Hand-Me-Down Clothes
Sweet Dreams
'I'm a what?' gaped Harry.
'You're a wizard, and so were your parents, Harry.'
'But, but, wizards can turn people into frogs and have staffs and ... look like you, I'm, I'm just Harry.'
'Not just Harry, haven't you ever made anything happen, anything odd, such as... turning your teacher's hair blue...?' Dumbledore raised an eyebrow conspiratorially.
'Uh,' said Harry, blushing.
'Hmmm, you see? Now there are schools for children like you, in fact there is a whole world full of wizards and witches, just like you, and if you would like, you can come and live in that world, with me.'
'With you? A whole world of people who can do ...magic?' Harry whispered the last, the word had been forbidden in the Dursley household.
'Yes, a whole world, and we would love to have you Harry.'
'Really?' said Harry, eyes aglow at this novel idea of actually being wanted, Dumbledore felt his heart lurch with unexpected emotion.
'Yes, yes,' said Mrs Figg, limping in through the sitting room doorway, which a tabby cat (possibly the one called Flopsy, thought Harry), was using as a scratch post. 'But if you two don't mind, I need to get on with my tea, and you two are in the way, so bugger off to Hogwarts and give Minerva the fright of her life why don't you?'
'Your hospitality, is, as always, unmatched, Arabella,' wryly commented Dumbledore. 'Come Harry, we must away, to your new home, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.'
'You mean I can stay with you?'
'Yes. I'm not sure how we'll manage it, but yes.'
'Really?'
'Yes Harry, you have my word, and I do not go back on my word, not ever, okay?'
'Not ever ever ever ever?'
'Not ever, Harry, trust me,' reassured Dumbledore, patiently. He took Harry's hand, and motioned towards the fire. 'We'll travel by floo, Arabella, if we may use some of your floo powder?'
'Yes, yes, it's on the mantelpiece in the urn. No, not that one, that's Grandmother, the floo powder's in the maroon one.'
'I don't want the flu,' said Harry.
'It's not flu Harry, it's a type of travelling - by fire - it won't hurt you,' replied a slightly disturbed Dumbledore, removing a generous handful of floo powder from the maroon urn.
'Thank you Mrs Figg,' said Harry, venturing a shy smile, and holding tightly onto Dumbledore's hand.
'Hurrumph,' said that esteemed lady in response. 'Wait a sec Albus, give this to Minerva, I know how she likes it.'
Albus, smiled and took the proffered gift, glancing at it, he was more than surprised to find himself holding tinned salmon.
'I'm not entirely sure she'll appreciate it Arabella,' he said, trying to stifle incredulous laughter.
'She always liked it before!' said Arabella firmly, in a no-nonsense tone of voice.
Dumbledore gave up, at his wordless command a huge tongue of flame shot up the chimney, making poor Harry jump with fright, and with a quick flick of his wrist the floo powder was in and the fire burned vivid green.
He picked up Harry, deeming it safer, and stepped into the startling coolness, 'Dumbledore's Office!' he cried and felt Harry tense against him and then they were off!
Grates sped by, faster than the eye could make out, quick glimpses came of rooms in varying states of decay and splendour, some barred by protective wards, attuned to certain persons only, and some were open to all, like the Leaky Cauldron. Then they were stumbling out of Dumbledore's fireplace, sooty and disorientated, and both relieved that the tumultuous journey was over.
Harry was first to recover and found his attention immediately diverted by the sight of a beautiful bird in brilliant red and gold foliage, who swished it's wings and flew around the boy, singing in bell like tones full of liquid warmth.
'Yes yes Fawkes,' said Albus, irritated. 'There's no need to rub it in!'
Fawkes the Phoenix came to land upon his master's shoulder, cooing softly and in a conciliatory manner.
'This is Fawkes,' said Dumbledore to Harry, 'and Fawkes, this is Harry, who has come to live with us.'
'Forks?' queried Harry, looking a little puzzled.
'No Fawkes, F-A-W-K-E-S,' said Dumbledore, smiling at Harry's slip. 'He's a Phoenix, a very rare bird, very beautiful, and very vain too,' he confided in Harry, and the bird puffed out his chest in indignation as Harry giggled.
'Can I pet him?' asked Harry, eyes wide at this glorious bird, unlike anything he had ever seen before.
'I think he would like that Harry,' said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling, he knelt, so Harry could easily reach forward and cautiously stroke the phoenix's soft head. The birds large eyes were friendly and benign, and as Harry petted him he began to sing a note in what could only be called a purr, much to Dumbledore's amusement.
Albus Dumbledore persuaded Fawkes (it wasn't too difficult), to perch next to Harry, as the boy sat dwarfed in Dumbledore's seat behind his famed oval desk, absolutely covered in paper work he noted dismally. Whilst he himself asked a house elf to find Minerva and request her presence on his behalf, it took only a few minutes for her to appear, her animagus form was a great help to her speed in getting around such a rambling castle as Hogwarts was.
'Well, Albus?' she impatiently asked as soon as she flung open his door and entered.
'Very, thank you, my dear transfiguration professor.'
'Albus... I could really... how was he, how was Harry?' Minerva demanded her teeth grating in frustration.
Behind Albus Dumbledore, Fawkes warbled a note in greeting as Harry curiously peeked from behind Dumbledore's flamboyant robes to see a slightly flustered lady with her hair done up in a tight bun, a pointy hat with a feather and the same kind of robes as Mr Dumbledore wore, only smaller.
'Harry-' Dumbledore began to say, when Minerva McGonagall shrieked, clutched her chest and pointed vaguely behind him.
'Harry Potter!' she exclaimed, looking as though she might faint.
'Yes,' succinctly replied Dumbledore, secretly enjoying seeing the normally on-top-of-things professor, shocked, he popped a lemon drop in his mouth. 'Lemon drop?' he offered blandly.
'Albus, please, explain,' said McGonagall, recovering herself a little.
'I have removed him from the Dursleys care, for their lack of.'
'Lack of what?'
'Care.'
There was a silence.
It wasn't broken.
After a while Harry felt repressed by the sheer weight of the silence that reigned in the room, even Fawkes was silent, Harry decided to be brave, nervously he slipped from his seat and ducked under the desk, coming up the other side, beside Dumbledore.
'Hello,' he said to the tall lady with (currently), very thin lips, she looked startled, and glanced down at him in such surprise that Harry began to fear he had done something wrong. 'I'm Harry,' he ventured awkwardly, unconsciously edging closer to the comforting bulk of Mr Dumbledore.
Then something wonderful happened, the lady changed from being all tense and uptight, she smiled, and her lips weren't thin anymore, and her eyes were warm and loving as she bent down to him.
'Hello Harry, I'm Minerva McGonagall,' she said, her voice soft and friendly.
'Hi,' said Harry, regaining some confidence in the face of this lovely woman who liked him, didn't seem to mind his shaggy hair or baggy, old and dirty clothes, as all his other teachers had. 'Are you a friend of Mr Dumbledore's?'
'Yes she is, Harry,' said Dumbledore, interrupting. 'Minerva. I have promised Harry that he will be living with us from now on.'
Minerva McGonagall glanced up at him, this was a surprise, Dumbledore had been very insistent that Harry stay with the Dursleys, so that he wouldn't suffer from all the attention he would have received in the magical world, as the Boy-Who-Lived. For him to change his mind now meant that the situation at the Dursleys must have been far worse than he expected, and Harry, Harry! He looked so vulnerable and so very small for his age, and so much like James, but with Lily's eyes and smile, Minerva snapped back to the present.
'If you don't mind, Mrs McGonagall?' said Harry.
'No, of course not! You're very welcome here Harry, it is lovely to have you with us,' Minerva smiled, and tried to recover from the use of a married title, she'd been known as Professor for so long now.
Harry yawned, staggering a little as he did so, it wasn't that late in the evening, only 6pm, but it had been a busy day, many unusual things had happened, and he had a lot of new ideas to take in, not least a move into an entirely new world.
Albus Dumbledore gave Minerva a gentlemanly hand up and then scooped up Harry into his arms, 'Bed for you, little one,' he said.
'Do I ha-ave to?' yawned Harry again, protesting weakly, the two grown ups shared a grin over his tousled head.
Shortly Harry was ensconced in a bed at the bottom of Dumbledore's, dressed (with the help of a spell) in a pair of Dumbledore's shrunken pyjama's, an unfortunately teddy bear covered pair.
'Good night Harry,' said Albus Dumbledore, pulling up the quilt over the boy's shoulders, Minerva McGonagall was folding Harry's clothes, with a frown at the state of them.
'G'night Mr Dumbledore,' said Harry sleepily, 'G'night Mrs McGonagall.'
'Good Night Harry, sleep tight,' replied McGonagall quietly, foregoing comment at being called a 'Mrs'.
Dumbledore bent and kissed the child gently on the forehead: Harry's only response was a happy and drowsy smile.
So it was that Harry received his first bed time kiss since his mother and father's death on that fateful night- October the 31st.
Author's Notes: Yay! See I can update quicker than six months! Actually I need to apologise for the quality of this chapter, it starts off fine and then deteriorates towards the end. This is because I just wrote it, literally, and therefore it is no doubt full of errors and I'm sorry about that, but hey, you wanna be my beta?
Does anyone fancy doing me a little timeline? I need to know what years Bill and Charlie would have been in at Hogwarts, because, obviously they'll be there now, I think Percy was just starting.... (aaah my head!).
Ooh, yes got my first OOC accusation from 'VenusDeOmnipotent', but it was mild and she/he was after all correct, Harry is OOC, he's only seven though, and my excuse for any future OOC is that if his past has been changed then so will his character (slightly). Plus McGonagall and Dumbledore may seem OOC but that's because we're seeing a side of them we never see in the books.
Thank you Relle, Anneliese, von, Robin, Avlyn (lol, I haven't finished this one yet, I'll worry about sequels later!). silverleaf, SilverAngel, Leonie, Aeryn Alexander, aww heck, ALL OF YOU! Now must put this up and sleep, it's 1am in England right now (how's that for dedication?).
