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The Power Within
Chapter Three: A Day in the Life of a Teenager
"Move it, Potter," Ms Smith snapped. "I don't have all day." Harry winced as he scurried up to the front of the Drama classroom, ignoring the confused glances the four founders of Hogwarts were sending his way. "Back straight, head up, Potter. You can hardly deliver a monologue looking like a stoned drunkard."
"Madam!" Godric protested loudly. "That was completely uncalled for!"
"Professors and students must have a certain respect between them, or neither party will learn from each other," Rowena added. Ms Smith stared at the duo incredulously.
"Potter, you came in with these smart alecks. Who are they?"
"Er . . . friends of mine from . . . er . . . Canada. They just moved here."
Ms Smith raised an eyebrow. "Canada, hmm? Is it true they say 'eh' at the end of every sentence?"
The quartet exchanged bewildered glances, before finally noticing Harry's frantic nodding up at the front of the class. "Er . . . that's correct . . ." Rowena tried.
"Eh!" Helga added happily. The other three glared at her, but Ms Smith seemed satisfied, and returned her attention to Harry, who was frantically creating a monologue on the spot. Rowena spotted his obvious quick thinking, and, hoping to earn some respect in the boy's eyes so he would listen to her and accept his powers, spoke up.
"Er, Miss, what does this monologue entail, precisely?"
Ms Smith apparently adored being in the spotlight, because she immediately launched into a monologue of her own. "This assignment is the term project, and worth 10% of the final grade. Students must create a monologue on the subject of their choice, and present it to the class on the date of MY choosing. I won't have those useless slackers trying to put off the presentations until I forget about them. Sly little buggers – never trust a word they say to you, girl, because they'll only stab you in the back . . ."
Godric and Rowena exchanged a glance. The woman was not only prejudiced and insulting, she also highly distrustful of the world in general. And Harry willingly surrounded himself with these nutcases . . . why?
"Right." Ms Smith snapped impatiently. "You're clearly stalling for time, beaver girl. Potter, start your presentation NOW." The quartet were now more confused than ever. Why were they being likened to beavers, and what on earth was Canada anyway? The woman was not only a rude, obnoxious cow, she was also insane!
"Right." Harry replied miserably. There went his drama mark, straight down the drain. Or maybe not . . . "My monologue's topic is . . . fantasy and imagination. I will be telling you the tale of a young boy who, through the help of magical owls and a motorcycle-riding giant, discovers he's a wizard and enters the mysterious world of Magic!" He looked to Ms Smith for approval, and she gave it, although she looked quite displeased about the whole thing. Apparently, magic wasn't her cup of tea.
"Once upon a time there was a young boy named . . . James Porter, who from the tender young age of two, had been living with his abusive aunt, uncle, and cousin, all of whom hated the very ground he walked on . . ."
.::.
"Excellent story, Harry, I very much enjoyed it," Helga complimented Harry as they trudged out of class an hour later. "It was quite clever, using the magical world as the basis for your plot. James Porter seemed so realistic – it was almost as if he actually existed!"
"He does," Harry replied shortly. "He's me. That entire story was true."
"All of it?" Rowena demanded, aghast.
"That's right," he snapped. "Want to make something of it?" he demanded, temper rising rapidly. Now they would either ridicule him or pity him, and he couldn't stand the thought of either. He'd left the wizarding world to escape the pity, for God's sake!
"Stop snapping. You clearly don't want our pity, and you won't be getting it. You don't talk about your horrific past, and we won't either." Salazar stated, peering at the passing students suspiciously. "Evil looking lot, aren't they?"
Harry snorted. "Oh yeah, like YOU'RE one to talk!"
"What is that supposed to mean?" the man asked icily, arching an eyebrow. Harry mentally berated himself. None of the quartet knew yet that Salazar . . . no, Slytherin! would turn evil and leave the school, and Harry certainly wouldn't be the one to ruin the surprise.
"Oh, nothing. You just seem the evil sort to me," he replied, smiling innocently up at the dark haired man, who glared at him evilly. "You see? If you didn't glare so much, Salazar, you wouldn't look half as evil as you do now."
"The boy has a point," Helga said approvingly. "I've been telling you for years to change your image, maybe cut your hair . . . speaking of which . . ."
Throughout this whole episode, Godric had discovered the main problem associated with baggy pants – the fact that they were constantly falling down. If watching Godric Gryffindor waddle down the hall, clutching at his pants in an attempt to remain decent, didn't amuse Harry, then nothing would.
"Instead of laughing," said Godric, "you could make an effort to help me out here."
"Why would we do that?" Rowena asked, giggling. Sure, she was a middle-aged woman on the inside, but on the outside she was a teenaged girl, and was entitled to act like it if she so chose. Of course, she had no more experience with modern clothing than Godric did.
Salazar, Godric, and Harry immediately averted their eyes as the woman bent over to help Godric fasten his pants, giving them a more-than-generous view of her cleavage. Normally Harry, being a teenage boy, would have goggled at the sight, but this was Rowena Ravenclaw! Some decorum was expected!
"That's it!" Harry shouted, fed up. "Helga, conjure up a belt and give it to Godric. And for God's sake take off those stilettos, or you're going to kill yourself. Rowena, just . . . here, take my jacket, and keep it on at all times. The last thing we need is hundreds of lecherous eyes on you everywhere you go. Honestly, how you four managed to build Hogwarts is a mystery to me!"
Once the quartet were sorted out – Salazar hadn't needed any help, as his jeans were so tight fitting they couldn't possibly fall down without assistance – Harry, shaking his head, dutifully started off to his next class, ignoring the founder's antics as much as possible. He nearly lost it completely when Helga was squirted by the broken water fountain, screamed shrilly and hexed the fountain to Australia. Literally. Three days later he would hear on the news that a water fountain came flying out of the sky near Sydney, Australia, nearly killing three humans and injuring a small duck.
As they turned into the hallway that led to Harry's locker, as well as the History Pod, Harry suddenly screeched to a halt, eyeing something distrustfully. "What is it, Harry?" Helga inquired, and Harry gestured swiftly towards a black-clothed figure who, sensing they'd spotted him, immediately vanished from sight.
"Who is he?" Rowena asked, intrigued by the man's antisocial behavior.
"That is the man who haunts the school every night when everyone else has left," Harry whispered. "Some people think he doesn't even exist, but to those of us who've seen him, he's VERY real. They say he lurks in the basement during the day, planning sinister plots of world domination, and at night, when no one is around, he sneaks up to the upper level and . . ."
". . . and what?!" Helga exclaimed.
". . . and . . ." Harry continued mysteriously. ". . . he cleans the school!"
Rowena snorted. "Talk about anti-climactic, Harry."
"They call him the Janitor," Harry told her seriously. "And you may laugh now, Rowena, but students who've seen him at night claim he has with him an army of monsters with which he will one day attack the school, followed by the world."
"You can't POSSIBLY believe this," Salazar stated flatly. "It's complete nonsense."
"Maybe," Harry agreed, "but it's fun to think about, isn't it? Come on, oh great founders, class is starting, and Mr Grant won't wait."
"What does this Grant teach, Harry?" Godric asked.
"History."
.::.
"Welcome to our class, strangers!" the man known as Mr Grant told the founders cheerfully, ushering them into the classroom. "Class, greet our newest members!" There was an indistinguishable mumble, but not much else.
"Cheery lot, these," Godric whispered to Helga, who swatted at him reprovingly.
"Take a seat, take a seat. That's right. Now then, where were we? Ah yes! The first landing on the moon! Can anyone tell me about the moon landing?"
Harry, knowing that no one else would, raised his hand. The students of Stonewall hated school with a passion, and thus even the most brilliant person turned into a mindless drone when he entered a classroom. "The first landing was executed by Neil Armstrong, who, along with Buzz Aldrin, landed on the moon on-"
"LIES!" Mr Grant howled. "ALL LIES! They never landed on the moon, that's just what NASA WANTS you to think! They faked the moon landing just so they could receive more funding for their REAL project. THE ULTIMATE PROJECT!"
"What's that?" Rowena asked, avidly taking notes, assuming the man was right just because he was the teacher.
"THEY AREN'T HUMAN!" Mr Grant shouted hysterically. "NASA is really a front for an ALIEN ORGANIZATION! They infiltrated NASA and killed or brainwashed all the employees, turning them into mindless drones. They're using our satellite system to gain access to every major organization on the world, and once they have that, they will DESTROY US ALL! COMPLETE, UTTER ANIHILATION!"
No one really knew quite what to say.
.::.
"I have reached a conclusion," Salazar announced as Harry led them down to the Cafetorium. "Every single muggle in this ENTIRE building is out of his or her mind. There is not a shred of sanity in this entire school, save us five."
"That's not true!" Harry protested as they entered the cafeteria, passing by a boy crawling around on his knees, bleating like a goat and stealing people's shoes. "Alright, maybe a little . . . alright there, Billy?"
"Mehhh!" the boy agreed, crawling off in hot pursuit of a cheerleader's hot pink sneaker, bleating loudly.
"Okaaaay . . ." said Godric.
"They aren't all like that," Harry reassured them, sitting down at a nearby table and gesturing for the founders to do the same. "May I present the only sane student in this entire school: Sasha."
The blond haired, blue eyed girl eyed the four newcomers suspiciously. "Hi, Harry. Who're the new kids?"
"Helga, Rowena, Salazar, and Godric." Harry offered, purposely omitting their last names, just in case. "They're my friends from Canada."
Her baby blue eyes, hidden behind thick lines of mascara, twinkled much like Dumbledore's did when he was particularly pleased. "Nice to meet you, newbies. Sasha Ramirov, resident philosopher, bookworm, and psychologist. I'm a woman of many talents, so either learn to like it or get out."
"I like this girl," Salazar approved, obviously quite taken with the fast talking blond, which wasn't all that surprising, since the girl seemed as dark and mysterious as Salazar was. "So what's a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?"
She stared at him. "I'm not even going to ask you not to hit on me, buddy. You try it, and I'll castrate you. Got that?"
Godric flushed, smacking his fellow founder upside the head. Taking Sasha's hand and placing a kiss on it, he proclaimed loudly, "Never fear, milady, the rogue shall not bother you again with his unwanted attentions."
Sasha eyed him in amusement. "I like this guy, Harry. You can keep him."
"Er . . . thanks, I guess."
"Don't mention it."
Godric's stomach growled loudly, as he hadn't eaten in two days. Harry winced and gestured towards Sasha. "Come on, Sash, let's go get some food for ourselves. Godric's going to die of starvation if we don't. Er . . . you guys don't have to come with us . . . in fact, don't. I don't even want to see your reaction to the lunch lady. Just wait here, and we'll be back in a sec, kay?"
"Bye," Helga waved at Harry dismissively as the duo walked off. Beside her, Rowena wasn't pleased in the least.
"This girl will complicate matters quite nicely," she stated darkly.
"Why?" Godric demanded. "I thought her a thoroughly pleasant girl. A bit on the violent side, but otherwise soundly minded."
"You would think that, wouldn't you?" Salazar hissed at the burly man, who chuckled and taunted, "Oooh, is Salazar jealous? I think he is! Oooh, poor ickle baby . . ." He would have continued, had it not been for the fact that Salazar had transfigured him into a mouse.
"Shut up, you obnoxious prat, and I'll put you right," he told the mouse viciously, who squeaked angrily at the glaring man, attempting to bite his hand and failing miserably.
"Honestly!" Rowena exclaimed, zapping Godric back to his normal state. "Sasha Ramirov will seriously complicate things!"
"How so?" Helga asked, shoving Godric into his seat so he couldn't attack the smirking Salazar.
"We thought the only thing keeping Harry from accepting his powers was his innate fear of people being harmed because of him! We thought that if we could help him overcome that, help him realize the powers would HELP him, not hinder him, then he'd accept them and return to the wizarding world, but Sasha puts a whole new spin on things. He's made friends here, which means he'll consider how it will affect them before he accepts the powers, and we all know how important friends are to Harry. If that Sasha girl seems to need him here, then he won't budge, because a friend is in need, and Harry can't help but help them."
"So what do you suggest we do?" Salazar asked. "Off the Ramirov girl?"
"Of course not," Rowena said, shocked at the suggestion. "We'll just have to show Harry that he'll help her more by leaving than by staying."
"And how do we do that?"
She sighed. "Only God knows, my friend. For once in my life, I don't have all the answers. And who left this sandwich here?" she demanded, flinging the offending food into what Harry claimed was a 'trash can'.
At that point Harry and Sasha reappeared, loaded down with heavy trays of food, meaning the founder's conversation effectively ended then. The six ate their meal quickly, chatting occasionally about the school, the weather, anything interesting, cleaned up their table and headed off towards their next class, Harry's being Science, Sasha's being History with Mr Grant.
"Have fun!" Harry called after Sasha as she strode away. "She's just terrific, isn't she?" Beside him, Rowena and Godric exchanged glances.
"You see?" Rowena demanded in a whisper. "She's going to ruin everything!"
"At least no one heard our conversation at lunch," Godric said consolingly. "As long as we keep these conversations to ourselves, so Harry doesn't suspect we're plotting behind his back, everything should go just fine."
As the quintet walked off down the hall, no one noticed the small sandwich lying carelessly in a nearby trash can, listening to every word that passed through their lips. The sandwich, it's spying complete, hopped out of the can and waddled into a crack in the wall, feeling the contentment that came with a job well done. Inside he found the sandwich that had positioned itself on the Potter boy's lunch table. Together they laughed maniacally. Their master would be pleased with their findings.
.::.
". . . and by adding these elements together, you create something known in laymen's terms as Salt," Mr Brown explained, writing out the chemical equation on the blackboard behind him for the students to copy. Before entering the class, Harry had told the founders that Science was his favorite class, mainly because the teacher was so incredibly NORMAL it was refreshing just to be in his presence. The only other thing he'd told them was to stay away from the large cupboard beside the blackboard, but as he hadn't given them a reason why, Rowena had told the others to just pay attention to the lesson and forget about the cupboard. You'd think they'd have learned to listen to him by now, Harry thought as he copied down the equation. Well, they would see.
Mr Brown was speaking again. "Miss Ravenclaw, if you could please retrieve a triple beam balance, so I can give you a practical demonstration of this equation."
Rowena got up from her desk, pulling Harry's jacket tighter around herself when she caught so many boys eyes on her. "Where is this . . . er . . . beam apparatus, Mr Brown?"
"Triple beam balance, Miss Ravenclaw. It's in the cupboard beside the blackboard."
Unfortunately for Rowena, and to Harry's complete horror, there were two cupboards, one on either side of the blackboard, and Rowena unwittingly chose the exact cupboard Harry had warned her to stay away from. As she pulled open the doors, Mr Brown gasped, screaming, "NO! Not the CUPBOARD! AHHHH!" and he ran out of the room in abject terror, all prior sanity forgotten. Rowena was shocked at the man's reaction, and peered into the cupboard to see what on earth had provoked it. What was inside nearly made her shriek.
The inside clearly hadn't been cleaned out in ages, meaning it was infested with cobwebs, as well as a grotesque smell. That wasn't all, though. The cupboard also housed a skeleton replica of the human body, propped up against the cupboard side, mouth set in a mocking grin. Beside it on the floor sat an impossibly small boy with pale skin and black hair, roasting what looked like a rat over a Bunsen burner. He looked up when Rowena gasped softly, and gave her a haunting grin.
"A visitor!" he exclaimed. "Come in, pretty girl, come live with me in my cupboard. You'll never be lonely again, not with Humphrey as your companion. Would you like some rat?" Rowena, not knowing whether he was referring to himself or the grinning skeleton, slammed the door shut with a shriek, falling backwards into Godric's arms, who'd run up in case she needed 'rescuing'.
"Good Lord!" she said, pushing herself to her feet. "Who on earth was THAT?"
"The Skeleton man," a small girl in the front row said, glasses glinting mysteriously. "He lives in the closet with Humphrey, feeding off the rats that crawl into the cupboard's dark corners. They say the skeleton, Humphrey, was once actually a living man, who the Skeleton man murdered in a jealous rage, and toasted his body parts one by one in the light of the Bunsen burner's blue flame."
Rowena's eyebrows raised. "You certainly have a lot of superstitions at your school, don't you?"
"How can the Skeleton man be a superstition if you just saw him?" the girl demanded. "Mr Brown knows he exists, has known it for years, and is terrified of him. They say the man killed was Mr Brown's BROTHER!"
"That's why we NEVER OPEN THE CUPBOARD," Harry told them pointedly. "Maybe next time you'll listen to me. Geez."
Salazar, sitting at the back of the room, began banging his head against the desk. They needed to get out of this madhouse soon, or Salazar was going to go insane. Then again, he was in this nuthouse by his own choice, wasn't he? Perhaps he already was mad.
.::.
Whilst Harry whiled his time away in the muggle world, experiencing the wonders of muggle High School and, more recently, the arrival of the Founders of Hogwarts, things hadn't been going quite as well in the wizarding world. Okay, scratch that. Things were going terribly.
Upon learning from Dumbledore that Harry had left their world for good, Hermione and Ron had immediately gone through the Three Stages of Shock. First, disbelief.
"That's impossible," Hermione had told Dumbledore reprovingly. "Harry wouldn't do that. He knows how much he's needed!"
"Harry's too smart to let Sirius's death get to him," Ron agreed. "We're his friends, we'll help him out. Just because he wasn't at the Sorting feast doesn't mean he's left."
Then, anger.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, HE'S REALLY GONE! WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP HIM! YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED HIM! YOU JUST LET HIM RUN OFF TO LIVE WITH HIS GUILT WITHOUT A CARE IN THE WORLD!" Hermione shrieked.
Then, finally, acceptance.
"He's really gone," Ron said sadly. "He left. Where does that leave us?"
"We'll just make do as best we can," Hermione said firmly. "When he's ready to come back, he will, and we'll welcome him with open arms, but until that time, we'll just have to live without him."
And live they did, but it wasn't nearly as easy as Hermione had made it seem. The school had quickly realized the Dream Team trio was down to only two members, and while most sympathized with the duo, people like Draco Malfoy took it upon themselves to rub it in at every possible opportunity. Needless to say, by the time February rolled around, Ron and Hermione were just about ready to leave Hogwarts and beat some sense into Harry's head. A few weeks of moping was fine, but SIX MONTHS?
And so it was that on February 4th of 1996, Headmaster Dumbledore called the duo up to his office with a permit to leave the school's grounds so that they could locate, corner, and convince Harry Potter to cease his foolishness and return to Hogwarts. Hermione and Ron easily accepted, as they'd been thinking of doing that exact thing, except with Dumbledore's permission, and were slotted to leave a week from that day. They would be travelling by broom, much to Hermione's displeasure, and the following days would be spent discerning the best way to convince Harry to come back with them.
On February 11th, Hermione and Ron snuck up to the Astronomy tower, mounted their brooms, and soared off into the air, filled with hope that finally, after six agonizing months, they would FINALLY see their best friend again.
They should have known better. Nothing is ever as easy as it seems.
To be continued . . .
A/N: Chapter 3 up! You like it? Then review! Oh yes, I'd really like to dedicate this chapter to athenakitty, because she's been following my stories for practically ever, and her reviews are always interesting and insightful, and, well, THANKS!