Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything officially related to him.
A/N: Please read the entire current post before reviewing. I no longer accept anonymous reviews. If you don't like my stories don't read them. If you have constructive criticism I will gladly hear it. No Flames please.
As the Fic progresses you will see more of Alan than just his mask of confidence. He is not; I repeat; he is not the male equivalent of a Mary-Sue. He does have emotions and No one is going to fall in love with him. Sorry to disappoint you if you thought Alan was perfect.
Also if you haven't figured it out by now Alan is a Self-Insert!!! If you knew me on a personal level you would see a lot of me in Alan. Please note that though Alan is a self-insert very little of his life has anything to do with mine. If you don't know me don't criticize him. If you paid attention in the first chapter you would realize why Harry and CO. don't see much of Alan's emotions. Read on and I hope you enjoy.
Chapter Six: A Bag of Mixed Nuts
The Dark Lord sat upon his throne in his underground castle. He felt every surge of happiness that Harry Potter felt as a stab in the stomach with a very sharp knife. Voldemort sat and waited. After a few minutes a man with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and a perpetual sneer on his face entered the room. He walked to the throne, knelt, kissed the robes of his master, stood, and took a few steps back.
"What news have you brought me Severus?" Voldemort's high, hissing voice echoed off of the high vaulted ceiling. The obsidian floor tiles shone in the dim light. The smell of dry scales filled the air and the dull hiss of snake coils rubbing against one another could be heard. The cold, dark room was uncomfortable for anyone but the Dark Lord.
Severus Snape gave his report in a practiced, calm, monotone. He told of a relationship between Potter and Granger the Mudblood. He told of the Power of Fire being released from its bonds. And last he told of the Exchange Student. Snape's eyes were cold and alert. His posture was rigid. And like everyone who served the Dark Lord he was afraid.
Voldemort gave Snape his leave. The Dark Lord resumed his musings of power. He would have Harry Potter's head. He would kill Dumbledore and he would rule the world. He would destroy the Mudbloods and the Muggles. But this new player in the game interested him. This Alan Flyer was an unknown. He wished to know more of this newcomer. He sent for one of his Death Eaters and gave him strict instructions to find out where this Hawkwing Academy was and who Flyer was. If the man failed he was to kill himself.
The Dark Lord sat back on his throne and did the only thing he could do. He waited.
((()))
It was March now and Alan had gotten over his annual grieving period. His mother had been in a hospital bed since the day he was born. He just couldn't help blaming himself for her death. Alan's birthday held no joy. From the beginning of February to the beginning of March was a time of grief. It was a period of mourning. It was curios that Harry, Ron, and Hermione didn't even try to avoid him. This was something Alan couldn't understand. No one had ever been around him during his time of grief. Alan didn't know how he should handle this. Should he just tell them more about his past? Should he avoid them altogether? Truth was Alan didn't know.
His father had stopped eating, sleeping, and working after Alan's mother had died. And so, when Alan was only twelve in his second year at Hawkwing Academy his father died. Oddly enough his father had died the same day as his mother had all those years earlier. Alan had been a loner since birth but after his father's death he cast himself out of the social structure in all worlds. He would step in to stop fights or protect younger students. During his sixth year at Hawkwing he had been what Hogwarts students called a prefect. He had gotten top marks in every class. He had never really had friends like these before.
Harry would probably know what it was like not having parents but he didn't know what it was like to understand what death means and watch as your parents die knowing you'll never see them again. Ron and Hermione wouldn't know anything about that. Alan had never been in love and probably never would. Alan wished he could have had a normal life like everyone else but he couldn't. There was no use hoping for the impossible.
Alan sat in his private dormitory. He had decorated it with a few quidditch posters and some pictures of muggle rock bands he enjoyed listening to. One very large rock poster was in the middle of his north wall featuring the muggle band Smash Mouth. The bed was draped in royal blue and dark green. His house colors at Hawkwing. Not many people knew the houses of Hawkwing Academy. His house founder was Urg Drojim and the house mascot was the wolf. Alan had always been partial to wolves. They didn't have a sorting hat like Hogwarts but they had a beat up old theater mask. It was a strange mask that had two sides. The right side was white and smiling but the left was black and wailing. All the same it sorted the students into the six houses. Drojim, Mardim, Elgmore, Perital, Filemar, and Jemba.
The familiar banner of the Drojim Wolf hung over the door. And his old battered black trunk lay at the foot of his bed. His wardrobe stood open to reveal his blue and green Hawkwing robes. Alan sat in a small chair in the corner of his room. All traces of his confident mask had disappeared and he sat with a melancholy expression on his face. He missed not being able to use his muggle things here. There were no electrical outlets anywhere in the castle. And some obscure charm disrupted electrical current so even his batteries didn't work. He had gone months without listening to his compact disc player. He did however have his cards. He had never played exploding snap but he did have a set of muggle playing cards and he collected what muggle teenagers called Magic: The Gathering cards. Mostly he used the cards he had made for himself.
He had cut about thirty card-sized rectangles out of thick white cardboard and drawn ancient symbols on them. Then he had used an indestructible charm on them. He now sought those cards for guidance. He pulled out his deck of mystic cards and shuffled them. He laid out his cards like a muggle playing solitaire and began the process of asking for advice from the ancient spirits of the long deceased powerful sages of times past. He would shift this card into that pile to ask a question. Then a card in another pile glowed and he placed it in the pile that would clear the answer. After the process was complete he sat back on his chair with a troubled expression on his face. The advice was sound, but would it work?
((()))
Harry was busy making out with Hermione so he didn't see Alan approaching him in the common room at the late hour. When he broke off for air he saw Alan standing with his eyes averted waiting for a chance to speak.
"What is it Alan?"
"I need to talk to you guys and Ron tonight," his face was troubled and he kept looking around to make sure no one else heard him. Though the common room was empty he was acting as if the walls had ears. "Come to my dorm about midnight and bring Ron." He turned his back on Harry and Hermione and they watched him nervously walk up the boys' staircase. Harry was puzzled beyond simple confusion. He looked at his watch and saw that he had fifteen minutes
Harry straightened his robes and turned to Hermione who had just finished doing the same. "I'll go get Ron. You go get ready and we'll meet in his dorm at midnight." She nodded and walked up the girls' staircase.
Harry began his search for Ron in the seventh year boys' dorm. He wasn't there. Harry grabbed the Marauders Map and gave the password. Ron was in a broom closet on the fourth floor with Parvati Patil. Harry grabbed his invisibility cloak and ran down to get him. Fortunately Ron was just getting finished with whatever he and Parvati were doing so Harry only had to yell at him once to get his attention. Once the three were back to the Gryffindor common room and Parvati was up in the girls' dorm Harry began to elaborate on what had happened.
He and Ron made there way to the top of the boys' stairs to Alan's door slightly ajar. They shut the door once they were inside and turned to take in there surroundings. They had only been in the room once and then it was very dark. Now they saw that it was decorated in blues and greens. Alan was sitting in his chair holding a picture frame in his hands. His face was melancholy and his shoulders slumped. Hermione was sitting on his bed and to Harry's surprise so was Ginny. Harry walked over and sat by Hermione and Ron sat next to his sister.
"Why is Ginny here," Harry asked Hermione.
"She couldn't sleep so she tagged along."
"It's alright," Alan looked up from his picture and looked at his guests, "I'm going to be telling you my story anyway."
He looked them over and Harry got the distinct feeling he wasn't just checking on how they looked. "I've decided to tell you about my past so we will start at the beginning." He sighed stood and handed the picture to his audience. In the photo there was the man and the woman in the memory and also the little boy. They were in the same hospital room as before and flowers as before surrounded the woman.
"My mother was left very weak after my birth and stayed in a hospital bed for the rest of her life." Harry looked up from the photo and saw that tears were silently streaming down his face. "My father was a pureblood wizard and my mother was a half-blood so I grew up knowing about the wizarding world. Just before my ninth birthday my mother died so my birthday brings me no joy anymore. My father couldn't accept my mother's death so he just lost his energy. He stopped eating, sleeping, and working. Three years later he died on the same day as my mother. My father's sister and her muggle husband took me in and raised me. After my parents' deaths I went out of my way to be alone. The only person I talked to outside of teachers and school faculty was my muggle uncle. He knew about the wizarding world so he wasn't startled when I moved in with my school things. He had, as I recall, an obsession for muggle model trains. He and I spent any holiday time together."
Alan paused his narrative to let a storm of weeping pass. Harry noticed that he had used some sort of charm to keep others from seeing his memories. Harry looked at his friends and saw that Ron and Ginny were weeping openly and Hermione's eyes glistened with unshed tears. He could understand the loss of family. He knew what it was like to watch someone die.
"I always got top marks in all of my classes and I became what you would call a prefect. This year if I hadn't chosen the exchange program I would have been Head Boy. I would only step in stop fights and protect younger students. I found out about my heritage from my Aunt. She took over the responsibilities of passing on the family heirlooms and introduced me to the true history of the world." Alan went on to describe his training, showing them his mystic cards, telling them about his ultimate mission.
When Harry laid in bed that night he finally understood why Alan was solitary.
((()))
Peter Pettigrew was hiding. What he was hiding from didn't matter. He was thinking which was something he rarely did. HE usually thought for Peter. HE was the entire reason that Wormtail didn't have any friends anymore. HE was the reason that Pettigrew was a cursed name among those who knew he was alive. Peter wouldn't even think his name. His master was cruel to even his own followers.
Ever since Peter had joined Him he lived his life in constant fear that either the Ministry would catch him, one of his old friends would catch him, or that he would die by the hand of his own master or the other Death Eaters. Peter lay curled up into a protective ball in his private cell. It was small, had a hard bed, and it smelled of rat droppings. His silver arm was cold. His entire body was cold.
It was then that he made the decision. He stood and morphed into his animagus state and scurried off into the night. He would gladly submit to Ministry punishment if he could just end this madness. He exited the underground castle and began bounding through the woods to the only place he could think that would be safe. He needed to find a place he could work on his plan. He needed to be away from prying eyes.
After three days of travel he came to a small rundown cottage that used to belong to his family. The Pettigrew summer cottage was a small and needed cleaning. Most of the windows and the roof had given in to the elements some years ago. No one would find him here. Now he could work on his plan to repay his debt to Harry Potter. He was weak he knew and he would never be able to trick Him. He would need to find a way to make sure that he wouldn't know about what he had done after he would do it. But he was horrible at memory charms. He was horrible at just about every kind of charm. He needed help but who would help a dead man?
This was going to take some work. He would have to be very careful and it would take a long time. But he was determined to make sure he did his part to help those he had betrayed so long ago. He may have been a coward at the beginning but he was put in Gryffindor after all. He had to summon some courage and live up to what he had been before he was a Benedict Arnold.
Peter Pettigrew was going to do the right thing for once in his life.
((()))
A/N: That's all for now folks. Stay tuned if you want to see what happens next.
