head that this might be the day, that it might be you tiny schools name plastered on every TV in America. While this is a tale of magic and villains, I thought I should at least mention some of the real life villains out there. Please keep reviewing!