Harry Potter and the Physical Adept
Chapter 5: Twenty Questions
"Is what's written in the Prophet true?"
The Hermetic mage instantly recognized the caller as Hermione Granger, and her tone as one of outrage.
It had been three days since the first meeting and sit-down interview with Rita Skeeter on the Twelfth, and today was the day the first article in the series was to be published.
"Good morning to you too, Danger," said Harry.
"Did your aunt and uncle really not let you have medical treatment after your cousin beat you?" the girl pressed. "Did they lock you in the cupboard under the staircase at night without food?"
"Danger…"
"I know, I shouldn't believe everything I read, but you officially endorsed Skeeter!"
"Just because I endorsed the writer doesn't mean I went through the story line by line."
"Just what exactly does the endorsement means?"
Harry paused, considering the timing. It was Saturday morning, and he was about to go to Bourne's Comics & Games to browse the newly released comics and play in the newly formed combined Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse game Patience was going to be storyteller for.
"Let's not do this over the phone," said the boy. "When are you free to meet face to face?"
"Let me ask mum," said the girl. A long moment of silence followed, before she came back on the line. "What about tomorrow?"
"Works for me. Jason's place?"
"Have you gotten your supplies for this year yet?"
"I haven't even gotten a letter yet."
"I already got mine, and I think you'll probably need to get a few things too, so let's meet at Diagon Alley at ten."
"Works for me. I'll be seeing you, chummer."
~ooOoo~
"You're early as always," Harry remarked, as Hermione arrived with her father at Soykaf Source, the cafe across the street from the Leaky Cauldron, a full thirty minutes before the designated meeting time; it was a business Ethan had only set up after the previous Christmas when Harry had suggested such a place as a possible meeting place for normal families with magical members, and once the establishment open for business, the boy had sent out flyers to the families of such students attending Hogwarts, so it was of little surprise that it was flourishing at this time of the year when students would be getting their supplies for school, in addition to the normal foot traffic passing through the region.
"You're earlier," the bushy-haired girl countered, before waving at the dragon-in-girl's-form. "Hullo, Liv."
The dragon grunted a greeting, not looking up from the grey brick in her hands, her thumbs darting quickly over its faces.
"What is she doing?" asked the girl.
"Liv's discovered the magic of video games," said the Hermetic mage with a shrug. "Bought herself a Game Boy with the money she earned from her summer job. She's either playing Metroid II or Kirby's Dream Land."
"It's Metroid II," Liv said without looking up from the screen before her.
"I'm Patience," said the daywalker, who had agreed to accompany Harry and Liv on their trip to Diagon Alley. "Friends call me 'Pace'."
"Hermione Granger," said the girl, shaking the redhead's hand. "See, Harry, her accent sounds way more real than yours."
"That's because she's actually from Virginia," said the boy.
"You are?" Hermione asked, and Patience nodded. "I thought you were just using an accent, like Harry sometimes does for his Hunter Whiplash character."
"Hunter Whiplash?" asked the daywalker.
"Shadowrunner from a connected southern family."
"That sounds like a bad stereotype."
Harry shrugged. "We should go."
"Wait!" said Hermione. "I invited Fay, and she invited Neville."
"I thought it was just the two of us," Harry said.
"Surprise?" said the Ravenclaw in mock sheepishness.
"I'm going to get you for that," growled the Hufflepuff.
"I don't doubt it," Hermione said, almost regretfully. "Still, Fay and Neville've been looking forward to seeing you again since you went overseas for the summer."
Harry sighed. Hermione was clearly trying to get him to connect to the two Gryffindors, even though he considered them nothing more than assets and did not want to forge any sort of emotional connection with them, lest it make it difficult for him to later utilize them in ways that might endanger their health and safety.
Still, the invitation had been extended, and he wasn't going to turn his best friend into a liar if he didn't have to.
Then the Asian girl Harry recognized as Hermione's Hogwarts roommate arrived with a man Harry could only guess was her father due to the resemblance.
"It's you," Harry said.
"You forgot my name, didn't you?" said the girl. "Hermione said you might."
"Su and I've been studying together while you were overseas," Hermione told Harry.
"Is Su short for anything?" Harry asked.
"Su-Jin," said the Asian Ravenclaw.
"Korean?" asked the Hufflepuff, and Su-Jin nodded.
"I'm sorry, I thought you were Chinese," Hermione said, looking aghast.
"Jal ji ne shut sso yo?" Liv asked, looking up from her game momentarily, interest piqued.
"I'm doing well, but I don't really know that much Korean," she said, looking at her father with a glint of guilt in her expression.
"I told her she should learn, but she said she didn't want to," her father added. "Now, maybe with you around to speak it at Hogwarts, maybe she'll finally want to learn Korean."
"We actually only know bits and pieces," Harry lied, then gave Liv a quick glance; the dragon caught the look and shrugged slightly before returning her attention to the game in her hands.
"That's a shame," said the Korean man, the disappointment evident in his voice.
"So, is what's in the Prophet true?" Hermione asked.
"Let's wait until Longbottom and Dunbar get here," said the Hufflepuff. "I'd rather just answer questions once."
"Fine," Hermione groused.
A moment of awkward silence followed. Then, to fill it, the bushy-haired Ravenclaw asked, "What did you do while you were overseas?"
"Liv and I went to summer camp," said the boy.
"And we worked at a restaurant to help pay for it," the dragon-in-girl's-form added.
"What kind of summer camp would be in Norway?" Su-Jin asked, curiosity obviously piqued.
"Who said we were in Norway?" Harry asked.
"Well, the article in the Prophet said you adopted Olivia from Norway, so I thought that's where you went to camp."
"I just stopped in Norway for a layover," Harry said. "That's when I met Liv, and once I heard about what was happening to her, I paid an agency to facilitate an expedited adoption."
"But don't adoptions take a long time?"
"Not if you have money and give a token of your friendship to the right people."
"You're talking about bribing somebody, aren't you?"
Harry considered the Korean girl for half a moment; her expression told him she was half-incredulous and half-scandalized by the casual audacity with which he talked about ostensibly committing a crime, and if her invitation on the trip by Hermione was any indication, she was going to become a regular member of the group going forward through her friendship with his best friend.
Ultimately, he decided on shrugging. "It's just how things are done in some parts of the world," he said. "I think your father might know what I mean."
"Daddy?" Su-Jin asked, turning towards her father.
"In Korea, that's how business was conducted if you wanted anything done," said the man, a pained look on his face.
There was another moment of silence, before a look of horror slowly grew on Su-Jin's face. "But, but you said you were a government official before you immigrated to Britain," she said.
"Well, frag me," Harry mumbled under his breath. He had not intended to suddenly tear down a father in front of his daughter's eyes.
"I've heard it's that way in India, Vietnam and Cambodia too," Patience interjected, drawing the horrified Ravenclaw's attention. "Sometimes, you just have to go along to get along, or everybody else will be suspicious of you. Don't rock the boat, you know?"
When the Korean girl looked confused for a moment, Harry realized her naive, childish morality wasn't able to reconcile what she believed was right with the reality of the situation.
"If your father hadn't taken the bribes, his colleagues would probably have found a way to get rid of him," said the Boy-Who-Lived. "The worst thing for a bunch of bent government officials is having an honest one amongst them, so your father did what he had to do to survive."
"But it's wrong!" Su-Jin protested.
"The world isn't that simple," Harry said calmly. "Sometimes, you have to do bad things to get a good result."
"That's not true!" she said.
"Help me out here, Danger," said the Hermetic mage, turning to his friend for help.
Hermione considered the request for a moment, then said, rather quietly, "By dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States military machine murdered about a quarter million people, mostly civilians, and many of them died agonizing deaths."
"That's horrible," said Su-Jin, looking even more horrified.
"Military historians estimate that, by dropping the bombs, ten million lives were saved," Hermione added after a moment. "The only realistic response besides the atomic bombs would have been to firebomb the rice harvest, which would have lead to a famine, killing millions, followed by bombing the major cities of Japan with fire, and that would lead to the order being given to Japanese soldiers to execute all Allied prisoners of war held in P.O.W. camps. There's also the atrocities the Japanese forces were committing in China and Indonesia. The ten million lives number is actually considered a conservative estimate."
Su-Jin fell silent, trying to process what she had just been told.
"Been studying military history like I suggested before I went out of country?" Harry remarked, more observation than question.
"It's horrifying just what people are willing to do to each other," said the bushy-haired girl somberly as she nodded. "In just the two world wars, one hundred fifty million people were killed, and they developed so many ghastly new ways to cause pain and suffering."
"Human history has sadly been the history of violent conflict," Harry said grimly.
A gloomy silence hung in the air for a very long moment, only to be broken by the arrival of the Gryffindor girl energetically pulling the Gryffindor boy along by the hand.
"What's with the long faces?" chirped Fay brightly, while Neville stood bent over, panting with his hands on his knees.
"Good, you're here," Harry said with no change in his tone. "Let's get the questions out of the way first, so they're not hanging over us later."
"Questions? About what?" asked the Gryffindor.
"You don't read the Daily Prophet?" Hermione asked.
"No? Why?"
"Where do you get your news from?"
"The Economist and The Observer," said the Gryffindor girl.
"But what about news about the magical world?"
"Dad says the Daily Prophet and The Quibbler are worse than the Daily Mail and The Sun."
"He's a wise man, your father," Harry said. "For those out of the loop, I sat down with, and gave an interview to, Rita Skeeter of the Daily Prophet. With all the fables and misinformation floating around out there, I thought I should tell my side of the story. She published the first of the series in yesterday's edition of the Prophet."
"I saw that," Neville said, finally catching his breath. "Gran was shaking in rage by the time she finished reading it."
"Do I want to know what's in it?" asked Fay.
"Even I don't know what's in it," Harry said flatly.
"But you gave her an interview!" Hermione protested. "And the article said you officially endorsed her to tell your story."
"I only gave her the broad strokes and enough details to make it feel visceral and real," Harry said with a shrug. "The rest, I gave her permission to make up as long as it conformed to the narrative I wanted to set."
Everyone but Liv looked confused for a long moment; then, Hermione's expression changed into one of realization.
"Information control," she said.
"Exactly," Harry said.
"I don't get it," Neville said, scratching his head.
"Harry likes to control what people know about him, because that puts him at an advantage when dealing with them," Hermione explained.
"So you want people to know you were beaten and treated poorly by your aunt and uncle?" Su-Jin asked, frowning. "And that you can't use magic?"
"Yes and yes," Harry said. "People view me as some kind of messiah figure, when really, I was just in the right place at the right time and got very lucky."
"But you defeated He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named!" Fay protested.
"Were there witnesses?" asked the Boy-Who-Lived.
"Well, no…"
"So, the only people who really know what happened are me and You-Know-Who, and I was only eighteen months or so old at the time, so I don't remember anything about the incident. Since they never found a body, what's to say he didn't just suddenly bugger off because he wanted to make everybody think he's dead?"
Silence hung in the air at the thought; it was a disturbing notion to consider for most of the adults and children in the room, but for one person, all it did was sow confusion.
"Um, I don't want to sound stupid, but who is 'You-Know-Who'?" Patience asked.
"Oh, right, you wouldn't know," Harry said. "'You-Know-Who', also sometimes called, 'He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named', was a self-styled dark lord who founded a death cult called Death Eaters and murdered the shit out of a bunch of people because they didn't agree with him or because he thought they were unworthy of being alive."
The daywalker considered the idea for a moment. "So, magical Charles Manson?"
"Who?" Harry and Hermione asked simultaneously.
"Charles Manson," Patience said. "Started a cult that taught that he was the reincarnation of Jesus and a race war was coming. He instructed his followers to kill people because he believed the deaths would provoke a race war."
"That's eerily accurate, minus the race war thing," Harry said. "He's more like Charles Manson if Charles Manson was a white supremacist and led the Klu Klux Klan."
Patience considered the description for a moment. "That's kind of scary," she said finally.
"But Harry defeated him," Neville said proudly.
"Yeah, I don't believe that," Patience said. "If he was really just a toddler like he said he was, there's no way he'd be able to beat a grown-ass man."
Another moment of silence followed, before Harry interrupted it.
"So, any questions?"
"Is it true your aunt and uncle encouraged your cousin to beat you?" Fay asked.
"Yes," Harry said, and he saw a flash of anger in her eyes. "Before you think of doing anything stupid, they've already fled the country for who knows where."
"Did they really make you eat out of a pet bowl?" Su-Jin asked.
"Skeeter made that up."
"And what about sleeping in a closet under the stairs?"
"Did they really call you 'freak'?"
"True on both counts."
"Is it true they would send you to bed without anything to eat?"
"Doesn't making you cook and work in the garden violate child labor laws?"
Author's Notes: A bit of a transitional chapter that I'm using to set up a few things down the line.
Even if Harry hadn't intend to include her, Hermione's roommate was always eventually going to be involved by her sheer proximity to Hermione. The decision to have her be Korean was something I made back in Hermetic Arts, she as introduced even then as "Su Lee", as opposed to "Sue Li" in the original series; I didn't want the only East Asian characters from the original books to show up in this version of the story to both be Chinese, and my research showed a large number of Koreans settled in the UK, mostly near London, during the 1980s, which is only slightly be on the head end of when Harry and his peers would have been born.
Once again, Hermione acts on her own, doing something Harry doesn't like; I felt this kind of touch develops her as an independent character, rather than just as an extension of Harry the way she was used in the original books, and I felt it breathed more life into her as a character, since Harry was the one who told her how to make more friends, and yet he's the one isolating himself.
For context, Su-Jin Li's father is from North Korea, a country where corruption is rampant, and not South Korea, a country that has taken steps to fight corruption. There's a backstory there.
Once again, thanks to my long-suffering editor, Romantically Distant, for all their hard work. And now you've read this chapter, feel free to leave a review or just PM me.