Spontaneous Magic
This Harry Potter story was written for fun. All rights belong to the wonderful lady (JK Rowling) who gave the world Harry Potter to read and enjoy. Love the movies showing again on TV for the holidays.
++***++ Introduction:
Accidental magic is a problem for all young wizards and witches, especially when they are distressed or scared. Freak begins to despair at age five because no one notices him or cares for him. When he is taken from his cupboard and knows 'Aunt Tuna' and 'Unc Vern' plan to desert him at a hospital, the small boy's fear causes his magic to react spontaneously.
Being adopted into a magical family in England gives 'Frank' the love and safety he needs to stave off expression of uncontrollable magic. His adoptive parents learn a great deal about their son when they blood adopt him using the services of the Goblins.
In 1991, when Frank boards the Hogwarts Express, he meets many children who believe that 'Harry Potter' is dead. His adventures at Hogwarts create many situations where his powerful uncontrollable magic reacts.
This story should be twelve chapters long, ending in sixth year without any romantic relationships in place but lots of magic thrown about. The Weasleys really won't figure in the story very much but Neville, Hermione and Luna will be friends. Dumbledore (BASH), Sirius (BASH), and Pureblood characters (BASH BASH) to help move the story along.
Break Scene ++***++
01 Dealing with the FreakThe day her beloved nephew, Dudley, turned five years old, Marge Dursley set her sister-in-law down and spoke earnestly about getting rid of the 'freak' that lived in the boot closet under the stairs.
"It won't do for that freak to infect Dudley in the coming years. Our boy will start school this fall and can you imagine what his friends will think if that 'boy' is there?"
Petunia frowned but agreed with Marge and wished to be rid of her freak-sister's brat. But she remembered the warning in the head freak's letter about the boy providing protection so long as he called her house 'home'.
"I wish we were rid of him," Petunia admitted.
"Then simply drop him off at an orphanage," Marge said. "He doesn't speak and doesn't know his name."
Nodding her head, Petunia Dursley buried the memories of the happy child that her nephew had been until they isolated him and forbid him meals at the insistence of her husband and sister-in-law. The woman who refused to let go of the hatred she felt for her dead sister, decided to act that very day.
"When Vernon returns with Dudley, we'll take the freak to the entrance for Casualty at the hospital two towns over. He can walk into the doors by himself and we'll drive away without anyone knowing we were there."
In his cupboard under the stairs, Freak listened to the two women plotting to be rid of him while he hugged his knees tighter. He'd never felt a moment of happiness or love in this house but in his heart, he remembered that he had been loved. There was a memory of Mum and Da in his heart that was small but remained very strong. It was as if Mama and Da were determined to reach out and protect him even now.
But the talk by his aunts scared Freak as he listened to the two women planning to leave him at something called 'casualty'. For the last year, his cupboard protected him from Unc Vern, Aunt Marg, Aunt Tuna and Dud. They forgot about him for days at a time and his forays into the kitchen for food were completely ignored by the Dursleys. Only the arrival of 'Aunt Marg' this week focused their attention enough to notice Freak again.
Vernon Dursley thought his life was close to perfect with a loving wife and healthy son. His sister's insistence on doing something about the 'freak under the stairs' reminded the man about the unfortunate orphan that had been dumped on his family four years before just after Halloween.
'I never think about him and he stays out of the way,' Vernon remembered. Glancing at his son, he did think about the influence one of those 'people' might have on his son in the coming years.
'Marge mentioned about Dudley being embarrassed by the freak at school,' Vernon remembered. 'But what can we do?'
As soon as he opened the door at No. 4 Privet Drive, Petunia and Marge descended on Vernon and shared their plan.
"Hopkins is two towns over, not forty minutes away even with traffic," Petunia said.
"And they have a large hospital with a wing for troubled children," Marge added. "We drop him off and send him through the doors of the casualty department while we drive away. No one there knows us and he knows nothing."
"We can take Dudley to dinner to celebrate his birthday after we drop off the freak," Vernon announced.
And so it was that the Dursley family summoned the Freak from his cupboard, made him put on his sweater and follow them to the car. Without room for everyone in the car, Vernon put the small boy in the boot.
Fearful of the ride in this strange location, Freak's last view of the house where he'd felt safe was of Aunt Tuna pulling the door closed. His familiar cupboard was gone and he was angry. The car started up and the family drove away quickly. Behind them, the magic that Freak created inside the cupboard to hide him from the people in the house pulled together – this was powerful, natural magic and it felt deserted by the young wizard who was forced to leave. The magic coalesced and heated the air in the cupboard to the point the rags the boy used for a bed ignited.
After five minutes burning in the boot cupboard, the staircase erupted in flames. The whole of No. 4 Privet Drive was an inferno when the fire department arrived. The firemen kept the flames from spreading to other houses though they noted the intensity of the heat and rate of combustion consuming the house.
'We need to check for accelerants and victims,' decided the firemen. They noted that there wasn't a vehicle in the ruins of the garage so perhaps the family was out. The policemen who arrived checked with the neighbours who confirmed the family as being the 'Dursleys' but none of them had a mobile phone number for anyone in the family.
After forty minutes on the road, Vernon Dursley stopped his car in the car park for the Hopkins Royal Children's Hospital. He waited for a few moments, allowing Marge to distract Dudley with stories about her dogs, before he stepped from the car. The red light over the door for Casualty was bright and easy to reach from the car park.
The fat man opened the lid of the boot, lifted out the freak, pointed toward the red sign, and said, "Go inside the doors under the red sign. Tell the people there that you're a freak."
Freak swallowed to keep from crying and did not say anything. The boy immediately obeyed his uncle and began walking toward the red sign. Behind him, Vernon closed the boot lid, returned to the car and pulled away. No one was paying attention as the small boy stopped and looked back at the car.
The boot of the Dursley car became very hot as Freak stared after the taillights before they vanished. The forty-minute drive from Privet Drive to Hopkins let the young wizard's magic gather in the boot to protect and hide him again. Believing they were safely rid of the freak, the Dursley family chose to dine at a restaurant before returning home. After dinner at a buffet, Vernon looked for a petrol station and turned off the road to replenish the tank.
As soon as the man popped the cap of the tank with the nozzle for the petrol in his hand, the fumes from his tank ignited in the magical heat from the boot. A conflagration of extreme heat exploded and immolated Petunia, Dudley and Marge Dursley to ashes inside the car. The force of the explosion threw Vernon almost fifty meters from the petrol station and broke most of the bones in his body. If he had not been impaled on a metal pole in front of a deserted warehouse, he might have survived for a time.
The local police and fire department made the identification of the man from the ID in his wallet. After a preliminary examination of the ashes in the ruins of the petrol station, the officials decided that Vernon Dursley's family perished in the fire.
++***++ Scenery Break
Biscuits in CasualtyFreak slipped into the Casualty Department of the Hopkins Royal Children's Hospital without capturing anyone's attention. After twenty minutes, a nurse noticed the boy, smiled at him and began talking to him.
Thinking that the lady was nice, Freak worried that she would turn nasty once she knew who he was. But that didn't happen once the lady dressed in white learned how he arrived at Casualty. Several other ladies dressed in white came through the room with gifts of milk, biscuits, and a teddy bear.
Then a lady police officer arrived and she sat with Freak and his new friend for a long time. The three of them talked about his name, his family and where he lived. Freak barely spoke and the answers he gave answered none of the officer's questions. The head of children's services at the hospital took an interest in the mysterious patient and admitted him to the children's department that same night.
For a week, the nurses and physicians at the Hopkins Royal Children's Hospital spent hours with the boy they refused to call 'Freak'. When they asked him for a name he wanted, the boy's face showed his confusion.
"They called me 'Freak'. That's my name."
"You are a good boy and I think you need a name that is as good as you are," his first nurse told him.
"Is 'Freak' bad?"
Holding the five-year-old close, something the boy found uncomfortable at first, the nurse said, "You are good. Freak is an unusual word to use as a name. We want to give you a new name to tell everyone how good you are."
One of the other nurses suggested, "How about we call you 'Frank' instead of freak. They both start with 'F' and end with 'K'."
"Okay," the boy replied cautiously. "I like how 'Frank' sounds."
Trust was very hard to build with Frank but the boy learned to not flinch when the nurses touched him during medical examinations or when they hugged him. They were surprized at Frank's cheerful disposition and ability to seeming to vanish when he wanted to.
"He's been taught to be silent and hide," one physician concluded when a group met to discuss Frank's behaviours. "He squats down behind a counter and if you aren't listening or looking carefully, you'll overlook him."
One of the nurses suddenly thought of something else but she remained silent about her suspicions so as to not draw attention from a ministry Auror sent to investigate an instance of magic in a muggle area.
Change Scene ++***++
Friends of the QueenMelanie Plummer was a muggleborn who fled back to the real world after sitting for her Owls at Hogwarts. There wasn't much of a future for her in Magical Britain and her experiences in five years in Gryffindor house soured her on all wizards and witches. Her parents supported her choice and even moved from York to Surrey to change their address – one that was never provided to the Ministry for Magic. A very bright young woman who used magic spells only occasionally and never at home, Plummer quickly qualified for nursing school and devoted her energies to her studies.
Working at Hopkins Royal Children's Hospital gave Melanie the purpose she sought in life after the disappointments that were Magical Britain. So far, there wasn't any man who figured prominently in her future but once she found him, she was determined to protect herself and him from Magical Britain.
Now, the appearance of a neglected child who knew nothing about his family but who exhibited an uncanny ability to 'hide in plain sight' caught her attention. Once she was home and assured that there were no listening spells or unwelcome visitors in the flat, she called a special telephone number.
"Friends of the Queen," said a feminine voice on the other end of the line.
Melanie replied, "Long live the Queen."
"Name?" asked the voice.
"Melanie Plummer."
After a moment as the person on the other end of the call located her name in a computer file, the other woman asked, "Miss Plummer, what can MI-5 do for you this evening?"
"I work as a paediatric nurse at Hopkins Royal Children's Hospital in Surrey and there's a child that needs to be checked for special gifts. The situation is very strange – he was deserted at Casualty. There's no one looking for him, his doesn't know his name…"
"Has he been obliviated?"
"No, I don't think so. But he doesn't know his own name or his family name. And he has an uncanny ability to vanish and hide from everyone until he is hungry. The nurses think he just sits quietly in a corner or under a table but I'm not so certain."
"We'll send out someone tomorrow to Hopkins Royal Children's Hospital and surreptitiously check."
Just as promised, a quiet man with friendly eyes appeared at the hospital during the next day and he spoke with Frank for a few minutes. The boy liked the rubber ball the man left with him. While playing with Frank, Melanie checked the rubber ball but found it to be a simple muggle toy without any magic.
Scene ++***++ Change
Frank's ExaminationA day later, the man returned with a tall woman dressed in a physician's coat and her name tag listed her name as 'Dr. Tack'. The woman talked to Frank for a long time and Melanie was certain that a few spells were cast in the examination room but there was nothing intrusive or powerful used so there was no reason for the ministry to send anyone to investigate the Hopkins Royal Children's Hospital.
"Nurse Plummer," the woman called. "Could I have a word with you?"
In the examination room alone with the man and woman, Melanie learned that the boy had been neglected socially but otherwise appropriately cared for until just recently.
"He never learned his name and the people he lived with never began the socialization needed for a small child – he doesn't know their names or where they live. There are no signs of uncontrollable magic except for the tendency you reported that he can disappear."
"Does he really disappear? That's not magic a child can control," Melanie stated.
The physician nodded her head in agreement and said, "I think it is a manifestation of the 'notice me not' magic. It would be very effective against nomag people like the nurses and doctors here. Being magical, you were able to notice that something was off."
Melanie asked, "Are you American? They call muggles 'nomag' instead of 'mudbloods'."
The woman smiled and lied, "Yes. I am here consulting with your government on getting more of the new magic people out of the morass that is Magical Britain."
"Get out?" asked Melanie, her tone not able to hide her interest.
The man spoke up and said, "MI-5 is preparing studies for the Prime Minister and Her Majesty that suggest the collapse of Magical Britain within another generation. They are inbred and losing their powers. The muggleborn all leave and return to our world. But we want to provide them with a safe place to live and that's usually Canada, the States, or Australia."
"But they'll come for muggles if they can't find muggleborn."
"And that violates the treaty of separation," the man explained. "The Prime Minister is reluctant to act but the crown wants to shut down the ministry and set up a new government. His Holiness Dumbledore holds too much power with the ICW for the queen to force the issue at present."
Nodding her head in agreement with the role that Albus Dumbledore played in the decline of Magical Britain, Melanie asked, "What will happen with Frank?"
"He'll go to children's services and they'll find him a magical family among muggleborns. He'll be fine."
Melanie paused for a moment before she asked, "Can my parents and I get out? Will you help us?"
The physician's face remained the same though her feelings were sad to hear another witch wanted to leave England as the man explained how the government would help Nurse Plummer and her parents to leave.
"Australia is always welcoming for nurses from Britain," Dr. Tack told Melanie. "They have very similar licensing requirements. The States would make you take a year's worth of classes and then tests again."
++***++ Break Scene
A week later Melanie was contacted by Dr. Tack about introducing Frank to Mr. and Mrs. John Scott who hoped to become the boy's foster parents and eventual adoptive parents.
"How long are you in Britain, Dr. Tack?" asked Melanie.
"At least another month," the witch replied. "There are many meetings with new magic wizards and witches. The ministry in the other countries are sponsoring refugees. Did you and your parents…?"
"Yes, we applied the next day and as soon as my parents sell their house, we'll be gone to…"
"Don't tell me," Dr. Tonks replied. "I don't want to be obliviated of the information."
Melanie nodded and asked, "What is the process to get Frank placed with this couple?"
"We want Frank to feel comfortable with them before we speak to him about living with him. He has adjusted to the hospital environment but he needs a home with a regular room and bed, and parents. They will visit with him here, take him out for trips and perhaps a meal or two. Then we'll see how he feels about going home with them."
++***++ Break SCENE