HARRY POTTER
and the
CASTLE of CHAOS
[CHAPTER 1]: Get In Loser, We're Going Shopping
[ALTERNATIVELY]: In Which The Author Finally Breaks Their Streak Of Killing Off Their Protagonist In The First Chapter, Not That Taking The Knight Bus Is Much Of An Improvement
Harry James Potter was a rather… unusual child — nobody who lived on Privet Drive could possibly argue against this. What seemed to be the point of contention was what, precisely, made him so strange.
Some said it was his looks; his chaotic mop of jet-black hair, bright emerald-green eyes, and pale skin never failed to set him apart from the other children — not to mention his oddly prominent lightning bolt scar.
Others claimed it was his behavior that was so unsettling; he was far quieter than a ten-year-old had any right to be, and always sat away from the other children. Sometimes he could even be seen in the library, reading, rather than playing outside like everyone else his age.
The more observant inhabitants of the neighborhood argued it was the fact that he rarely actually got hurt, even when injury seemed unavoidable — and the few times he did get a scrape or cut, it invariably healed within the hour.
Harry Potter himself had a very different idea as to why he was so peculiar:
He was not a child.
It was a simple process of elimination, really. In a "normal" family, children were treated with care and respect. In a "normal" family, children didn't sleep in cupboards or wear clothes that didn't fit them. In a "normal" family, children certainly did not cook breakfast on a stove.
Either the Dursley family was not "normal" (something Harry seriously doubted due to Uncle Vernon's worrying fixation on the concept), or Harry was not a child.
Now this brought up the question:
If not a child, what exactly was he?
The first clue to that answer came in the mail, two days before his eleventh birthday. A thick parchment-paper envelope, bearing his name in beautiful purple calligraphy and an unusual-looking crest impressed in red wax.
Mr. Harry J. Potter
Number 4 Privet Drive
The Cupboard Under The Stairs
Despite its dubious physical properties (who even used parchment these days?), the fact that they'd put "Mr." in front of his name and knew where he slept lent the letter an interesting weight.
Indeed, the moment young Harry brought it into the kitchen, Uncle Vernon's face turned all puce and he kicked Harry and Dudley out of the room. The fact that he hadn't thought twice about separating his dear Dudders from his breakfast meant this mysterious letter was of critical importance.
The next day, another letter came— or rather, the exact same letter came a second time. Harry attempted to open it in the foyer, but Uncle Vernon had followed him when he went to get the mail.
As his uncle jammed the letter into his document shredder, Harry frowned. How had the mysterious sender known he hadn't managed to read the first one? Wasn't it more reasonable to wait at least a day, so he had a chance to respond? He considered voicing these questions to his Aunt Petunia (who was far more receptive to such inquiries than his uncle, although that didn't say much), but ultimately decided against it. For all he knew, they were from some stalker sending him inappropriate pictures.
The next day was his birthday, and Harry had a plan. He would wake up early, sneak outside, and wait for the mailman on the porch! If the envelope arrived again, he would open it. If it was full of inappropriate pictures, he would bring it to the local police station and the problem would be solved for once and for all!
The only flaw in this brilliant plan was the fact that Uncle Vernon had chosen to sleep by the door himself, a fact that was only discovered when Harry accidentally but firmly planted his foot on the man's face.
"Bugger."
Uncle Vernon's face lit up a brilliant red that Harry could make out even in the half-light of the early morning. He opened his mouth, presumably to shout something that would get Harry put in the naughty corner at school if he were to repeat it, but stopped at the sound of the mail flap squeaking open.
Both their eyes swiveled, fixing on the parchment envelope at the top of the mail pile.
"I don't suppose you'll let me read it this time?"
Uncle Vernon's answer was to tear it in half directly in front of him. To be fair, it was a very clear answer. Just not one Harry particularly liked.
He got up (with great difficulty, given his physique) and turned towards the kitchen. "Well, come on, boy! Breakfast won't cook itself now, will it?"
A reasonable, measured tone replied. "That can be arranged, Vernon Dursley."
Uncle Vernon choked.
Who was that? Harry squeezed around his Uncle's rotund form to peek into the kitchen. A tall, blonde woman was sipping tea at the table and staring at his uncle disapprovingly over her narrow glasses. She wore what looked like modified office attire, with a black robe over it.
His uncle seemed to recover his ability to speak. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?"
The woman sipped her tea for a moment before placing the teacup down on the table firmly. "That was your third chance to tell the boy, Dursley. Did you really think we wouldn't take matters into our own hands?"
Now, while Harry wasn't the smartest member of his class, he did understand context clues. Especially when another one of the mysterious letters rested on the table in front of her. "Tell me what?"
Her jade-green eyes turned to him. "Ah… Mister Potter, I presume?"
He nodded nervously.
With a gesture and a soft purple glow, the seat across from her pulled itself out. "Please, have a seat. We have much to discuss."
"NOT IF I HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT!"
She sighed and flicked her… riding crop?... at Uncle Vernon, which seemed to stick his jaws together. "Apologies, Dursley, but this choice is not yours."
She turned back to Harry. "Harry Potter. My name is Glynda Goodwitch, and I'm here to invite you to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as the school's Deputy Headmistress. I'm sure you have a great deal many questions, but you should read this first." She pushed the envelope across the table towards him.
He opened the envelope nervously, pulling out multiple sheets of folded parchment. He flattened them down on the table, before picking up the one on top.
~ HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY ~
Headmaster: Ozpin
(Order of Merlin: First Class, Grand Sorcerer)
Dear Mr. Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
In addition, you are cordially invited to speak with the Headmaster regarding further educational opportunities at your earliest convenience.
Term begins on September 1st. We await your owl by no later than July 31st.
Yours sincerely,
Glynda Goodwitch
Deputy Headmistress
Harry eyed Ms. Goodwitch dubiously. "Witchcraft? Wizardry?"
She nodded. "Have you ever noticed strange things happening around you, perhaps when you were upset?"
Harry looked down at his arm thoughtfully. "I've always been really, uh… it takes a lot to hurt me, if that's what you mean? But otherwise… Oh! I can talk to snakes!"
She smiled. "That ability is referred to as Parseltongue. It's rather rare, so be proud. Hogwarts will allow you to develop your abilities as a wizard, and control what powers you may already have. While there is a common curriculum, everyone's magic is slightly different, so our main goal is helping you reach understanding and control."
Harry nodded sagely. "I think I understood most of that."
Goodwitch raised an eyebrow. "That puts you ahead of the curve. This speech was written for your guardians, but they are clearly… uninterested."
He eyed Uncle Vernon nervously. The man had never quite reached that shade of purple before.
Harry glanced back down at the letter. "I, uh… I don't have an owl?"
"That won't be a problem. I will take your response in person, and you can get your own owl when we go to Diagon Alley. If you don't care to keep one, there are also postal shops that let you rent them." She noticed his look of confusion. "Ah. In magical society, we use owls to send letters… you could think of them as particularly well trained carrier pigeons, I suppose."
How… unorthodox. He tilted his head in thought. "Can I just tell you I want to go, or do you need it in writing… Oh, do I have to pay? I don't think I have any money."
She shook her head. "Oh, you don't have to worry about that, Hogwarts doesn't have tuition. And having it in writing would be preferable, yes." She slid a sheet of parchment across the table to him, with a classical looking fountain pen laying across it.
He carefully picked up the pen and scrawled his acceptance onto the parchment, before handing it back to… was it Professor Goodwitch now?
She folded the parchment crisply and tucked it into her pocket. "Now that that's settled, let's see what your Uncle has to say on the subject." A wave of the riding crop that Harry was growing increasingly suspicious of had the man's mouth unglued.
"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH THIS FREAK MAGIC TRICKS!"
She rolled her eyes. "You have shown yet again that the ability to speak does not make one intelligent, Dursley. If you wish to object to his enrollment, you must submit your request to the Headmaster in person."
Uncle Vernon had gone beyond purple and was turning colors Harry was fairly certain no healthy human should be… or rather, at least without the direct intervention of magic, since that seemed like the kind of thing it might be able to do. He was clearly torn between his desire to have nothing to do with magic, and his desire to… have nothing to do with magic…
Goodwitch sighed and pulled out another sheet of parchment. "This is a form declaring you have an extreme aversion to magic. Signing it will allow the Ministry of Magic to declare you unsuitable guardians, at which point we can take Mr. Potter off your hands. That is, if he has no objections. Simply wiping your memory of magic and continuing as normal is also an option."
Harry turned to her hopefully. "I can leave? Oh, please!"
She nodded and turned back to his uncle. "Just put your signature here, Dursley, and we're done."
The man's eyes narrowed. "Unsuitable guardians? We're the only ones willing to do what needs to be done and beat the freakishness out of the boy!"
Goodwitch simply stared at him as her teacup was enveloped in a purple glow, bringing itself up to her lips on its own. She took a slow sip, and the cup set itself back down on the table. "I would advise you to think about your next words very carefully."
Uncle Vernon picked up the fountain pen as if afraid it would bite him, but scribbled his signature at the bottom of the parchment.
She folded that parchment in half, slipped it into an envelope, and… attached it to the leg of an owl… that she had removed from her pocket? With another purple glow, the kitchen window opened itself and the owl flew out. She turned to Harry and smiled. "Mr. Potter, please gather your things so we may go. You will not be returning."
He nodded and ducked back into his cupboard. What to take, what to take… He packed his spare clothes into his tattered yellow school backpack, along with his coat hanger (it was fun to watch the reflection of the dim light bulb in the cupboard on it) and his bit of rope (he was really bad at untying knots but he wasn't going to stop trying until he figured it out). He slipped his arms through the straps and stepped back out.
"WITCHES! HEATHENS! TAKE YOUR PAGAN NONSENSE AND KEEP IT AWAY FROM THIS FAMILY!"
Ah. Aunt Petunia was up.
Professor Goodwitch eyed her disdainfully. "Oh, don't worry, we were just about to leave."
Aunt Petunia paled. "But- you can't- the protections!"
The professor raised a single eyebrow. "Fear not, he'll be safe enough at Hogwarts."
"But what about us?"
Professor Goodwitch's head tilted in mocking incomprehension. "What about you? It's been made perfectly clear that you want Mr. Potter off your hands."
Aunt Petunia's weakly voiced objections were drowned out by the sound of a small whale rolling down the stairs. "WHERE'S BREAKFAST? I NEED MY BACON!"
Goodwitch eyed Dudley over the rim of her teacup. "Believe me, young man, that's the last thing you need."
Uncle Vernon's face seemed determined to turn every color on the rainbow at this point. "DUDLEY IS A PERFECTLY FINE YOUNG MAN, I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW!"
She idly twirled her riding crop in the man's general direction. "He would be perfectly fine if he were, say, a young elephant or some sort of whale, but a human? Not at all." She finally noticed Harry. "Ah, Mr. Potter, that was rather quick. If you've run out of space I can shrink some things for you?"
He shook his head cheerfully. "No, this is all my stuff."
Her polite smile tightened, and her eyes flicked back to the address on his Hogwarts letter. "I see… Please, be a dear and wait for me outside? I have a few final words for your aunt and uncle that are… unfit for young ears."
Harry watched Professor Goodwitch exit Number 4 Privet Drive in awe. Some of those words he hadn't even known existed!
She looked at him and raised her eyebrows. "Oh, dear me, it would seem I forgot to put up Silencing Charms before doing that. It's rather lucky nobody heard, isn't it, Mr. Potter?"
He nodded enthusiastically and fell into step besides her. "So, um… Professor Goodwitch?"
She looked down at him. "Yes?"
"Where, uh, where are we going?"
She hummed thoughtfully. "Our destination is Diagon Alley, the central hub of magical society… but we're taking the Knight Bus."
He blinked. "The… Knight Bus?"
She nodded. "Yes, the Knight Bus. I find it a very useful tool to demonstrate the ridiculous impracticality of wizardkind as a whole to people new to magic. You are aware of how most things have to travel in some sort of path to get from point A to point B? The Knight Bus… doesn't. It certainly gets there, but how that happens remains a mystery."
He frowned. "I don't get it."
She stopped on the sidewalk and held her riding crop out over the street. "You will."
And with a deafening bang, a three story tall neon purple bus appeared in front of them. Not simply a triple decker bus, but actually three entire stories tall. A young, lanky looking fellow stepped out from the entrance on the back and pulled out a scrap of parchment to read off.
"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard! Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Stan Shunpike, and I will be your conductor this mor- Oh, hello, 'Fessor!"
Professor Goodwitch smiled. "Good morning, Mr. Shunpike. I see you're keeping busy this summer."
He grinned and gave a sloppy salute. "You know it, ma'am! Standard fare is eleven Sickles, thirteen if you want hot chocolate, and fifteen for warm water and a toothbrush in the color of your choice."
She turned to Harry. "British magical society uses three types of coins. Bronze knuts, silver sickles, and gold galleons. Twenty-nine knuts to a Sickle, seventeen Sickles to a Galleon."
Harry frowned in thought. "So… eleven Sickles times two is twenty-two, making that… carry the two… One Galleon and five Sickles?"
She nodded and dropped the appropriate amount in Stan's hand. "We're going to the Leaky Cauldron." She turned back to Harry. "Come along now, Mr. Potter."
He stepped onto the bus carefully. The inside, contrary to his expectations, did not have normal bus seats. The inside of the bus was open, with a wide variety of chairs scattered around the space. Professor Goodwitch sat down gingerly on an aluminum folding chair, enveloping both it and herself in her telltale purple glow. "I suppose it's rather fortunate you haven't had breakfast yet."
He blinked and hopped onto a cushioned swivel chair almost twice as tall as he was, scooting it towards his teacher curiously. "What do you mean by that?"
His question was immediately answered by a deafening bang, as the Knight Bus almost instantly reached its maximum speed. Harry was flung halfway to the back of the bus before the purple glow stopped his chair and pulled it back up to where Professor Goodwitch stayed perfectly stationary. Dozens of empty chairs and one elderly witch weren't quite so fortunate.
A smile slowly spread across his face. Was this what amusement parks were like? With a subtle glance at the Professor, whose face had taken on a slightly green tinge, he hooked his feet around the chair's swivel and threw his hands in the air. The bus jerked violently yet again, releasing a slightly more sedate banging noise at the same time.
Harry let out a delighted laugh as his chair was sent spinning violently. That was amazing! He looked out the window and gasped. That was the ocean! He didn't live near the ocean! "Professor! How fast is this bus moving?"
She stared resolutely forwards. "Entirely too fast for my tastes."
The bus screeched to a halt. The many unsecured chairs and passengers went clattering forwards around Harry and the Professor. Stan's voice echoed through the bus. "Mablethorpe! I know there were at least two witches for Mablethorpe, here's your stop!"
Harry tapped his chin curiously as two young women shakily descended the steps to the second level of the bus. "Where is the, uh, Limpet Cauldron?"
"It's the Leaky Cauldron, and it's in London," replied Professor Goodwitch.
He frowned. He wasn't exactly the best at geography, but there weren't any oceans between Surrey and London, were there? "Is this really along the way?"
She gave him an amused smirk. "No, Mr. Potter, it is not. The Knight Bus isn't constrained by such silly things as distances. Each stop is determined by a first come first serve basis. Unfortunately, we may be here for a while."
Harry's eyes widened. "You mean, if we come during a busy time we get to ride for longer?"
She eyed him dubiously. "I can't imagine why you'd want that, but yes."
He let out another laugh. "Magic is amazing!"
Professor Goodwitch's sigh was interrupted by yet another ear-splitting bang and violent jerk of the bus.
Harry whooped gleefully.
Professor Goodwitch quickly but carefully stepped out of the Knight Bus, immediately followed by a bouncing Harry Potter. They stood outside a very old, rundown looking pub that was indeed named the Leaky Cauldron.
Stan grinned and leaned out the side of the bus as it sped away. "Thank you for takin' the Knight Bus, be sure to ride with us again!"
Harry looked up to the Professor. "That was fun! When can we go again?"
She gave an almost imperceptible shudder. "I'm afraid I won't have time for another ride, but…" she trailed off and looked towards the Leaky Cauldron. "I'm sure your godfather will be able to oblige."
Harry looked up at her curiously. "I have a godfather?"
She simply gestured towards the doorway of the pub, or rather the tall, dark-haired man who stepped out of it. He walked over to them and crouched down so his head was level with Harry's, grinning wildly.
"Hey, Harry. Long time no see."
Harry stared back blankly.
Goodwitch sighed and massaged her temples. "Black, that is not how you introduce yourself to a child. Mr. Potter, this man is Sirius Black, Hogwarts History Professor and your godfather."
A/N: Okay, I know this chapter probably left y'all with a lot of questions. The answer to most of them is gonna be "read and find out."
I will say a few things, though: this isn't a fix-it fic, or fluff, or any of that jazz. If anything, I'd classify this as an S-tier shitpost with a side of raw, meaty plot. I just have to, you know, set up a lot of elements first. I'm in this for the long haul.
Trust me, I know what I'm doing. This whole thing is planned out all the way to the end. It's been marinating in my brain-bowl for over a year. Y'all are in for one heck of a ride.