Harry jerked awake when a train attendant shook him. "Excuse me, sir, but the train will be arriving at the station in the next few minutes." She said with a professional smile.
Harry opened his mouth to respond, but before he could a jaw cracking yawn escaped him. "Sorry." He said, blinking blearily. "Thank you for waking me."
"It is no problem at all." The attendant told him before continuing on her way to check on all the other passengers.
Stretching and feeling his joints and back pop, Harry glanced out the window to see the passing lights that illuminated the darkness. Checking his phone he saw that it was little after two in the morning. Groaning and yawning again he proceeded to begin checking his things, to make sure nothing had happened during the trip.
Less than fifteen minutes later he was stepping off the train and making his way to the taxis, looking forward to having a good meal and finding a comfortable bed. Unfortunately the hour meant that he'd be unlikely to find a restaurant that wasn't fast food to satisfy his hunger, so he'd just have to hope that whatever hotel he ended up in had good room service.
Thankfully the information desks were manned twenty four hours a day, so he was able to get some good recommendations for places to stay. True, he could ask a taxi driver for a recommendation like he had in Paris, but that wasn't always going to work out well, so it would be best if he was a bit less impulsive and actually planned things out a bit better.
He was grateful for his decision an hour later as he sat in a cozy yet upscale hotel room with an amazing view of the Colosseum and enjoyed a late dinner of pasta carbonara.
The next morning Harry once again cursed alarm clocks to the deepest depths of hell as he blearily scrambled to shut up the annoying blaring coming from his phone. Once that task was done he groaned and lay on his luxurious bed, trying desperately to gather the monumental amount of willpower needed to go to the bathroom and take a leak. It took him another good ten minutes before he managed to force himself out of bed to shamble off to the bathroom.
After relieving himself and splashing some water on his face, Harry felt human enough to get ready for the day. After ordering himself a cappuccino and some brioche for breakfast he sat down and opened his computer in order to plan where he'd be going during his stay.
Unfortunately the Vatican Museums were sold out for the day, but he was happy to see that there were tickets left for the next day, so he quickly purchased himself one. Once that was done he pondered where to go, and after glancing out the window he smiled and bought one of the expensive tickets that would allow him to skip the lines.
At about ten in the morning Harry stood in the Colosseum, looking around at the ancient ruins, imagining the crowds that had attended to watch the events there.
Listening to the tour guide talk he looked out onto the remains of the arena, visions of strong gladiators fighting for dominance dancing through his mind. He wondered how he would do if he ended up as a competitor. Likely as lion food, he thought with some black humor.
A couple of hours later saw him in another Roman ruin as he walked through the Forum. Taking plenty of pictures he walked through the remains of a previous era, wondering how it had all looked during its heyday. He knew from asking Hermione that time turners couldn't go backwards more than a couple of hours, but that didn't keep him from briefly wishing that the magical world had some sort of more extensive time travel ability among its many wonders.
Taking a seat among the ruins of what a helpful sign said was once the Temple of Vesta he decided to people watch as he rested his feet. The Forum was full of tourists, including families from all over the world. As he watched, a Chinese family took a picture in front of the Arch of Titus. Nearby some obvious American teens made some silly poses in front of one of the remaining statues. And beyond that…
Harry frowned as he saw a group of Italian youths harassing a pretty brunette girl of about his age that obviously didn't want anything to do with them and was trying to get away. As one of them grabbed the girl's wrist, a slimy smirk on his face, Harry sighed as he got up and made his way over to them, cursing both his 'saving people thing' and the fact that there were going to be assholes no matter where in the world you went.
As he made his way over to the altercation he walked by a guard, who was speaking into a walkie-talkie while eyeing the confrontation. From what Harry overheard, the group were known troublemakers that liked to target tourists. The guard seemed very annoyed as he called for some backup.
Hearing that let Harry know he could leave this for someone else to handle, but when he saw the look on the girl's face (who seemed naggingly familiar, actually), he knew he couldn't let her deal with this any longer than necessary.
Making sure he was speaking English he called out as he approached, an edge in his voice and the smile he plastered on his face. "Amy, there you are." He said, drawing the attention of the girl and her assailants. "I got worried when you didn't meet me at the Temple of Saturn as agreed." He moved over and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, his eyes boring into the boy that had been holding her wrist and had let go at his approach. "Trouble?"
Thankfully the girl was quick on the uptake. "I'm sorry, Daniel." She said with a thankfully British accent as she leaned into him as though he was actually her boyfriend. "I just got involved with a small… argument… with these gentlemen."
"Well, I'm sure they'll be happy to let us go on our way now." He gave the youths his best, most chilling glare, the one Ron had once said would get Snape's approval. Harry might not be the confrontational type most of the time, but as his friends could attest, that didn't mean he couldn't be terrifying when he wanted to be. Especially when he focused his experiences with all he'd seen into his glare.
The leader of the little gang looked like he was about to argue for a moment, but then he caught Harry's practically glowing emerald eyes, the look in them promising an unpleasant future if they didn't agree. He swallowed before nodding quickly. "Yes, yes!" He said in heavily accented English. "We were just wanting to keep the signorina company, since she seemed lonely. Our… our apologies!"
Harry gave each of the three young men one more look, making them visibly shudder in fear, before smiling a touch too widely. "Well then, in that case, thank you for your consideration, gentlemen. We'll be going, then." He began leading the girl away. "Let's go, Amy. You really should see the Temple of Saturn. Quite impressive, for a ruin."
"Sounds wonderful, Daniel." The girl said with a wide, fake smile as they walked away. They heard one of the boys sigh in relief right before a guard started barking at them.
Once he was sure their attention was no longer on him and the girl, Harry let her go, stepping away. "Sorry about that, but I figured it was the best way to approach the situation without throwing punches." He said apologetically.
"It's alright. It was good thinking." She said as she brushed her hair from her face, allowing him to get the best look at her he'd gotten so far. "Thanks for stepping in. Not many would have."
"I'm told I have a saving people thing, Davis." He said without thinking as he finally realized why she looked so familiar. Then his hand went to his mouth as he realized what he'd just blurted out while disguised.
Tracey Davis's head whipped around as she turned to look at him, wide eyed. "How do you know my name?" She asked, eyes quickly narrowing in distrust, her posture becoming guarded.
Harry cringed and began quickly walking away. "It's no matter. Not important. Have a good holiday!" He said in a slight panic as he tried to make his escape. He wasn't too concerned that the girl would turn him into Voldemort or Dumbledore, since she and her friend Daphne Greengrass had always seemed to avoid house politics, being some of the few Slytherins to not join in on Malfoy's idiocy, but he couldn't be certain, and the more people that recognized him as he traveled, the more risk he took anyway.
Unfortunately the brunette wasn't going to let it go that easily. "Oh no you don't!" She said, rushing after him. "I'm not letting you get out of this that easily!"
Harry quickly turned a corner around an old wall, hoping for some place to hide, only to become more than slightly irritated when he found himself blocked by another wall next to what was likely once a small temple. He turned to look for another avenue of escape only to find Davis at the mouth of the small alley, her wand hidden in the sleeve of her long sleeved blouse, obviously ready to be used.
"Listen, I don't mean you any harm, and don't want any trouble." Harry said, holding his hands up.
"Then you'll tell me how you know me." Davis said coldly, obviously ready to attack. "I don't recognize you at all, but you obviously know me. And considering the current state of things in Britain, you'll forgive me for not being reassured that a stranger knows me in Italy, where nobody should."
Harry cursed to himself, especially as he could understand her worries. Looking her in the eyes he could see that she was scared in spite of her bravado. "You should have been in Gryffindor." He said with a sigh.
Davis frowned. "No need for insults." She aimed her wand at him. "Now, are you going to tell me who you are, or not?"
Harry considered it, not wanting to fight the girl if he didn't have to. "I'll want your word you won't tell anyone who I am." When her face became mulish he snapped out. "I mean it! Too many people finding out who I am could be dangerous."
Davis pursed her lips before growling. "That depends on your identity, but I won't go shouting it out if I don't have to."
Knowing that was the best he was going to get, Harry focused on his disguise pendant the way Flamel had instructed him to in order to allow someone to recognize him. He knew it had worked when Davis eyebrows shot up and her mouth fell open slightly. "Hey Davis." He said with an awkward smile and a small shrug.
After a moment the girl sighed and put her wand away. "Potter. Of course it would be you." She crossed her arms. "Well, at least I know you don't plan on attacking me…"
"Trust me, Davis, this was all just a coincidence." Harry said, letting his hands drop. "I was just enjoying my vacation, saw a girl in trouble, and acted. No hidden motives, no plans. I didn't even know it was you till we'd already gotten away from those idiots."
The Slytherin rolled her eyes. "Because of course you're as much of a white knight as everyone says you are." She muttered. Then she brushed her hair behind her ear. "Fine, I believe you. You aren't the type, no matter what shite Draco spouts." The she eyed him curiously. "I'm surprised you're here, though. I assumed Dumbledore wouldn't let you out of his sight."
Harry shrugged. "I didn't feel like staying where he wanted me. After everything last year, I needed a vacation."
"So you ran away?" Davis asked, eyebrows rising once again.
"You make it sound like I'm never going back." Harry said with a scowl. "I just need some time off before I end up murdering the next Ministry official that crosses my path." Then he eyed her. "And what about you? Alone in the Forum? You didn't come with your family?"
"I did." She said, shifting her weight slightly. "I just wandered off on my own for a bit. My family and Daphne's are visiting Italy for the summer. I think our parents felt the need to get away from the troubles in Britain, at least for a little while. Daphne's family isn't popular with the Dark Lord's supporters for being one of the few centrists in the Wizengamot, and my dad's a muggleborn, so…"
Harry made a noise of understanding. "Nice to have confirmation that not all Slytherins want me dead. I mean, I assumed at least some of you didn't, if only because the law of averages says so, but I've only really dealt with Malfoy and his cronies so far."
Davis sighed. "Yeah, Draco is a bloody disgrace to our house. If he's going to be an evil git, he could be less obvious and over the top about it. Hell, you acted like more of a Slytherin when dealing with those muggle boys than that ponce has in five years at Hogwarts."
Harry snorted, amused to find that one of Malfoy's classmates agreed with him on the blonde's incompetence. "Maybe the hat should have put me in Slytherin, then." He said, smiling at his private joke.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, now." Davis said, smiling as well. "You're still too prone to rushing in like an idiot, if everything I've heard is true."
The smile immediately fell from Harry's face as her words brought back what his lack of forethought had cost Sirius. "Yeah…" He said softly, head turning down to look at the floor.
He was surprised after a moment when a petite hand rested itself on his shoulder, making him look up to see Davis looking at him surprisingly gently. "I'm sorry, Potter. I didn't mean it that way."
Harry took a deep, fortifying breath. "What do you mean?" He asked.
"The truth about Sirius Black, who he was to you, and how he died… Part of it came out in the Prophet a couple of days ago, and Daphne's father heard a less sanitised version thanks to being on the Wizengamot." She gave his shoulder a squeeze, a small smile on her face. "I'm sorry for your loss. I'm honestly not surprised you ran off without telling Dumbledore, considering all that, plus all the other strange shite that's happened at school over the years."
Harry took another breath before smiling slightly. "Thanks, Davis." Then his smile turned teasing as he did his best to take his mind off Sirius. "Should you be helping me out, though? Isn't there some sort of rule against us being nice to each other?"
Davis scoffed with a small smile of her own on her face, eyes twinkling slightly in amusement. "I'm just repaying a debt, Potter. Don't look into it too much."
Harry chuckled as she stood a bit straighter. "Well then, I think we should continue on our ways. There's a lot to see, and only so much time to see it in." Then he looked into her rather pretty brown eyes. "You won't tell your family about me?"
Davis made a show of thinking about it as she stepped away from him, tapping her lip in mock contemplation. "I'll tell them what happened, but I won't tell anyone but Daphne that it was you. Will that do it for you?"
Harry let out a breath bit nodded as he made sure the enchantment was back at full strength, even though Davis would be able to tell it was him now even with it on. "That's the best I'm going to get, I suppose."
"Yep." The girl said with a smirk. Then she turned and began walking. "I suppose I'll see you at school then, Potter."
"Till then, Davis." He said with a smile as he began to move in the opposite direction. He briefly turned to watch her walk away, eyes inadvertently moving to her backside, which was in some rather tight jeans, before he turned back around and resumed walking, musing to himself that that had been the longest and most pleasant conversation he'd ever had with a Slytherin. Hopefully it wouldn't be the last of its kind.
The next day Harry yawned as he walked out of his taxi towards the Vatican Museums.
He'd never been much one for religion, being dissuaded by, of course, the Dursleys, who only went through the motions to seem like respectable members of society, yet wasted no opportunity to assure him that he was sure to join his parents in hell some day. That had left him as somewhat of an agnostic. He'd seen and experienced too much to doubt there was likely some sort of will at work, but he was also assured that they were likely an asshole for putting him through everything he'd dealt with over the years.
Still, the Vatican Museums held quite a bit of famous art, so he felt it prudent to make them one of the stops during his time in Rome. The architecture alone should make the trip worth it.
Half an hour later he was examining Raphael's Transfiguration (the name amusing him slightly), when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Turning around he was more exasperated than surprised when he saw Tracey Davis standing behind him, Daphne Grengrass at her side, the attractive blonde studying him curiously. "Because of course I'd run into you here." Harry muttered with a roll of his eyes.
"That does seem to be the way your luck works, Potter." Davis said with an amused smirk.
Harry gave her a sharp look before glancing around for anybody who may have heard her. "Don't call me that in the open like this." He hissed.
"So you're really Po-er, our schoolmate?" Greengrass asked with a raised eyebrow.
Harry scowled, annoyed, before allowing her, and only her and Davis, to recognize him. "Yeah, it's me."
Davis smiled when her friend's eyes widened slightly when Harry revealed himself. "Yeah, it's quite a trick."
"Indeed." Greengrass said. "I almost didn't believe Tracey when she told me she ran into you at the Forum. I didn't think Dumbledore would let you out of his sight."
Harry crossed his arms. "I may be on Dumbledore's side, but that doesn't mean I'm an obedient puppet. I didn't agree with his plans for my summer, so I left." He said with a shrug.
"That's quite a bit more ballsy than I expected of you, to be honest." Greengrass said with a small, approving smile. "It is a pity that house politics keep us from interacting, otherwise I might have known that. I wouldn't have minded joining your illegal study group. I'll honestly be shocked if I get an Acceptable in my OWLs."
"Yeah, Umbridge was…" Harry let out a sigh. "I honestly never thought I'd want someone dead as much as Voldemort and my parents' betrayer, but she came close." He said, ignoring the girls' flinches at the name. "So, are you here alone?"
"Of course not." Davis said, motioning over to where their parents were standing and looking at a Titian, a younger girl that could only be Greengrass's sister looking bored nearby. "We just mentioned we saw someone we knew and were going to say hello."
"You all blend into a muggle crowd surprisingly well." Harry said with a small, amused smile. "Most magicals I've met are hopeless about it."
"I did mention my father was a muggleborn, didn't I?" Davis said with a smile of her own. "It was his idea to tour muggle Italy."
"It's pretty interesting." Greengrass admitted. "They have some amazing art." She said, eyes shining slightly in happiness.
"An art lover, eh?" Harry said with a smile. "I'd recommend the Louvre in Paris, then. I'm sure you'd love it. They've got a much wider selection, including some pieces far older than most of civilization."
Greengrasses smiled at the thought. "I might just do that, thank you."
"We should get back to our families." Davis said, looking amused at her friend's eagerness to explore more art.
Harry nodded. "Alright. See you at school, then."
The two girls said their farewells as well before making their way back to their families. For a moment Harry glanced down at their backsides, enjoying the view as they walked away, before shaking himself from his hormonal impulse and turning back to the art he'd been studying.
It was ten minutes later that he got a bad feeling, something niggling at him. Glancing around surreptitiously for what was causing his discomfort his eyes landed on an unpleasant looking man standing near an especially popular painting. He was surprisingly close to being dressed like a normal non-magical, but things such as a coat that looked more appropriate for the seventies disco scene, distressed jeans and cowboy boots told Harry all he needed to know.
The fact that the man wasn't even pretending to look at the art was another tip off. Casually turning his head in the direction the man was looking, he was just in time to see another person move behind Daphne, apparently beginning to speak genially to her father even as he rested a hand on her shoulder, pulling her close and making her stiffen in alarm. His arm was also held across his stomach, pointed at the blonde, and Harry would bet his Firebolt he had a wand surreptitiously aimed at the girl. The look of fury on her father's face, and the horror on the others, added to the odds.
Harry glanced around, catching sight of another unpleasant observer nearby, before sighing and beginning to casually make his way over to them.
Fate really had it out for him, didn't it?
Cyberpunk 2077 (on PC, of course) is astonishingly bad for my productivity.
Still, I have now updated the first of this month's two Patron requested stories, and I hope to get the second done by the end of the week. I'll even work on Xmas, if I have to.
This chapter actually fought me at first. My original plans for Italy weren't tenable, so I was kind of spinning my wheels and just letting Harry be a tourist. Then I had the idea for the encounter in the Forum, and where before I'd gotten 500 words in two days, I got another 2200 in another, and finished it today. Just shows how helpful having an actual clue as to what you're doing can be, huh?
I know Daphne and Tracey are somewhat overdone in HP fanfics by this point, but they're basically the only Slytherins Harry's age that have never been shown being bitches to him or the others, which is why I'm guessing they're so popular. And this time I made his main point of contact Tracey instead of Daphne. I don't know why people fixate on Daphne of the two so much.
And before anybody comes up saying that they aren't actually that attractive in the movies, or something else asinine: a) I don't give a damn, and b) I never saw past the second movie, and that was back when it came out. I guide myself by what I remember of the books, screw the movies. The movies aren't canon to me. Simple as that.
Next chapter we see more of Mr. Black's influence on this Harry. You'll see what I mean. ;)
I think that's all for today, so I guess it's time for the usual reminders.
The first is that you can have a say in what I write when you donate to my Pat A Ron. Every dollar donated equals a vote in my monthly poll, and now I've made it so that the votes for the things that don't win in a given month roll over into the next. So if you want to donate and see your favorite stories of mine updated more often, go to Pat A Ron dotcom /athanmortis. The current poll closes on January 5th.
The next two reminders are more important to me, however. First is that my best friend has begun a Pat A Ron for their original fiction. Donate any amount you want and get access to some objectively excellent writing (far better than mine, if I'm being completely honest). They've posted their first two chapters of one of their stories, which is a supernatural steampunk detective thriller that I very much enjoy called 'The Curious Investigations of Mister Jonathan Scott'. If you like, say, The Dresden Files, but want it more steampunk, this is for you. And they'll be making a cyberpunk (the genre, not the game) story soon as well. You can find their stuff by searching for Grimm Tales in Pat A Ron.
I would appreciate it a lot if you could help them out, as unlike me they've had employment trouble due to some disabilities, which this pandemic hasn't helped.
Second, my sister has also begun a Pat A Ron. She recently got her Bachelor's in Digital Animation. She's trying to make her own series to post on Youtube, but needs money, so she's making art and plans on accepting commissions. She primarily does tokusatsu themed fanart (Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, etc.), and she plans to let people have a say in what she makes, much like I do. That's at Pat A Ron dotcom /linduarte. (Oh no, now you know my last name! The horror!)
Please keep in mind though that we've been made aware of a bug with the site that makes it seem like you can't donate less than $5. If you don't want to donate that much, to any of us, just put a zero before the number you want to donate, such as 03. That should get you going.
I think that's all from me for today. Please review, stay safe, have Happy Holidays and a great New Year, and I'll see you all next time. Bye!