You're a protagonist Harry
Chapter 11 – Meet the wizard
…
"Say it."
"No."
"Saaaaay it."
"I don't want to."
"I'm not gonna stop until you say it."
Groaning in exaggerated exasperation, Hermione Granger put down the large imposing book she was reading so she could properly glare at the smirking jackass sitting across from her.
"Fine! You want me to say it? I'll say it. You were right!"
"Ah, music to my ears."
"Oh, stuff it," the girl griped. "Why would I have ever believed they'd let someone like that teach? I ask you. The bullies at my old school weren't that bad."
"Someone say bullies?"
"Ey Harry. We was just talking about me being right," said Ron as Harry flopped down into the chair beside him.
"Bout what?"
"Snape."
"Aaaaaah!"
"It doesn't make sense," Hermione insisted. "Why would they let someone like that teach? For that matter why would he want to teach? There must be other things he'd rather be doing."
"Desire and opportunity do not always coincide," said the boy who would know. "And if I were to guess, the only reason he hasn't been sacked is because he has the right dirt on the right people."
"Who?" Ron wondered.
Harry shook his head, "I don't know, but it fits. Course, I could be way off base, and the truth is they just don't care."
"I think I like the blackmail idea better," Hermione said with a sour pout.
"Makes them seem less useless," Ron agreed.
"ATTENTION! FIRST YEAR'S TO THE FAMILY ROOM! ATTENTION!"
"Time to get measured," said Harry, popping out of his chair.
"Bet mine's longer than yours," said Ron.
"You wanna whip it out now and we'll find out," Harry shot back, grinning stupidly.
"Oh honestly, you two… BOYS!"
Stomping primly past them the 'BOYS' shared a conspiratorial grin before following the angry bush and its equally angry girl.
"Think we should offer to help her pull the stick out?" said Ron.
"Nah. I get the feeling she likes having it up there," said Harry, giving them both something to think about they probably shouldn't have been thinking about.
"Everyone, up to the front please. Mr. Finnegan, no skulking in back, up to the front please."
The Irishman sighed, grumbled, but followed the stream of students down to the front as McGonagall commanded.
"Looking good there Irish," Ron remarked.
"Starting a new fashion trend. No eyebrows is a pretty bold statement," Harry added.
"Ah stuff it you two," the surly Irishman growled. "Won't think it's so funny when it happens to you."
Probably wouldn't though. The incident that cost him his eyebrows was not the first time he'd exploded a spell. It was a small wonder the first two hadn't done it, or something equally hilarious they could mock him for.
"Settle down everyone," McGonagall commanded. "When I call your name, I want you to come up and take this device in both hands. This will give us the measure of your magic."
The device looked like something between a torch and a sword handle but thicker, with a large curved 'guard' around the side and a big glass orb sitting where a blade or flame might be.
"Then we will go through these stones and see what your element is."
The stones, four of them, were colored crystals, Orangish red, blue, dusty brown, and clear.
"Ms. Butcher will be logging for us, so show her your measurement when the number appears. First, Ms. Brown."
"How long you think this'll take?" Ron asked.
"Less time than the sorting I should hope," said Harry.
There were fewer of them, and this measuring device seemed a bit quicker, and less opinionated, than the hat.
And quicker it was. Measurements came up in seconds and merely picking up the crystals caused them to glow if you had the right element. Fire was the predominate, a trend that was broken first by Hermione who came up as wind, then again with Serena who turned out water.
"I feel sorry for her," said Ron. "Water is Slytherin. Each house only trains its own element. Anyone who isn't gets sent off to the house it is for Sorcery training."
"Was nice knowing her," said Harry.
"Harry Potter!"
"Looks like you're up."
Harry smiled, rising with great pomp and circumstance, "I'll try not to set the bar too high for you."
Sensing there was a tongue pointed at his back, Harry grinned and stepped up to the platform approaching the pair. "Hi Cassidy."
"Mr. Potter," she said coolly which just made him want to chuckle.
Waiting to push his luck any further, he grasped the measuring device with an outward show of confidence. Had he known what was to follow, he might have shown a bit more hesitance.
The magic measurer made an odd whining sound. A brilliant flash, a clap like thunder, and the orb exploded with a resounding BOOM! The force of the explosion knocked all three, teacher, student, and Head girl, off their feet.
The sound of the explosion echoed off the walls for minutes before falling silent, by which time everyone was huddled down and covering their ears. The first to say anything once it was confirmed the coast was clear, was Seamus.
"HA! Not so funny now, is it?"
Shell shocked by the explosion, Harry decided to save a retort for later, much later, like when his ears stopped ringing.
"Is everyone alright?" McGonagall shouted, perhaps a bit louder than she need have.
There was a general murmur of ascent, but that didn't seem to be sufficient. "WHAT?"
Fumbling and dazed, Cassidy made her way to McGonagall's side, "PROFESSOR MCGONAGALL! CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
The old scot stared at the head girl, "Why are you yelling in my face Ms. Butcher?"
"Huh?" the girl recoiled meekly. "Uh, but you, you sounded like you…"
"I can hear just fine thank you?" McGonagall repeated. "That doesn't mean I can make out a lot of mumbling half a room away. Now. Is everyone alright?"
"They appear to be," said Cassidy. "At least, no one seems to be injured."
She said, while the one at the center of it all remained flat on his back staring at the ceiling. Despite having a long history of being ignored, he found it a bit irksome under the circumstances.
"No, no, don't mind me. I'm fine. Just at the center of an explosion is all," he grumbled, sitting up with the measuring device still in hand, minus one fancy magic orb.
"Mr. Potter! What happened?" his head of house demanded, looking a bit unsteady as she crawled across the floor on her knees.
"It go boom," he said succinctly.
"Yes… yes I see," the iron faced woman said with something less than her usual iron.
"Oh goodness, are you alright? Are you hurt? Let me see," Cassidy fussed like a mother hen while McGonagall remained, an unreadable look on her face.
Harry was more interested in the easily readable one currently running her hands all over him, "No, I think it was bit lower."
"Here," she said, molesting his chest.
"No, lower."
"Here," she said, groping his abdomen.
"Little bit lower."
"He…" she stopped, just short of his trousers.
"I can take them off if you want to kiss it better," he said with a smirk he thought quite suggestive.
"He's fine," she said, apparently not interested in his suggestion.
Oh well, maybe next time, "I am, but this isn't," he said, shaking the magic measurer. "Are they prone to doing that, just exploding for no reason."
"No reason," McGonagall repeated woodenly.
"Yeah, just BOOM, right out of the blue."
"Right out of the blue."
"Professor? Are you alright?" said Cassidy, looking over her head of house with great concern and a strong suggestion she might start mother henning again.
"Right out of the blue. Boom. No reason just, boom. No, no it can't be. Could it? No, no, it couldn't. Merlin please no, not again. Not again."
"Uh, Professor McGonagall?"
"Huh?" the disturbed woman said, coming back from a frightening looking precipice to see Harry shaking the broken magic tool in her face.
"What do I do with this?"
For a second it looked like she might wander off in her head again, but she must have found a spare stockpile of iron because her face returned to its usual rigid scowl. "What indeed," she said, staring as if to accuse him of something.
"Professor?" said Cassidy who was just as lost as Harry.
"Ms. Butcher," said the Gryffindor head, "take down the elements for the rest while I fetch a new measuring device."
"Yes ma'am," the head girl jumped to obey.
"And you Mr. Potter," she said with steel in her tone, "you come with me."
With feelings of trepidation he'd not known since the day he'd escaped Dudley and his friends by teleporting himself to the school roof, he followed the steely eyed scot out of the family room, out of the tower, and away from Gryffindor.
"Would now be a good time to beg forgiveness for… whatever it is I did?"
Her silence was more terrifying than if she'd turned around and yelled at him. At least that he could have gauged. The silence was so absolute, so complete, it made the click of her heels echo like a hangman's boots as he approached the lever.
He hated that. He couldn't deal with that. Vernon had never been able to hide his emotions well. The storm clouds would roll across his face and Harry knew exactly how much trouble he was in. There was nothing worse than the silence, and it made the walk to the headmaster's office seem just that much longer.
"Poptarts!" she barked to the massive gargoyle.
"Poptarts?" Harry wondered as said gargoyle respectfully stood aside.
"The headmaster has a fascination with muggle sweets," she said, proceeding swiftly up the stairs, forcing him to hurry along after her.
"Ah, Minerva. What brings you here this fine evening," the long-bearded old man inquired, sitting behind a massive desk covered in odd trinkets and piles of paperwork.
"There was an—incident," she said, laying the broken magic measurer on the desk with a heavy thud.
"I see." Lifting the damaged artifact, his glasses slid down to the end of his nose, and what a nose to slide down, let me tell you. "How did it happen?"
"Mr. Potter," she said, in a tone frighteningly reminiscent of Snape, "picked it up, and it exploded."
The old man's eyes widened, "Exploded? Just like that?"
"Just like that," she repeated, a visible shiver running through her. "I can't—not again Albus. I can't. I can't!"
"Now, now Minerva," he hushed the old woman. "It's only one little explosion. I understand young Seamus Finnegan has been exploding spells with some regularity since he arrived."
"Oh, that's just poor control," she waved the justification off. "This is—is…"
"As yet, undetermined," he said, softly yet with a clear air of authority. "I trust you require another measuring device. Other students needing your attention."
"Will you…" she hesitated to ask.
The headmaster nodded; he would not force her to. "Let me get you a replacement, then we will see to Mr. Potter."
Stepping behind a collection of bookshelves he returned with an exact replica of the device Harry had exploded. Handing it to McGonagall, she nodded once then vanished the way they'd come, leaving a young and uncertain wizard, alone with probably the most famous man of his time.
"So…" why do awkward conversations always start like this?
"Been starting a little trouble Harry?"
Not the first time he'd been accused of such, but unlike then, he could tell the old man was only teasing. It was a change, but not an unwelcome one.
"I really didn't mean to," he said. "I don't even know what it is I did?"
"Yes, it is curious," he agreed. "It's not often we see malfunctions in these devices. They're quite simple, and quite sturdy. And yet, you made it explode?"
"Boom," said Harry.
"Just like that," said Dumbledore with a secret little smirk. "I don't suppose you'd like to try for two."
"Uh…" knocked on his ass twice in one night? "Is there another way?"
The old man chuckled, "Always. Come with me."
Turning to a door in the back of the room, he took a ring of strange old keys from his pocket and began leafing through them till he came to one with a black stone as its head. "I think this is it," he said, sliding the key into the lock and giving it a turn.
The door opened and a deep, wretched moan spilled forth before the door was promptly slammed shut. "No! No, not that one," he said, flipping through the keys again.
"Should I be asking what that was?" It almost seemed safer not to.
"Couldn't really say," said Dumbledore, already over it. "Hogwarts has been used to seal away many secrets over the centuries. Not all of them have been well catalogued I'm afraid. I only know where about half of these keys lead, I think."
"You think!" Was this supposed to be reassuring?
"I've rarely a need to use them," he explained. "One does tend to forget, ah! But I think 'this' is the one we want."
This key, with a head shaped like a star, ground into the lock protesting loudly. "Ah yes, this is the one." The door swung open, whining on rusty hinges which had not been rusty the last time, and they stepped into a massive room like the inside of a globe.
"Where are we?"
"This, Mr. Potter, is the measuring room," said Dumbledore. "Once upon a time, all the students were brought here to be measured, but that was before the small portable measuring device was invented. Now we just use it to keep track of the mana pool that powers the wards and other various enchantments around the castle."
"Whoa!" it was happening again. His cynicism was failing at the sight of such magical wonder.
"Over here, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore called, already across the room fiddling with a series of knobs and dials on a panel he was sure hadn't been there a second ago. "We wouldn't want you disappearing on us," the old man joked. "She was already upset enough as it was."
Upset did not quite seem to cover it. "She seemed, scared?" he said.
"Yes. She believes you possess that exceptionally rare element, one of the two high elements that precede the four terrestrial ones and are almost never seen in witches and wizards. That element, of course, being CHAOS!"
"Chaos?" Harry repeated, sort of.
"No, no, no, CHAOS! All caps with full reverb," Dumbledore explained.
"Ah, of course. My mistake."
"That's alright. Most people have trouble with the pronunciation."
Good to know. "If you don't mind my asking, why would she think I—possess, this element. And for that matter why is she so scared of it."
"Past experience," the wizened old man said, continuing to fidget with several knobs on the panel as he spoke. "A number of years ago, after you were born but before you arrived here, we had a student, sorted into Gryffindor. Very talented, in his way, but prone to, how you say, conflict, and mischief."
"And his element was chaos… sorry, CHAOs!"
"Not bad. Needs some work, but not bad. Yes, young Mr. Saotome did possess that unique element, and it showed in every aspect of his life. It was," and he stopped a moment to reign in a chuckle, "it was a very busy four years. Particularly for Minerva who, as his head of house, was forced to deal with most of the 'incidents' revolving around him. Honestly, I'm not sure when she found the time to sleep."
"So, she's afraid that's going to happen with me," Harry began to understand.
"I shouldn't blame her really," the old man said, fiddling with one final switch and setting the room to humming. "She works so hard already. I hate to put so much on her, but, sadly, I've many responsibilities of my own other than Hogwarts." And here he smiled, the smile of a weary old man, "Don't believe what people tell you Harry, being at the top is no privilege, it is a responsibility, and responsibility is a heavy thing. If it's not, you aren't doing it right."
"I'll—remember that sir." He wasn't sure why, but it seemed like something he should.
Dumbledore simply nodded and motioned him to the center of the room where a stone block some three feet tall with a half globe crystal on it had risen out of the floor.
"Press your hand to the crystal and let's see what we're working with."
The process was simple enough. The crystal only took up half the stone block, his reading appearing on the other half in glowing gold letters as soon as his hand was firmly on the crystal, "Eleven hundred and twenty-seven. Is that normal."
"Well above normal actually," said Dumbledore, gesturing for him to follow as they left the room. "The average for a man of your age is between six and seven hundred. This of course will grow as you get older, train your magic, and there are also numerous rituals that can be used towards such an end as well. Can't recommend them though," he added, sitting down at his desk and opening one of the drawers. "Most of them are quite dark, human sacrifice and the like, stealing magic from another living thing, or what was a living thing, at any rate."
"I—see," and it was a positively ghastly sight. "Um, what are you looking for sir?" he asked as Dumbledore rummaged in his drawer.
"I was certain I had those elemental crystals in here. Probably shoved in the back," he grumbled, "isn't that always the way."
Pulling the drawer out further, further being further than it could possibly have fit into the desk, the venerable wizard bent fully into the drawer up to his waist before falling the rest of the way in.
"Uh, sir? Are you alright?" Harry called, unsure if he should help, or what that might even entail.
"Ah ha! Found them!" a voice called back before a small leather case came flying out to land on the desk. "It's just as I thought, shoved all the way in the back," he said as he hauled himself out of the drawer, entirely nonplused by the experience.
Harry wasn't. What absolute absurdity. He tried not to grin too obviously.
"Now then, let's get you sorted out Mr. Potter." Flipping the case open revealed four crystals of the like he'd seen back in Gryffindor, plus two others, strapped to the inside of the cover, one pure black, the other milky white.
"What are those?" he asked of the two unfamiliar.
"This," said Dumbledore, taking the black stone and handing it to Harry, "Is the source of our concern."
A source of concern which did nothing in his hand, no matter how many times he turned it around or flipped it about.
"Mr. Potter, I must regret to inform you, the element of CHAOS, is not yours."
"Oh gosh, what a shame," said Harry, "I really was hoping."
"Yes, well," the old man chortled, taking the crystal and strapping it back in.
"What's that white one then? McGonagall didn't have one of those," he said, suspecting he knew but not wanting to get the pronunciation wrong.
"This is order, and I don't need to give you the crystal to know you don't have that," said Dumbledore. "I've known two people in my life who did. Most obsessive and neurotic individuals you could ever hope to meet."
"Really?"
"Oh yes. If you were order, you wouldn't have been able to walk into this office, which I confess is a bit of a mess, without having an absolute fit. It's difficult being possessed of either of the high elements. They define you in ways the terrestrial one's simply do not. Speaking of which."
The other crystals sat, tantalizing. Where should he start? What was he hoping for? He had no real preconceptions; except he didn't want to be water. Two hours of Snape a week was enough, thank you. He started there.
"Mm, that would appear a no to water," said Dumbledore. "Severus will be so disappointed."
Harry found that hard to believe but kept it to himself, picking up the dusty brown crystal next with an equal non-reaction.
"And no earth. Too bad really. Pomona does have such fun with her sorcery classes."
Professor Sprout, because he couldn't even think of the crazy old cackler by her first name, seemed to have a lot of fun no matter what she did.
Two down, two to go. The fiery crystal called to him, the element of his house. Had he simply been wasting time not going to it first. He touched the crystal, barely got it out of the case, and it lit the room.
"Oh my goodness," Dumbledore exclaimed, shielding himself from the blinding light.
More than mere light, he felt it to his very core. It surged through him, warm and strange like dragons' blood. Never had he felt so sure in his life, so absolutely certain.
"I think that's enough Mr. Potter," Dumbledore called to him, hiding behind his hands.
Reluctant as he was to let the feeling go, he fumbled the crystal back into the case, brushing his hand against the wind crystal as the light began to fade. He jerked his hand away from it just as quickly.
"Well, I think we can safely write you down as fire, don't you think Harry?" Dumbledore said, blinking the starbursts from his eyes and thus missing the stricken look on Harry's face.
It couldn't be. It didn't… no, just his imagination.
"Yes! Yes, uh, yes. Fire, definitely fire," the words fumbled around his stupid tongue.
"Very good then, very good," the old man obliviously agreed, scrawling something on a bit of parchment and handing it to him. "Give this to Minerva. She'll take it all down. Don't let me keep you."
Nodding at his dismissal, Harry retreated from the office in a calm, collected fashion. That lasted as far as the gargoyle where he stumbled on the dismount.
"Couldn't be. Just couldn't be," he muttered.
Why? Well… just couldn't be.