They didn't end up waiting until Harry's birthday to tip off the Ministry to the fact that there was a problem in Little Whinging, because someone was having fun, sending more letters every day as though they thought all sixty-three letters sent between Monday and Saturday had gone astray. Or, as Uncle Vernon not so privately thought, like they were intentionally trying to drive him up a wall.
When thirty-two letters came out of the chimney on Saturday morning — they couldn't just use normal royal post, either, the letters kept turning up in all sorts of weird places, like tucked in with the milk and egg delivery, or shoved through the window in the downstairs bathroom — Uncle Vernon announced that he and Dudley were going to a football match, and Harry and Aunt Petunia were to make whatever the hell was going on stop or, by God, he was taking his son and going to stay with Marge.
Dudley's pleas to stay and see whatever magic Harry was going to do to get their attention were flatly ignored. Dudley had been nagging Harry to show him something magic all week. Cool magic, not boring magic like drying his shorts or changing his hair colour (and not even to an unnatural colour, just a more boring one). Harry had obliged him by lighting a candle without a match, spending an entire morning telling him who was calling two seconds before the phone rang, and perking up a begonia Dudley accidentally stepped on, but he was still absolutely convinced (and correctly so) that there was more interesting magic, Harry just didn't want to admit it.
Really, Aunt Petunia didn't want him to admit it because she didn't want Dudley getting into all that "occult nonsense" that wasn't really magic anyway (Harry thought Dungeons and Dragons was some kind of game, actually?), and Harry could see the sense in not doing so, because the second he admitted he could do anything cool Dudley would want him to do it again, and again, like a bloody party trick, and demand that Harry teach him, and be an enormous brat when Harry couldn't, because Dudley wasn't magic.
He wasn't doing anything cool anyway, or at least, nothing that looked cool. To other people. Harry thought it looked cool, but he could see the way the magic in the air around him twisted and shifted in response to the energy he pushed out into it, forming a series of anemone-like snares to trap the Ministry wizards before they could get their stupid wands out and hit him with that red knock-out spell. He had started resisting after the first time he'd remembered that they'd made him forget about magic. Usually not very effectively, but enough they knew to be ready to try to sedate him immediately.
But he was much older, now — he'd been all of six last time — and since he was doing it on purpose, because he wanted to talk to them, it would kind of defeat the purpose if he just let them knock him out as soon as they popped in, and Aunt Petunia had asked him specifically to do something that would stop them doing magic if he could, because she didn't like it when they could just do whatever they wanted to her, and she couldn't even try to resist.
She also couldn't see anything he was doing, or even feel the tingling of magic building up all around her. "Have you done it yet?"
Before he could say yes, there were three pops in quick succession, and then a much louder, more crackling pop as his trap was triggered and the lightbulbs in the ceiling fixture exploded.
Aunt Petunia shrieked.
Harry made a ball of light appear over his hand, then sent it to hover about where the electric light had been. The trap had worked perfectly. All three of the wizards — it was Flo and her goons (Malcom and Blake) — were frozen in place in the middle of the sitting room. They did already have their wands out, but the magic was coiled around them down to their fingers, preventing them from so much as twitching.
Blake tried to do something to break the spell without using his wand, the same way Harry had made the magic trap them in the first place, but all the magic in the room already belonged to Harry. A quick gesture and a thought, and the man fell to the floor, not unconscious but reeling because Harry had pulled all the magic away from him, leaving him in a sad little bubble of magicless desert. (It was much easier now, doing big magic like this, than it had been last time he'd tried it.)
Malcom and Flo redoubled their efforts to regain control of their limbs, as Blake struggled to cast a spell to knock him out.
Harry grinned. "Well, that's rude, Mister Morris. Here I thought we were all friends, and you and Ms Brightnel and Mister Westin were only here to help us forget all about whatever disturbing little incident brought you here today," he reminded them, with the same annoying, sing-song tone Flo used talking to little kids and normal people. He twiddled his fingers at them. "Remember me? I remember you."
"Harry," Aunt Petunia said sternly, drawing their attention to her. "Taunting one's guests, even those who drop in uninvited, is rude. And they're here to do us a favour, too. Let them go, if you would."
He pushed the magic away from Flo and Malcolm too, giggling as Blake tried to reach out to the power just beyond his own to cast something — anything — keeping just the slightest bit of distance between his magic and the magic all around them that he needed to shape to actually make a spell happen with his (currently useless) little stick. "You're in my house, Mister Morris. You don't get to do magic here unless I let you. And since you're here to talk to my aunt—" They'd decided that Aunt Petunia should do the talking. "—not knock us out and play with our memories, I'm not letting you."
"How— What did you—?" Flo stuttered, as though she couldn't tell what he was doing, which...couldn't she? Harry sort of thought she should be able to. She was a witch, she should be able to see magic, right? Unless maybe pushing all the magic away from her was like pushing all the light away from himself and sort of blinded her, like eyes needed light to see. That might make sense, he guessed.
"Please, Ms Brightnel, Mister Westin, Mister Morris," Aunt Petunia said, far too casually (she was having fun, Harry could tell). "Have a seat." She gestured at the sofa, lowering herself onto the armchair opposite. Harry leaned against its arm, too excited to sit.
The evil Ministry wizards did as they were told, giving each other anxious looks as though they were children about to be scolded.
"I realise we haven't always seen eye to eye on the issue of magic, and whether my family ought to be allowed to know about it," Aunt Petunia said calmly, "but as you can see—" She waved at the coffee table, drawing their attention to the neat piles of letters stacked there. "—Harry has been invited to join your world — rejoin, I suppose I should say — and so the greatest part of our disagreement has, I believe, resolved itself. He, and my husband and son as well, should no longer be bound to suffer your meddling any time he should so much as sneeze wrong."
"Er. There are still laws, though," Malcom said. "The Reasonable Restriction of Underage—"
"Mister Westin, I was still speaking. I was simply pausing for effect."
Malcom shut up.
"We do, however, still have a problem with which we require your assistance. As you can see." She gestured at the letters again. "It seems no one has thought to inform the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts that Harry is currently living in a non-magical household, and therefore cannot be expected to respond to the school's profuse invitations 'by owl' — a duty which is, I believe, a function of your office?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Flo muttered, finally seeming to realise that Aunt Petunia was not her friend.
"Excellent. In that case, I would like one of you to go inform whoever needs to be informed that we require a representative from the school to come and explain the system. It has, after all, been twenty years since my sister was whisked off to your world, and even if I were to recall all the relevant details, I suspect it would be foolish to imagine there have been no changes in policy or procedure in the past two decades.
"I would also like one of you to carry a letter to the appropriate legal office to whom one should make a complaint of someone using magic to harass a non-magical household with this incredibly un-amusing campaign of useless letters sent to no apparent end other than to frustrate and humiliate us."
"Ah...I don't think you can—"
Aunt Petunia cut Malcom off with a sharp frown. "Oh, I realise sending obnoxious numbers of letters may not be against the law in and of itself, but surely you must see that every letter sent to a non-magical household is a letter which might go astray, fall into the hands of someone not meant to know of your little secret society — which is also a concern of your office, unless I am much mistaken." She wasn't, the Accidental Magic people were part of the Department of Law Enforcement, even Harry knew that. "And one apparently far less detectable than the occasional attempt to save oneself a concussion falling off the bed—" Actually, Dudley had bounced Harry off the bed intentionally, Harry felt that was an important detail. But yes, one of the times the Ministry meddlers had shown up had been because he'd instinctively stopped himself cracking his skull on the sharp corner of a toy chest, incidentally hovering in mid-air for about three seconds. Dudley hadn't even noticed. "—as evidenced by the fact that it was my son, not Harry, who opened the first one, technically before Harry was officially informed of the existence of your world. I do not know whether it is the Headmaster or Deputy Headmistress who is responsible for this reckless — and obnoxious — excess but I do wish to file a complaint, and I would advise your office to do the same!"
"But—"
"But me no buts, Mister Westin! As I do not have the resources to contact your government directly — despite, I might add, repeated requests to discuss your office's policies with the head of your department — you are the one point of contact I have with your world. And you will do this for me, today, if not because you owe me some restitution for your repeated invasions of my home and privacy, and violations of the sanctity of my husband and son's memories, then because whichever of you will not be delivering my messages will be remaining here until I receive confirmation from a Hogwarts representative that these letters will cease immediately, and from some official of your government confirming that they have received my complaint!"
"You can't just take us hostage, Missus Dursley!" Blake objected.
"Will you be taking the letter to Hogwarts, then, Mister Morris? Or the one to your superiors? Because I am certainly taking one of you hostage. If not you, then you must be volunteering to play courier."
Harry sniggered. It was always funny seeing Aunt Petunia put someone other than him in their place, for once. And the stunned expression on Blake's face was simply hilarious.
"Unless," she suggested, continuing with a very unimpressed look, "you are suggesting that I am not permitted to take you hostage, in which case I should like to speak to a solicitor regarding which laws I may have broken in detaining you, and possibly someone from the diplomatic corp regarding whether they actually apply to non-magical citizens of the United Kingdom. That might take some time, though, since I would want to speak to someone with expertise on my side of the treaties which I understand your governing body holds with the Crown, and I expect they'll be out of the office for the weekend.
"I would, however, be very surprised if that were what you were suggesting, because it would ultimately require you to explain to a great number of people how, exactly, a muggle housewife and an untrained ten-year-old wizard managed to get the drop on three supposedly competent, fully-qualified members of the Department of Law Enforcement!"
"You—!"
Florence cut Malcom off this time, speaking over him. "Just drop it, Malcolm. You go take her complaint to Bones. Blake, go see if you can find someone to come down from the school, and I'll explain the Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the Muggle Protection Statutes while we wait. I trust that will be acceptable, Missus Dursley?"
Aunt Petunia's eyes narrowed. "Can you do that teleporting thing without your wands?"
"Ah...no?" Malcom said, exchanging a confused look with his fellow wizards.
"Then I want your word that you'll do nothing other than teleport out of here when Harry lets you go. None of that stunning, memory-wiping nonsense, if you please!"
Ooh, good catch. Harry was pretty sure he could stop a spell the same way he was stopping the wizards doing magic right now, just push all the magic away from himself, but it wasn't as though he'd ever had an opportunity to test it, so.
"You have our word, Missus Dursley," Flo assured her, her tone implying that Aunt Petunia was being paranoid.
"I'll have your word individually — and precisely, Ms Brightnel, swearing on your magic, because I'm not certain unfeeling bureaucratic cogs such as yourselves have any honour by which to bind you."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop about three degrees as the wizards took offence to her mistrust. "I don't think you realise how insulting—" Malcolm began, but Aunt Petunia cut him off.
"I think I realise precisely how insulting I'm being, Mister Westin. And I think it not an unreasonable request, and one which you would easily agree to were you not planning to knock us out as soon as Harry allows you to do magic again. Your refusal to do so suggests that I am correct in my assessment of your utter lack of integrity, and so we are at an impasse," she informed them, with an entirely uncompromising glare.
"I can do this all day," Harry volunteered.
Surprisingly, it was Blake who cracked first, giving a disgusted huff. (Harry had been guessing it would be Flo.) "Fine. I swear upon my magic that, when your nephew allows me to do so, I will apparate out of your home and deliver your thrice-cursed letter, and not try to curse or otherwise incapacitate either of you."
"Blake!" Malcolm hissed, as though his colleague making the only reasonable choice here had somehow betrayed him, breaking ranks.
"Oh, just give her your word, Malcolm. Did you ever meet Lily Evans? Clearly stubborn bitch runs in the family!"
"I'll choose to take that as a compliment, Mister Morris," Aunt Petunia said smugly.
Malcolm, pouting, swore his own vow, Aunt Petunia gave them their letters, and Harry let the men leave with sullen, embarrassed pops.
"So, Ms Brightnel. Can I offer you tea while we wait?"
It was almost an hour and a half before Malcom returned with the head of his department, Director Amelia Bones. Not that Aunt Petunia knew her by sight or could confirm her identity or position, but she seemed to agree that the letters were at the very least unreasonable, and they were still arguing about whether the Department of Law Enforcement and Magical Britain as a whole owed the Dursleys — and every other normal family with magic kids — reparations for repeatedly modifying their memories to preserve their precious Statute of Secrecy when Blake returned as well, twenty minutes later.
The man he'd brought with him, Aunt Petunia did recognise. She paused in a the midst of a heated demand to see the actual language of the bloody treaty with Magical Britain, because she didn't believe they had the right to go around using magic indiscriminately on "muggles" and she, as a non-magical citizen of another bloody nation, refused to recognise the authority of Magical Britain's Department of Law Enforcement to simply claim that they did, to mutter, "I don't bloody well believe this," when he walked into the room.
The man, tall and sallow with lank, dark hair and a very prominent, hooked nose, took stock of the situation with a sardonic smirk. "I, on the other hand, find I'm not the least bit surprised to find Petunia Evans holding a member of the D.L.E. hostage in order to demand the presence of the fourth-most-powerful individual in our government, to give her a piece of her mind on the Statute of Secrecy. Indeed, I'm more surprised it's taken you ten years to do so."
Aunt Petunia huffed. "It's Dursley now, Severus. And it didn't take ten years for me to try, these people simply refuse to take any complaint seriously unless you have some magic to reinforce your point. Obviously I had to wait until Harry was capable enough to command some leverage against them. It is, after all, rather impossible for a 'muggle' to take a witch hostage on her own. What are you doing here?"
"I've been sent by the school to inform you that His Nibs is trapped in some interminable political meeting, and Minnie had a previous engagement with another muggleborn and her family. I dare say if she'd known it was you who so emphatically demanded her presence she would have been here in a matter of minutes, as she certainly would not miss the opportunity to fawn over your nephew and regale you with tales of your late sister's bravery and noble self-sacrifice—" Aunt Petunia snorted, trying not to laugh. "—but alas, Mister Morris failed to mention that it was Harry Potter who had managed to get the drop on him and his entire team. Speaking of which, I believe you incompetents may leave now."
Harry wasn't really sure what the man was doing, but his magic was somehow creeping through the room in spite of Harry's efforts to keep it out, through Harry's magic, disrupting his hold on the normal magic that didn't really belong to anyone. By the time the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad had looked to their boss and gotten the nod to leave, the newcomer had managed to break Harry's control enough that they actually could, just popping away without another word.
"How did you do that?" Harry demanded, scowling at him. "And who are you?"
"Harry! Manners!" Aunt Petunia snapped. "This is Severus Snape, a childhood friend of your mother's. Severus, Harry Potter."
"Apologies for my abruptness, Mister Snape," Harry grumbled. "How did you do that, sir?"
"The short answer is a freeform interference field disrupting and neutralising your influence on the ambient magic of the room, expressed through mind magic to circumvent your hold. The long answer would take several days to explain properly, given that you clearly have no background in magical theory to speak of. Madam Bones," he added, nodding to the Ministry witch, who was apparently much more important than Harry had realised.
"Mister Snape. Would you happen to know who is responsible for the preponderance of letters here?" she asked, gesturing at the pile on the table.
"While Minerva is nominally in charge of the recruitment process, this sort of juvenile harassment does seem beneath her, doesn't it? I suspect Albus has been having fun at Petunia's expense due to the number of letters she has sent him over the years, complaining about his high-handed decision to drop Mister Potter on her with very little explanation of anything that happened in the last few years of the war. Though of course I'm not in his confidence, and therefore I couldn't definitively confirm any such thing without using legilimency on our beloved Chief Warlock, and that would be illegal."
Madam Bones raised an eyebrow at him. "And I'm sure if I were to ask, you would have a perfectly reasonable chain of deductions to explain how you already suspect this without having legilimised him against his will."
"Of course. Everyone knows that Dumbledore was charged with assuring the safety and upbringing of the Boy Who Lived — and Bella's little brat, though that was hardly so widely publicised — by the Wizengamot at the end of the war; therefore, if Mister Potter is here, it stands to reason that Dumbledore placed him here. Knowing both Dumbledore and Petunia, and the state of her relationship with Lily in the late Nineteen Seventies, there is no chance that Dumbledore provided sufficient explanation for his actions to placate her or convince her to raise Lily's son voluntarily, and she did have an address to write to Hogwarts when we were children. If she has taken such measures as abducting your Obliviators to get your attention, I believe it is safe to assume that her previous attempts to contact him directly have gone unanswered. Dumbledore is a great fan of retaliatory actions which he finds in some way poetic and considers to be subtle, though they hardly ever actually are; therefore if Petunia has received a large number of annoying letters from someone associated with Hogwarts, I would consider it reasonable to speculate that Dumbledore is responsible for the reasons previously outlined, juvenile though they may be."
"Uh-huh," the witch said sceptically. "You're playing a dangerous game, you know, Snape."
His smirk broadened. "I couldn't possibly say what you might be referring to, Madam Bones. Though I second the notion of filing a formal complaint against the school for endangering the Statute and neglecting its treaty-obligations in failing to introduce Mister Potter to our society properly. If you choose to do so via howler during the Welcome Feast, I'll send you a copy of the memory."
"That will not be necessary, Mister Snape." She didn't even smile, though Harry was sure that was supposed to be funny. (He didn't get the joke, but he did still recognise that it was supposed to be one.) "Madam Dursley, you have my word that your complaint shall be addressed." The witch handed over a slip of paper. "This is the forwarding address for the Department of Law Enforcement. A letter addressed to the Director will find me there. I strongly encourage you to address any further questions or complaints to me directly, rather than attempt to contact Hogwarts. Unless you have a forwarding service, Snape?"
"Unfortunately, I do not. Madam Bones is far more influential than I, however," he informed Aunt Petunia. "I suspect a letter to her will be far more effective toward practically any end than a letter to myself."
Aunt Petunia sniffed. "Very well. Thank you for your time, Madam Bones."
"Of course, Madam Dursley. And thank you for bringing both the violation of reasonable precautions to preserve the Statute and the general incompetency of my Accidental Magic Reversal Squad to my attention. I assure you, both issues will be dealt with appropriately."
Harry suspected that Aunt Petunia might have just gotten Flo and her goons fired. He really couldn't bring himself to feel bad about that — even if they had just been doing their jobs, making him forget about magic like they had when he was little.
After a few more pleasantries on both sides, the witch popped away as well. Mister Snape immediately rounded on Aunt Petunia, his tone still pleasant but his smirk growing nasty. "Tuney, darling. You have ten seconds to give me one good reason not to report you for child abuse."
When Aunt Petunia did nothing but sputter in incoherent shock for about five seconds, Harry stepped in. "Child abuse? What are you talking about, Mister Snape?"
The man sighed. "I realise you are unaware of this, Mister Potter, but the way Petunia and her husband treat you is not normal. Beating children or depriving them of food, especially only one child in a household while favouring others, expecting one child to work for his keep while another doesn't — these are not considered acceptable child-rearing behaviours in muggle or magical society."
Harry frowned. Setting aside for the moment how the wizard knew about that, and why it should be any of his business... "I know it's not normal. I'm not normal. I don't like getting in trouble for breaking the rules, but I'm not stupid. I understand that's how rules work. If I followed the rules, I wouldn't be punished, I know that. Sometimes I just want to do a thing more than I want to avoid a thrashing. And Dudders is special. He can't earn his keep. We take care of him anyway because he's still part of the family."
Mister Snape's eyes narrowed disapprovingly, flicking back over to Aunt Petunia.
Before he could say whatever he was going to say, Harry added, "How do you know how Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon treat me, anyway?"
The man hesitated, which made Harry think however he knew he wasn't supposed to. And he'd said something about mind magic earlier, and legilimency, was that reading minds? It didn't sound quite right, but the meaning felt right. So, he'd read Harry's mind — or probably Aunt Petunia's, actually, because if he'd read Harry's mind he'd know Harry considered the rules to be fair, or at least fair enough. If he really didn't agree with them, he was more than capable of making the Dursleys' lives hell until they just let him do whatever he wanted. He could do magic, for God's sake! That was how the world worked, though. There were consequences for decisions and actions, to keep things — society, the universe, maybe — sort of...balanced.
"You can't accuse Aunt Petunia of anything," Harry said firmly, "because using legilimency on people against their will is illegal. You just said so. That's a good reason, even if you don't care what I think."
Mister Snape glowered at him, but didn't seem to have an argument against him.
Aunt Petunia's contribution was, "There's a difference between your worthless drunk of a father kicking the piss out of you for existing, Snape, and Vernon and myself attempting to teach Harry that he cannot cause harm to people and property without consequence. I for one, would prefer he not escalate from killing cats to killing humans, but." She sniffed.
Harry joined Mister Snape in his glaring. "It was one cat, and it probably wasn't even a cat, and it wasn't as though I was killing it for fun, it was following me!"
The adults ignored him. "Justify it however you like, Petunia. You know as well as I do that your mother would still be disappointed in you."
"Do not talk about my mother, Snape!"
"Don't talk about my father, then, Evans!"
"If you don't want me to talk about why you give a shite about my parenting, don't go sticking your enormous bloody nose into matters that are none of your business!"
"I don't give a shite about your parenting, and this has nothing to do with my father! I give a shite how you treat Lily's son! I think she would have wanted me to raise him before you! That makes it my business!"
"She probably would have wanted your bloody Dark Lord to raise him before me, Snape, that's not a high bar! I didn't ask for the job! I'm not qualified to raise a child like him, I've just been making it up as I go along and doing the best I bloody can, you self-righteous little shite! And now it's someone else's turn, so you go right back to that school and tell them to send someone who can actually explain what we're supposed to do to send him off! If the Head and his Deputy are too busy for the likes of us, find a bloody professor or something!"
"Why the hell do you think I'm here, Tuney? I'm the bloody professor who drew the short fucking straw!"
"Piss off!" Aunt Petunia scoffed. "You are not a professor!"
"Oh, I am. For my sins. Going on twelve years now." Harry was pretty sure he wasn't imagining that little note of disgust in the man's tone. And twelve years? If the professor was the same age as Harry's mother, he would have had to have started teaching when he was...nineteen? twenty?
Aunt Petunia snorted. "And whose damn fool idea was that?"
The (apparent) professor glowered into the middle distance. "A bloody idiot by the name of Lucius Malfoy, if you must know. The Dark Lord's Head of Intelligence. He wanted me in Hogwarts as a spy. The same crackpot old fool who stuck Lily's son with you for a foster mother has me over a barrel politically and prefers to keep me where he can see me, so won't let me resign."
Harry's aunt sniffed. "Serves you right, then. Why were you working for the Dark Lord in the first place? Lily wasn't, they told me he killed her."
The wizard glowered. "Because I was young and stupid and they threatened to kill her if I didn't join up, and then she went and put herself in the line of fire anyway, but it's like the bloody mob — once you're in, you can't leave. Why are we even talking about this?!"
"Because you're a fucking idiot?"
"Piss off, Petunia. Do you want me to tell you how to get Potter to Hogwarts or not?"
"Well, go on then, if you're going to!"
The wizard flipped her the bird, then turned to Harry, ignoring Aunt Petunia's expression of utter, speechless outrage. "Mister Potter. Please disregard everything you've heard up to this point."
Harry grinned. "Not a chance."
Mister Snape's — Professor Snape's, Harry supposed — only acknowledgement of his response was a tiny upward tilt of his eyes and a slightly exasperated frown. "I am Severus Snape, Potions Professor and Head of Slytherin House at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Introducing muggleborn students — magical children born to or raised in non-magical families — to magic and the idea of a Magical Britain, as well as inviting them to the school, is generally the job of the Deputy Headmistress. I've never been so unfortunate as to be tasked with said duty before, so please, by all means, ask questions if you have them, lest I leave some important aspect of the matter overlooked and unaddressed, and bear with me if I repeat some information you already know, since I've no idea how much Petunia has told you already. I presume we can dispense with the surprise, magic is real, you're a wizard part of this discussion?"
Harry nodded. "Yes, sir." Professor Snape, oddly, seemed somewhat surprised. Oddly because the fact that Harry had just taken an Accidental Magic Reversal Squad hostage did sort of argue that he knew he was magic, didn't it? He'd thought that was a joke... Aunt Petunia slipped away — if their visitor were anyone else, Harry would guess to make tea, but since he was apparently someone she'd known since they were children, and they clearly didn't much like each other, he was guessing just to take a few minutes to calm down after the excitement of the morning — so Harry offered the professor a seat with a silent gesture at the sofa.
He took it with equally little discussion. Harry, who could not count the number of times he had been told not to sit if he couldn't sit properly, and was far too excited to sit properly, continued to lean against the arm of the chair Aunt Petunia had arranged to face the sofa in planning for their encounter with the AMRS goons.
"Very well. Hogwarts is a general magical educational institution, meaning it offers a reasonable range of magical subjects through the Competency and Proficiency levels, but nothing at all in the way of traditional non-magical education — English, French, mundane maths, literature, natural sciences, non-magical history, and so on. For the most part, students are expected to be given a reasonable background in such subjects before beginning school — the majority of students are from Noble Houses, and are either tutored or home-schooled before entering Hogwarts." Honestly, Harry didn't really care whether there were normal classes or not. He was pretty good at school stuff — he tended to get top marks without really trying — but most of it was boring, and the things that weren't boring weren't interesting enough he thought he'd really miss them. Not if there were magic subjects to study instead. "The closest thing the school offers in that realm is an informal series of study groups and lectures arranged by Madam Pince, the school librarian, who attended Cambridge after graduating from Hogwarts and encourages students to at least attempt to round out their education with non-magical Competencies.
"Primary subjects include: Potions, Herbology, Charms, Transfiguration, Astronomy, History of Magic, and Defence Against the Dark Arts."
Harry had no idea what any of those subjects entailed. He could sort of guess for Potions and Herbology and Astronomy, but what was the difference between Charms and Transfiguration? and was History of Magic like History of Science, sort of how the discipline of magic developed? or just world history with secret magical countries included? Defence Against the Dark Arts sounded like the most interesting class to Harry, like some sort of self-defence class, learning how to fight with magic! It probably wouldn't be as awesome as he was imagining right now, but—
"To be perfectly frank, the last two are completely pointless. History is taught by a ghost — you need not attend if you are capable of reading the textbook — and the Defence position is cursed. No instructor has lasted longer than a single school year in the post since before I started school, and their quality tends to range from useless to presenting an active danger to the students, with perhaps one in five being halfway decent." Oh. That wasn't just you didn't really think you were going to be taught how to really fight in school, did you? disappointing, that was I already know I'm going to hate that class disappointing. Because it could be great, but... "Most students participate in study groups to learn the material required for the OWL and NEWT — the Competency and Proficiency exams — from the older students.
"Elective subjects, available beginning in third year, include: Arithmancy, Runes, Care of Magical Creatures, Muggle Studies, and Divination. Magical Theory is not explicitly taught as its own class, but rather integrated into Charms and Transfiguration lessons, as well as Potions beginning in third year." So History of Magic was probably normal, boring history, on top of being taught by a ghost. "Professor Flitwick, who teaches Charms, also attempts to include a fairly heavy focus on potential defensive uses of spells in his curriculum, to offset the invariably abysmal instruction in Defence. First years are also expected to take a one-term Flying class, which covers the basics of broom flight.
"Brooms are provided by the school — first-year students are not permitted to bring their own, for some unfathomable reason. First years are also not permitted to join the House Quidditch Teams—"
That apparently reminded him that he hadn't talked about the structure of the school, yet, since he abruptly changed the subject. "There are four school houses and/or dormitories. I am the head of Slytherin House. There are also Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor, all named after the four founders of the school. The Houses vary widely in the degree of discipline and involvement from the head of the House. I, for example, hold monthly meetings with new students, and keep a close eye on the prefects, who do much of the day-to-day work of running the House in accordance with its by-laws. At the other end of the spectrum, Professor McGonagall allows her Gryffindors to exist in an essentially unsupervised state of affairs, not unlike that portrayed in Lord of the Flies. You, undoubtedly, will end up in that House, which maintains a reputation for classical virtue and chivalry completely divorced from reality."
"What about the other two houses?" Harry asked. "And how are students divided up?" Surely they didn't just let people choose their house. If they did, probably everyone would be a Gryffindor, if they really didn't have any supervision. Also, "Not that Gryffindor doesn't sound fine from all two sentences you've told me about it, but why will I undoubtedly end up there?"
Professor Snape sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Students are sorted by an ancient magical artefact which essentially matches a child's temperament, personality, and values to those the House supposedly exemplifies. Slytherin values ambition and self-reliance above all else. We have a reputation for ruthlessness and cunning, as well as selfishness and manipulativeness. Gryffindor values idealism and action, and as I said, its reputation is one of nobility and chivalry, but in this day and age the values of the house are expressed less with knightly valour, and more through bull-headed self-righteousness. Ravenclaw is centred on curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness. Its students have a reputation for being the most academically inclined, though they are in fact often the poorest students, given as they tend to favour exploring and acquiring knowledge for its own sake rather than to fulfil a curriculum. Most of the artistic and musically-inclined students also end up in Ravenclaw. Hufflepuff values cooperation and hard work as the primary means to any end. They have a reputation for being very inclusive and welcoming, friendly and unambitious, but clannish and inclined toward gossip and social drama.
"Slytherin and Gryffindor are the two most competitive houses. Gryffindors tend to be less focused on a specific end-goal and more impulsive, and Slytherins more calculating and ambitious. There have been a relatively large number of students sorted into Gryffindor rather than Slytherin in recent decades who would technically be better suited to Slytherin, but who are not unsuited to Gryffindor and requested not to enter Slytherin for political reasons. I would expect most students who have been forced to become as self-sufficient as yourself to come to Slytherin, but you, rather perversely, seem to be otherwise unaffected by what I assure you anyone else would consider to be an abusive childhood — presumably because you clearly inherited some of the Blacks' psychological peculiarities along with your father's looks."
Wait...what?
The professor snorted. "Oh, yes, were it not for the fact that you do have Lily's eyes, I might suspect you of being the lost Black heir, rather than the lost Potter heir. As it is, I presume you are Lily's son, but sired by Sirius Black rather than James Potter."
Harry just blinked at him. He rather felt he should say something, here, he just...didn't really have anything to say. It wasn't as though he'd ever met any of these people. "Oh. Okay." He was still stuck more on the fact that, from the very little he'd been told so far, he didn't really think he sounded suited to any of the school houses, so if this "ancient magical artefact" didn't have a place for him would they roll a die, or something? flip a pair of coins? Well, that and that students could apparently request not to be put in one house or another, and he wasn't really sure why they would. "What political reasons?"
The professor raised an eyebrow in a silent question.
"You said some kids ask not to be in Slytherin because of political reasons. Why? What do school houses have to do with politics?"
Professor Snape heaved a heavy sigh. "The explanation is rather long and complicated, and unfortunately far too important not to discuss in depth, especially given your own role in the end of the war."
"O...kay?"
"...You may want to take notes."
...That was probably a good idea, especially since Aunt Petunia was probably going to want to know what happened back in Nineteen Eighty-One, and why she ended up being stuck with Harry, when she finally reappeared. He had a feeling it was all connected somehow, in the same way he had a feeling when a telemarketer was about to ring — completely irrational suspicion that almost always turned out to be right. He grabbed the little pad of paper normally used to take telephone messages and a pencil — Dudley (or possibly Uncle Vernon) had broken the lead and not sharpened it again, and Harry had no idea where the sharpener was, so he had to magic it back to a point — and finally actually sat down, plopping unceremoniously into the chair so he could write on the arm. "Okay, I'm ready. Go ahead."
The professor, staring at him with a positively inscrutable expression, seemed to shake himself out of a sort of reverie to say, "Very well. I believe the standard point at which the history books begin, when discussing the war and the rise of the Knights of Walpurgis which preceded it, is either the Nineteen Seventy Christmas attack on the Ministry Holiday Ball and subsequent retaliatory attack on the Bacchanalia in Nineteen Seventy-One, or the Festa Morgana Riot on Yule of Nineteen Seventy-Three, depending on the political sympathies of the author and whether they wish to portray the Death Eaters or the Ministry as the primary instigators of the war..."
(Yeah, Harry was going to say taking notes was a good idea...)