Harry Potter :: The not-mage
Petunia Dursley nee Evans was a sister to a witch after all...
The flames in the Goblet of Fire started calming down as the magical artifact had fulfilled its purpose: it had selected a single champion for each of the three magical schools participating in the Triwizard tournament. And the headmasters of the said schools, along with the officials from the British Ministry for Magic were about to join the selected champions in the antechamber when the flames in the Goblet rose suddenly. Then the artifact spat another charred piece of parchment. This shocked everyone so much that for a couple of seconds no one moved... Albus Dumbledore, being the first one to overcome the shock, was also the first one returned to the professors' table. Picking the charred piece of parchment up, the aged wizard read aloud:
"Harry Potter." For several seconds the Great hall became enveloped in a silence so great that one might have been able to hear a pin drop on the opposite end of the castle. Then there was an explosion of exited whispers and even shouts. The reason for such a reaction was quite simple – everyone wanted to know why the Boy-Who-Lived, infamous for rejecting his Hogwarts invitation, was participating in the tournament. Also, everyone wanted to know how the teen managed to infiltrate the castle in order to put his name into the Goblet of Fire. "Harry Potter!" Dumbledore repeated even louder, but no one had stepped forward.
"What, Dumbledore, your secret apprentice suddenly gets shy? Surely, someone with balls big enough to openly reject an invitation to a school as great as yours should be braver than this." Igor Karkarov, the Durmstrang headmaster sneered next to his colleague.
"Alas, you're greatly mistaken there, Igor." The ancient warlock replied. "You yourself know it pretty well that I haven't taken any apprentices since before the rise of the Great Britain's latest Dark Lord." And after a small pause he added: "And I haven't even seen the young Potter for almost thirteen years now. Surely you don't think that I can be a teacher to someone whom I haven't had a single lesson with?" The Durmstrang headmaster didn't appear to be satisfied, but he let the issue drop for the moment... Dumbledore called the Potter brat's name for the third time, but once again no one stepped forward. Deciding not to waste any more time there, the tournament officials didn't wait anymore, and all headed to the antechamber to instruct the selected champions on their first task.
Later that night, the tournament officials held a meeting in the Hogwarts headmaster's office. They needed to decide what to do with the fourth champion: the Goblet of Fire was supposed to select only three contestants. Not to mention, the young Potter wasn't present at the feast, so the chances were he didn't even know about being chosen to compete in the tournament. Even if some people thought otherwise.
"I say we just let the brat suffer the consequences of his own actions." Igor said: he was still convinced that Harry had entered himself into the tournament through some means. Thankfully the Durmstrang headmaster no longer saw this as Dumbledore's attempt to get his school a second champion, so now he was a little more civil with the man.
"But so far we've seen no signs that Mr. Potter had indeed put his name into the Goblet. You should know it, Igor, the boy has many enemies still, and those enemies would not miss a chance to off him without dirtying their hands. We should at least pay him a visit in order to discover the truth about what had happened tonight." The Hogwarts headmaster replied, while casting a glance at the small table in the corner of his office that had a great number of silvery trinkets on it. If read those correctly, Harry was not far away from his aunt's home at the moment.
"As much as I dislike it, I will agree with monsieur Dumbledore." Madam Olympe Maxime, the Beauxbaton headmistress said. "If the boy had indeed somehow sneaked his name into the Goblet, I have no doubts that he would have stepped forward when selected." She made a small pause, before continuing: "Bit it'd be much better if we could just remove him from the tournament. It is named 'Triwizard' for a reason and there should be no such thing as the fourth champion in it."
"You know it as well as we do that once you're selected by the Goblet, you have to participate no matter what." Barty Crouch Sr. said. "But I too think that it is at very least strange that one of the chosen champions wasn't even at the castle when the Goblet chose him."
"Very well, then it is decided, someone will have to visit young Mr. Potter and inform him about what had happened tonight." Dumbledore said, eager to be done with this: he wasn't as young as he used to be, and it was well past midnight already; he needed some rest now.
"Does that mean that you know where Mr. Potter is?" Ludo Bagman asked excitedly. Honestly, was he really a grown-up adult? Then again, for someone who played quidditch for half of his life, this might be normal...
"Not exactly, but I have my means to track him down, should the need arise." No need for everyone to know exactly how closely he had been monitoring the Boy-Who-Lived, Dumbledore thought. Sure, maybe he should have paid the boy a visit as soon as he had learned about him rejecting the invitation to Hogwarts, but at that time Albus simply thought that some local magical school had sunk its fangs into the boy first. After all, for his plans to rid the world of the horror that lord Voldemort was, Harry didn't exactly need to be a great and powerful mage...
"Then how about you do that chore yourself?" Igor Karkarov snapped. Apparently, he was just as tired as Dumbledore himself was... Letting the rather offensive tone of this suggestion slide, the Hogwarts headmaster nodded.
"Of course, I'll be happy to do this. But, quite obviously, not tonight. It's quite late and I'm sure whoever Mr. Potter is staying with would not be happy if we come to visit him at such a late hour." Albus said like a master politician he was. Having received a round of nods form everyone in his office, he had declared this meeting of the tournament officials concluded.
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It was not until the early afternoon next day, when Albus Dumbledore finally found enough free time to pay the fourth selected champion of the Triwizard tournament a visit. Of course, he wasn't going there alone, but he had expected as much. Minerva McGonagall clearly wanted to see the son of one of her favorites, and Mr. Bagman claimed that was going as a ministry official, though the Hogwarts headmaster suspected that the man had some reasons as well. A bit more surprising was Severus Snape tagging along as well, probably to get something that would justify his slandering of the name Potter over the years – Albus was quite aware of the man's unyielding hate towards anything associated with his schoolyard nemesis, but never thought it to be serious enough to require his intervention.
The first stop for the four was Dumbledore's office, where the aged warlock once again checked his silver trinkets. They weren't as accurate as he would have liked, but he still could tell that Harry was in good health and currently was somewhere around Little Whinging or, possibly, southern part of Great Whinging. As far as anyone knew, there were no magical school there, so the boy clearly had some personal tutors to teach him magic... Severus, of course, would enjoy ranting for hours on no end about how arrogant and air-headed the Potter heir must be, but one quick reminder from Albus that they were on a tight schedule had him keeping his thoughts to himself. Or at least speaking his mind without slowing others down... Meanwhile, the Hogwarts headmaster conjured a piece of rope, before turning it into a portkey that would deliver them to Privet Drive. After all, the boy's known residence was the best place to start looking for him.
"Is everyone ready?" The old warlock asked. And once he had everyone's nods, he activated the portkey... A moment later the three wizards and a single witch, all dressed in something that they thought was appropriate muggle clothes, found themselves standing on a perfectly ordinary street in a perfectly ordinary muggle London suburban area. And to Albus and Minerva, who had been there before, the place looked exactly the same way it did thirteen years ago, save for the cars owned by the residents of the neighborhood.
"And where is an impressive magical castle?" Severus asked with a sneer. "Surely you aren't trying to tell me that Potter..." He practically spat out the name. "Is living in such an ...ordinary house?" While Minerva was busy trying to turn her colleague into ashes with her glare alone, Dumbledore answered the man's question.
"Whatever it may be, my monitoring devices indicate the Mr. Potter is somewhere around this place." The margin of error was actually around twenty miles, but Albus himself believed that the young Potter was still living with his aunt, where he had left him thirteen years ago. "Now then, why don't we pay Mr. Potter's guardians a visit?" He asked rhetorically. A short walk later, the four magicals found themselves standing on the pouch of house #4.
"I'm coming, I'm coming." Female voice could be heard from inside the house as soon as Dumbledore had rung the doorbell. A few moment later the door finally opened, revealing a not all-that-nice woman with a long neck. She eyed her visitors for several seconds, before saying loudly and angrily: "Get away from my house, freaks!" Albus, though, appeared to have not heard a word the woman said.
"Mrs. Dursley, I'm afraid, there are some urgent matters that we need to discuss with young Mr. Potter. Can you tell us where we can find him?" He said, causing the woman to look at him fixedly. Finally, seeing that there appeared no other way she could get rid of these unwanted visitors, she gave in.
"Fine, but promise that you will not taint my perfectly normal house with your freakishness once I tell you." Despite the offensive way it was phrased in, the condition seemed to be actually an alright one, so Dumbledore saw no reasons not to agree to it.
"Of course, of course, we promise it." He said. "Now, tell us, where we can find Mr. Potter on this fine afternoon?" His first warning that something will go not like he had planned it was a glint in Petunia's eyes. Then, her answer confirmed his fears.
"Like I would know where that ungrateful freak is. He's out of my house – always hanging with that delinquent slag of his girlfriend – and that's fine by me. Now you get lost too." And not giving any of the four magicals even half a chance to form a retort, she slammed the house's door shut in their faces.
"That was ...informative." Minerva McGonagall summarized in an unusual for her bout of sarcasm.
Without any other means to locate Harry Potter at their disposal, Dumbledore had to employ some magic. Hopefully, it would not land the boy into any problems. But even if it did,.. Albus was sure that the boy would forgive him, because he had done this in the name of the Greater Good! Anyway, the spell led them to what appeared to be a pretty large stadium located on the edge of Little Whinging.
"So the brat is there?" Snape asked. This whole outing was already taking more time than he had anticipated, and he was yet to have chance to sneer at the Potter brat to raise his own self-worth. Even worse though, if they don't find the boy soon enough, he will lose his day of potion-brewing completely, and it would set his schedule back quite some time – some potions were very sensitive to lunar phases or other similar things.
"It appears so..." Dumbledore replied absentmindedly as he was busy thinking of a way to locate the young Potter inside the building... Or, even before that, of a way to get them in as it seemed that not anybody was allowed to wander in for free. Thankfully, it looked like the fates had smiled upon him and he wouldn't have to find the answers to either of these two questions: Harry had just walked out of the building hand in hand with some red-haired girl.
The old warlock immediately began studying the Potter heir. He appeared to be of an average height and was pretty well-built, though it was also clear that he had suffered at least some malnutrition in his early years. And since he had grown his hair out quite a bit longer than his father ever did, his hair was as messy. Also, quite surprisingly, the boy's emerald-green eyes weren't hidden behind glasses – then again, Albus had heard something about contact lenses getting increasingly popular in the muggle world, so it was possible that the boy wore a pair of those instead of glasses...
As for his clothes, he was wearing a bit old but still looking well blue woolen jacket, unzipped to about the middle of his chest, showing a dark-blue T-shirt or maybe a jersey underneath as well as a chainlet with a silver fang on it around his neck. His dark-beige pants, held in place by a brown leather belt with a silver chain attached to it on his left side, too were old but in good condition. On his feet, the young Potter wore pretty new all-blue sneakers. Finally, there was a rather big rucksack carelessly thrown over the boy shoulder.
Turning his attention to the young lady on his arm, indeed got an impression that the redhead was some sort of a delinquent. A patch on her right cheek and elastic bandages wrapped around her hands ensured that, as did several bruises that could be seen on her visible skin. First impressions aside, the girl appeared to be a year or maybe even two older that Harry, and her dark-red hair barely reached her shoulders. She had deep-brown eyes and fairly tanned skin; she had some actually pretty impressive muscles, but not to the point where it would begin to affect her appeal negatively.
Despite it being the beginning of November, the girl was wearing a thin windcheater – and unzipped one at that – with the sleeves rolled up well above her elbows. Under the windcheater she only a dark-blue T-shirt that clung pretty tight to her body. She wore simple dark-blue with white stripes along the sides of her legs training pants and white-and-red sneakers. Finally, there was a pair of fingerless boxing gloves on a string hanging around her neck, which meant that most likely she was practicing some kick-boxing or a similar style of martial arts.
And both teens looked completely muggle, which immediately made Dumbledore and everyone else at very least a little bit suspicious of the 'official' reason for the young Potter rejecting his Hogwarts invitation. Then again, they probably should have been suspicious of it since the very beginning – rejecting Hogwarts invitations was really rare even among the muggleborn and muggle-raised children. Anyway, right now what probably no the best time to think about this, as they needed to inform Harry about his name coming out of the Goblet of Fire. The four magicals swiftly approached the pair of teenagers and Minerva spoke:
"Mr. Potter?" The dark-haired boy stopped and turned his head to look at four very strangely – as if they had traveled from the past – dressed adult approaching him. His gut was telling him that he might not like what was about to happen, but he still decided to listen to them. After all, none of the four looked like they had ever exercised much in their lives, so he and Katrina should have no troubles fighting them off, should they turn out to be kidnappers or something like that.
"Yes?" Harry replied in an obviously distrusting voice. Next to him, having felt his distrust towards the strange individuals his girlfriend assumed a relaxed fighting stance, ready to defend them both should the need arise.
"A word in private, if you will?" Minerva continued, ignoring the look the teens were giving her and her colleagues... Apparently, this turned out to be far from the best thing to say as Harry almost immediately spat out, his voice filled with venom:
"How about 'no'? I ain't falling for this, so get lost, you, kidnappers!"
"Why don't we just stun the brat be done with it?" A greasy-haired bastard suggested, which immediately had him marked as the enemy number one in Harry's head... The grandfatherly-looking old man next to him, though, shook his head.
"Don't be so impatient, Severus. I'm quite sure that we can come to an understanding with Mr. Potter here without resorting to violence." Then turning to yet even more distrusting dark-haired youth, the old man continued: "I assure you, Mr. Potter, that we aren't going to kidnap you or cause you harm. But it is still imperative that you let us speak to you in private as what we are going to say is not for everyone's ears."
"My answer is still 'no'!" The teen replied stubbornly. "I'm not following you lot anywhere. If you really need to tell me something, do it there!"
"Now listen here you selfish arrogant brat!-" The greasy-haired man who had suggested stunning him began, only to be silenced when the only woman in the group hit him on his head with a frying pan that Harry was sure had appeared out of the thin air.
"Please, don't mind him, Mr. Potter. Severus here is a bit upset that he had to sacrifice some of his ...working time for our ...meeting." The woman – who was still holding a frying pan in her hands – tried to explain. "But Albus is right. While it's highly important that you listen to what we have to say, I'm afraid, your girlfriend is forbidden to know about the subject of our conversation-to-be."
And so the negotiations continued. In the end, Harry managed to to get the better end of the deal, even if he was unable to make these strange people get lost. He will listen to what they have to say in the secure environment of Katrina's house (well, her dad's), and while he had agreed that the redhead would not be present there during the conversation, nothing was going to prevent him from filling her in once these strange people were finally out of his hair.
"So what do you want?" Harry asked in an annoyed voice because he, well, was quite annoyed with these strangely-dressed men and woman who claimed to need to tell him something that only he had the right to know. "We have plans for tonight, and we will be very annoyed if you keep us from following them." He added. This immediately caused the hating greasy-haired man called Severus start another tirade about 'arrogant self-centered brats'. This time the tirade lasted for only five seconds, before the man once again silenced thanks to the god-known-where-it-was-summoned-from frying pan courtesy of the only woman among the adults.
"Mr. Potter." A man that looked like he was trying to cosplay a business-bee – and the only one who hadn't spoken before – started. "We all would like to inform you that you've been chosen as the fourth champion for the Triwizard tournament, and we all would like to know how you managed to sneak your name into the Goblet of Fire and enchant it to select you." Harry just stared at the man dumbly. Triwizard? Goblet of Fire? Enchant? Did this foursome run away from a fairy tale? Or, perhaps, an asylum?
"I don't understand what you're talking about." The green-eyed teen stated. Maybe several years ago he would have been freaking out in the similar situation, but his training under Master Wei taught him that one should never let wild emotions cloud his judgment. "And you're talking as if wizards do exist. Those are characters from kids' stories, are they not?" Harry was quite surprised at the reaction his latest statement caused within the people that (unfortunately) were his conversers.
"Mr. Potter!" The woman almost yelled in a scandalized tone. "I'm a witch and these three gentlemen..." It was quite clear that she adding 'Severus' into the category of 'gentlemen' very reluctantly. "...Are wizards. You don't have to pretend that Magic isn't real with us!" The dark-haired teen looked at her like she had suddenly grown a second head. Magic? They must be joking... Of course, some less educated people would assume that the things Master Wei taught him were some sort of magical skills, but in fact almost anyone with the right amount of training in internal style martial arts could perform those – internal styles never used anything more than what the human body was capable of by itself.
"Nope, not believing you." Harry replied with a glare. "Now, if you don't have anything intelligent to say, I'd like you to leave." The 'witch' swore under her breath in Scottish. Something along the lines that it was much harder than dealing with the parents of muggleborns.
"I assure you, Mr. Potter, the magic does exist, and if you'd let me, I'll show you..." She said, only to be interrupted by the green-eyed teen.
"No. Leave. Now." He hissed, losing his patience over them – he had had some greats plans for spending tonight with his Katrina, but these ...gentlemen and gentlewoman were trying their best to ruin those... The white-bearded man who appeared to be well over hundred and, apparently, was their leader, seemed to finally understand that they won't get anywhere with whatever sinister plan they had.
"Very well, Mr. Potter." He said in a grandfatherly tone. "Perhaps we should return at another time when you'll be more willing to listen to us?" Then, standing up and motioning the rest to do the same, he headed out of the house... Once all four of the strange visitors were out, Harry had heard a series of popping sound. Running to the front door he saw that there was no one out there in the street. Somehow those strange guys managed to disappear completely. Shrugging this strange happening off, the teen headed upstairs, when his girlfriend was undoubtedly waiting impatiently for him...
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"Don't tell me that great and powerful Albus Dumbledore couldn't find a single runaway teen wizard!" Karkarov said snidely as the 'delegation' returned to Hogwarts without Harry Potter.
"No, we found him, though it was not as easy as I thought it would be." The Hogwarts headmaster replied, completely ignoring the tone his colleague had spoken to him with. "But we ran into a very big problem. Mr. Potter is..."
"The arrogant brat just wants more attention to himself!" Snape interjected, only to be smacked with a frying pan for the third time today, courtesy of professor McGonagall.
"...As I was saying..." Dumbledore continued as if nothing had happened. "Mr. Potter is untrained and while he does possess some natural occlumency, it was not strong enough to prevent me from reading his thoughts with legilimency. The boy until today was not aware of magic and genuinely does not believe it even exists." The room was quite for quite some time as everyone thought about how shitty the situation around the Triwizard tournament was getting...
