Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters. All I own is my original characters and settings that will come up later is the story.
I am rewriting/adding parts of this story to improve it and get rid of inconsistencies. If you see any let me know. Guys, there are so many inconsistencies in this story that it's not even funny. Why didn't anyone tell me? Oh well. More have been erased at this point. Tell me if you still find some in these rewritten chapters.
Another chapter rewritten and extended. Tell me if it's improved if you've read it before. And if you're a 'virgin', so to speak, just drop a line and tell me how it's going.
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Mrs. Richardson sat next to Harry on the couch. "Good morning Harry. I'm afraid we need to talk--well I need to talk at any rate." The sun was bright, breaking through the gaps in the blue curtains enclosing the bay window, the fabric glowing like sapphires in the light. "Harry. Severus brought you here to help you, but I don't feel like I am. I am at a loss of what to do." She stared at her fingers clasped in her lap. "The last thing I ever wanted was to send you away, but you need to be somewhere with people who can help you. I don't think I can. Severus and Remus will be coming to get you in a few days."
"No." He couldn't stop his voice from shaking.
Mrs. Richardson jumped.
"Please. I--I want to stay."
She opened and closed her mouth before covering it with her hand. "You're talking!"
Harry shrugged and moved back into the couch. "Yes. I do that sometimes. Not lately granted, but I can. Everything was too much. It was all--all--mushed up in my head."
"Mushed?" Mrs. Richardson sighed and leaned back against the couch. "You've met my daughter I gather?"
Harry chewed on his lip and watched her out of the corner of his eye. She had her lips pressed together so hard then were turning white. "Ye--Yes."
She covered her mouth again and laughed. "That little vixen. I will never figure that child out. She always knows what to say when." She sighed and shook her head. "Bloody witches."
Harry looked over frowning. "Aren't you a witch?"
She stood up and brushed invisible dust off her gray pants. "Decidedly not. I'm a squib."
Harry tilted his head to the side. "You don't have any magic?"
She crossed her arms over her chest. "No. That is the definition of a squib after all."
Harry took a deep breath to comment, froze, and let it out. He leaned forward. "But you run a magic school?"
Mrs. Richardson rolled her eyes and shrugged, a smile spread across her face. "Mind boggling isn't it?"
Harry picked at his cuticles. They were growing out along his nail. They'd probably start peeling and bleeding soon. "Yes."
Mrs. Richardson picked up a stack of books off the floor and set them on the nearest table. "You would think that in a lounge full of tables they wouldn't leave their things on the floor." She dusted off her hands and turned back toward the couch. "Are you hungry?"
Harry squinted. Starving myself doesn't seem to have stopped the dreams. Might as well try something else. "I think I am."
Mrs. Richardson smiled. She took his arms and pulled him to his feet. "Then let's go introduce you to American food."
The journal dropped from his lap, bounced on the wood floor, and flopped open. His mouth hung open. "I'm in America?"
Mrs. Richardson picked the journal off the floor and snapped it shut. "Yes. And you have been for a few days now."
He couldn't stop blinking. He'd left the country. Did the last war with Voldemort even reach America? "Bloody hell."
Mrs. Richardson held the journal toward him. "No that's England. And I would tell you to watch your language if I didn't suspect that my daughter's presence would make that a ridiculous request."
Harry shook his head and forced his fingers to close around the journal. "Where in America?"
Mrs. Richardson rubbed her forehead. "I am going to tell you this under the condition that you understand that the only English wizards that have the knowledge of our location are my brother and your headmaster. For those who know of the existence of this school the information pertaining to our location could be very sought after. You cannot tell any of your friends or even your teachers."
"But isn't it mentioned in any books? My friend Hermione knew about the other magical schools in Europe and at least roughly where they were." He pulled himself to sit on the most stable table in the room.
Mrs. Richardson moved to stand across from him. "That is true of those institutions that all function under the same set of principals. Those schools sequester their students from society and they learn only what they need to know to survive in wizarding society. Muggleborns and Squibs have no chance to become part of the other world that is open to them."
Harry pulled his legs up onto the table and dropped the journal in his lap. "You said that this school was for people that still wanted to live muggle lives."
"Exactly. The surrounding area, as we are in the center of a moderate sized city, believes that we are a private school for gifted children. They aren't exactly wrong so the situation works out well for everyone. The students are allowed to come and go as they please because they all know how to blend in and work alongside their muggle counterparts. Any wizardborn students that choose to come here are partnered with someone to help learn all they need to know. They get a crash course in survival skills. They fair quite well and often help their friends unravel the strange practices and ideals of wizarding society. Of course both of these worlds would be different from the one you know as American wizarding society is a bit different from the English one just as the two muggle societies are different."
Harry attacked the itch at the back of his head. Mrs. Richardson was trying to keep from laughing so he dropped his hand back into his lap. "So what you're trying to impart is that the students are vulnerable because they can leave the school and no one keeps strict track of them and there are no muggle repelling or concealing charms on the school so the only thing that stops people from finding you is that they don't know you exist or they're stupid?"
She nodded. "Essentially."
Harry nodded. "Okay. I promise to keep my mouth shut. Where are we?"
She smiled. "New York. I don't think any more specific names would help you."
Harry slid off the table and hugged his journal loosely to his chest. "I don't think I have any idea where that is." He shook his head. "Can we go eat?"
She laughed and draped her arm over his shoulders, pulling him forward. "Of course. We'll go through the long explanations of geography and such later."
She released his shoulders as they moved into the hallway. "Oh dear." She pulled him into the nearest window alcove. He peeked around the corner and then jumped back to avoid the stream of water.
"Sorry!" Kevin ran by holding a water gun. He bolted down the hall and grabbed the corner, spinning into the next hallway. Giggling and screaming filled the air.
Mrs. Richardson sighed and walked across the hall to the stairway. "Let's go to the kitchen, shall we? I think it will be slightly less hazardous.
He followed her down to the first floor and into the back corridors. She walked into the kitchen and shooed out two little girls with their hands full of cookies. He stepped out of their way as they giggled their way to the stairwell and pounded up the stairs, racing each other to the top. Harry smiled at his feet and moved into the kitchen. She was already frying something at the stove.
"It smells good."
Mrs. Richardson smiled and gestured him toward the table. "Yes. Yes it does."
He slid into the painted red wood chair and tucked his feet over the wooden crossbars under the chair. "I'm not ok."
She flipped the hamburger in the pan. "Hm?"
He propped his elbows on the table and dropped his chin into his hands. "Just because I'm talking and eating doesn't mean I'm ok."
"I am aware of that." She twisted the timer on the toaster oven.
He drummed his fingers against his cheeks. "I'm really screwed up."
She slid the hamburger onto a bun. "All right."
He pushed the legs of his glasses up and set them higher on his nose. "There are things in my head that shouldn't--that I don't want there."
"Ok." The toaster oven dinged.
He let his left arm fall to the table. "I still don't want to talk about it."
She slid chips onto his plate and set it in front of him. "How do you want to deal with those things in your head?"
Harry bit into the hamburger and licked at the drop of ketchup that leaked out of his mouth. He pushed the food into his cheek. "Push them away and forget they exist."
She pulled out the blue chair across from him and sat. "Do you think that will make things better?"
He took another bite and swallowed. "No."
She nodded and tapped her hands on the table. "Good."
He gasped and pushed the chip off his tongue into his cheek. That was hot. "Good?"
She coughed over her laugh. "As long as you recognize that that isn't a healthy reaction then you can eventually work through it."
Harry blew on his chip to cool it down and popped it into his mouth. "Ok. You don't want me to push it away and deal with it later."
She smiled and stole one of his chips. "No."
He tapped a chip against the edge of the smiley-faced plate. "Do I want to know why?"
She relaxed back into the chair. "Do you want to find yourself twenty years from now in a psychiatrist's office trying to sort all this out?"
Harry scooped a drop of ketchup off his hamburger with a chip. "It's very unlikely that I'll be alive in twenty years."
She froze and leaned forward. "Why do you think that?"
Harry shrugged and chomped on the chip. "Voldemort will kill me eventually."
She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "He hasn't yet."
Harry snorted and dropped against the back of the chair. "Not for a lack of trying."
She twisted her wedding ring around her finger. "No. I suppose not. But you've won against him again and again from what I've heard."
Harry flicked a chip across the plate. "I was lucky. Very lucky. Others weren't. People are dead. They're dead and I'm not because I got really lucky."
She reached over and grabbed his hand. "Yes. You got lucky and are still here, still alive. And you went on and learned more. And every piece of knowledge you gained gave you one more chance to be lucky. If you know this thing you might use it and save your life. If you keep learning, who's to say that you won't keep getting lucky?"
He yanked his hand back and dropped it in his lap. "I'm tired of fighting. I just want to worry about classes and girls and exams, not how to stay alive another year." He grabbed another chip. "So what now?"
She stood, went to the sink, and started washing the dishes. "I think that's up to you."
He finished the hamburger. "How?"
She laid the clean pan on the drying rack. "What do you think will help you get over whatever is wrong?"
He dropped his chin back into his hands and sighed. "Don't I even get options to choose from?" The soft inside of the chip squished out under his finger.
She opened the refrigerator and took out a carrot stick. "Well, I suppose you could talk to me, or Cali in theory. You could write everything down in your journal. Eat cookies and french fries until you puke--"
Harry bit his lips to keep the water in his mouth. He put down the glass and swallowed coughing. "What?"
She took a bit of her carrot and threw her hands in the air. "I have no idea. I don't know what's wrong Harry."
"Can we have library fun?" Cali stood next to the table with her thumbs hooked in her pockets. She had a tattoo circling her belly button. The floor was tiled in aqua blue.
Mrs. Richardson clapped her hands to her chest. "Morganna! Stop doing that."
Cali giggled. "My bad. Sorry Mom."
She ate the rest of her carrot stick. "I swear that magic is an absolute menace. Popping in and out of rooms when you have two perfectly good and functioning legs."
Harry choked on his water again. He pushed the glass out of his reach. Apparently one wasn't meant to drink here. "You can apparate?"
Cali grabbed a cookie off the plate on the counter. "What's apparating?"
Harry took the cookie she held out to him. Chocolate chocolate chip. "Appearing somewhere after disappearing somewhere else." He took a bite and stared down at the cookie. That was great!
Mrs. Richardson pulled dishes out of the second sink and started stacking them in the dishwasher. "No dear. She can't apparate. Cali has somehow figured out how to phase through other dimensions to enter different points in this one. Or something." She shook her head and turned back to the dishes.
Harry scrunched his nose. "Um--"
"Good job Mom, go and confuse the English boy." She slouched into the chair next to him and grinned. "I can teleport like Nightcrawler from the X-men." She sunk her teeth into the cookie.
Do not stare. Harry forced his hand to take another bite of the cookie. "X-men?"
Her eyes widened and she opened and closed her mouth. "You've never seen the X-men?"
Harry slid slowly to the other side of the chair. "No." He put the last bite of cookie in his mouth.
"Mom. Mom!" She spun and straddled the chair. "He's culturally deprived! That means I can watch X-men right? That's part of the rules."
Mrs. Richardson sighed and started the dishwasher. "No."
Cali smacked the back of the chair. "But Mom--Nightcrawler is so cute." She clutched at her heart. "I'm going through withdrawal."
Mrs. Richardson crossed her arms over her chest. "He's a blue mutant Morganna."
She snorted and tossed her hair to the side. "He's got a holographic imager."
Mrs. Richardson rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Not today. Please."
"Yes Mom." She turned back around in her chair. "Will you at least feed me?"
"Why didn't you go to lunch with everyone else?"
She shrugged. "I was finishing that potion." She tapped her fingers on the table. "So library then?"
Mrs. Richardson shook her head. "Morganna, I'm assuming you understand what you're talking about, but help out your poor old mother for once."
Cali shrugged. "There are books in the library on everything. Whatever is wrong with you Harry, there's probably a book about it. Or we could just read Shakespeare. He wrote about everything. You have read Shakespeare, right Harry?" She smiled and snagged a chip off his plate. She licked her fingers. Bad Harry. He picked up another chip. "Um. No."
"No!" She slid to the edge of the chair. "But you're English, he's English."
Harry shrugged and popped another chip into his mouth.
Cali shook her head. "Ok. That's it. Shakespeare it is. Can I take him to the town library? I haven't been there in awhile." She pulled her right knee onto the chair.
Mrs. Richardson gritted her teeth. "If he wants to go."
Cali smiled and rested her chin on her knee. "You want to go Harry?"
Harry clenched his teeth. I don't know what's out there. I don't know where I am. "I don't know."
Cali caught a look from her mom and dropped her knee to the floor. "Ok. That's no problem. No problem at all. I'll bring Shakespeare to you. How 'bout a play about fairies?"
Harry laughed. "Fairies?"
She scrunched her nose at him. "You'll see." She glanced at the clock on the wall. "Crap. I'm late for class. Dad told me not to show up late again. See you later Harry." She grabbed three cookies and ran out the door.
Harry watched her disappear out the door. "What class is she going to?"
Mrs. Richardson smiled. "Potions. Her father teaches it during the summer. He gets a kick out of being strict when she's late, so she tries to make sure she's late for every class."
Harry cringed. "I don't think I'd ever voluntarily take a potions class."
She laughed and sat next to him. "Why?"
"I hate potions. He's always trying to make me screw up."
"Severus?"
"Yes. He's always breathing down my neck and distracting me so I confuse the directions and ruin the potion."
She laughed and patted his shoulder. "That does sound like Severus. It's unfortunate that he's turning students off of potions. He's so wonderful at them."
"He's a horrible teacher. Dumbledore should fire him. Get him away from me--the students. Dumbledore shouldn't have given him a second chance. He should be in Azkaban with the other evil bastards rotting where he can't--" Harry pulled his feet onto the chair, wrapping his arms around his knees.
"Harry?"
He buried his head in his knees. " I can't--I'm sorry." He couldn't stop shaking.
She moved behind the chair and wrapped her arms around him. "It's ok. It's ok." She pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "It will be okay."
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