EDITED - Tommy / Harry discussion

CHAPTER 25 - OPTIONS AND CHOICES

Diagon Alley grew crowded as many families seemed to choose this time to shop for school supplies. Tommy and Harry slipped through the crowds unnoticed. Seeing the stationary store was the least busy they decided to start there.

"Quill and parchment," Harry said with a smirk. "Kinda behind the times, ain't they."

Tommy nodded agreement. "I'd guess they separated from non-magical society before the invention of the ink pen. They do hide well."

It was Harry's turn to nod in agreement. Even after Snape told them the general location of this shopping district, the Rangers' scans still hadn't detected the place. Harry suspected that was part of why Tommy agreed to this trip, though he also doubted Tommy would have disputed any halfway reasonable request for celebrating Harry's birthday. If the Rangers couldn't find the place, which Tommy had confirmed when he contacted the others while in Harry's vault at Gringotts, it was likely Zedd couldn't find them either. Once they'd discovered that they could contact the team and they were still shielded, Tommy began to relax as Harry rarely saw him. It made Harry happy he suggested this trip, and it made him lean towards them trying the school, even if Ollivander's reactions and Snape's words on his 'fame' made him want to run the other way.

"So what do you think about Hogwarts?" Harry asked.

Tommy shrugged. "We still haven't seen much of this society, Har. It's a long way away."

"Teleporting's instantaneous."

"It's several seconds from the Grove."

"Less than a minute, that's close enough to instantaneous," Harry responded.

Tommy smirked. "Close enough? How long does it take to die in battle?" Harry had no response for that. Tommy said, "But it is closer than the Eltarian academy Zordon wanted to send us to awhile back. That's over an hour away, if nothing goes wrong with the teleport, and they couldn't teach us specifics of our magic while Hogwarts is for our heritage only. The 'Boy who lived' nonsense has me against it, but we could avoid some of the annoyance caused by that fame if we use it, manage it ourselves. Then there's Snape's assurance that Voldemort will be back. With our luck, he'll be obsessing over you 'defeating' him and that's an extra distraction we don't need."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "But it might be better that we face that distraction here instead of him tracking me down to the Grove and showing up at the worst possible time in the war. I get the feeling he would track me down if I never showed up here. Snape did, and he learned too damned much about us while doing that too."

Tommy nodded. "True. If we go to Hogwarts though, Zedd will be looking for me, at the least. And the more Zedd looks, the more likely he'll learn about us too and that is sure to be worse than Voldemort finding the shit out."

"But Zedd could learn it from Voldemort showing up anyway," Harry argued.

"We have a few options. One, we stay in the Grove and study the books from here, maybe see if Snape will answer questions we might have. In that case, we keep the studying in our shielded areas and keep Zedd from realizing you're mage born for as long as we can. This is the option most likely to keep knowledge from Zedd, though I doubt his ignorance lasts long whatever we do. That keeps the teams all together, as we're strongest, and it keeps you from having to deal with fame for being alive. The downsides there being the usual for self study. If our questions are something outside Snape's knowledge, we have no one else to fall back on. And, as you said, Voldemort is likely to find us in the Grove just as Snape did."

"We do okay with self study, I guess," Harry commented. "If the books are written well. Option two would be we could try one of those other magical schools Snape mentioned. One in America, so it's closer. Downsides - there are none are really close to the Grove so we'd still have the extra teleportation time, and I get the feeling that fame issue is wide spread enough to come up at any of the schools. They're complete unknowns, we'd have to contact them to find out anything. If we're going to a school anyway, we might as well make it the one where we can learn a bit about my parents anyway."

"And the more we check into those places, the more likely Zedd is to catch onto it. Option three then would be you go to Hogwarts for the first year while I stay with the Rangers. Advantages being you have instructors for each lesson, Zedd is unlikely to worry too much about your absence as I'd still be visible to him. You'd then be able to teach me over the summer and we'd decide from there whether or not the second year is viable."

"Downside to that is there's no way in hell I'm spending a whole school year away from you," Harry hissed. "No way. Not happening."

Tommy smiled. "Yeah. Another downside, it'd leave you alone to face that damned fame issue and whatever comes from that. While it might add extra protection from Zedd, I'm not big on being that far from you either. Besides, Zedd might find you anyway, given enough time, and see you being so far from me as making you an easy target."

"Which is covered by 'no way in hell'."

"Which leave the final option. We both go to Hogwarts and see where it goes from there," Tommy stated.

"I think that's the best one," Harry said. "Try it at the least, we can always go home if it's not what we need."

"The team will freak, you know that," Tommy commented. "There's probably more down sides than we've mentioned yet. That said, it is looking like the best choice so far. Let's try to actually talk to someone besides the professor that wants us here too strongly to be a partial judge and the goblin that is too in awe of the warriors we are to get that we might not be able to do it all."

Harry smiled, knowing that while Tommy still hadn't decided, that he admitted it sounded like the best option made their attending Hogwarts very likely. The smile fell at the thought of having to talk to many others. He was still less than comfortable with such interactions, even if it wasn't as bad as when they first hit out on their own.

They fell silent as a few teenagers entered the store.

"So how much is 'plenty' of parchment and quills?" Harry asked a moment later.

"I could assist you there." Tommy and Harry turned as one to the boy. He was tall with grey eyes and short brown hair, dressed in black and yellow robes, and looked around thirteen to fourteen years old. He held his hand out to the boys. "Cedric Diggory."

"Why?" Harry questioned and Cedric let his hand fall back to his side.

"You're muggleborns, aren't you? Dressed like that, you must be. I can't imagine how I would handle suddenly finding myself in the muggle world. I'd hope someone would help me in that situation so I try to help the muggleborns here. Besides, you might end up in my House and Hufflepuffs always assist each other."

"We're used to finding our way in different worlds."

Tommy smiled charmingly and spoke over Harry. "We'd appreciate the help, Cedric. I'm Tommy Oliver and this is my brother, Harry."

Cedric pointed out the quills he used and suggested the pre-packaged parchment. "I get at least two packs though," Cedric told them. "For extra note room and in case I need to rewrite an essay. Professor Snape, the Potions master, and Professor McGonagall, transfiguration, are really strict about neatness. - Oh. Ask for an owl order catalog when you pay. That way if you run short, you can always get more."

"Owl order?" Harry repeated.

"Yeah," Cedric said, not realizing how odd that was outside the Wizardry world. "You can bring your own owl or the school has their own you can use."

"Mail is sent by owl." Tommy shook his head as they moved on to the inks.

"I guess they do differently in the muggle world," Cedric responded. "All assignments are done in black ink but I find it helps to keep notes straight if you use a different color for each subject. Two extra duty black should last the year."

Tommy picked out his inks. "So what can you tell us about Hogwarts?"

"Hogwarts is great. The best school in the world, and the oldest," Cedric responded enthusiastically. "I'm in Hufflepuff, as I said, and it's the best House by far. We don't have the expectations weighing us down like the other Houses. Everyone seems to think anyone that ends up in Gryffindor is a great hero and is going to be an Aurors and Hit-Wizards. Uh, they track down and arrest dark wizards and other criminals," he added when he saw Harry's confusion. "Ravenclaw, they expect everyone there to be brilliant, like geniuses and Slytherin they say is where all the dark wizards come from. Since they don't place those expectations on Hufflepuff, we're mostly left alone to find our own paths instead of pushed to fit the mold."

"There's a lot of prejudice then," Tommy commented. If it was in the school then it was in the population, things like that didn't just go away when someone graduated. It was a strike against them but Tommy knew prejudices are so widespread on their world that if he judged by that, they would have left Earth long ago. For a world without any sentient life forms, seeing as prejudice like that wasn't confined just to their planet, if Zordon, Rita and Zedd were anything to go by. "What are the teachers like?"

"Our head of House is Professor Sprout, the herbology professor. She's great. If you have any questions or need extra help, she'll help no matter what House you're in. She makes her classes fun, so long as you treat the plants respectfully and you're serious careful when messing with dangerous plants. The other Heads… Professor McGonagall's over Gryffindor House and she's deputy Headmistress as well as the transfiguration professor. She's strict but mostly fair. If you're in a dispute with someone from Gryffindor, unless there's a witness or something, she tends to side with her House. But if she knows they're in the wrong, she doesn't let them get by with it either so I don't think she's trying to be unfair. Professor Flitwick is head of Ravenclaw and teaches charms. Just do your best in class and he's fair. Just … he's part goblin, real distant in his family tree but he's got their height. Don't laugh at him or anything and you'll get along great. Slytherin Head and Potions Master Professor Snape is … snarky. He scares a lot of students, especially first years. Some think he's a vampire or something since he stalks through the corridors and he can just like appear there when you know you were alone. He favors his Slytherins. I've never heard of him taking points from his own House and he takes major points from anyone else. Don't be late, don't talk in his class, and make sure you do all assignments."

"He doesn't seem that bad to me," Harry commented. When Cedric looked at him in confusion, he added, "Professor Snape's the one that brought us here today. He's been very helpful."

"Snape? Helpful? Like nice?" Cedric was shocked. "I … I didn't think he was ever sent to pick up any muggleborns. I'd heard Snape's a … well, I don't know he was but …"

Tommy shrugged. "Perhaps it's a one time thing, since Harry and I were … rather more difficult to contact. It was good meeting you, Cedric. Perhaps we'll see you at Hogwarts."

With that, Tommy and Harry took their items to the cashier, leaving Cedric gaping in shock.

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