[summary] Harry&McGonagall [Alice in Wonderland] The park, when he finally reaches it, having taken the long way to enjoy his freedom for just a little longer, is deserted. Deserted, that is, apart from the lone cat sitting on one of the swings.
A/N — Written for Assignment #5, wand lore, task 4: Write about someone being forceful about something.
McGonagall is slightly ooc; I did this because I wanted to make her more cat-like, and I hope I've justified it within the story, but I just wanted to give you some warning before you start :)
And massive thank you to Amber for beta'ing this!
"There's a cat looking for you." Harry startles, staring with large green eyes further magnified by his large round glasses at the old lady who lives down the street. Mrs Figg. She's smiling at him as if she's said something perfectly normal, like 'Hello, Harry, you're looking well,' or, 'Good morning, Harry, it's nice to see your cousin isn't threatening you with a stick whilst you're stuck up a tree today,' or even, 'Harry! Stop stealing the apples from my apple tree!' because that is what he had been doing when she'd found him. But she says none of those things. "The cat's waiting for you in the park," she says. "I wouldn't keep her too long."
Harry means to say something intelligent like, "Why is a cat looking for me?' or, 'How do you know it's me the cat's looking for?' or even a simple, 'What?' but instead he says, "Thank you, Mrs Figg," and finds his feet taking him in the opposite direction from his aunt and uncle's house and towards the park. And once he's started walking, he supposes there's really no reason to turn back.
The streets of Little Whinging are quiet at this time of the evening, too late for children to be roaming the streets, but too early for the adults on their commute home from work. Harry loves this time of day, though he is out past curfew and knows his aunt will tell his uncle to punish him for it. But, for the moment at least, he can enjoy himself.
.oOo.
The park, when he finally reaches it, having taken the long way to enjoy his freedom for just a little longer, is deserted. Deserted, that is, apart from the lone cat sitting on one of the swings.
"I was told you were looking for me," Harry says as he approaches, not really expecting a response. The cat tips its head to the side.
It's a pretty cat, Harry decides, and having seen a lot of cats during his nearly ten years on earth he is fairly confident in his assessment. A grey tabby — no, silver, Harry corrects himself — with a delicate nose and intelligent eyes surrounded by circular markings. Almost like glasses. Harry smiles at the thought, imagining the tabby cat wearing round spectacles and giving a lecture to all her cat students.
"You're late," the cat says, her voice prim and proper and her tone similar to the one that his aunt Petunia uses whenever he's done something irritating but not major enough to warrant getting his uncle involved.
Harry thinks he should respond — yes, a talking cat may be unusual, but he was raised to always have manners, despite the people surrounding him primarily having no manners themselves.
And so, he is still considering how he should reply when the ground drops out from underneath him.
.oOo.
It is as Harry is falling, for a length of time that feels far too long — he would say impossible, but impossible is a word that has proven entirely useless at least twice today — that he has the time to ponder the expression 'I wish the ground would open up beneath me'. It is a stupid expression, Harry decides, as he is currently living in that reality, with no way of knowing when his fall will end and what will happen to him when it does.
Ridiculous, really, to want such a thing. This hole is dark and dirty, with twigs poking out and grabbing at him, and the shadows twist into shapes that might be moving and might not. Any other boy, Harry imagines, might be scared. But Harry is not an ordinary boy. Just last summer, he cleaned out his uncle Vernon's shed, and that was full of all kinds of nasty crawly squeaky things.
And then, quite unexpectedly, he hits the ground. Not with a thud and the breaking of bones that he expects — because whilst he knows people can die from such falls, and it would be reasonable to assume that he, too, could die, the two concepts remain very much separate in his mind — but with a bounce.
Back up the hole he has fallen through, past the shadows that creep and twist, the twigs that reach and grab, and back down again.
And he bounces a second time, and a third. The shadows seem to be taking on more definite shapes, the twigs seem to be growing more forceful, even as Harry's ascent is slightly reduced with each bounce.
"We don't have all day, Mr Potter," says a stern voice that sounds suspiciously like the cat who was waiting for Harry in the park. He feels a little bad for disappointing her again. But this time when he lands it is with a squelch, and he sinks slowly into the floor like he's landed in a massive pool of cold custard.
"Well?" the cat says. "Chop, chop!" Harry looks around, his eyes barely adjusting to the darkness at all, but he cannot tell where the cat is. It sounds like her voice is coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, reverberating around the hole from all angles, whilst also giving the impression that her words are appearing in Harry's mind before they have been spoken.
"I would suggest you take a torch," she says, and Harry knows he isn't imagining her voice then because a spark of flame appears in front of him, lighting a torch. A very old-fashioned torch, Harry thinks, like one from a medieval fairytale, and he is about to ask the cat just how old she is when he realises that that is an incredibly rude question to ask anyone, cat or otherwise, and holds his tongue.
The torch continues hovering, and Harry comes to the sudden realisation that it is simply floating in the air without being held. He is not shocked by this realisation, not in the slightest, merely curious. And the cat is already heading out of the torches range, her flicking tail visible for a second longer before it too disappears.
So, Harry does the only logical thing he can think to do. He follows the cat.
.oOo.
Harry walks through seemingly endless corridors, with endless twists and turns, his steps echoing from every direction making it sound like there are multitudes of Harrys all following the cat. None of the Harrys seem to catch her. And he thinks he might be lost.
So many twists and turns, so many forks in the corridors, and Harry isn't quite sure if he's still following the cat or if he's just chasing shadows. He stops, having reached a place where the corridor ends with four doors, and he does not know which one to take.
"Mr Potter, do keep up!" the disembodied voice of the cat floats towards him, but the echo isn't the same as his footsteps. It seems to be coming from behind each of the four doors, and doesn't make Harry's decision any easier.
The lighting is slightly better here, though still dim, and so Harry decides now is as good a time as any to take stock of his situation. Mostly because all the doors are locked.
Each door has an old-fashioned brass door-knocker in the shape of a different animal — "A lion, a badger, a bird, and a snake," Harry muses aloud.
"A bird?" says the bird door-knocker in a lofty female voice. "Bird, I am an eagle." Harry would be surprised that a door-knocker was talking to him if he weren't already having such an unusual day.
The snake door-knocker makes a strange hissing noise that Harry thinks might be a laugh. "How would you expect a child to know such specifics?" it says, and Harry makes a mental note not to go through that door.
"Leave the child alone," says the badger, in a surprisingly pleasant voice. It's the kind of voice Harry likes to imagine his mother having, soft and gentle and warm, and he takes a step closer to that door.
"Where do you go to?" he asks the badger door-knocker.
"Me?" she says. "I'm always here, I can't move, dear."
"He meant, where do you lead," the snake says in that haughty tone of his.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," Harry says — "ohh, so polite," the badger croons — "I did mean to ask where you led."
"Well, I'm afraid I can't tell you that, either, dear," she says, but she truly does sound apologetic. "The only way to know for sure is to pick a door."
"Just hurry up and be done with it," the snake says with an annoyed flick of his tail.
"His choice is obvious, isn't it?" says the lion in a low rumbling roar, shaking out his metal mane and stretching his long legs. "Where else would this one go?"
"Can't I change doors if I go the wrong way?" Harry asks.
"I'm afraid not," the badger says not unkindly, and Harry is drawn back towards her. "But perhaps the hat might help you."
"The hat?" Harry asks.
"Oh, yes," says the badger. "He has a lovely song."
"I find the song gets a bit repetitive," drawls the snake.
"It is quite catchy," says the lion.
The torch in Harry's hand goes out quite abruptly, a spark and the light it gone, leaving Harry in utter darkness. The walls seem to be closing in on him, the air feels thinner, and the steady drip drip drip of water leads Harry to suspect there might be a leak somewhere.
"It seems the boy is too late," says the snake, and he sounds horribly amused.
"He just needs to act quickly," says the lion, and the badger and eagle murmur their agreement.
Harry gropes in the darkness as the water drips faster, flowing steadily from the ceiling and pooling about his feet, soaking his shoes and the hem of his jeans.
His desperate fingers reach a door as the water rises up his calves, feeling along the wood of one of the doors — "hey!" cries the eagle indignantly, "do not grab me like that!" — and lowering his hand until he grasps the doorknob.
"Sorry," Harry gasps as he turns the knob and pulls the door.
It sticks shut.
"I'm afraid you can't just go through any door, dear," says the badger. "You really should talk to the hat."
"There's no time!" Harry gasps as he frantically reaches for the next door, grasping the doorknob and pulling as hard as he can, expecting it to hold some resistance.
It does not.
Harry falls through the door in a stream of water, unsure which route he's taking as he is deposited unceremoniously, but much to his relief, into the middle of what appears to be a large banquet hall. The water, defying physics, retreats back through the doorway, and Harry turns to watch it disappear past the light from the candles placed on each of the five tables in the room.
There are four doors lining the wall; the one he came through is the lion, this side painted a ruby red. Another is emerald green and patterned with snakes, the next is sapphire blue and patterned with feathers, and the final door is a sunny golden yellow with the insignia of a badger in the centre. Harry feels a little cheated.
A violent shiver brings him back to his most recent predicament. He is covered head to foot in rapidly cooling water with no change of clothes, and the cat is nowhere to be seen.
He takes a step back towards the doors, and the lion door slams closed, the sound of a lock clicks. And then someone drops a fork. The sound of metal hitting the stone flooring echoes around the otherwise silent room, that is gradually becoming less silent.
The noise builds slowly at first, and Harry turns around hesitantly to see the vague outline of people seated at each of the long tables, the ghostly images of food overflowing from hundreds of plates running down the centre of each table. Transparent candles float above everyone, flickering and casting a ghostly light across the great room.
It's eerie. It's terrifying.
A single gold fork lies on the floor, and Harry bends to pick it up, surprised when his fingers come into contact with cool metal. He holds the fork like one might a lifeline, and slowly edges further into the room.
.oOo.
The cat sits on the fifth table, the one perpendicular to the other four, in front of the seat next to the larger central thone. Her tail flicks angrily as Harry simply stands there, slipping the fork into the pocket of his worn hand-me-down jeans.
"Really, Mr Potter, this is getting ridiculous," she says. "Do stop gawking and follow me."
But Harry has reached his limit, and being only ten he deems that to be quite a feat as he has rarely reached his limit before, and he is done being chastised by a cat, done following her towards an unknown destination that apparently is quite important. He is done.
"No," he says, because in his experience simple is always best.
"No?" the cat repeats, sounding horrendously unimpressed with Harry's response. "No? Mr Potter, I don't think you understand the importance —"
"Of course I don't!" says Harry. "Because no one has told me what's going on!"
The cat's whiskers twitch, and Harry is suddenly very afraid. More so, even, than when he first disappeared into the ground.
"Take a seat, Potter." Harry does so without question, sitting at the table decorated in red and gold, the ghostly people shuffling aside to make room for him. "Eat."
"Sorry," Harry says, "what?"
"Eat," the cat repeats, and Harry can hear the irritation rising in her voice.
The only food on the table still is the ghostly buffet prepared for the ghostly people, and whilst they are able to reach out and grab whatever takes their fancy, Harry doesn't think the same rules will apply to him, being that he is not currently a ghost.
But the cat scares him enough that he is willing to try, no matter how much of a fool he thinks he will look for it, and he reaches towards the closest dish — a plate filled high with fluffy mash potatoes — and pulls it towards him.
The plate gains solidity, turning a bright gold. He lifts it, and from the weight he thinks it might be actual gold and is probably worth more than he will ever see again in his lifetime. He sets the plate down, spooning mash onto his plate, and looks around for something to go with it.
When Harry is done, his plate is overflowing — his mash has been joined by roast potatoes, leeks in white sauce, sprouts, broccoli, sugar peas, roast chicken and pork and beef and gammon, and sausages. And the biggest yorkshire pudding he has ever seen. He crams as much stuffing as he can into the gaps — a proper roast is never complete without stuffing, Harry decides — and drowns his meal in thick gravy.
He picks up his fork, the same gold as the plates, and taking a heaping mouthful Harry moans in delight.
All of the plates he has touched have gained solidity, and it seems to be spreading across the table, reaching towards the ghost people eating with him and then even further, to the other tables in the hall, their chatter rising to a near deafening volume. But Harry is still so focussed on his meal, more food than he'd probably normally eat in a week is piled on his plate, and he has challenged himself to finish it all.
The cat, however, has other ideas.
.oOo.
It is with scratch marks marring his arms, and a longing for his unfinished dinner in his heart and stomach, that Harry trudges forlornly behind the cat.
"Do stop sulking, Mr Potter," she says cheerfully. Judging from the way she has been licking her mouth ever since they left the hall, Harry suspects that she got to finish her dinner, and he is filled with jealousy. Though even he is willing to admit that this strange place is eerily beautiful.
The cat leads him through what appears to be a castle, but built beneath the earth. There are windows, but they show only great openings in the rocks and dirt, large caverns that extend unknown distances below the earth. Harry wonders if there's an entire civilisation living in these caves and castles — the amount of people in the hall would suggest there are, but Harry is unsure if sometimes-ghosts-sometimes-people could — and he would love to explore further, but the cat is already rounding the corner at the top of a flight of stairs and Harry doesn't want to lose her again.
When Harry steps onto the first step, he gets the impression that the mainy portraits lining the walls are watching him, but he doesn't know what they would find so interesting about him, and when he chances a look over his shoulder they all are quick to return to their original positions, staring blankly ahead. But he can see a few of them sneaking glances at him out of the corner of their eyes, and hurries to catch up with the cat.
"Why are they staring at me?" Harry asks. He doesn't say who 'they' are, but the cat seems to understand.
"Because you're new, of course," she says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "We haven't had anything new here in a very long time."
"Oh," says Harry, and that is the end of that conversation.
But Harry makes an effort to wave at a group of ballerinas all performing ballet poses in the middle of their frame, and forgetting that they are supposed to remain still, they giggle and fall over themselves to keep up with Harry as he follows the cat.
"Are the pictures supposed to move?" Harry asks the cat, watching the ballerinas skipping along beside them with no small amount of interest, though the other portraits seem to find the girls more of a nuisance than anything.
"What would you rather them do?" says the cat. "Stand around all day and do nothing? That sounds really quite boring." Harry silently agrees.
And then the stairs quite literally move, and Harry clings to the railing as the cat continues upwards, unbothered.
They leave the dancing ballerinas behind, which Harry is admittedly a little sad about, but currently he feels he has more pressing matters to be worrying about.
.oOo.
The cat waits for him at the uppermost landing, and Harry staggers the final stairs feeling vaguely sea-sick, glad to finally be on what he hopes is stable ground.
"You get used to it," the cat says, and there's something almost motherly about her tone.
"How long did it take you?" Harry asks.
"I've been here for a very long time," she says, which isn't really an answer and Harry says as much to her. "It took me a very long time."
"Will I be here for that long?" Harry asks.
"Probably not," says the cat. "I've been here since the beginning."
Harry would really like to know when the beginning was — and the beginning of what, exactly? — but he doesn't think the cat will be any more forthcoming. Which is really quite alright with Harry, as he is getting very tired and the dining hall feels like an awfully long time ago.
He refrains, however, from asking if they are nearly there yet, wherever 'there' is, and he feels he is rewarded for his patience when the cat does not turn to glare at him. It's a small reward, but at this point Harry will take what he can get.
.oOo.
The cat stops in front of a life-size — or possibly larger-than-life-size — portrait of a larger-than-life woman. She stares down at Harry in exaggerated confusion, and says, "The other's all arrived a long time ago."
"Yes," says the cat, "he's been catching up, but he's nearly there." She gives the painting a conspiratorial look that would seem more in place on a human rather than a cat, and adds, "He missed the train."
"Ah," says the painted lady, as if that explains everything, and her frame swings open, revealing a circular doorway. "You're going to need to get the password off someone, dear."
"Can't you tell me what it is?" Harry asks, though he isn't sure if he's asking the portrait of the cat.
But the cat is gone, disappeared to wherever it is potentially immortal cats spend their free time, and the painting says, "Absolutely not! What would be the point in having a password if I went around telling everyone what it was?" And she closes, sending Harry sprawling into the room beyond as she slams with a decisive click.
A red haired boy startles awake in one of the plush armchairs beside the roaring fire, and stares down at Harry with a mixture of shock and confusion.
"You stole my fork," he says. At what must be an utterly bewildered expression on Harry's face, he adds, "At the newcomers feast, you stole my fork."
"I'm sorry," says Harry, at a complete loss as to what is going on, even more so than he has been since the cat first opened its mouth and spoke to him.
"I dropped my fork," the boy says insistently, "and you picked it up." He stares at Harry accusingly. "You stole my fork."
"Oh!" And Harry remembers now. It seems like a strange thing to focus on, but Harry feels he is in absolutely no place to judge. "Sorry," he says, and pulls the fork from his pocket, handing it to the boy. "Here."
If possible, the boy looks even more bewildered. "Why've you been carrying that around for so long?"
Harry stares down at the fork in his hand, still holding it out to the boy, and frowns. "I left the feast early," he says, "and the cat brought me straight here."
"What're you doing following random cats for?" says the boy, and he finally pushes himself to his feet, stepping closer to inspect Harry. "I'm Ron, by the way. Ron Weasley." He holds out his hand to shake.
"Harry," says Harry, and he pushes the fork into Ron's waiting hand. "Sorry for stealing your fork, I thought you were a ghost."
"You're mental, you are," says Ron, but he takes the fork and a wide grin spreads across his face.
Harry thinks he might have made a friend, his first one ever.
.oOo.
He's lying on something soft and warm, and instantly Harry knows something is wrong. He bolts upright, seeing the maroon velvet curtains surrounding the four-poster bed he's lying in, surrounded by plush pillows and thick blankets.
"This isn't my cupboard," he says aloud.
"Your what, mate?" says Ron, pulling aside the curtain to Harry's bed and staring at him with confused sleep-filled eyes. He's wearing blue and white striped pyjamas, that match the pyjamas Harry is also wearing. "C'mon," he says, "don't wanna miss breakfast."
Harry gets changed quickly, his mouth already salivating at the memory of yesterday's dinner. And then he freezes. "I don't know the way."
Ron stares at him for a moment, as if Harry's ignorance is the strangest thing about this place. "You've been here long enough," he says, but then he shrugs. "I'll show you. It's just down to get to the Great Hall. Doesn't matter which way you go, really." And then he adds, "They've been watching you funny," and points at a painting of a goat.
Behind the goat are five giggling painted ballerinas in pale pink tutus, and they wave at Harry from their hiding place.
"There's no getting rid of you, is there?" Harry says, but he feels a warmth spreading through his chest and he can't keep the smile from his face as he returns their wave.
Perhaps Ron wasn't his first friend, after all.
.oOo.
There aren't any portraits in the Great Hall, which Harry thinks is a bit strange, given how many are covering the walls of the rest of the underground castle, so the ballerinas wait outside with a severe looking woman who doesn't seem pleased to have five uninvited guests appearing in her frame. Instead, the walls are decorated with banners in colours to match each of the four main tables, interspersed with torches hanging from the walls, though the majority of the lights still come from the floating candles. There is only one large window behind the fifth table, and it shows the empty expanse of this strange underground world. The cat is nowhere to be seen.
Harry takes a seat next to Ron; this time everything is fully present, no ghostly food or ghostly people, and Harry wonders as to what is different. He asks the question aloud on the chance someone else might know; he seems to be the least educated on this place.
This assumption proves correct when the girl sitting opposite him with a wild tangle of curls framing her face exclaims, "Oh my goodness, you're catching up!" That is now the second time someone has said this, and Harry still does not know what it means. "I've heard about that, but I wasn't sure if it was true!"
"Ca-ing up?" Ron says through a mouthful of food, and Harry is glad to know he's not the only one who doesn't know what this means. He's doubly glad that it is Ron who is confused, because Harry is pretty sure Ron knows everything there is to know about this place. And, having known Ron for the better part of a day, Harry is pretty confident in this assessment.
"Catching up," the girl reiterates, putting a strange emphasis on the beginning of the word. "It's what they call it when you arrive late." She tips her head to the side, regarding Harry with a look that is both disappointed and chiding, a combination Harry feels that a girl his age should not be quite so adept at. "Did you miss the train?"
"What train?" Harry asks.
Ron's fork freezes half-way to his mouth, beans sliding off and landing on the oak table.
"The train," says the girl, "it's how we all arrive."
"I fell through a hole." Harry shrugs.
"Well you were supposed to take the train," the girl snaps, as if Harry's manner of arrival has personally offended her. "The books all say you have to arrive by train now."
"Well I heard you used to be able to get here however you liked," says Ron. Harry isn't sure if Ron is arguing because Harry is his friend or because he wants to one-up this girl, but either way he is grateful for the support.
"Yes, but they stopped that centuries ago, and with good reason." Here, the girl pauses to regard Harry as if he is an exhibit at the museum. "Though I suppose maybe you found one of the old entrances."
"There was a cat looking for me," Harry explains, "and I went to see what it wanted."
"Oh, you should never trust the cats," says the girl, "they all have their own agendas."
"I told him that already," Ron says with a roll of his eyes. "He was following a cat ever since the newcomers feast, apparently."
"I only followed her for an evening," Harry defends himself, not pleased at Ron's sudden betrayal.
"Oh, you really are behind," the girl says, and her tone is laced with so much pity that Harry bristles.
"Look," Harry says indignantly, "I just came here to eat some sausages, because the cat made me leave early and I never got a chance to eat mine last night, but I don't even know where 'here' is and I am really rather hungry, so —" Harry spears a sausage "— if you don't mind —" and takes a bite "I am going 'o en-oy my bre-fast," he finishes through a mouthful of sausage.
The girl looks rather stricken at this, and Harry wonders briefly if she is really that concerned about poor table manners, but the food here tastes absolutely delicious so he doesn't concern himself with that for overly long.
Ron clears his throat. "You missed the start of the newcomers feast, didn't you?"
Harry shrugs. "Yeah, why?"
"You're not supposed to eat anything if you don't want to stay here," the girl says softly. "They explained it all before they set the food out, but if you missed the train …"
Harry sets his fork down slowly next to his plate, and stares down at the food he's piled onto it.
He thinks of the burnt bacon and the burnt toast his aunt Petunia always gives him, how he is always given only a single slice of bacon and half a piece of toast. No butter or sauces. How he sleeps on the floor of a cupboard — and not even a particularly big cupboard; Harry is already growing out of it, and he doesn't know where his aunt and his uncle will make him sleep when he eventually does.
He thinks about how his cousin gets everything he ever asks for and more, enough toys for a whole army of children all given to one rather obnoxious boy, whilst Harry has nothing. How when he was really little, his aunt used to give him an old sock to play with, but how even that was taken away from him eventually.
How the only person who was ever kind to him was the strange lady who lived down the street with all the cats, the one who sent him after the cat in the first place, who used to babysit him whenever his aunt and uncle and cousin went anywhere. How his first ever friends were technically five painted ballerinas who are waiting still outside the hall — he can see them waving whenever anyone opens a door — and how his first human friend is sitting right next to him, looking at him warily, as if he thinks Harry might start shouting or crying or Gods know what else.
"I rather like it here, actually," says Harry, and takes another bite of his sausage.
