Erised's Bane: The Shadows of Trust
Author's Note: All right kiddies, so here it is—the highly anticipated sequel to my story, Erised's Bane. Okay, so it may not be so high anticipated…I only finished the first part a few days ago, and there didn't seem to be that enthusiastic of a response to the story itself, but I digress…I've really enjoyed writing this story, and onward I continue with Part Two of Erised's Bane.
Disclaimer: All legal rights of the Harry Potter franchise belong to J.K. Rowling, her publishers, and other various partners. I do not hold any right to the series at all, even though in my dreams Harry is mine….all mine.
First Chapter Whoo!
The Dursleys had never been so miserable in their entire life. So much was obvious from their appearance at the dinner table not two weeks into the summer holiday. Mr. Dursley, who was usually robust and unusually purple, had developed a sickly sort of look about him, almost as what one would expect an ill walrus to look like.
Mrs. Dursley was a different case completely. She was wan and her eyes were bloodshot, making it apparent that she hadn't slept well in a good many days. She nibbled delicately at the meatloaf she had prepared, which sadly wasn't up to par with her usual cooking, as her son Dudley was eager to point out to her.
"Mum, how could you burn it?" said Dudley sadly. "I was really looking forward to your dinner…"
"Just eat!" said Mr. Dursley in an uncharacteristic burst of anger towards his son. "The sooner we eat and get out of here, the less chance we have of…"
But what he was going to say, though fairly obvious by the events that happened next, was never finished. A loud crack was heard and a tall young man appeared in the center of the room. The Dursleys were attempting to pay no attention to him, although this was most certainly a difficult task as the boy was not only wearing robes on which were emblazoned the British flag and sporting gear quite foreign to them, and besides that he was covered in grass and dirt from head to toe.
He quietly sat down at the lone empty spot at the table, which had been pushed back to the corner, quite obviously to separate him from the rest of the family. He helped himself to a plate of food, which he scowled at.
"This doesn't look very good, now does it?" he said to nobody in particular.
"Your aunt made if for you," said his Uncle Vernon bitterly. "Eat up, or find your own dinner."
"All right." The entire family jumped when he pulled the dreaded item from his pocket.
"Vernon!" Aunt Petunia gasped. "You've made him use….use…IT!"
For Harry had pulled out his wand and waved it at the plate in front of him. The food began reshaping itself, and after only a moment had changed into a steak dinner, complete with mashed potatoes and gravy. He took a heaping bite and shrugged. "Not bad," he mumbled to nobody in particular.
"Are you certain you haven't been expelled for using…it?" said Uncle Vernon.
Harry grinned. "No, I'm perfectly legal now according to the Ministry. Or would you like to see my papers again?"
Uncle Vernon scowled. He had seen them enough to know that they weren't fake much to his chagrin. He had seen them for the first time when Harry suddenly appeared, as he had that evening, in the Dursley's living room. At the time they had been in the middle of a celebratory dinner, having earlier been told that they that it would not be a necessity for them to retrieve Harry from the train station.
Knowing now that Harry could finally use that 'M' thing in their presence, they had been on tenterhooks for the entire two weeks he had been home. Their way of dealing with the matter had been to ignore Harry as completely as possible. Of course, on those rare occasions the Dursleys actually spoke to him, Harry was far from afraid to use magic…..
They didn't know anything about Harry's life because of this. Not about the fact that he was representing their country, at least in respect to the wizarding world, in the world Quidditch competition, or that he was currently dating a lovely girl named Susan, who he wrote to almost every day.
"So…" Harry said aloud after a long moment. The Dursleys all jumped, not having noticed he was about to speak due to the fact that they were trying to finish their food as quickly as possible. "I just thought I ought to warn you that I'm going to be leaving this weekend," he said.
Despite themselves they all looked up. "Oh…really?" said Aunt Petunia, in a mock respectful voice. "Well then, when will you be…returning…?"
"Oh, I don't suppose I will be," said Harry. "I'm going to be traveling for a little while with my godmother. Quidditch you know, I'm playing on the national team…but after that I'll probably just go stay with the Weasleys until school begins."
The Dursleys knew as well as Harry did that this was his last year at Hogwarts. To the entire group, that meant only one thing…that Harry would never have to return to Number 4, Privet Drive ever again.
None of them said this, though. Harry didn't dare to tempt fate by saying such a happy thing aloud, and the Dursleys were too afraid of being cursed into oblivion to say anything at all.
The dinner continued in silence until the Dursleys had all finished the room. Harry smiled grimly as he poked at the remaining bit of his dinner. Little had his relations known that although he had changed the appearance of his meal, he had unfortunately not improved the taste…ah well, it had been a fun trick anyway.
He cleaned up his plate and hurried upstairs to take a warm shower, which soothed his aching muscles from Quidditch practice, and then stretch out on his bed. It was a funny thing, he noted as he stretched out, but all of a sudden he realized his toes were hanging over the edge of the bed. "When did I get so tall?" he said musingly. It had been a very active past few years…he had only barely noticed his sudden burst of height amidst all the confusion and chaos that he had been through.
But, well, he was almost seventeen. Not quite, but he only had six weeks to go. And he knew full well that it was his last year at school, making him wonder for certain what it was that he wanted to do once the year was out. He of all people knew how chaotic this year would be—for him as well as for all of the other seventh years.
Thinking back to Voldemort's attempts to kill him earlier that year, Harry involuntarily shuddered. The war was getting brutal, this much was certain. More and more people were dying, more and more people were going to be revealed as traitors. Harry was afraid, of so many things—of dying, of seeing the people he cared for be taken away, and on a stranger note…he feared the time that Voldemort finally was defeated.
The entire time he had been in the Wizarding world, after all, he had lived with the knowledge that Voldemort was out there, biding his time, plotting to kill him. It was strange that Harry couldn't imagine his life without that constant enemy—even stranger that Harry almost felt as if he would have nothing to live for afterwards.
But he wouldn't think of that. Not now…not ever.
Harry leaned in over his trunk, rifling through it. "You don't need all of this stuff to travel with," said Sabrina over his shoulder. "Why don't you just leave the textbooks and your school robes back at my place?"
Harry shook his head. "I have homework to do," he said.
"Can't you just wait until the season is over with?" she said.
"What if we go to the world cup? That would only leave me with a couple of weeks to get everything done."
Sabrina sighed. "All right then, but I'm not the one lugging it around all over the place, you are."
They were standing in his room, which was the barest it had been in a long time. All that was left in the room were the things that had been there when Harry had moved in several years before…Dudley's broken childhood toys, the books that had yet to be read. All of Harry's things had been neatly packed away, down to the last scrap bit of parchment. As he put it, he didn't want to leave any trace of himself behind. He would be nothing but a bad nightmare to the relations who had harbored him for the past sixteen years.
The Dursleys were at breakfast as Harry and Sabrina floated his things down the stairs. She had arrived about an hour before, having apparated right into the entrance hall just as Uncle Vernon had been walking to the door to get the mail. Sabrina had smiled at him. "Hello, you must be Harry's aunt…oops, I mean uncle, right? Uncle." She smiled, extending her hand. Of course, this was all an act as Harry had discovered.
"The best way to tell somebody else's character," she said as she helped him pack, "is to act like a complete and utter dimwit."
Harry had sudden memories of how empty-headed Professor Young had been when he first met her. This was certainly not who she had turned out to be.
They made their way wordlessly past the Dursleys and outside, where Sabrina raised her wand to hail the Knight Bus. After only seconds it pulled up to the curb with a screech, stopping only inches away from Harry's toes. The doors opened and Stan leaned out, tipping his hat towards Harry. "Good day t'ye," he said. "Comin' aboard?"
"Yes, the National Quidditch Field, please," said Sabrina.
Stan helped them board the luggage. Harry stepped onto the bus, and took a deep breath before slowly sitting down. He didn't turn to look at Number Four Privet Drive, opting to keep his head straight forward as they pulled out and left the place.
It was a rather short ride to the field where Harry would be spending the next few months. He would be staying, like the rest of the team, in an apartment nearby so that he might be close to the rest of the group for practice and for travel (and also, he supposed, so that Paul might keep an eye on the team and make sure nothing horrible happened.)
The first game would be held in a week or so. It was an away match, and rather than apparate to America the team would be traveling by portkey. After all, such a huge apparition attempt could be tiring, and nobody wanted the National Quidditch Team tired….
Paul was waiting to meet Harry when he arrived. He smiled and moved forward to shake his, and then Sabrina's, hand. "There you are, then," he said, "I'm glad you're on time. No, don't worry," he said at the panic-stricken look on Harry's face, "no practice tonight, although I do say we'll be working hard in the coming week. No, we're just going to get you settled in."
The apartments were new, having only been built the year before. Harry noted their location immediately. "These used to be the camping grounds!" he said.
Paul nodded. "Yes, where that dreadful Death Eater attack took place. I wasn't here, but I heard about it. They built these last year, so we could use this field for more than just our games…after all, we weren't about to let them tear this field down, we had to get something out of that game if we couldn't be in it…but I digress."
He led them in. A man with a short, square-shaped red beard and a bald head nodded to him. "Mister Paul," he said.
"This is Harry Potter, Clive, our seeker," he said. The man jumped a little bit and then nodded to Harry.
"It is good to meet you, Mister Harry," he said. "Is that your luggage? Shall I take it up?"
Harry nodded and the man whipped out his wand, levitating the trunk into the air. Then he began leading them all to a nearby staircase. Harry was last on, and to his shock it began moving under his feet the moment he stepped on. "Seventh floor, please," said Paul.
The stairs moved upwards, much more quickly than Dumbledore's did, and stopped at the very top. A single door faced them, upon which was emblazoned Harry's name, and underneath that the word seeker.
Paul pulled a golden key from a chain and used it to open the door. Whatever Harry was expecting…it wasn't this.
The door led into a large room full of plush furniture, all scarlet and gold, 'for Gryffindor,' muttered Paul. Harry laughed. He slowly made his way around the apartment, finding a bathroom even nicer than the prefect bathroom at Hogwarts, and no less than three giant bedrooms.
"It's very nice," said Harry, "but…well, it's really all mine?"
Paul nodded. "A bit overwhelming, I must admit, but no more and no less than what everybody else on the team gets." He handed Harry the key. "Oh, and if you need me I'm the fifth floor. There are only seven apartments, one on each floor. Steer clear of the fourth floor, that's where Hennessy lives."
Harry remembered the beater. "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind," Harry said.
As Paul and Clive left, there was knock heard at the door. Harry was busy putting his things into one of the bedrooms, so Sabrina answered. She laughed happily, making Harry poke his head out. Liam was there.
"Hey, sis!" he said. "Going to be staying up here for a while?"
She smiled. "Yes, of course."
"And where's Harry?"
"Right here." He exited the bedroom, nodding at the team Keeper, who was also Sabrina's brother. "Hello."
"Hello, Harry," he said. "Like the place?"
Harry looked around. "It's big," he said. Liam laughed.
"That's the way I was at first, but believe me…you get used to it."
Harry grinned and made his way to the kitchen, curious as to what surprise was waiting there.
He wasn't exactly prepared to find a fully stocked liquor cabinet. He laughed awkwardly. "Is this…some sort of mistake?" he said.
"No, you're of age now, right?"
"Not quite…" said Harry.
"Ah well, close enough." Liam grabbed a bottle of Firewhisky and poured some into little glasses. "Here, drink up."
Harry smiled and awkwardly drank the glass.
"How is it?" said Sabrina with a smug smile.
"Oh…fine," Harry muttered.
Of course, he was fairly certain that his throat was on fire.