Author's Note: the characters of the Harry Potter novels are the property
of their creator, J.K. Rowling, and are used here without her knowledge
or permission. All other characters property of the author. 53,000 words.
January, 2002. Adult situations, mild sexual content and violence.
****************************************
Chapter Four – Another Orphan.
He woke to a
banging on the door, and Ron Weasley's voice saying, "No answer; he must
have gone out."
"Someone would
have seen him," Hermione's voice replied. "You know he can't go anywhere
unnoticed."
"Some people
have all the luck," Ron muttered.
Harry roused
himself, groggy and wincing at the clear light streaming through slats
in the shutters. His head gave a sickly thump as he sat up.
"Ron," he called,
his throat dry. "Hermione. I'm here." He swung his legs out of bed and
found his glasses.
"He's still
in bed, the sluggard," Ron said.
"Harry, it's
nearly ten," called Hermione. "You were supposed to meet us at Flourish
and Blotts first thing this morning to buy our books."
Harry squinted
at the clock. True enough, it was almost ten, His head felt stuffed with
wool and his eyes were grainy. A peculiar taste coated the inside of his
mouth and made him suddenly desperate for his toothbrush.
"Give me five
minutes," he said. "I'll be right down."
The mirror tsked
at him as he leaned close, squinting at his reflection. "No wonder, staying
out half the night," it chided him.
He ignored it,
washed, and brushed his teeth. Didn't need to shave because he'd done so
just yesterday, as the smooth skin and healing nicks attested. He wet his
unruly hair, combed it into submission – knowing that it would be unruly
again before an hour was up – and got dressed.
Five minutes
later, he was downstairs in the bustling common room of the Leaky Cauldron,
where he just had time to wolf down a few pieces of toast before Hermione
dragged them out to do their shopping.
The summer had
wrought changes in his friends, too. Like Harry, Ron had shot up a few
inches, except in Ron's case it was a matter of too many too soon. He was
gangly as a scarecrow, his bony wrists jutting well beyond the length of
his sleeves. His bright red Weasley hair was the same, but the straggling
moustache Ron was endeavoring to cultivate was new. It crouched on his
upper lip like a thin caterpillar.
Hermione, Harry
was mildly disturbed to notice, had grown in different directions. Their
first few years at Hogwarts, only the fact that she slept in a different
dormitory was any reminder that she was a girl. Not until the time she'd
come dressed up to the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum had he and Ron really
been aware of the difference. Now, it was impossible to miss. Her flyaway
brown hair framed a quite pretty face, and when she turned scoldingly to
brace her hands on her hips at what was taking them so long, she bounced
in ways Harry hadn't associated with Hermione Granger before.
"We've got a
new instructor this year," she said as they joined the throngs of excited
Hogwarts students filling the streets.
"No!" Ron cried,
aghast. "I thought she was staying on! Oh, it's not fair, it's bloody unfair."
"Not her,"
said Hermione impatiently. "She's still on."
"Is she ever,"
Ron said in relief.
"I saw her last
night," Harry blurted. He rubbed his temples. "Just for a minute."
"What did she
look like?" Ron leaned eagerly toward him. "Was she still … you know …
vavoom?"
Hermione clucked
her tongue and rolled her eyes. "In case either of you are interested,
it's a new Muggle Studies teacher we've got this year."
"Yeah, yeah,"
Ron said. His attention was all on Harry.
"There's not
much to tell," Harry said. He related what had gone on the night before,
having witnessed Ophidia Winterwind's Animagus transformation, and the
conversation she'd had with the scaled man in the alley. "I don't know
what she gave him, but it was like he'd been under a hex and whatever she
gave him dispelled it. She said she was looking forward to the start of
term."
"Aren't we all!"
"Some of us
for better reasons than others." Hermione swept through the door into Flourish
and Blotts, her class list held tight in one hand.
Harry and Ron
shrugged at each other and followed. The interior of the bookstore was
cluttered and crowded, and they had to wait quite a while to purchase their
new textbooks. Hermione grumbled something about how there wouldn't have
been such a line if they'd come early as planned, but Harry didn't catch
most of it and refused to feel guilty. He'd gotten to sleep late, and he'd
been very tired. What of it?
As they left,
their cauldrons loaded down with copies of The Standard Book of Spells:
Grade 6 and the others on their list, they ran into Ron's sister Ginny.
Literally; she collided with Harry and pulled away with a blush and a giggle.
Ron glowered.
"Hullo, Ginny."
"Hi, Ron, Harry,
Hermione."
An awkward silence
fell. At the end of last year, Ginny Weasley had made it onto the Gryffindor
House Quidditch team, as a Chaser. Ron, having also tried out but not been
chosen, took it badly. His twin older brothers Fred and George, now graduated
and working hard to make a go of their joke shop, had been steadfast Beaters.
Ron's secret dream, known only to Harry and the Mirror of Erised, had been
to become captain of the team, winner of the cup, Head Boy, and so forth.
His progress toward that dream had been sadly unsuccessful, and to have
his little sister breeze through the tryouts was a bitter pill to swallow.
Harry felt awkward
around Ginny for other reasons, mostly because she was always so awkward
around him. She'd had a terrible crush on him for years, but when it came
to noticing that his friends were girls, he was worse off with Ginny than
even with Hermione.
"Get out of
the way, Potter, you're blocking the door."
The familiar
sneering tones of Draco Malfoy brought instant fists to Harry's hands.
He turned. On the train from Hogwarts at the end of term, Malfoy and his
cronies had been on the receiving end of some messy Transfiguration spells.
All the damage had been repaired, but clearly Draco hadn't learned to keep
his distance. Or else his pride wouldn't let him.
Except there
was a new person in Draco's usual crowd. In addition to Crabbe and Goyle
– a pair of thick-bodied and thicker-witted thugs whose fathers, like Draco's,
were high among Voldemort's supporters – and Pansy Parkinson, who was wearing
too much make-up and hanging on Draco's arm like a gangster's moll from
an old movie, there was a tall boy Harry didn't recognize … although something
about him seemed familiar.
This newcomer
had to be seventeen or eighteen at least. He was much more powerfully built
than Crabbe or Goyle, and his eyes were watchful and cold. If he was of
Slytherin House, like the rest of his companions, Harry couldn't remember
having noticed him before.
Maybe it was
the addition of this big, formidable friend that gave Draco the bravado
to confront Harry like this. He must have figured that the new guy would
give the others pause.
Tension prickled
in the air between their two groups for a moment, but then a colossal explosion
blew out the window of Ollivander's wand shop. Sparks and rockets of fire
shot into the street. People ducked for cover, some casting quick warding
or defensive spells. When all was quiet again, a bare patch had been cleared
on the cobblestones around a small boy. He looked to have been flung backward
out of the shop. Lazy curls of smoke rose from his body and the wand in
his hand was fading slowly from white-hot to a dull amber glow.
"Another Mudblood
trying to make like a proper wizard," said Pansy, cutting her gaze at Hermione.
"There really should be stricter laws."
Harry pushed
past them, letting the Slytherin bunch enter the bookstore. He moved through
the crowd – most of them were chuckling and shaking their heads now – and
reached the boy just as Mr. Ollivander himself came out of his smoking
front door.
"No, no, that
one won't do," he said to the semiconscious boy. With a deft, hurried motion,
like someone flicking away a stinging insect before it could do harm, he
pinched the wand from the boy's hand.
"You all right?"
Harry asked.
The boy coughed
and opened his eyes. They were an unusual shade of blue-violet, and dazed.
He had dark blond hair and his clothes were shabby and ill-fitting. "What
happened?"
"A simple mishap,"
Ollivander said kindly. He smiled at Harry. "Sometimes finding the right
wand takes a bit of trial and error."
Harry helped
him up. "You're a first-year?" He asked because the boy could have passed
for eight or nine, not eleven, the usual age for new students at Hogwarts.
"I got this
letter and this list," said the boy, showing Harry a familiar style of
envelope written on with familiar green ink. It was addressed to "Mr. Jeremy
Upwood, Eighth Bed From the Window, Second Floor, Northrup Home for Orphaned
Boys, Farnsworth."
"A Muggle orphanage,"
Hermione said quietly, and Harry knew she was thinking the same thing he
was. Jeremy Upwood wouldn't be the first to come from that sort of background.
But there was nothing at all reminiscent of Tom Riddle in Jeremy's perplexed,
pink-cheeked face.
"Are you getting
on all right?" Harry asked.
Jeremy stared
goggle-eyed at a trio of passing witches, cackling hags identical except
for the color of their hair. From there, his eyes moved to the display
of owls hooting on their perches outside of the exotic creature shop, and
then to a waddling goblin scurrying by on bank business. He looked even
more lost and bewildered than Harry had when he'd suddenly been thrust
into this world, and at least then Harry had had Hagrid to guide him and
explain on the way.
"It's all for
real, isn't it?" Jeremy held up his list. "And I'm really going to need
all of these things. A cauldron and all."
Hermione thumped
on the side of hers. "We've all got them. Don't worry. It isn't as strange
as it seems. I was raised Muggle too, and didn't know about any of this
until I got my letter."
"Me either,"
Harry said. "You'll catch on."
A delicate thought
came to him, a subject he was always hesitant to bring up around the Weasleys,
but Ron had drifted over to gawk at the Skyblazer, a new broom in the window
of the sporting goods shop, and Ginny was headed inside to pick up a pamphlet
on Chaser techniques.
"Do you have
enough money?" he asked Jeremy.
"I think so.
There was a fund left from my mum and dad, which the orphanage couldn't
touch. Was to pay for my schooling. So when the letter came, they turned
it over to me and showed me the door. I guess they were afraid. Didn't
believe it, or didn't want to."
"How long ago
did your parents die?" Hermione asked gently.
"When I was
a baby," Jeremy said. "In a car crash."
Harry jerked
as if jabbed with a pin. He'd been told something similar about his parents,
and look how that had turned out. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask
Jeremy if he'd been left with a scar from the so-called crash, but just
then he sensed someone watching him. He took a casual look around.
The tall, older
boy who'd been with Draco Malfoy was leaning against the wall in front
of Flourish and Blotts. He had his arms crossed on his broad chest, and
his eyes glittered beneath low, dark brows. When he saw Harry seeing him,
he didn't even look away or pretend his gaze had happened upon them in
passing. He tipped his hand at Harry in an insolent way, and a hard smile
raised one corner of his mouth.
"Who's that,
do you know?" Harry murmured to Hermione. She had been going over Jeremy's
list, pointing out to him the various shops he'd want to visit.
"I've never
seen him before," she said. "Certainly not with Malfoy."
"He must be
a Slytherin, though. He's got the look."
She nodded.
Ron came back, puffing and flushed with excitement. "They're having a raffle,"
he announced. "For the Skyblazer. I put my name in. But Harry?"
"Yeah, Ron?"
"Don't buy any
tickets, what do you say? Let my luck have a chance for once."
"Sure," said
Harry. "I've got my Firebolt, anyway. It's a few years old, but I'd be
willing to bet it's still the fastest broom on the market."
"Oh, they're
going to start talking Quidditch in a minute," Hermione said. In the past,
she'd been able to ignore them by talking about other things with Ginny,
but now that Ginny was a Chaser, as far as Hermione was concerned all three
of them were helpless.
"Thanks for
your advice," said Jeremy. He dusted himself off and marched toward Ollivander's,
where Mr. Ollivander stood waiting for him with a pleasant, though moderately
apprehensive, smile.
"See you at
school," Harry called after. Had he looked so small and alone the first
time he'd gone into that shop? The wand that had chosen him, with its core
of phoenix feather, rested in his pocket. He wondered what Jeremy would
wind up with.
Ginny, to Ron's
disgust, entered her name in the raffle for the Skyblazer too. She insisted,
when he complained, that she had to have a decent broom, that Fred's old
Cleansweep Seven might have been fine for him but she was a Chaser, not
a Beater.
"Rub it in,
why don't you?" Ron said bitterly.
Lugging cauldrons
filled with books, quills, various noisome and icky ingredients for Potions
class, they finished their shopping and got a table in the shade outside
a delicatessen. Harry always missed wizardly fare when he was with the
Dursleys. Once, on one of the rare occasions that Uncle Vernon had taken
the family to dinner and permitted Harry to come along, he'd made the mistake
of asking the waitress for pumpkin juice, and almost had to spend the rest
of the evening sitting alone in the car.
They ate sandwiches
and sipped juice and waved to their various classmates when someone familiar
went by. Harry nearly choked on a bite when he saw Cho Chang, the girl
he was secretly – or not-so-secretly – interested in. Cho was a seventh-year
now, and Harry knew that if he didn't ask her out this time, he'd never
have another chance.
But how could
he? Two years ago, Cho had been seeing Cedric Diggory, the Hufflepuff Quidditch
captain and one of the champions chosen to participate in the Triwizard
Tournament. He'd died in the course of that, murdered by Voldemort in a
fate surely meant for Harry instead. Nobody had ever come right out and
said that it was all because of Harry that poor Cedric had been there in
the first place, but Harry's own guilt was worse than any amount of blame
from others.
Last year, Harry
had stayed far away from Cho, respecting that she was in mourning for Cedric
and wouldn't want anything to do with the one responsible for his death.
He was glumly realizing now that a year probably wasn't enough, that ten
years might not be, that he may as well write Cho off entirely. It wasn't
as if she'd ever seemed to return his interest, or shown anything other
than politeness toward him.
He sighed into
his glass, stirring ripples on the surface of the pumpkin juice. Funny
… at the time of the tournament and the Yule Ball, the idea of having to
ask a girl to go with him had seemed like the most daunting and awful task
he'd faced. Now, though, he kind of liked the idea. Girls were, well, nice
to look at.
Of course, his
and Ron's brilliant treatment of Parvati and Padma Patil had probably done
them in. They'd virtually ignored their dates, and word of it was all over
Hogwarts. All over Beauxbatons, too. Harry's chances of getting either
of them, or any other girl in his year, to go out with him were roughly
equivalent to his chances of making friends with Professor Snape.
Thinking this
made him look at Ginny. She would go to a dance with him, of that
he hadn't a doubt. But she was Ginny. Ron's little sister. It would
be like going with his own sister, if he had one. And as for Hermione …
Harry gave up.
Girls might be nice to look at, and plenty of them might be good friends
and clever and funny and all, but the business of asking them out was just
too much trouble.
** |