Chapter two - If you would come with me
The first thing Harry did, when he read his name on the odd, thick paper, was hiding it away in his closet-room. He couldn't open the door, it was always locked, whether he was inside or not. But it did have a grate-like slit, with tall but narrow openings that could be slid closed. On the way back to the kitchen with his aunt and uncle's mail, he slid the letter through one of the openings, careful not to break his stride. His family was always wary and attentive about anything he did that might be 'freakish'.
As he entered the kitchen and gave Vernon his mail, he carefully looked over both his aunt and uncle, checking for anything that might indicate they had heard the surprisingly heavy letter hit the floor inside his room. Luckily, it seemed like they hadn't noticed anything. As he went back to his day, starting with completing the absolute buffet that was a Dursley breakfast, all he could think about was the letter, waiting for him to read.
That night, when Harry was sure all but him were snoring away, he lit his dangling lightbulb and opened his letter.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
Order of Merlin, First Class
Grand Sorc.
Chf. Warlock
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards
Dear Mr. Potter
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on 1. September. We await your owl by no later than 31. July.
Yours sincerely
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
Harry stared, mouth agape. What? Wizards? Witchcraft? A heavy paper fell out of his loose grip, directing his focus to the list of supplies to go to what was, apparently, a bloody magic school.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
UNIFORM
First-year students will require:
Three sets of plain work robes (black)
One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear
One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)
One winter cloak (black, with silver fastenings)
Please note that all pupil's clothes should carry name tags.
COURSE BOOKS
All students should have a copy of each of the following:
The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1), by Miranda Goshawk
A History of Magic, by Bathilda Bagshot
Magical Theory, by Adalbert Waffling
A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration, by Emeric Switch
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, by Phyllida Spore
Magical Drafts and Potions, by Arsenius Jigger
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, by Newt Scamander
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, by Quentin Trimble
OTHER EQUIPMENT
1 wand
1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)
1 set of glass or crystal phials
1 telescope
1 set of brass scales
Students may also bring, if they desire, an owl OR a cat OR a toad.
PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS
ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICK
Yours sincerely,
Lucinda Thomsonicle-Pocus
Chief Attendant of Witchcraft Provisions
Harry put aside the letter and put his head between his knees, deciding to take a small time-out and get his breath back. A good couple of deep breaths later, a massive grin stretched across his face. This was it! This was how he got everything he wanted! This was how he fulfilled his promise!
Obviously, what he had been doing was magic! It seemed stupidly obvious in hindsight. Teleporting? Mysteriously forcing an unlocked door to remain closed? His heart skipped a beat. Talking to snakes..? Of course it was magic.
Feeling his heartbeat speed up, he took another deep breath, before picking up the letter again. He needed to figure out how to do this, because there was absolutely no way that the Dursleys were going to help him with it.
.
.
.
Did he just… run away? If he could find wherever these people lived, wherever witches and wizards lived, because surely, these people lived somewhere. But no, he was only ten, nearing eleven, and going around by himself, let alone living by himself, would cause all too many questions. And he really didn't want to get into his living situation with the Dursleys. And more importantly, how did he find them? Judging by the Dursleys, it wasn't exactly something he could go around and ask about. It would only get more people on his case about his 'freakishness'.
He reread the letter. 'We await your owl no later than 31. July'? He was expected to give a reply within 2 weeks? And an owl? Where was he going to find an owl, let alone one trained for what was apparently, a postal service? He froze. The letter had had to arrive somehow, and since they asked for an owl, he very much doubted it had arrived with the normal, ordinary mailman. Maybe the owl was still outside?
Focusing, he popped out of his room, and out by the bushes that framed the front yard of 4 Privet Drive. Harry looked around carefully. He didn't expect it to be easy to find an owl in the middle of the night. He knew they were nocturnal, so they were likely very good at hiding.
That presumption lasted all of five seconds, until he swept his eyes over his uncle's car. There, sitting on top of the bars for securing luggage on the roof, was a big brown owl. It stared right at him, gave a soft hoot, before it landed gently in front of him with a soft flutter of its wings and stuck out one of its legs.
"Ah, sorry? I don't have a letter to give you right now, can you wait a little bit?"
The owl stared at Harry, and he got a strange feeling it was annoyed with him. He could even see why, kinda. It had waited outside his house the whole day already. He hunched his shoulders slightly, and gave it an apologetic look.
"Just wait for a couple of minutes, I'll be right back with a letter ok?"
The owl just stared for a short while, before it hooted again, put its leg down and hid its head under its wing. Taking that as confirmation that it would wait, Harry popped back into the house, immensely glad that he had continued to practice his teleporting until it was completely silent. He stared around his uncle's small home office, which doubled as his aunt's arts & crafts and fancy writing room. He didn't really know what it was they did in here, but he knew it had fancy paper, a fancy blue-ink pen and fancy envelopes. Which was exactly what he needed.
Finding the supplies he needed, he stopped dead in his tracks. Who was he supposed to write to? The headmaster? The deputy headmistress? The.. chief attendant of witchcraft provisions? Harry didn't rightly know, but he decided on the deputy headmistress, Minervra McGonagall. The headmaster felt like going overboard, especially when he just needed some help finding wherever it was these people… lived? Did stuff?
He wasn't going to write to the chief attendant of the something something. The title seemed weird to him and it also sounded like a fancy way of saying the woman was in charge of school supplies. Deputy headmistress also sounded too fancy to him, if he was honest, but at that point he had run out of options, and the person he wrote to had to have some authority, right? To tell people to go help him?
Hello Mrs. McGonagall
I got your letter, but I don't really know…
It was two days later, and nothing had happened. Harry had kept his letter and list of supplies hidden from his family, determined to keep it to himself, even if it was seeming more and more like some weird joke. Even if he had sent his own letter of with the annoyed owl 'to Mrs. Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts'. Training an owl to take and fly around letters seemed a little out there for a joke, but he would never again underestimate the lengths Dudley and his gang would go to to mess with him. Not after the pigeon-lunch incident.
As he stewed in frustration over the nothingness that had happened with regards to his magical school, his focus on the pan of bacon in front of him slipped. So too, did his fingers, and the pan went clattering to the edge of the stove and then to the floor, sending searingly hot bacon and fat spraying all over him. But also, as it happened, on the floor, the cupboards and Dudley.
The giant whale that was his cousin immediately started screaming in pain, clawing at the small bit of bacon-fat that had landed on the back of his hand. The fact that all the tears and every cry was the dictionary definition of 'crocodile tears' didn't matter, not that Harry expected it to at this point. So he stood frozen, looking at the mess, and prepared himself for the punishment that he knew was fast on its way.
"Boy! What in the bloody hell do you think you're doing?! Tossing our breakfast on the floor?! Throwing boiling fat at my son?! Get over here!"
Vernon's yelling was exactly as Harry was expecting, and he did his best to follow his uncle's rough movements as he was dragged into the living room. Vernon threw him at the tortured armrest of the main couch, then marching over to large window facing the main street of Privet Drive. He quickly drew them across, before turning around and undoing his belt. In the kitchen, Harry could hear Petunia's largely futile attempts to soothe the still wailing Dudley.
"I swear to God, boy. You keep trying to mess with my family, my good, normal, ordinary family. Have you not had enough whippings? Beatings?"
Harry didn't react, he knew full well that his uncle took a great deal of pleasure in 'beating the freakishness out of him'. He grit his teeth as Vernon lifted his shirt up over his head, and then kept his mouth firmly clenched shut as the first hit from the belt hit his back with a loud smack! one-two-three hits more hammered into his back as Harry held his tongue, before they were interrupted by the doorbell.
Vernon gave an incensed hiss for him to stay where he was and keep still, before putting the belt down and going to the door. Petunia hadn't even looked away from Dudley, who was still balling his eyes out.
"Yes?" his uncle's voice echoed from the entryway, following the distinct sound of a door being roughly opened. There was a small bead of silence, as whoever had rung the bell seemed to absorb the noise that rang from the kitchen.
"Hello, mr. Dursley, my name is Minerva McGonagall. I'm Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I'm here regarding the questions your nephew mr. Potter had regarding his acceptance letter and associated school shopping."
The voice was feminine, crisp and most of all, deeply unimpressed. Harry felt an increadible swell of joy and elation in his chest. They had received his letter! And the deputy headmistress was here to answer his questions, and maybe even help him shop for school! The elation and joy abruptly came crashing down, as his mind caught up to the fact that mrs. McGonagall hadn't told him that, but his uncle. Vernon was going to kill him. It was at that moment, some long couple of seconds after McGonagall had finished speaking, that the predictable explosion happened.
"WHAT?! You're telling me, that not only do you come here and spout about witchcraft and wizardry and other such freakishness. But that little freak got a letter from you and replied? AND BROUGHT YOU HERE?!"
The sheer rage in his uncle's voice nearly made Harry whimper. He had a long history of pissing his uncle off, and as such, also an extensive library of tirades he'd been exposed to, but the tone, volume and sheer blood-boiling rage in his uncle's voice was greater than anything he had ever heard before. His heart sank, as he realized Vernon might actually kill him this time.
"Excuse me? Freakishness? You called Harry Potter a freak?" The sheer incredulity and affront in the deputy headmistresses voice barely got to register, before there was a muted swoop-sound, followed by the panicked squealing of a pig.
"Vernon? VERNON?! What have you done to him you-" his aunt was abruptly cut off, as the pigs squealing was joined by the distressed whining of a horse. How a horse fit into the not-very-large kitchen, Harry had no idea.
"Mom? DAD?! What did you do to them, w-wi-witch!" His cousin had stopped crying, and instead immediately progressed to panicked blubbering after his question. That too, abruptly stopped.
"I have simply put them under a temporary transfiguration, young man. Now tell me, where is mr. Potter?"
The question was followed by his cousins bizarrely calm voice,
"Um. He's in the living room. Dad was punishing him for spilling breakfast on the floor and throwing fat on me." Another bead of silence followed the incredibly calm answer, before footsteps sounded, heading towards the living room. Harry abruptly realized he was still leaning over the armrest of the couch, with his shirt over his head exposing his back.
He scrambled to his feet and frantically struggled with the oversized shirt, trying to get it back down over his body before the magical woman came in and saw. He was turning around while fumbling with his shirt, when he heard a gasp from the divide between kitchen and living room. He flushed as he finally managed to get the shirt down, pointedly not looking the elderly woman in the eyes.
There was a moment of silence, as they each took each other in. Minerva McGonagall was a tall and, Harry thought, pretty strict looking woman. She had black hair combed back in a tight bun, and wore a dark-gray pantsuit. He had no idea what she thought of him, but her strict expression softened somewhat as she looked at him.
"Mr. Potter, my name is Minerva McGonagall. I'm the one whom you wrote to two days ago, and I was originally here to answer your questions and take you to Diagon Alley for your school shopping. Seeing the state of things here, I will most certainly not just be doing that."
Harry stared at her, thoughts blank.
"If you would come with me, I'll help see you gone from here. I'm quite certain you won't be returning."
Harry started, looking at her questioningly. She was just going to… remove him?
"Err, mrs. McGonagall? What do you mean..?"
"I'll explain everything momentarily, mr. Potter. Now, please collect your things from your room, then we'll be on our way. I'll help you with anything you need to get set up for school, as well as a temporary place to stay, before we find you somewhere you can live while not at Hogwarts."
Harry stayed still, staring at her. What? He started when he saw her raising her eyebrow, then walked through the kitchen, where a miniature horse stood, went through the doorway to the entryway, where a pig stood squealing, and looked blankly at the door to his closet-room.
"Um, mrs. McGonagall? My uncle Vernon had the key to my room," he said, pointing to the door. McGonagall made a low, strangled sound, before drawing a stick, wand?!, from somewhere in her sleeve. She tapped the padlocked door once, and it sprang open to reveal his modest accommodations. There was another low, strangled sound that Harry ignored as he collected what few things that mattered to him.
The few decent pieces of clothing he had, and a childish and badly made sketch of an adder snake he had drawn the night his first and only friend had died. Turning around, he followed McGonagall out of the house, where she gave two sharp flick-flick of her wand. He saw another piece of that thick, off-white paper appear, before it folded into a bird and fluttered off in a random direction. Harry could only stare.
"Take my hand, mr. Potter, and we will be away from here."
He did as he was told, and with a small, recognizable pop! they were gone from 4 Privet Drive.
