Reviews

frankieu

You're welcome and we'll see about the drug trade.

Alan

He will be looking into going after the cartels. That is something to do when he has more experience with magic.

Carthienes

That is a brilliant idea and I decided to make use of it in this chapter.

sandmanwake

I think having Hermione as the only child of two parents who are not very good at being parents makes sense. I don't mean bad as in abusive in any way, I just get the impression that Hermione isn't that close to them given that during the course of the series she spends less and less time with them.

Of course, she cares about them, she wouldn't have sent them off to Australia otherwise, and that clearly upsets her, but she isn't really part of their world, she became part of the magical one. You can tell by how she spends her summers in the wizarding world and doesn't go home for Xmas often in the books.

Book 1 - Christmas with parents.

Book 2- She spends the summer with her parents, but she spends Christmas at Hogwarts so that the trio can use the polyjuice potion to go spy on Draco. She didn't need to be there for that. No mention of her parents visiting her in the hospital wing.

Book 3 - She spends most of the summer with her parents but she's left with the Weasleys who take her to King's Cross. The Grangers were there for the fight as Malfoy comments on Arthur Weasley associating with Muggles, yet her parents just leave her with these people which comes off as wrong to me. She spends Christmas at the school which we know because that's when Harry gets his firebolt and Hermione informs a teacher. Why she is there at the school is never explained.

Book 4 - She spends some of the summer holidays with her parents but goes to the Weasleys for the world cup sometime in August. She arrived at the Burrow before Harry does and he's the one who should want to get there as soon as possible. She spends Christmas at Hogwarts, this time she has an excuse as she wants to attend the Yule Ball.

Book 5 - She's already at Grimmauld Place when Harry arrives. We get the impression that she and Ron have been there for some time. Christmas is also spent at Grimmauld place. Could be for protection.

Book 6 - Harry spends two weeks at the Dursleys before coming to the Burrow, and when he arrives, Hermione is already there and Mrs Weasley says that she arrived the day before yesterday. She does actually go home for Christmas that year despite the danger to Muggleborns.

Book 7 - She's with the group that picks Harry up right before his birthday, but we don't know when she modified her parents' memories and left. I wonder if she did that during her sixth year after she turns seventeen at least in the books series.

Overall she spends very little time with her parents or any other family she has in the Muggle world if she even has any. I can't help wondering why.

Threatening someone like Vernon with violence would likely lead to him lashing out more at Harry.

There's no reason he can't go after drug cartels and look for buried treasure since both will help him to practice his magical skills.

Magical humans in this setting lack both common sense and knowledge of the muggle world since for most wizards and witches the muggle world might as well be on a separate planet sometimes. There are also likely to be laws limiting what a wizard or witch can do in the Muggle world.

Crossworld 1 - Harry Potter

Part 26

Number Four Privet Drive. Little Whinging.

Petunia Dursley was not a happy woman, she was in fact a little scared.

"We're supposed to be protected from those freaks" she whispered.

Her husband hadn't told her right away about what had happened at work, and she didn't blame him for that as he'd only been trying to protect her, but with her sister's son needing to return to their home this summer, Vernon hadn't had much of a choice when it came to telling his wife about what had happened.

He'd needed to tell his wife about how one of the freaks had purchased the Grunnings Drill Company and how this Hiddleston was threatening them. If they didn't treat the boy better boy then Vernon would at the very least lose his job.

"Can't you find another job?" she asked.

If only it were that simple.

"Not one that pays nearly as well" answered Vernon "There aren't that many management positions in this area and Hiddleston could easily blacklist me. We'd have to move far away and we can't move".

The protections of this house were on this building they wouldn't move with them. The letter from Dumbledore had been precise about that.

"It can't be legal for this Hiddleston to threaten you" stated Petunia "We need to contact someone. I'll get the boy to write to his Headmaster".

The look on his face made it clear that Vernon didn't think that was a good idea.

"And what is the Headmaster of some school going to do about a business matter?" asked her husband "And I checked, Pet, Hiddleston really does own the company, it's legal and he can sack me if he wants, even from in prison, and that's assuming the freaks would even care".

Petunia could remember her sister mentioning how powerful Dumbledore was, but he was just a school teacher and this wasn't the world of those freaks.

"We'll just go along with what Hiddleston wants," said Vernon "The boy is only here during the summer, the rest of the time we can act as if he doesn't even exist. When he is here we'll just ignore him. We won't give him any chores, he can have his meals in his room and he can go out whenever he wants. The more he's out the better. I'll pick him up from the station and drop him off when his school starts. Aside from that, we won't have anything to do with him".

This could work. They just had to feed the boy and keep a roof over his head when he was here. There was no need to talk to him or to even look at the freak.

"As soon as he turns 18 he's out of here" Vernon was now saying "What's that six or seven summers depending on if he can find somewhere else to live before he finishes school?".

Petunia vaguely recalled that they became adults at 17 in that world, however, she wasn't sure so she didn't say anything.

"Yes," said the still somewhat upset woman "We'll do that. He'll be gone before we know it".

She could handle having an unwanted house guest for a matter of weeks in the summer.

"What about your sister?" asked Petunia.

She had never liked Marge and she was supposed to visit his summer. That would have to be avoided.

"I'll tell her that we won a holiday and that she'll have to visit around Christmas," said Vernon "The boy will stay at his school".

Yes, this could all still work out.

(Line Break)

The Chamber of Secrets. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy.

I exited the mind of the drug addict that I'd taken off the streets of London in order to use as a test subject. In this case, I was being careful as it wasn't this poor sod's fault that he'd become addicted to crack and ended up living in an abandoned house. Some poor bastards just fell through the cracks of society and I had no desire to make their lives any worse even if it was only out of pity.

My mercy was not extended to the dealers that I had captured. Like the addicts, they were contained in cells down here in the chamber, but I was not as gentle with them and I didn't care if I left them brain damaged as long as I got what I wanted. These people preyed upon the unfortunate so I had no sympathy for them.

After discussing matters with Cortana I had decided to expand my plans in this area and look more into the drug trade. From the minds of the dealers, I was getting much better ideas about how organised crime actually worked in this country.

With this information, I could work my way up the crime world's food chain by grabbing some of those who kept supplying the street dealers. I could also find those who ran the labs and discover who kept them stocked. There would be a trail leading to the people who ran the trade.

If I worked my way up I should be able to find out who really profited from providing illegal drugs, and then I could steal their profits, and maybe even put them out of business. I would have to be very subtle about it as I couldn't have people thinking the supernatural was involved.

This world did not have superheroes or villains as far as most of the population was concerned (dark lords and heroic light wizards were unknown outside of the magical world) and if it looked as if any magic was involved then the Ministry would look into it. My illusions would serve me well should I ever go after the cartels as I could pin the blame on rivals and divert attention.

Of course, I wasn't going to go and break the cartels anytime soon. I still had a lot to learn about the magic of this world before I went out into Muggle society and started causing trouble. Treasure hunting was easier and safer for me.

Going into the minds of dealers and addicts, was not about obtaining money, as I had summer plans for that, but because I needed to master the mind arts and to better understand what I could do with them. To that end, I needed test subjects and these dregs of society would not be missed by anyone who mattered.

I didn't just look into people's minds I could change them as well as literally put ideas into people's heads. Voldemort had been able to plant a vision inside the mind of Harry Potter and while they had a special connection I didn't have to worry about distance with my test subjects, so I could make them see things.

Another thing I was working on was using compulsion charms, which could direct someone's behaviour. This wasn't the same thing as using actual mind control, which would involve dark magic, this was more along the lines of a Jedi Mind Trick, you make someone want to do something, but you didn't actually force them to act.

An example of this would be how Hermione compelled her parents to move to Australia. She had to erase their memories of her as well because otherwise the compulsion to move, which was something they might have wanted to do anyway, wouldn't have worked because they wouldn't want to just go and abandon their teenage daughter.

I wondered how they worked when it came to her extended family. In the first Deathly Hallows movie, you can see images of Hermione vanish from photographs as she works her magic, but what about official documentation? Her Muggle school records? Her birth certificate? What about her extended family? Didn't she have grandparents or cousins that might ask about her? Wouldn't the neighbours ask about her when they noticed her parents packing up?

There was still so much for me to learn about the mind arts. What I'd seen in the movies and read about in the books only scratched the surface of what was possible with magic. It was a good thing that I'd decided to limit myself to the mind arts and Defence Against the Dark Arts to really focus on or I might need to spend a century in this world.

At least I was making some progress. I could compel addicts to stop taking drugs, but due to their addiction, my compulsion charm wouldn't be strong enough. Hence why I was mixing compulsion charms with the Final Fantasy Cure spell.

From going into the mind of the addict I was currently working on, I knew that the Cure spell could handle the symptoms of addiction and combined with the charms they might just stop people from becoming addicts again once I was finished with them.

Not that I planned to go around curing all of the addicts, there were far too many in this country alone for me to handle, and someone would notice the pattern of disappearances. No, it was the experience that mattered, I cared about learning how to master my use of mind magics and if I helped a few people along the way then that was just a nice bonus.

"So the Cure Spell not only handles physical injuries it can be used to combat addiction and bring people out of comas" I summarised "but it can't counter poison or illnesses caused by diseases, only counter their effects upon the body".

I'd tested a few poisons on the drug dealers who I took captive. I could stop the poisons from killing them with the Cure Spell, but they still needed an antidote or to let the poison run its course while I kept healing them.

A few terminal ill people I'd used the Cure Spell on at a few hospitals that I'd visited this week did seem to get stronger, but that was only temporary, although I'd only been doing this for a little over a week so it was hard to tell if my Cure Spell could allow a person to battle a normally terminal disease by making them stronger.

"Status Recovery is the work of White Mages as they counter the spells of Black Mages," I said, thinking out loud "Red Mages are meant for combat, not healing, so it makes sense that we only have access to White Magic spells that are most often used in battle".

Most enemies will try to cause direct damage and not bother affecting your status. There were a few spells in this world that involved dark magic such as the Cruciatus Curse without leaving any signs of a physical injury. I'd not tested if the Cure Spell reversed that kind of damage as I wasn't willing to try casting the torture spell on any of my test subjects.

The dealers might be taking advantage of other people's weaknesses and making society worse with their actions, something I disliked them for, but I didn't truly hate them, nor did I want them to suffer too much, you had to really want to hurt someone to use the Cruciatus Curse on them. You had to enjoy causing pain.

At least the Imperius Curse was easy to use. I'd tried it on a few test subjects and then let them go with erased memories. I didn't know if I could resist the spell as I didn't have anyone I could trust to use the spell on me. Perhaps one day that would change.

"But the Cure Spell does seem to sort out problems with brain chemistry" Cortana was now saying "And physical injuries. So unless there's more wrong with the Longbottoms than we know, then you should be able to fix them".

As for the coma patients I'd used magic on, the spells didn't work right away, but it had brought my test subjects in the hospitals out of their comas, but their conditions had been due to mere physical injuries rather than dark magic.

Neville's parents weren't in comas, they were awake just not responsive to the world, but I was using a light magic spell to treat people who had been badly damaged by dark magic, so shouldn't my light magic counter that dark magic? As Uncle would say in the Jackie Chan Adventures, 'Magic must defeat magic'.

"I think the worst that could happen is nothing," I said to my AI "Unless you're some kind of undead then the Cure Spell will either fix the problem or do nothing".

Neville's parents might be alive, but they weren't really living, and if it were me I would want someone to try something rather than just leave me in that state.

(Line Break)

St Mungos. Wizarding World.

To enter these premises, one simply had to step through the window of what appears to be a condemned department store called Purge and Dowse, Ltd. The window acted as a magical gateway to the main building, much like the barrier at King's Cross Station which led to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

I assumed that there was a muggle repelling ward on the window so as to stop some random person on the street from simply leaning on the window. If so it wouldn't have affected me as I was pretty far from a muggle. In fact, by some standards, I might not even count as human since I'd be elevated to the level of an angel by Loki.

Before coming here I'd read up on this place and found out that the hospital ended up located where it is because no one could find a better place to house it. Everywhere in Diagon Alley was too small, and space expanding charms have their limits, so people came up with ideas to build it underground like the Ministry of Magic, but it was decided that underground was too unhealthy.

Eventually, a normal Muggle building was purchased so that patients could come and go while fitting in with the crowds. Not that they always did if the Quidditch World Cup was anything to go by. Lucky for the magical peoples, the mundanes of this world were very talented when it came to rationalising the strange things that they saw.

The interior looked exactly as a hospital should. I discovered this for myself after I'd scouted out this place earlier as it wouldn't have been wise to try fixing the Longbottoms if I didn't even know what room they were staying in.

Although the hospital was meant for the magical community, as with all other wizarding institutes, Muggles are admitted when they fall prey to magical attacks, at least according to the research I'd done. I assumed that the non-magical humans had their memories wiped of their time in the hospital.

Also according to the reading I'd done, there were strict guidelines concerning the gifts that are allowed into the hospital, for the safety of the patients. This did not concern me however as I was currently invisible while in my adult form so no one would search me for any contraband.

Actually, I wasn't invisible really, I was using my powers of illusion to make myself unseen, unheard and hopefully unsmelled. But in practice, I might as well be invisible.

My destination was The Janus Thickey Ward which was located on the fourth floor here at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. The ward was named for Janus Thickey, a wizard who faked his own death so he could go and live with the landlady of a nearby pub. Why anyone would name anything after someone like that I had no idea? Magical humans seemed to be insane a lot of the time.

The door was locked, to prevent the patients from wandering about in the dark I assumed, but the door to the ward was opened easily enough by a simple unlocking spell. Security was a bit of a joke here in the magical world, something I'd made a mental note of more than once.

This ward housed residents whose minds had been permanently affected by spells in ways that left them unable to live a normal life and many of them would be considered mentally ill in the Muggle world.

Which meant it was very important that I not wake anyone up. If they did awaken my masked face, thestral coat, and dark clothes, which I wore when playing the role of Kol the Red Mage, would frighten them.

These people had been through enough already. Kol's frightening image was meant to scare Death Eaters, dark magical creatures, and any dangerous mundanes that I ever went after.

I found Mr and Mrs Longbottom in a pair of beds that were next to each other. I woke them by casting the Cure Spell on them both a few times, but I was able to stop them from realising what was going on and put them back to sleep with the careful use of a wand spell.

Once I was sure that they weren't going to have fits or another negative reaction I made my out of the room and re-locked the door behind me. I was sure that if they recovered that Neville would let me know, directly or indirectly, but if nothing happened then no one was any worse off than they were before.

I was about to leave when I wondered if I should try using the Cure spell on any of the other long term patients here. Just so that it didn't look as if someone had targetted the Longbottoms. I decided to try helping some more people since I was here anyway.

(Line Break)

Park. Muggle Britain.

It was pleasant to sit in the park and eat chips while people passed by. It was actually a somewhat pleasant spring day. It was a little warmer than expected for this time of year and the chips were a nice change from Hogwarts food or whatever I made for myself when at home.

As promised I'd come to the home of Hermione Granger, expecting to study, only to be sent out of the house with the instructions to 'go out and play' as if we were eight-year-olds getting in the way.

"I think you're Dad was a little shocked to meet me" I commented.

Hermione's mother had been the dismissive one. She had been acting as if we were somehow in the way.

"I've never had any friends come to visit," Hermione told me "Never mind a boy. I don't think he believed I was telling the truth about someone from school coming over".

Thankfully I didn't think I'd have to endure her father giving me any version of the shovel speech since I still looked too young to be interested in girls that way. If he ever did threaten me in that way he regret it as I wasn't going to put up with the crap. I was only friends with Hermione because she'd nagged me into it.

"I got the sense that your mother is busy this summer," I said.

Which was a polite way of putting it.

"She's doing some sort of research involving gum disease" I was told "It has her a bit stressed".

I let that subject drop and for a while, neither of us spoke.

"So what shall we talk about?" Miss Granger asked.

Anything other her parents was a topic fine with me. I'd not gotten to know either of them, but given how Hermione seems to have very little to do with them during the book series I got the impression that they weren't close. Still much better than Harry's homelife and I could see why Hermione might prefer spending time at The Burrow as while crowded, at least there people paid attention to her.

"Umm well," I said as I struggled to think of a topic of conversation "let's start with... tell me about yourself, Hermione".

The Muggleborn witch gave me a small frown.

"Me? You already know all about me," she stated.

I shook my head in disagreement.

"Actually I don't really" I admitted.

This was true. I knew a version of her, and what that version of her would do in the future, or would have done without me involving myself in events, however, I understood very little about her as a person other than that I found her annoying most of the time.

"You would really like to know about me?" she asked.

Well, I wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise.

"Go on tell me all about the young woman known to the world as Hermione Granger" I requested "Who is she, where did she come from. What do you want out of life?".

Hermione smiled and looked very eager to begin, so she soon started to talk. And of course, she ended up talking about her love of books.

"They were my escape" Hermione confessed to me "I could just read and sort of forget about my life".

She was beginning to look sad.

"I never had friends any until Hogwarts" she admitted, somewhat tentatively "I mean there was this one girl, we were sort of friends for a while but then she moved away and we lost touch".

Keeping in touch with physically distant friends was easy enough with social media, it was just that stuff like didn't exist yet.

"The other kids used to bully me," Hermione said, "All the children in my class at primary school, none of them liked me. I was always the girl picked last for everything".

Since I'd been bullied by other kids I knew how she felt. Perhaps this was why I'd pitied her enough to let her join my little study group.

"I had no one to talk to, I just hated it," she told me "I wanted more than anything to be friends with someone!"

She let out a few years and I had to comfort her. Thankfully she did break down into a sobbing session as that would have been really awkward. I didn't know how to handle crying girls.

"I've never told anyone about that, not even my parents," she said "I just buried myself in my books".

She then managed to smile.

"At least all changed when I got to Hogwarts, I always knew there was something different about me. I was so excited when I realised I was going to be learning about magic and getting to perform magical spells" she let me know "I thought that once I got there that things would be different, that I would make friends straight away. I got that a bit wrong".

I fed her a chip and realised that I already had this girl eating out my hand, more or less. Some people were so easy to control. Let them think you care, open up a little, listen to their problems, make them think that they mattered to you and they'd do a lot for you.

Perhaps I should feel bad about how I thought about ways she could be useful to me when she was older, but I had a mission to think about, and it wasn't as if I'd actually force her to do anything.

"Come one let's go find some ice cream" I decided.

Not the healthiest thing to eat after chips, but I figured Hermione really needed something with chocolate in it.

(Line Break)

Hogwarts Express. On Route to Hogwarts.

Neville Longbottom joined me in the carriage that I had to myself for the trip back to Hogwarts. I noticed right away that Neville had a spring in his step and a grin on his face that I wasn't used to seeing.

"You look happy," I said to the Herbology lover.

I took out his wand and handed it to him. As promised I'd kept it safe so that his overly controlling Grandmother didn't break it or confiscate the wand as part of her attempt to mould Neville into his father.

"13", Cherry, with a unicorn hair," I said.

It was a nice looking wand and as he put it in his holster I noticed that there was no sign of his father's wand which he normally carried along with his new one.

"What happened to the old one?" I asked,

I had a feeling that his father would have needed his wand back. That wand had never stopped being bound to Frank Longbottom.

"Oh, didn't you read the paper?" the young man inquired.

I wouldn't use the Daily Propet as toilet paper. And I didn't need to sully my eyes with a whole issue as Neville had cut out the article that I now wished to see.

There were no surprises to be read about at least for me, according to the report the Longbottoms had, along with a few other patients, recovered for no understood reason. Speculation was that they may have recovered due to some untested treatment tested on the patients by an unknown witch or wizard. Which was somewhat close to the truth as I had tested the magical spell before using it.

I felt a little bad about not leaving some sign that it was Kol the Red Mage that had done the good deed, but that was for the best, the longer that Kol went unnoticed the more I could get done in secret. Kol would have his time in the spotlight once I began dealing with the Death Eaters.

"Congratulations," I said to the boy "I can imagine that things have been hectic at your house over Easter".

His big smile let me know it had been

"My Mum did give my Gran a bit of earful about how she treated me" Neville informed me "but then they cried and hugged. Women are strange".

We would have spoken more on the subject, only a member of the female gender entered the carriage, it was Granger.

"I'll see you later," Longbottom said.

He quickly left the carriage, he might just be eager to spread the good news, or he might be running away from his Houses' swot. I wouldn't blame him, she was a bit of a nightmare on the surface of things. I knew that deep down she was a girl who craved approval and attention as her parents had never given her any or at least I didn't think they ever had. It certainly would explain why Hermione latched onto authority figures so strongly as they did shower her with praise. Well most of them did.

"I've been trying to find out about a man called Nicolas Flamel, but he's not in any of my books," Granger said to me as she took a seat "Have you ever heard of him".

Oh, so she was looking into that only later in the year than expected. Maybe she was working alone, or with Potter and Neville. If so they hadn't mentioned anything to me. Perhaps Hagrid had dropped a hint to one of them.

"Nicolas Flamel the alchemist?" I asked.

The way she sat up straight and stared right at me was a little scary.

"You know about him," she said "Tell me everything!".

Well, I wouldn't tell her everything I knew, but I could give her some information. I wasn't worried about them getting into trouble with the stone because Voldemort wasn't at the school and they couldn't think Snape was after it as they'd never met him. As for the obstacles meant to protect the stone, they were a joke.

"He's a French wizard, a well-known alchemist and only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone, which is a legendary object with incredible powers. He worked with Albus Dumbledore to find the 12 uses of dragon's blood if I remember correctly" I told the witch "He's pretty much immortal due to something called the Elixir of Life. He and his wife Perenelle created this Elixir using the Stone".

Flamel was briefly mentioned on Albus Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog Card, but since I didn't collect those I didn't mention that.

"I've got to go," Granger said.

People seemed to be in a real rush to leave my compartment. If I'd not known better I'd wonder if there was something wrong with my personal hygiene.