Chapter 8: Cousin Max.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations belong to JK Rowling, her publishers, and Warner Bros, I'm just borrowing them. Maxwell Dursley, Lily & Virgil Potter, James Weasley, Fred Longbottom, Philippe Roche, the Sanctuary and anything else unique to this plot belong to me. If you want to borrow them, please ask first.  

Harry woke with a jerk one morning a week before his birthday, and for a while he couldn't figure out why he had – it was barely light.

"Harry!" A voice echoed out of the dark. "Harry!"

Then he realised that the voice was coming from the flickering embers of his bedroom fire, where his godfather's head was hovering over the flames.

"This better be good Sirius," Harry warned him, rubbing sleep from his eyes and glancing at his beside clock though the dim light. "It's only half-past six!"

"It could be very important Harry, critical in fact." Sirius assured him, "I need to show you something. Now."

"In your office?"

Sirius nodded, "As soon as you can. It's urgent." His head disappeared with a pop.

"What. What's all the noise?" mumbled Ginny, sitting up and pulling the blankets further up over her body. "What's up?"

"Sirius has got a bee in his bonnet about something, he need's to see me immediately in his office at Hogwarts."

"Before breakfast?!"

Harry nodded, "Apparently it's very urgent. I'll be back as quickly as I can. Don't worry the kids." said Harry, getting out of the bed and Summoning some clothes and scrambling into them. "I'll call you if I'll be more than a few hours." he kissed her on the cheek and then Disapparated with a pop.

----

Harry re-appeared in the Entrance Hall a few seconds later, then he hurried up the main stair towards Sirius' office on the second floor. He nodded a greeting to Colin Creevey, the Charms Professor when they met on a stair between the first and second floor. When he reached the Potions corridor he paused outside Sirius' office and knocked. "Who is it?"

"It's Harry, Sirius."

"Come in." called Sirius. Harry opened the door and walked in. His godfather was sitting behind his desk, but seeing Harry he should up and crossed to meet him. "I need to show you something."

"Okay." agreed Harry, "What is it?"

Sirius indicated a pedestal over behind his desk, on it stood a massive leather-bound book, a stack of parchment and envelopes, and what Harry recognised as a Quick-Quotes Quill. Sirius went up to the book and motioned Harry to join him. "This book contains the current location of every living person who is, has been or will be, a student at Hogwarts."

"That's…" Harry groped for the right word, "amazing."

"Yes it is." agreed Sirius, "I said the same thing when Minerva first showed it to me."  He turned to face Harry. "I was checking the book in case any of next year's students hadn't sent back owls, and I noticed an entry which I thought you might want to see."

"Why?" asked Harry curiously.

"You'll know when you see it," Sirius told him and turned back to the book, running his finger down the entries on the left-hand page. "Davis… Dennison… Diggory… ah, here we are." He stepped to one side and pointed to an entry about halfway down the page.

Harry leaned forward and peered hard at the entry until it sharpened into view.

Mr M. Dursley

The Smallest Bedroom

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

"Dursley?!" exclaimed Harry, "One of the Dursleys is a wizard?"

Sirius nodded, "I contacted Arabella as soon as I noticed it. Apparently, the kid, Maxwell, is your cousin's son."

"Poor kid." said Harry, "Are the Dursleys trying to ignore it, like they did with me?"

"Yes. Oddly enough, according to Arabella, he didn't show any sign of accidental magic. But anyway, according to the record nineteen letters have been sent. So I'll have to pay them a visit." Sirius sighed, "Arabella has said she'll help, but do you want to tag along?" Harry nodded. "I'm going to take the Floo to Arabella's house and then walk over."

Harry grimaced, he hated going by Floo even more than by Portkey, "Why don't we split up? I'll talk to Maxwell and you and Mrs Figg can take the Dursleys. I think I get thorough to him easier and Vernon, Petunia and Dudley are probably still scared of you." 

Sirius nodded agreement at Harry's last comment. He crossed to the fireplace and, tossed some Floo Powder on the flames, yelled, "5 Magnolia Crescent!" and disappeared in a flare of green flame.

Harry paused to grab another letter for Maxwell and then Disapparated.

----

Harry appeared seconds later in the familiar well-tended garden of 4 Privet Drive; it had changed little since he'd last been there almost sixteen years before. Harry looked up at the first floor of the house, and sure enough the light was on in the smallest bedroom, just as it had often been when he was there.

He pulled out his wand – oak and Diricawl feather, ten-and-a-half inches, pliable – and cast a Flying Charm on himself. "Homos Levis!" He slowly floated off the ground, and then directing his flight as he would a broom, he flew up to the window. He knocked smartly on the glass.

"Who is it?" asked a voice from behind the drawn curtains.

"My name's Harry, I'm here about your letter.

Maxwell opened the curtain and gawped at the sight of Harry floating in mid-air.

"Came I come in?" asked Harry, grinning at his cousin's surprise. Maxwell stood and opened the window, then turned to one side so that he could climb through.

"What are you doing here?" asked Maxwell, going to sit on his bed, "Is it because Granddad burned my letters?"

Harry nodded, sitting down on the desk chair, which was a much more comfortable one than he himself had had. "He did the same thing to my letters too."

"Your letters? You lived here?" asked Maxwell, surprising, "They never mention you."

"Well they won't," conceded Harry, "Dudley's my cousin, but we didn't exactly have a loving relationship when I was here, because of me being a freak, as they call our kind."    

"They called you a freak too?" asked Maxwell. "They've been calling me that since my first letter came three days ago." he paused. "What do you mean… our kind?"

Harry sighed and removed the envelope from the inside pocket of his robes, "I think it's it time you read your letter."

----

"I'm a wizard?!" exclaimed Maxwell, as he finished his letter. Harry nodded. "Cool!"

"You know that your parents… well, certainly your father, I don't know about your mother… will never accept that don't you?" Harry asked him, thinking it would be better to get this point out of the way as soon as possible.

Maxwell nodded sadly, "The fact he and my grandparents have been calling me a freak for the last few days kinda clued me in on that," he replied sarcastically. "I could be packed in a few minutes if I had anywhere to go."

Harry thought he heard a hopefully plea in his young cousin's voice when he said that. "There's room at my home. I run an orphanage for wizard kids. You could come with me." he offered, "I have two kids myself, Lily's twelve and Virgil's ten, he'll be starting Hogwarts in September."

"That'd be great!" said Maxwell, a grin splitting his huge face for the first time since Harry came in. He hurried over to his wardrobe and began taking out clothes and stuffing them into two large shoulder bags Harry conjured out of thin air.

Lion, have you made contact with the boy yet?

Harry grinned, and replied telepathically, Yes I have, he wants to go to Hogwarts and he's happy to move out. He's packing now actually.

Excellent. Sphinx and I haven't had much luck with the other Dursleys. I think it'll have to be Plan B.

Harry nodded, then remembered that Sirius couldn't see him. Agreed. We'll be down in a minute. Maxwell had finished packing by now. "Let's go downstairs."

Maxwell's eye's bulged, "But…"

"Don't worry, you'll be fine, I'll be with you, and the deputy headmaster — who's also my godfather — and a friend of ours are both with them now. We'll protect you."

Maxwell paused then nodded agreement. "How will we get out? The door's padlocked on the outside."

Harry grinned. Nice try Vernon, he thought. You can't pick a padlock from the inside, not like a lock. Fortunately I don't have to pick it. He pulled out his wand again, "A basic Unlocking Charm'll get us out," he told Maxwell. "Alohomora." They could hear the padlock click open and Harry pushed hard on the door to open it.

Maxwell followed him, somewhat reluctantly, down the stairs to the living room where the other Dursleys, Sirius and Mrs Figg waited. Harry opened the door and walked inside with Maxwell still close behind him.

----

"You!" thundered Vernon, as soon as he saw Harry. "I should have known you'd be behind this perversion of my grandson!"

"There is no way to make someone a wizard who isn't meant to be!" Harry retorted, "Maxwell is what he is, and he will be going to Hogwarts!"

"Over my dead body!" roared Vernon, getting redder by the moment.

"That, can be arranged." muttered Sirius darkly, but a bony elbow to the ribs from Mrs Figg silenced him.

"I will not have another one of you freaks in my house!" He was slightly purple now.    

"Then I'll leave granddad!" declared Maxwell, he was beginning to go a little red himself now. "I'd rather live with other freaks, than with normal people if you're going to be like this!"

"If you leave now, don't bother ever coming back." snarled Vernon, who was a deep purple now. "You will not… be welcome."

"Fine," snapped Maxwell. "Maybe I'll see you in a few years. When you grow up."

Harry thought he'd seen Vernon Dursley as angry as it was possible for him to be – the time when Molly had sent his uncle a letter through the Muggle mail, sprung to mind; then there was the boa constrictor incident; and the time when Dobby had ruined the Dursley's dinner party in an attempt to protect Harry before his second year at Hogwarts – but he was wrong.

Vernon Dursley was even angrier now. "Arrrggghhh!!!" roared Vernon and lunged, arms outstretched for his grandson. Fortunately, Harry was between the two. "Pellere!" he yelled, throwing his arm away in a backhanded sweep. The wandless Banishing Charm threw Mr Dursley backwards so forcefully he hit the opposite wall, knocking plaster from it.

Harry, Sirius and Mrs Figg quickly left, marching Maxwell between them.

Once they reached 5 Magnolia Crescent, Mrs Figg unlocked the door and ushered them into her living room, which was the same cat-filled, cabbage-smelling room it had been when he last visited. "Incendio." she muttered and threw a pinch of Floo Powder into the flames, which promptly glowed green. "Harry, you first. Show Maxwell how it's done." she grinned evilly, it was no secret among the Order – especially those who had been Dumbledore's inner circle during the Dark Wars – that Harry hated using the Floo Network. Nevertheless, Harry took a pinch of powder from the proffered jar and stepped into the flames. "Potion's office, Hogwarts!" he declared and disappeared with a burst of flame and a whoosh.

Maxwell hesitated, unsure about the safety of this new travelling method, but obeyed. He sensed that Arabella Figg was not a woman to cross. He repeated Harry's actions and then he too disappeared from Little Whinging.     

----

A few seconds later, he dropped out of the fireplace into Sirius' office. Harry was standing by the fireplace, helped him up, removed the soot from his clothes with a Cleaning Charm, and then sat down, inviting Maxwell to sit too. Maxwell took the chair beside him. Sirius came out of the fire a few seconds later. "Are you going to take him back to the Sanctuary with you?" he asked Harry, sitting down in his chair and regarding the pair.

Harry nodded. "Do you have any spare talismans?" he asked. 

Sirius nodded and tossed Harry a small lion's head amulet he took from the desk. Harry caught it one-handed and then turned to Maxwell, "It'll take me a few minutes to charm this. Why don't you go down to the kitchens and get something to eat?" Maxwell nodded in agreement. He rose and headed for the door. After a nod from Harry, Sirius followed him, leaving Harry alone in the office. He cupped the amulet in both hands and began to chant the spells to allow someone to pass through the protections around the Sanctuary. "Apartus Porta ad Salus… Transire Arceris…" he paused. The amulet glowed green, quickly fading to yellow. "Intrare Maxwell Dursley!"  

He sat there in silence until the other two returned. "Are we going now?" Maxwell asked.

Harry nodded, "Put this one first." He handed the talisman to Maxwell, who took it hesitantly. "You can put it under your shirt if you want. Most people do." At that, Sirius fished out his own talisman and showed it to Maxwell. Feeling better, he slipped it over his neck and tucked it under his jumper.   

Once he was sure that the talisman was in place, Harry contacted Philippe using Sirius' fire. Maxwell was a little surprised to see the Frenchman's head appear hovering over the fire. "What ees eet 'Arry?"

"I'm sending a new kid through on the Floo Network. Tell Dobby to have a room prepared immediately, and ask Ginny and my kids to be in the living room in about five minutes."

"I weell," confirmed Philippe. "Weell that be a second-floor bedroom, 'Arry?"

"No. One of the spare guest rooms. He's my cousin's son."

"Oui. I see. I weell see to eet," Philippe told Harry. "Eef there ees nuzzing else 'Arry?" Harry shook his head and Philippe disappeared.

Harry turned back to Maxwell, "Okay, same as before, but this time say, 'The Sanctuary'. Got it?" Maxwell nodded, shouldered his bags and then stepped into the flames. "The Sanctuary!" he bellowed and disappeared.

Harry turned to Sirius, "I'll see you and Remus on Friday?"

"You betcha," he confirmed with a grin, "Wendy and Lauren are both free so they'll be joining us, if that's okay?" Harry nodded. "In fact it'll be a double celebration." he added, remembering.

"Really, why?"

"According to Arabella, Maxwell's birthday is on Friday as well."

Harry grinned, "Another coincidence?" he mused, "I wonder. Amazing how things work out isn't it?" Sirius nodded, and seconds later Harry Disapparated with a pop.

----

Maxwell settled in at the Sanctuary very quickly, bonded especially well with his third-cousin and year-mate Virgil Arthur Potter. When Harry commented on it, Ginny suggested it could be because Maxwell's brazen, 'in-your-face' approach contrasted (and perhaps made up for) Virgil's cool, unflappable calm.

Two days before the start of term, Harry and Ginny took their kids and Maxwell to Diagon Alley to get them their school things. After a quick stop in Gringotts for some money, they decided to split up agreeing to meet in the ice-cream parlour in an hour. Ginny, Lily and Virgil departed for Flourish and Blotts to buy books, and Harry took Maxwell into Madame Malkin's for robes. It was over an hour before they emerged, due to his size (5'4" and as big as Dudley had been at 14, all of it muscle), it had been necessary to fit adult robes to his proportions rather than student robes. Harry hurriedly lead Maxwell up the street, knowing that Ginny would have purchased enough general items to outfit Maxwell too, until they reached what was probably Harry's least favourite shop on the Alley. The sign over the narrow, shabby old shop read:

OLLIVANDER'S

Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.

"Only place for wands, Ollivander's." Harry told Maxwell and entered the shop.

"Hello Mr Potter," breathed Ollivander, "Holly and phoenix feather, eleven-and-a-half inches, nice and supple… then oak and diricawl feather, ten-and-a-half inches, pliable. Wasn't it?" Harry nodded. "And who is this?"

"I'm Maxwell… Maxwell Dursley." Harry knew how he felt, he didn't feel particularly comfortable around the old wandmaker either.

"Ah, yes. I wondered if I'd seeing you." said Ollivander, scrutinising Maxwell, who shifted uncomfortably. "So, you want a wand."

It was not a question but Maxwell answered it anyway. "Yes sir."

"Wand arm please."

Maxwell looked confused, "The one you write with, boy." Ollivander told him impatiently. Maxwell stuck out his left arm. As the tape measure flitted around Maxwell, Ollivander roamed the shelves looking for the right wand. "Mmmm…  I wonder."

It took nearly an hour to find the right wand. They tried oak, mahogany, beech-wood, ebony, maple, willow, even yew. With phoenix feather, unicorn hair, dragon heartstring, or diricawl feather. They even tried a rare rowan and Petleon hair wand, but that wasn't it either. Finally, and with great reluctance, Ollivander crossed to the window and removed the wand from the cushion on display. "You are a very difficult customer, Mr Dursley," confessed Ollivander. "The most difficult I have ever come across, even more difficult than your cousins, the Potters. I swore never to sell this wand, but I feel it is the one for you, so I must." He handed it to Maxwell who took it reluctantly. "Ebony and demiguise hair, fourteen inches, inflexible. The only wand made with demiguise hair in existence. Go on, try it."

To Mr Ollivander's annoyance, it was the right one. So, relieved at finally being able to get out of there, Harry paid over the fifteen Galleons for the wand without protest and hurried out of the shop, heading to Florean Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour with Maxwell close behind.

----

"Sorry we're late," said Harry, slipping into the chair beside Ginny in one of the booths, kissing her on the cheek as he sat. "It took us a while to get robes to fit and Ollivander had to go through nearly every wand in the shop before he found one to fit Maxwell. In the end, he had to take the display wand out of the window."

"What is it?" asked Virgil, "Mine is a fairly ordinary one: hornbeam and unicorn hair, ten inches."

Maxwell grinned. "Ebony and demiguise hair, fourteen inches."

Virgil's eyebrows shot up into his auburn hair. "Demiguise hair? I have never heard of that being used in wands before."

Maxwell nodded, "According to the man in the wand shop, it's the only one ever made."

Lily, who'd been listening, whistled. "Impressive. That makes the fact my wand's nearly identical to Dad's first wand seem normal by comparison."

At that moment, the owner, noticing the two new customers, approached their table. "What'll it be sirs."

Harry considered for a moment, "Ahh. The usual I think, Florean."

"Very good sir." said Fortescue, and turned to Maxwell. "And for you…?"

"Double chocolate chip and nuts." said Maxwell. 

"Excellent choice sir." said Fortescue, "I'll only be a moment." 

"Did you get everything?" Harry asked Ginny once his ice cream had arrived, she nodded, "Well almost everything we just need to get a cauldron."

"We'll do that on the way back." decided Harry, digging into his ice cream.

Ten minutes later, the five of them were finished their mid-morning snacks and after a stop at the cauldron shop they returned to the Three Broomsticks from where they Flooed home.

A/N: For the benefit of those of you who have not read my first novel-length story Harry Potter and The Blood of Darkness (available on FF.Net) 'Sphinx' is the war-name of Arabella Figg. 

Please R/R.