Disclaimer: All HP characters are the property of JKR, the WB, and respective publishing companies. All portions of the Pokémon universe/worlds/characters are the property of The Pokémon Company, Nintendo, Creatures Inc., and GAME FREAK Inc. This story is nothing more than a simple FanFiction that I have written for my own enjoyment. I have made no money from this or any of the other stories I have posted on this or other sites.
AN: This latest revisions of this story have been self-beta'd; so there may still be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.
Chapter 21: Interlude with a Megalomaniac
October 05, 1985 to May 31, 1986
Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts, Scotland &
No. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey
It had taken Dumbledore nearly two full months after coming up with the brilliant plan of replacing the missing Boy-Hero with a life-like clone to actually produce a clone that could pass a simple inspection. There'd been multiple failures during that time, which caused the ancient manipulator's anger towards the missing boy and his as-of-yet unnamed rescuer to multiply in leaps and bounds. But finally, after experimenting with different materials and various combinations of charms and wards, he'd come up with a better clone than his look-a-like-phoenix; which he'd needed to replace over eight times during the process of creating the Potter clone.
In fact, due to the high number of replacement birds that he'd been forced to transfigure since the boy first disappeared, Dumbledore had refined the process he used to create the phoenixes. The new birds were now made from crow feathers, modified Floo Powder, glass, sand, and aluminum foil with a gold and diamond heart that functioned as the permanent portkey instead of the transfigured doves he'd been using before. The feathers, glass, and sand made up the basic body of the bird with the 'heart' situated in the very center of the creation instead of where the heart would normally be located. The modified Floo Powder actually simulated flames when the portkey activated; which flashed brightly when activated and realistically mimicked a phoenix's ability to flame from one place to another.
The foil, purchased from a muggle store, helped to both collect and reflect the minimal amounts of heat generated by the Floo fire and the magic of the bird clone threw the gathered heat out away from itself to give others the impression of intense heat. The new charms and spells on the fake phoenix also had a built in transfiguration trigger so that instead of the fake bird disintegrating into a pile of unusable ash when it was 'killed', it would be transfigured into a mock baby phoenix, with the 'heart' securely encased inside the new body, thus making it far easier to retransfigure the blasted bird back into its proper form.
The Potter clone, on the other hand, was far more complex. The basic frame was made from living holly wood, sand, glass, and the blood of a newborn unicorn. It was shaped to look like an exact replica of the missing child, right down to the lightning bolt scare and messy Potter hair. Beneath the skin, instead of blood, it had a special potion made with phoenix tears and phoenix blood (purchased from the black market) mixed with a derivative of the Wolfsbane Potion that would allow the skin of the clone to 'heal' minor cuts and other injuries over time.
This human clone, like the new improved phoenix, also had a gold and diamond heart inside of it, though it held far different spells and charms than the heart of his phoenix. There were animation charms, several basic protection wards (to prevent fire and water damage), temperature regulating spells (to simulate a normal and constant body temperature), and several monitoring charms that would allow Dumbledore to both see and hear everything going on around the clone. Basically, the heart was the 'engine' that powered the clone, giving it a form of simulated life. Once the wards on the Dursley's house were modified from magical suppression wards to ambient magical collection wards, the heart would be able to draw energy from the very air inside of the house as the wards drew the magic into the house. The heart also had a tracking beacon that could be activated remotely in the event that someone kidnapped the clone thinking it was the real boy.
Special wards were woven around the body of the clone to prevent an excessive amount of magical discharge from being released. This would help prevent power loss through the magical bleed-off that was common in magical engines such as the one he'd designed for the clone. It would also prevent the underage detectors that Dumbledore had allowed the Ministry to place around the boy's house from being constantly tripped by the leaking magic. To simulate the recognized energy signature of the missing boy, Albus used a few drops of the boy's blood and a couple of hairs – taken on the night his parents were murdered and saved for an emergency such as had happened – to bind the magic in the boy's blood to the clone so that it replicated the signature of the boy closely enough not to raise any questions.
In order to make life a little easier on the Dursley's (and the stupid muggles a bit more biddable), the clone would not require any kind of food or basic upkeep and had no voice box with which to speak; meaning that it couldn't talk back to the Dursleys or talk to strangers in an attempt to give away any secrets of the Dursleys. Over all, the clone was a vast improvement on the real Boy-Who-Lived; if you asked Dumbledore's opinion on the matter.
Two days after completing the new clone, Dumbledore took the 'boy' back to the Dursleys and modified their memories to account for the two months that the child had been missing. The cover story Albus had decided on was that the boy had been ill with strep throat (a muggle illness he knew next to nothing about*) and had suffered an allergic reaction to the medication that had been used to treat him. The end result was that the boy's vocal cords were so damaged by the infection and the allergic reaction that he lost the ability to speak. This way, none of the neighbors would expect the boy to talk to them should they happen to see him out around the house. That same day an invisible Dumbledore also paid Arabella Fig, the squib he'd placed a few blocks over to watch over the boy, a visit in order to modify her memories of the past few months to match the Dursley's version, just in case anyone from the Order questioned her about the boy.
And, while it hadn't been Albus's first choice, he was secretly pleased that he'd been given the opportunity to create the clone because it would be far easier to control than the real thing would have been. The only thing that would make Dumbledore happier was if the boy died sometime before he was due to start Hogwarts. As the charmed letters that were sent out to the students were the only magical object, other than a blood quill, which could prove Harry the Clone wasn't Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived.
The goblins would be a little difficult to deal with, if the boy had been in touch with them at any point after disappearing from his home, but a few compulsion charms, an imperious or two, and a few drops of the remaining Potter boy's blood should help smooth things over. Besides, he'd confiscated all of the Potter Vault keys the night James and Lily had perished, along with anything of value from the house; which meant the missing boy had no way of accessing the vaults unless he petitioned the goblins directly.
Around the middle of January, Dumbledore's mood took an abrupt turn for the better. He was sitting in his office, going over the numerous complaints about Severus Snape's acidic nature and poor teaching style, when two of his monitors that kept track of the Potter brat began malfunctioning. As he rose to study the machines, he let out a soft sinister chuckle as the one tracking Harry's life force began belching out black smoke in huge quantities. The boy was dead.
In celebrating the boy's supposed death; Albus forgot to check the other device that had malfunctioned at the same time. This other machine was one that he'd tied to the boy's magical core to monitor the child's power levels, and if Dumbledore had paid it any attention, he would have seen that in spite of the other machine saying the missing child was dead, this machine reported that the child's power levels had more than doubled – a direct result of being away from the power suppression wards and having the nightmare curse broken (because said curse had been sustained by a direct link to the boy's magical core).
In his glee, Albus quickly adjusted all the monitors – including the unchecked core scanner – so that they now monitored the clone he'd created. This singular action would later cause Albus a whole lot of grief but he wouldn't know that until after it was far too late to do anything about it.
There was a brief moment, right after he switched the primary focus of the machines, when he considered the possibility that one of Voldemort's followers had taken the boy and used him to resurrect Voldemort. However, a quick examination of the machines he'd tied to Riddle, while the boy had still been enrolled at Hogwarts, confirmed that the man was still bodiless and somewhere out in the middle of the Albanian Forests.
Satisfied with the latest revelation about the missing Potter child, Albus returned to his desk and filed all of the complaints about his pet Death Eater into the appropriate bin, the garbage bin, where they were all greedily digested by the magical construct. Now Dumbledore felt confident that he had well over five and a half years in which to improve and upgrade the Potter clone so that it could function at Hogwarts. The first of which, would be a more advanced model that could cook, clean, and perform basic yard work for the Dursleys instead of going to school (the Dursleys having been mentally programmed to use the excuse that the boy had to have special classes due to his new disability and that they'd hired private tutors to teach him).
The new, improved clone was delivered at the very end of May, just in time for it to be of benefit to the Dursleys in getting their yard in top condition for the rest of spring and summer.
Monday Morning, January 05, 2004
Viridian City, Kanto Region
New Year's was a quiet celebration for the Ketchum family, as the three of them traveled to Goldenrod City for a fancy supper and to watch the fireworks. Harry still distrusted crowds but after his time living in Slateport he didn't panic the way he had when they'd first landed in Veilstone City. This made it far easier for the new family of three to travel short distances to visit friends or head into the larger cities to purchase various supplies and groceries.
The only down side to traveling with Harry was that all three of his Pokémon were bound and determined to go every where with him. The vulpix and the slender dratini weren't an issue; both Pokémon was still fairly small and could ride in Harry's backpack whenever they traveled. But the young ponyta was now nearly as tall as the boy, the filly having thrived in the milder climate of first Slateport and then Pallet Town. And no matter who approached him with the suggestion, Harry absolutely refused to allow any of his friends to be placed inside of a pokéball.
When Professor Oak once asked why, the boy had simply looked up at the older man with tormented green eyes and said in a stern voice, "No one should have to live inside of tiny dark spaces for days or weeks at a time."
That statement poignantly reminded the professor and the older Ketchums that young Harry had grown up in a borderline abusive household prior to him finding his way to their world. The professor, however, instead of backing off and giving up on getting the boy to cooperate, contacted the granddaughter of an old friend in Johto who made pokéballs from Apricorns and asked her if there was a way to make the pokéballs larger on the inside than they were on the outside. She agreed to try but made no promises on getting the desired results. When the professor passed on the news to Ash, the longtime trainer was intrigued by the idea and thought that maybe, if such a pokéball could be made, that Harry wouldn't be so against traveling with his Pokémon inside them, especially if it was just for short periods of time.
Over the last week in December and the first weekend in January, Ash and Harry moved into their new three bedroom, two bathroom, single level cottage in Viridian. Ash had purchased all new furniture for the house using the considerably large fortune he had amassed as a trainer, gym leader, and multi-league champion through the years. The now twenty-one year old man was extremely happy that he'd listened to his mother all those years ago and put at least half of all his winnings into a savings account. He'd even taken the two hundred dollars that Calvin had given Harry and opened a savings account for his new son shortly after returning to Kanto at the end of the previous year.
Harry's room, which he was allowed to decorate by himself, was an odd mix of dark grays and darker browns. When finished, the room looked like an underground cave with dark brown carpeting, granite gray walls (with flecks of lighter grays and black shot through the paint), and a medium gray ceiling. Over the two windows he'd hung thick dark brown curtains that blocked out most of the sunlight when closed. His bed, desk, and dresser were all stained a medium brown and had pale gray handles on the drawers. For bedding, he had picked out light gray sheets, one light brown blanket, one dark gray blanket, and a dark brown comforter that matched the curtains.
Over all, it was a surprisingly dark room, which was odd because Harry hadn't really seemed all that comfortable in small dark spaces. However, when asked why he chose the colors he did, Harry said it reminded him of the months he spent living with the mother ninetales in the wilds. This, in a way, made perfect sense, because that cave was the first place that Harry had called home in this world.
Ash's room, by contrast, was a clash of contradictions and bright colors. He had bright grass green carpet, the walls were painted to look like snow covered mountains under a clear blue sky, and the ceiling was painted to look like the night sky. His furniture was all painted charizard orange with brass fixtures and his bedding was made up of several different shades of dark red. Over his two windows he'd hung bright yellow curtains that allowed the sunlight to filter in during the day and light up the room, making the entire room the complete polar opposite of Harry's.
The third bedroom was turned into a mini office and laboratory for the research that Ash would be doing for Professor Oak. With pale gray linoleum floors, soft white walls, two metal tables, a matching desk, and sheer white curtains over the windows, it was the most sanitary looking room in the house. Even the computers looked sterile with their off-white casing and accessories. Of course, the only reason it wasn't decked out in the same garish colors as Ash's bedroom was because the office slash laboratory had been set up by Professor Oak's aides after the professor got one good look at Ash's choice of bedroom furniture and decorations.
Both bathrooms were done in light blues and whites, the kitchen in muted yellows, and the living room in softer and lighter shades of brown than Harry's room. Pokémon décor, in the form of soft water color paintings, crisp lifelike posters, and charming mosaics, covered the walls of the entire cottage; except for the living room and Harry's bedroom. The living room walls were dedicated to a montage of photos from Ash's childhood and teenage years, as well as a large assortment of the pictures he'd taken of Harry on their journey to Mt. Coronet. There were even a few of Harry with his new friends playing on the beaches of Slateport. Harry's walls were left bare by choice; the young boy uncertain of what he wanted to have on them.
Being situated in a rather small city, the cottage had a decent size backyard even though it was far smaller than Delia's house in Pallet Town. Ash had plans to build a solid fence around the perimeter and a three-sided stall for the growing ponyta to use during the day while Harry was at school. He'd also need to put in a fairly good sized pond for the dratini as the water dragon needed to spend a fair amount of time in the water so his skin and scales didn't dry out. For now, since the ground was frozen under a light layer of snow, he simply planned on keeping the friendly fire horse with him as he traveled through the wild Pokémon habitats that surrounded the edge of town. The dratini, on the other hand, would be making use of the bathtub in the second bathroom until the pond could be dug.
There was no need to worry about where the vulpix was going to be while Harry was in school; the feisty fire-fox never left Harry's side. The crazy vulpix often went so far as to join the kid whenever he took a bath. There was no way the determined Pokémon could be convinced to stay away from the school and in a way Ash was glad that the tiny creature never left the boy's side. It meant that no matter where Harry was he'd have the protection of the vulpix.
On the first Monday after New Years, Ash walked Harry to his new school for the first time. Harry was a bit nervous about meeting new people but he was no where near as clingy as he had been that first day at the school in Slateport. Ash gave him a hug at the entrance to the school's playground and promised to meet him in the exact same place right after school. Harry nodded to show he heard him, then reluctantly stepped inside the playground and made his way over to where one of the teachers were watching some of the other children play.
Ash stayed just outside the gate watching as the other children noticed Harry for the first time and as one surrounded the nervous boy so they could be introduced. He couldn't bring himself to leave until he knew Harry would be aright; which happened to be shortly after the bell rang and the children filed into their respective classrooms when Harry glanced back at him and waved one last time before vanishing inside. Briefly, he wondered if the concern, pride, and loneliness he felt right that minute was how his mother felt on the day he started school for the first time or the day he'd left home to start his Pokémon journey all those years ago.
Smiling wistfully, he herded the reluctant ponyta out towards the edge of town to set up some of the monitoring equipment Gary had dropped off for his grandfather the day before. It was going to be a long day.
AN 12-05-12: This chapter has just been edited to correct a few minor punctuation errors, a grammatical error or two, clean up of a few sentences in order to smooth out a few awkward areas, break a few paragraphs down so as to improve readability, and had the date and place stamps added to the top of each section to allow for easier tracking of the timeline.