It took some time, a bit of doing, and plenty of paperwork, but soon I had the papers in hand, proving I now not only have custody of Harry Potter, but that I have an identity here on this world. I'm in the system now. Fun stuff.
I'd even, with a bit of work, got my hands on the deed for the Potter house at Godric's Hollow for Harry's sake. I figure that's where we'll live for the moment, assuming I don't take him off world entirely or something. It'll do for now.
On the way to the elevator, we were intercepted by an auror, who stiffly 'requested' that we accompany him to the department of magical law enforcement to answer a few questions about allegations regarding Harry Potter being rescued from increasingly ridiculous and improbable scenarios. My current favorite was Dementors riding dragon back with an army of Death Eaters and werewolves at their beck and call that had captured Harry and were going to kiss him and sacrifice him into a volcano. Not that it was particularly funny, but kind of wild how far the imagination of the Wizarding World can go. At least when it comes to the scenes of vague believability. I'd already heard something about Heliopaths, Stubby Boardman, and the rotfang conspiracy, but it didn't go very far beyond someone complaining about it.
Once we got to the DMLE, the three of us were lead directly to the Director's office and I got my first look at Amelia Bones. An older woman with blonde hair done up in a bun, a monacle in one eye and a no nonsense look on her face. I gave her a smile, but didn't bother to use More Love on her. One of the few I didn't think I'd have to do that with, and considering there were even children on that list says a lot.
We got to talking and I explained in clear detail the circumstances I found Harry in. I even cheerfully admitted not being a local, universally speaking, and knew of the situation here due to an outsider's perspective.
It was easy to see from Amelia's expression and feelings that she rather thought I was feeding her a line of horse crap, but seemed to be willing to go along with it for now after I provided a little proof of my strangeness by conjuring a set of ghost minions for her with just a theatrical wave of a hand, then cheerfully equipped a wand with long distance cast and touch of gold to convert a small chunk of her wall into solid gold had her convinced enough to give me a benefit of the doubt. That my ghosts looked more like they came from Pacman than anything they were used to probably helped.
I briefly considered throwing Dumbledore under the bus but decided against it. After all, when it comes down to it I'd rather service my own justice to the old bastard since the current system was one of his own making and so wouldn't come down as hard on him. Plus, aside from his involvement with the creation of this world's last two Dark Lords, something which while morally reprehensible wasn't actually illegal persay, the state of the quality of education at Hogwarts, or lack there of, which again, while morally reprehensible wasn't actually illegal, or the state of muggleborn oppression despite the line he feeds to the world about being on their side when the current system was practically handcrafted by him which, again, not illegal, but morally reprehensible and why the hell am I not just blasting this guy down to component atoms again?
Where was I going with this? Oh right. Despite the fact that he'd practically paved his own road to hell, most everything he's done has always existed in a legal gray area. I think the term for that would be lawful evil? Even if well intentioned, that's the results of his works. Probably should've just quit while he was ahead really. It's too bad I can't actually just go into his mind and find out for myself if he's actually the rotten old bastard his actions suggest he is. Being aware of how he feels about me presently thanks to a combination of full control of More Love and knowing its results and the way my threat assessment from my oversight works is all well and good, but a limited version of telempathy won't tell me what the man's actually thinking or has done.
Wait, doesn't this world have some version of mind reading? What was it… Occlumency? No, that was the defense of the mind, the opposite… Ah right, legilimency. Of which Dumbledore is a practitioner. I wondered for a moment if he'd read my mind before recalling that it's magic based so I would not only have felt it, but been able to deflect it, learn from it, and cast it myself and probably better. Suddenly I actually wanted the man to try and read my mind. Would deliberately holding eye contact give up the game though? Or maybe I can just find a book and see what it's like to learn magic the normal way?
Thoughts for later. I was contemplating the merits of outing Dumbledore as the bastard he is to the magical director of law enforcement and deciding against it because he's a lawful evil old bastard. About the most illegal thing I could probably hit him with was the illegal, as far as I'm aware anyway, incarceration of Sirius Bla-
Oh. Right. That's a thing isn't it. Big ol prison filled with fear demons that can suck out your soul. Creatures that would change their allegiance to the local lich Voldemort given half a chance. The place where the majority of his followers and one legally innocent man is being illegally held, assuming he really did never get a trial.
I didn't bother considering the ramifications against myself if I worked to get him released and Amelia looked rather startled at my abrupt line of questioning into the last scion of House Black. Dumbledore looked to be sucking on a lemon, which was a plus, but again, I wasn't planning to implicating Dumbledore in this mess. His fate will be mine to determine, not the corrupt system he helped create.
Getting the ball rolling on Black was actually surprisingly easy. Turns out having an out of context problem on your side that's riding a wave of magically enforced popularity combined with the weight of Harry Potter and Dumbledore on your side can do very interesting things. Things like turn Fudge into a literal brown noser to save face and try to ride the coattails. It was actually kind of funny really.
It got even better though when I started making noise about buying Azkaban from them. It was completely unprecedented and outrageous, which is probably the only reason why it worked. Well, that, and I talked Fudge around to the idea of outsourcing, making it sound like a brilliant idea to shove the responsibility of security of the prison island onto someone else. Preferably someone with a ludicrously deep pocket of gold. A couple of promises of donations to various things had the man utterly delighted and Dumbledore looking more and more like he'd reached for one of his precious lemondrops and accidentally popped a lemon warhead into his mouth. Mental note, get a bag of warheads and disguise them as lemondrops and hide a few in his candy dish.
Wait no, a poor kid might end up with one and Dumbledore's bastard enough to actually like the things. Nevermind then.
Anyway, I soon ended up leaving the Ministry with my hands on the deeds to Potter Cottage and the Island of Azkaban, and the knowledge that Sirius Black is being held in custody at St. Mungos. Not bad for… I checked the time. Most of a days work? Geez, I didn't expect that to take so long.
I looked down at Harry who'd ended up staying glued to my hip and found the kid asleep. Well, at least he wasn't too bored. I'd have to make it up to him. It is his birthday after all.
Perhaps he'd like something from Diagon? What does a kid that's never had anything like though? Well there's an interesting conundrum. Rather than not wanting anything, pretty much anything I got him he'd probably like, provided it's an actual gift and not a veiled insult. Honestly, who gifts relatives nothing but a paperclip or dryer lint? That's just petty.
As for Dumbledore, he ended up escorting us to the hotel. I didn't really care if he knew where we were staying. I had a suspicion, and confirmed it when I looked, that the man was so amenable to me taking custody of Harry because he'd basically put me under his thumb, at least on paper more or less. While I was guardian of Harry Potter, Dumbledore was pretty much the fallback in case anything ever went wrong. There was more to it than that, but that's basically what it boiled down to. Guardianship may have shifted hands from the Dursley's to me, but as far as the paperwork was concerned, Dumbledore's the one that we both fall under jurisdiction of, him as something close to co-guardian for Harry, and sponsorship for me. Hell, I could probably make a case for taking Dumbledore's name provided I greased the wheels with a bit of More Love and convinced him it'd be a good idea. Funny that.
As for his supposed power over me, I guess I could care, but that would require me to, you know, actually care. I've a feeling by the time I'm through with this place, the Wizarding World will either be destroyed or so completely changed that it may as well be. And who knows what I'll have done to Dumbles by that point? So many options really…
Before he left though, I did request Dumbledore to cast the Patronus for me. Since we were in the privacy of our rooms, a fairly nice suite on the top floor which I'd upgraded to at the front desk for a month since I quite literally had money to burn now, and More Love making him amenable to me, he had no reason not to, so he did. A nice pretty blue and white glowing phoenix sprouted from his wand, flapped in the air, and I had to blink at the artificial feelings of elation and happiness that came with its presence.
I guess More Love isn't quite as unique as I thought in this world.
It does give me ideas though. Having the Dementors fall under my banner would have been easy enough but actually dealing with them was a problem. Something which I have no qualms testing now that I have what is literally weaponized happiness.
After Dumbledore left, and I gained a nice new magical listening spell for my repertoire that I immediately tagged the man with and directly to his forehead at that. I'd love to know his reaction once he spots it. Which reminds me, I'll need to learn the spell they use for detecting the things, in case I might be able to figure out a way to stop mine from being noticed.
After that, I woke up Harry, who seemed confused then delighted as he exclaimed, "It wasn't a dream…" to himself, causing my heart to clench and forced myself once again to not hunt the Dursleys down. Then asked myself why not and realized I really probably should as what they do to Dudley is about as bad in the opposite direction from what they'd done to Harry, and nearly accidentally choking the man to death doesn't even approach coming close to the consequences that couple deserves for their actions.
Putting that aside, I forcefully calmed myself down and focused on Harry.
"Nope! Not a dream. But the day's not done yet, kiddo. Did you know it's your birthday today?" I asked.
"Really?" Harry asked, almost comically surprised.
I nodded. "Yup. July 31st. You were born in the year 1980, which makes you a brand spankin new nine year old!" All that paperwork I had to do was worth it just for being able to learn that alone, especially for the look on Harry's face.
"Wow…" Harry said, before looking down then glancing at me shyly. "Um, Mr. Noita, sir?"
I smiled. "Just Noita, Harry. Or The Noita if you want to be formal or speak of me to others."
Harry nodded, looking pensive, then blurted out, "Are you an angel?"
I blinked, getting a sudden flash of a blonde boy in very similar circumstances asking that question which made me suddenly wary for some reason. "Not that I'm aware," I answered honestly. Would I actually qualify as an Angel under certain definitions of the term? I had no idea. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, it's just… You have a halo?" Harry asked meekly.
I blinked in surprise, and looked up at it as if seeing it for the first time. It's not that I hadn't really forgotten that I had it, more that it just never comes up. Harry is quite literally the first person to call attention to it, beyond HIM when he said I'd have it in place of the crown I got after finding it on my head after crafting those two stars. Luckily it disappeared after I pulled the two stars from their resting positions and crashed them together for a rather glorious supernova. Good riddance. That thing was tacky as hell. Who enjoys wearing a thick heavy giant crown anyway? Give me an elegant circlet anyday. Or a halo. Speaking of…
"You can actually see this?" I asked him, surprised.
Harry slowly nodded and I smiled.
"You sure are special, Harry," I complimented him, causing him to duck his head, a pleased smile on his face. "This is actually a replacement for the crown I earned, completing the long term goal of a group of people who saw the creation of stars to be one of the penultimate forms of their art."
"You made a star?" Harry asked, awed.
"Multiple of them actually," I admitted. "I would've kept the crown, but it was this giant tacky thing that dwarfed my head. I was rather happy to get rid of it. As for the halo itself… That was bestowed on me with the approval of my patron, the one who gave me the ability to come here and probably the only one who I'm beholden to at this point. So no, I don't think I qualify as an angel, Harry, though it's true that the only people who should be able to see this would be… supernaturally inclined."
"Supernaturally inclined?" Harry asked. "Like wizards?"
"Ghosts actually," I answered, "I don't think any of the wizards who saw me today saw my halo. I rather expect the reason you can see it is because of this," I said pointing.
"My scar?" he asked, putting his hand to his forehead where the lightning bolt shaped red line sat just under the fringe of his messy hair.
I nodded. "That scar marks you as being touched by Death. It sounds a little scary, but honestly it's more cool than anything else."
"D-Do you know where I got it?" Harry asked, "My Aunt and Uncle… they said it was from a car crash that killed my Mom and Dad, but… I… keep having dreams of flying and… green light?"
I nodded soberly. "Memories. Manifesting in your dreams. I'm honestly impressed you can remember back that far. I know I can't. I've been alive a very long time. I'm impressed I remember much of anything from before… but that's not important. What happened to you is."
"What happened to me?" Harry asked.
So I explained it to him, trying to keep it simple and answering his questions as best I could, which was pretty well I think, all things considered. I don't think I got any of it wrong. Details of Harry's life and the circumstances around it were surprisingly numerous and detailed, even if it was hard to recall just how I knew all of it.
Afterwards, I brought the heavy talk to a close when there was a knock on the door, excellent timing that, and some of the hotel staff brought in a pizza and a cake with nine candles and started singing happy birthday as he blew them out after practically gorging himself on pizza after he got his first taste of it. Between that and the root beer, I'm surprised he wasn't a little round balloon but he managed a few slices of cake and literally could not stop smiling. Some of the female staff cooed and gave him hugs when a few tears slid down his face during the song. It's a good thing I warned them he just came from an abusive situation so they didn't overreact about it.
Afterwards after everyone left, I took him up to the roof and made a new wand on the fly that was a bit on the small side, a gold shaft with a green crystal at the tip the same color as his eyes. I loaded it with a fireworks spell tied to a few more with an expiration trigger so that it would explode into even more fireworks and fired it off, sometimes handing him the wand so he could try it for himself, teaching him how to spark the wand off and watching with interest as the wand seemed to draw from both its own reservoir and Harry's so that it barely dipped for him.
He couldn't seem to access the particulars of the wand, but I didn't expect him to. It's not like he has the Tinker Anywhere perk like I do. As for his gift, I gave him the gold wand, admonishing him not to fire it without my supervision, and definitely not at other people as it would hurt them, and then gave him another wand, this one green with a gold core and a sharpened tip. Subtly ironic as I loaded it with a healing bolt and showed him how to use it as well.
He loved them both and promised to take good care of them, and we spent the rest of the night taking turns firing off fireworks until he was yawning too much to aim. I then brought him down into the rooms again and put him to bed, making a mental note to get him pajamas soon. I wasn't about to leave him in his clothes, so had to make do with cutting holes in a blanket as a makeshift snuggie. Even had to cut it down to size to fit his small frame and used the extra fabric for sleeves, but it worked more or less. Definitely getting him real pajamas later.