A/N: My beta and I are going through the previous chapters - VERY slowly. I may post updated versions in a few weeks. Again, thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed - it really is what keeps me going with this story!

Disclaimer: Nothing in the Harry Potter universe belongs to me.

Chapter 7 – Conversations With Peter

Not many teachers stayed at St. Brutus' over the summer. It was merely lucky coincindence that Rami had chosen the morning Petunia Dursley had taken her nephew back to school to come in and do some paperwork.

Now that Harry was at school, Rami knew he couldn't leave. He'd spent the past week in one of the staff apartments he typically occupied during the school year. It was spacious enough, but Rami had wanted to cisit his daughter and her two sons that summer. So he was therefore rather pleased when Peter Petrovitch called St.

Brutus' one week after Harry had threatened his aunt.

"Is this Ogden Rami?"

"Speaking," Rami said, picking up a pencil and starting a crude doodle of a stick figure on a pad of paper in his office. It was just after lunch, and he had just left Harry in the communal living room to watch TV.

"This is Peter Petrovitch. You wrote to me earlier in the week, about Harry?"

"Ah. Yes. I know you live rather far out, but I was hoping you and I could get together sometime soon to discuss the matter."


"You think he's been living in a dream world?"

"Not just living," Rami corrected. "And not just any dream world either." The two men were sitting in a dimly lit London pub that smelled damp and smoky. Rami gazed across the table, examining Peter closely. He was short and stout and, amusingly enough, had a head shaped a bit like a teapot. The perfect embodiment of that childhood rhyme, he was. But there was something about his eyes, the way they shifted uneasily from side to side, endlessly searching for an invisible escape route from … from what?

"What do you mean?" the man called Peter Petrovitch asked nervously.

"From what he's told me," Rami said, "I think that Harry's been taking events in his life and 'translating' them, shall we we say, into a dream world.

"I only just recently learned of the way Harry's been treated at his aunt and uncle's home, and this treatment seems to fit in with everything else. He was made to feel powerless and unimportant, so in his dream world, he was the all-powerful savior. The adults in hislife who should have cared for him – namely, your late friends – had no good reason not to do so, do Harry made up their stories in his mind: Sam Black was on the run from the law, and Robert Lucas was, I believe, a warewolf."

Peter shook his head sadly and stirred his Bloody Mary with a straw. "Surely he knows this world of his isn't real. All children need an imaginary world they can escape to at times, but they grow out of it."

"I don't think he has," said Rami. "His world is one in which anything is possible – the shy's the limit. From what I could gather, I think he believes a man named Voldemort cast a spell over the whole world that made everyone but him forget the truth."

"Witches and wizards?"

"The lot of them. Harry's dream world has no rational limitations – as I said, his "magic" can produce anything, even explain away common events that take place in this world."

"Such as-?"

"Shrinking keys," Rami said with an amused, albeit sad smile. "An extremely clever wizard product that looks like an ordinary set of keys that, er, shrinks. That's why we lose keys so often, you see, they keep shrinking. Rather ingenius on his part, in my opinion."

Peter let out a deep breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Wow." He turned away from Rami, staring across the pub at a snogging couple, apparently thinking hard.

"I'd like to meet him before I make a decision …"

"Of course."

"And I'll have to talk to my daughters and see what they think …"

"I completely understand. Shall we proceed to the school now?"


The St. Brutus' secretary had always liked the Potter boy. There was something compelling and endearing about his bright green eyes, dark shock of hair, and the set expression he always wore. She had no problem watching him when Dr. Rami wanted to go "out on the town" with Peter Petrovitch.

"Would ya like another lolly, Harry?" she asked, pulling a bright red lollipop out of a tin decorated with pictures of small, white puppies.

"Yes, thanks," Harry said, accepting the rock-hard candy. But when he thought she wasn't looking, he stuck it in his back pocket.

He'd had too much experience with her treats.


"Sylvia!"

Sylvia-the-secretary left her desk and went out ino the hall to see who had called her.

"Dr. Rami," she said, nodding her head in greeting. "What can I do for ya?"

"Sylvia, could you please bring Harry out into the hall?" asked Rami. "There's someone waiting upstairs that I'd like him to meet."

"O'course, Doctor."

Sylvia poked her head into her office. "Harry, come on out here, there's a good lad. There's someone Dr. Rami wants you to meet."


Harry went into the hall, but there was no one unfamiliar waiting there, just the secretary and Dumbledore. He raised an eyebrow questioningly.

Dumbledore had anticipated the question. "He's waiting upstairs in my office. Come, let's walk up together."

Harry nodded his agreement. The two walked down the hallway, turned the corner, and started up the stairs.

"Harry," Dumbledore said, "this is hopefully the man that will take you home with him in a few weeks."

Harry looked up in shock. "But … my things! They're at home!"

"I thought your aunt sent everything –"

"No, she didn't get whatever was under the loose floorboard upstairs."

"I'll let her know. But Harry, surely you don't want to go back to the Dursleys!"

They had come to a full stop in front of Dumbledore's office.

"Of course I don't," Harry said incredulously. "But I have to. Blood protection magic. You said so. That's why I can't ever leave them."

Dumbledore was looking sadly at him. "Harry … I'm sorry. I truly didn't know how hard it was there. Of course you can leave."

"It's safe?"

"It's safe."

Harry smiled. "All right! Let's meet this guy!" he said eagerly.

Dumbledore smiled back and pushed the office door open.


"Hello, Harry."

Harry appeared frozen. His eyes were wide in a terrified expression.

"Harry?"

"Peter Pettigrew," he breathed, shaking his head disbelievingly from side to side.