A Thousand Fibres
Helen C.
Rating : PG-13
Summary : After Voldemort's defeat, Harry finds himself finally free to do what he wants. Now, if only he knew what he wants...
Spoilers : All five books are fair game.
Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by JK Rowling, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Acknowledgements : Many thanks to Emily, who beta'd this and to
Sharon, for her help on the first chapter.
Chapter Eight : The School
It had been four weeks since Harry had met Sarah. Her attacker had been caught by the police, Harry and Sarah had both been called to identify him, and the trial was scheduled to take place in two weeks. According to the district attorney, Harry probably wouldn't have to testify. However, she still asked him to stay nearby, just in case.
It was obvious that Sarah was terrified at the idea of testifying. She never talked about it, but Harry could tell how shy she was. The idea of telling a room full of people what had happened was truly upsetting her. However, as Regan pointed out, the idea of letting the guy go without a fight was even more upsetting.
In an attempt to distract Sarah, Margaret decided to take her and Harry to visit the school where she taught.
"It's North of San Francisco," Margaret explained. "Really, there's the town, and just as soon as you're clear of it, there's us. Just a two hour drive, but we'll take a Portkey." Sarah paled, and Margaret smiled. "Not her favourite method of travel," she told Harry.
Harry could sympathize. It had never been his favourite method either - give him a broom, any time of the day. Something he could control.
"I hate driving. And cars. And everything related," Margaret explained.
"Oh."
"Sarah already visited the school, with Lizzie."
Lizzie being the dead sister. Harry had noticed early on that, even though the group didn't avoid talking about her, they seldom did. Each time her name was mentioned, there seemed to be a sadness in their eyes that made Harry loath to ask questions. This time was no exception. He nodded his assent to the Portkey idea, pushing all thoughts of the Third Task strongly away from his mind. He had never developed a phobia of Porkeys, thankfully, but he thought of that night every time he used one. And he certainly didn't like to think about it.
The jerking sensation behind his navel wasn't any less unnerving than Harry remembered. He stumbled to stay on his feet when he arrived. He had landed in a vast park, with trees planted to delimitate the borders of the He didn't know just how vast the space was, but estimated it to be about the size of the Quidditch pitch. There were a few fountains, and benches, dispersed on the grass. It was all very neat, Harry thought. Neat, green, fresh. Sunny, too. He liked it. It was relaxing.
He could see buildings behind the tree line - not high ones, not as high as Hogwarts.
Margaret appeared next to him, Sarah squeezing her hand. The two women took a moment to orient themselves, then Margaret motioned for Harry to follow her as she commented and explained what he saw.
Up close, the buildings were not as modern as Harry had thought - nor as small. It was an old school. The walls were made of stone and wood, but not as dark or cold as Hogwarts had been - perhaps due to the Californian sun. Harry was strongly reminded of Italy - perhaps it was the sense of history that seemed to permeate the place, or the general appearance of the school, with its pale stones, green trees and the sunny and blue sky above.
The main building was four stories high, and formed a huge square. "There are parks outside," Margaret said. "Surrounding the main building. With a few annexes - greenhouses, an area where the students can study outside, weather permitting. Then, there's, well, the building itself. And inside, the inner park, where we 'landed.' It's the playground for the younger students."
"And the older ones?"
"Go in the outside parks, or sometimes, come here too."
"Even during winter?"
Margaret smiled. "Magic," she said mischievously. "The inner playground is charmed to remain warm, even during winter. The tree leaves fall, and the sky looks the same as outside, but the temperature never goes below sixty-eight degrees. And, of course, sometimes, the younger students go in the park, assuming they're supervised by older students, or teachers. It all depends on the workload and the availability of everyone."
Harry nodded. "How old are the students?"
Margaret smiled. "We teach some kids who are about six."
"Six?"
She smiled. "Yeah, the school accepts kids from eleven to eighteen to train purely in magic - although, of course, spelling, grammar and sometimes math are evaluated via the assignments."
Harry nodded. "It was that way at Hogwarts too." He thought back about some of the scathing comments Snape sometimes wrote on his essays, disparaging his handling of English and his knowledge of potions in one fell swoop.
"And the younger students learn the basics; reading, writing, mathematics, geography, history - Muggle, and some wizarding as well. We also give some very basic facts about potions, the magical theory, and so on, when they're almost eleven."
"Wow," he said.
Margaret smiled. "I teach English to the six to eleven ones. Roland teaches Potions, to all the eleven to seventeen. Alex is the Muggle studies professor. There's also an optional class, for the Muggle born students who want to learn more about the wizarding world."
Harry sighed. "That would have been quite useful at Hogwarts," he said.
"We have fewer students too - there are more schools in the US than in England, really. Some better than others. We're not a prestigious school, exactly, but nothing to joke about either." She looked at him curiously. "Hogwarts accepts only the best and the brightest, from what I've heard."
Harry shrugged. "It is a slightly elitist school, yes. But not as much as you might imagine. Not everyone there was gifted for all kinds of magic. Even I was, at best, a mediocre student."
She raised her eyebrow in surprise. "Really?"
"Academic work was never my cup of tea. I learn better by doing than by reading. I'm not the kind of guy who goes research something. I find someone more knowledgeable than I am, and ask him."
She hooked her arm in his elbow. "Roland is that way, too," she said. "There's nothing wrong with that."
"I know. I'm just saying, yeah, the kids who go to Hogwarts are pretty gifted, but I'm sure there are others who are as much so, and couldn't enter, for lack of money, or because they didn't want to go to a boarding school, or whatever reason. It actually took me a while to realise just how many wizards never even receive a normalised education, yet still manage."
"It's an on-going debate, around here. Is one way better than the other?"
A man's voice from behind startled them. "Not that again, Marge, please."
Margaret made a face, and turned, Harry following her lead. "Harry, meet Julius Sanderson, our headmaster. Jules, this is Harry Potter."
Harry had a slight feeling of forbearing. He shook the man's hand, smiling politely. Julius was young to be headmaster, but then, Harry supposed that pretty much summed up the whole school. Somehow, his memories from Hogwarts had left him associating academia with maturity, but the energy of this whole school was very different.
Julius smiled and invited the three of them to take a coffee.
He was tall, and imposing. His hair and his short beard were grey, but a distinguished grey - much like Lupin's, who managed to age gracefully, despite the curse that affected him. Harry, who was looking for the best way to describe the man, finally decided on "charismatic." He had the feeling it must be difficult to refuse Julius anything.
Once they were all settled in a room - the teacher's lounge, Margaret said - Julius politely asked a few questions about what Harry had learned in his travels. The story about the way an old man in a village in China had insisted on selling Harry a hair-flattening lotion amused him greatly. "Obviously," said Harry, passing a hand in his untamed hair, "I didn't use it."
"But you bought it?"
"Er, yeah, well, the man was insistent."
Julius smiled. "Well, that's not so bad," he said.
"Certainly."
"No dark wizard jumping on you, in back alleys?" Julius asked. "You are, after all, known everywhere."
Harry shrugged. "I tend to avoid back alleys. And, thankfully, my notoriety, such as it is, is fairly limited outside England. Most people had heard of me, and knew about Voldemort. But mostly, they seemed to wonder how the scrawny kid with glasses had managed to off Voldemort."
Sarah laughed. "That must have been frustrating."
"Well, I did leave England partly to escape fame, so it was a break, actually. In England, yes, people still remember."
"As it should be, don't you think?" Julius asked. "As long as they remember, they know not to let a disaster like Voldemort happen a third time."
"I suppose," Harry replied. He wasn't convinced. Did anyone ever truly learn lessons from history? After all, a first war against Voldemort hadn't stopped a second one, and the very people who had worked at the reconstruction the first time had made things easier for Voldemort the second time around.
"You travelled around the world for five years, and you didn't have one rough patch?" Margaret asked, not for the first time since Harry had met her.
"I had read a little before going, about what to do and what not to do. I tend to blend in, a lot," Harry said. He blamed the Dursleys for that, but the gift of becoming almost invisible had come in handy a few times. "And I was in contact with the Ministries, and with the Muggle embassy - thankfully, growing up with Muggles, I had records of my existence, and didn't have to create them from scratch. But, yes, I had a few bad moments. I fell ill in India. Hepatitis. By the time I made it to an acceptable hospital, I was really sick. And in Egypt, I ate something I shouldn't have and ended up with blood poisoning."
"What did you do?"
Harry smiled ruefully. "I owled a teacher of mine, the Potions Master of Hogwarts, and asked him if he wouldn't happen to have a remedy somewhere. He came deliver it." And Harry had had to endure a lesson on his stupidity, and about taking care of himself. But when he had fallen back asleep, exhausted by the four day fever, he had caught a glimpse of concern on the other man's face.
Sarah had been enjoying the discussion in silence, and when she spoke up, Harry realised she, too, knew how to make people forget she was there.
"I'm sorry, but All the others have said you're well known in England, and I've read some books too."
Harry couldn't hide his dismayed reaction at that. He still felt self conscious when people told him they had read about him - especially in books. He was always tempted to point out that books should concern important people, not, well, him.
Sarah bit her lip. "If you don't want to answer, that's okay, but You know, I grew up in Los Angeles, and I saw the way people are with stars. Chasing them for signings, for pictures, for a word. And I can't imagine you as the star."
Margaret looked amused, Harry noted. Perhaps she had wondered the same thing. That, or she was amused at Sarah's way of putting it.
"They didn't chase me for signings," Harry said. "Except for one annoying exception, but that was just one kid."
Julius threw in, "You mean a kid at your school actually asked you-"
Harry sniggered. "I was in second year, he was a year behind. And yes, as soon as he arrived, he ran after me, taking pictures." He blushed. "Including, once, in my sixth year, as I was going out of the shower after a Quiddictch match, and I made him regret that dearly."
Julius laughed, a rich sound that made Harry want to laugh too, and Sarah covered her mouth with her hand.
"And a few times, he asked me to sign a picture he had taken."
Julius filled the cups again, and Harry went on, "He was, really, the only one to do that. Although his brother was annoying too."
"But it must have been more than that, if you hated it so much?"
Harry nodded. "It was the newspapers. Well, the Daily Prophet, really. It was the one the most people read, and believed blindly. Each time an unfavourable article was published, people treated me like a pariah. And each time the Daily Prophet said I was a good guy after all, they treated me like I was made of glass, like I was their saviour."
The Prophet, Harry thought, had made more for his reputation than Dumbledore ever had. People followed its lead. If the Prophet was interested in Harry Potter, then Harry Potter must be interesting.
"I'd like to say that people are stupid for following newspapers that way, but I suppose we're all guilty of doing that, from time to time," Margaret said.
"Yeah, well, each time I go home, I still get reporters following me, asking me what I think of the latest match England played, or of the new Minister, or whatever the latest headline is."
Julius finished. "And you're just a normal guy, who happens to have been thrust in a position where you had to deal with all the hype."
"Pretty much."
Sarah giggled. "Out of the shower?"
Harry blushed. "We won't mention this again," he said. "Ever."
"Sure," Margaret said, and Harry had the feeling that all the others would know by the next morning.
He sighed, but he had to admit that he had handed that one to her.
8888
Hedwig was perched on a chair, the next morning, when Harry woke up. She had been out for a week, which meant she had gone to England. She never seemed tired, even after such long distances, and he wondered if magical owls truly flew all the way to their destinations, or if they took shortcuts. Granted, they often seemed tired after a long trip, but what bird would be capable of a transatlantic flight without dying of exhaustion? Or were magical birds merely more robust than Muggle ones?
There was a letter tied to her foot, and he took it, before setting a few owl treats and a bowl of water on the table, so she could rest.
The letter was from Lupin. Harry groaned. He hadn't written in a while, caught up with his new friends, and felt vaguely like a bad son.
He ordered breakfast in, and settled on the bed to read it.
"Dear Harry,
I haven't heard from you in a while. I hope you're all right. I know you tell the embassy where you are, and they would have alerted us, but we all worry, especially after the few times you fell ill.
Everything is going just fine in England. I have found a job, as a teacher, in a school near Edinburgh. Not as upper level as Hogwarts, obviously, but then, few schools are. I find myself enjoying this a lot. You know I've done a little of everything, along the years, but teaching has always stayed a favourite of mine.
Some kids here remind me a lot of three famous Hogwarts students - always sticking their heads in the Lion's mouth. They would have been Gryffindors, I think. It's strange how I keep drawing parallels between what I see now, and what happened then.
Believe it or not, but we just spent a week without one single word about you in the newspapers. I hope you don't feel too rejected upon hearing that."
Harry chuckled, imagining Lupin's smile as he wrote this.
"Of course, that may be because Minister Bones said she
would build that new prison, Dementors free, for the wizards who
commit light infractions. About damn time, you're probably
thinking, and I agree with you. The Daily Prophet's redactors
are scandalized - here are people who should have been replaced
after they refused to acknowledge Voldemort's return until it
came to bite them in the ass."
Harry's eyebrows shot up. It wasn't often that Lupin criticized anything so overtly. The man was rather subdued - probably a consequence of having spent all his life mastering his instincts, and trying to appear as non threatening as possible, to increase his chances of being accepted.
"Whatever the reason, I thought you would like to know that, for the first time in, how many years has it been? Well, we spent a week without an article on you.
Congratulations!
Severus came by the other day - he is still furnishing me with Wolfsbane potion. He is still as sour as ever, but Minerva says he's mellowing. I mentioned in passing that you seemed fine last time I had seen you, and that you had been heading to the USA then. He snarled that he didn't see how that was supposed to matter to him, but I think I saw a flicker of interest on his face.
I may have imagined it, but perhaps Minerva is right. I hear he
is less vindictive with the Gryffindors than he used to be -
perhaps he realised, with you and your friends gone, that he was
bored?"
Harry tried to picture Snape patiently explaining something to a Gryffindor first year, and just about laughed out loud. The man would be even more frightening if he tried to be kind and understanding.
"Yes, I know, unlikely.
Well, I think that is enough for now. I'm sure Molly will write to you soon. In the meantime, she and all the Weasleys give you their regards, and ask when you're coming to visit.
Take good care of yourself, Harry.
Love,
Remus L."
Harry smiled and tucked the letter into a backpack. The floor waiter brought him his breakfast and Harry sat down to eat, already writing a reply in his head.
8888
Another month passed, without Harry deciding to go back on the road. The trial of Sarah's aggressor came and went, Sarah testifying, and the DA obtaining a conviction.
"Not nearly as much as it should have been," Regan seethed after the verdict.
Harry cynically thought that, had the guy actually managed to rape Sarah, he would have been more heavily punished. "Yes," he said. "Not nearly." Especially since, according to Margaret, Sarah still had nightmares about him.
School session began, and Roland, Alex and Margaret became less present. The school they worked at allowed students to either board or go home every day, so only about half the students stayed between holidays - and sometimes on holidays too. The student body being less important than at Hogwarts, the teachers weren't all required to stay at all times. Usually, Margaret stayed the first two weeks of the months, Roland the last two weeks, and Alex came back every weekend, and sometimes during the week, to see John. None of them seemed too set on their schedule, though. When John was hitting a rough patch in the writing of his book, he isolated himself and Alex spent three weeks without leaving the school grounds. Margaret had already warned Harry that, with the end of term exams, she wouldn't leave the school the whole month, as she tended to be short tempered then.
Then, one day, an owl arrived at the hotel for Harry. Julius was asking him if he could interest Harry in a job in the school.
Harry couldn't say he hadn't seen it coming - he would have had to have been blind, deaf and stupid to miss the hints Alex had dropped at his last visit, saying that the current Defence teacher was a goon, an idiot, and an incompetent, and that he was soon going to get fired.
He didn't know whether to smile or sigh, as he accepted Julius's invitation, for the next day.
He had had a feeling on their first meeting that it would be difficult to refuse the man anything.
He was going to find out very soon whether he had been right.
