Author's Notes:
Well, here we have a new chapter. Not a whole lot happens here, but there is some important stuff going on that'll be important later. I really hope that you all like it.
Update 05-15-16: So I've put up a cover image for the story. It's a picture of William Moseley (the actor that played Peter Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian), who I would probably cast for the role of Brandon Dursley (if he wasn't already too old in real life).
With no more ado:
Chapter 7
The next morning after the fiasco with the flying car, Mr. Weasley sat down with Harry, Brandon, Ron, and Ginny for breakfast, looking rather sheepish. Clearly, Mrs. Weasley had already informed him that she now knew about the car, due to the joyride the night before. Brandon was glad, he wouldn't have wanted to listen to that conversation.
Mrs. Weasley came around with plenty of eggs, bacon and sausages for them all to eat and was very insistent that Brandon and Harry each took extra large helpings, saying that they were far too thin. At this point, Percy ambled in, already dressed, his Hogwarts prefect badge pinned to his sweater vest.
"Morning all," he said briskly. "Lovely day."
He sat down in the nearest chair, but leapt up again almost immediately, pulling out from underneath him, what could be mistaken at first glance as a moulting grey feather duster, except for the fact that it was breathing.
"Errol!" Ron exclaimed, taking the limp owl from Percy and detaching the letter tied to its leg. "Finally—he's got Hermione's answer. I wrote to her after we got your encoded letter, when Dad sent you the one telling you he was going to come get you."
He ripped open the letter and read it aloud:
"'Dear Ron, and Harry and Brandon, if you're there,
"'I hope that everything went alright and that Harry and Brandon are okay. That they would have sent an encoded message by itself is disturbing, let alone one that said 'send help,' but I must say that it was very smart of them to come up with that idea. I've been really worried about them and if they're both alright, please let me know at once, but perhaps it would be better if you used a different owl, because I think another delivery might finish your one off.
"'I'm very busy with schoolwork, of course'—How can she be?" said Ron in horror. "We're on vacation!—'and we're going to London next Wednesday to buy my new books. Why don't we meet in Diagon Alley?
"'Let me know what's happening as soon as you can. Love from Hermione.'"
"Well that fits in nicely," Mrs. Weasley said. "That reminds me, she left the room briefly and brought out a stack of envelopes and passed around their Hogwarts letters. "You lot have got them too," she said as Fred and George meandered in, still in their pajamas, while Brandon was looking over his list.
Hogwarts School
of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Uniform
First year students will require:
1. Three sets of plain work robes (black)
2. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear
3. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)
4. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)
Course Books
All students should have a copy of each of the following:
The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk
A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot
Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling
A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore
Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble
Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart
Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart
Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart
Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart
Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart
Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart
Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart
Other Equipment
1 wand
1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)
1 set glass or crystal phials
1 telescope
1 set brass scales
Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad
PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS
After he was finished with his own, he looked over at Harry's which seemed rather tiny by comparison.
Second-year students will require:
The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 2) by Miranda Goshawk
Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart
Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart
Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart
Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart
Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart
Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart
Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart
Once Fred was finished with his own list, he peered over at Harry and Brandon's. "Looks like we've all been told to get Lockhart's Books!" he said. "The new Defense Against the Dark Art's professor must be a fan - bet it's a witch." At this point, he caught his mother's eye and quickly busied himself with the marmalade.
"That lot won't come cheap," George put in, with a look at his parents. "Lockhart's books are expensive."
"Well, we'll manage," Mrs. Weasley replied, but she looked worried.
X X X
During their time at the Burrow, Harry and Brandon had the time of their lives. Never had either of them met nicer people than the Weasleys. Mrs. Weasley had even baked Brandon a birthday cake and asked him about his favorite things to eat so that she could make them for dinner that night.
There was always something fun to do in the Weasley household. Some days, Brandon, Harry, Ron, Fred, George, and sometimes Ginny would go up the hill to a secluded paddock that the Weasleys owned to practice Quidditch. It was surrounded by trees, so they couldn't be seen by the village below as long as they didn't fly too high.
They called what they were doing, 'practicing Quidditch,' but from what Brandon had heard about the sport, it was a lot more complicated than what they were doing. Mostly they flew around and threw apples, but Brandon didn't complain. He had a lot of fun. The twins told them that they couldn't use real Quidditch balls because it would be too hard to explain if they escaped and flew away over the village.
They all took turns riding Harry's Nimbus Two Thousand, which Brandon learned quickly was easily the best broom of the lot.
In the evenings, Brandon would read through Harry's textbooks, and sometimes even borrowed some of the other books in the Weasley household, eager to learn as much as he possibly could before he would be heading off to Hogwarts. He could hardly stand the wait until he would get to go to Diagon alley.
When the day came, Mrs. Weasley woke all of them early, and after a quick breakfast, she pulled a flowerpot off the kitchen mantelpiece and peered inside, sighing, "We're running low Arthur. We'll have to by some more today. . . . Ah well, guests first!" She offered the flower pot to Harry.
Brandon watched as all eyes turned on Harry, who looked very bemused.
"W-what am I supposed to do?" he stammered.
"He's never traveled by Floo powder before," said Ron suddenly, "Sorry, Harry, I forgot. Brandon wouldn't have had any experience with it either."
"Oh, well goodness me! If you've never used it before—"
"He'll be alright, Mum," Fred said. "Harry, just watch us first."
He grabbed a pinch of powder from the pot, marched up to the fire, and threw it into the flames, which roared, turning a bright emerald green and rising higher than Fred. Unperterbed, he stepped right in and shouted, "Diagon Alley!" and vanished.
"Be sure to speak, very, very clearly dear," Mrs. Weasley told Harry as George grabbed a pinch for himself. "And be sure to get out at the right grate."
"The right what?" said Harry nervouslyas the fire roared again, whipping George out of sight too.
"Well, there are an awful lot of wizard fires to choose from, but you should be fine as long as you speak clearly.
"Go on Harry, it's very simple," Mr. Weasley reasured him.
Harry grabbed his pinch of the Floo powder and nervously stepped toward the fire, he tossed it in and stepped forward, but he obviously made the mistake of inhaling while he was in the fire because he coughed, "D-Dia-gon Alley!" and he disappeared.
"I'd best go and make sure he's alright, Molly," Mr. Weasley said as he grabbed a pinch of powder for himself, disappearing in a flash of green fire a few seconds later.
Brandon took his own bit of Floo Powder next and readied himself. Walking up to the fire, he tossed it in, like he'd seen everyone do before him, and took a deep breath before stepping into the flames which, he was surprised to find, felt like a warm breeze.
"Diagon Alley!" he shouted, and before he knew it, he felt like he was being sucked down a great drain. He was spinning wildly, surrounded by green flames. He could see several fireplaces and managed to catch glimpses into some of the rooms beyond. After a few seconds, he saw the faces of Fred and George and he knew this was the grate he needed to take, but before he knew it, the flames, seeming to know where he needed to go, thrust him forward and out into the shop with the Weasley Twins.
"That was an interesting experience," Brandon said dizzily. He shook his head violently and turned his attention to his surroundings.
"We see you had better luck than your cousin did," Fred told him.
Brandon looked around and saw that he wasn't joking, Harry was nowhere in sight.
"He probably only went a grate or two too far," George reassured him. "Dad's out checking the other shops along Diagon Alley. He'll turn up."
Percy appeared from the fireplace a moment later. "Where's Dad and Harry?" he asked after he dusted himself off.
Ron came next, then Ginny, and finally Mrs. Weasley.
"Oh, I do hope Arthur finds him quickly," she fretted when they told her. Soon they all set out to searching.
After nearly ten minutes, Brandon and Ron were looking with the twins and had just run into Percy and Mr. Weasley, when Fred cried out. "Look there! There he is just down the street, with Hagrid and Hermione!"
They all ran out to meet them.
"Harry," Mr. Weasley panted, "We hoped you hadn't gotten too far."
"Where'd you come out?" Ron asked.
"Knockturn Alley," Harry replied grimly.
"Wicked!" Fred and George said together.
"We've never been allowed in," Ron said enviously.
"I should ruddy well think not," Hagrid growled at them.
"What's Knockturn Alley?" Brandon asked.
"It's a dodgy place," Hagrid explained. "Normally, on'y the worst sort o' people ever go there—riffraff an' dark witches an' wizards."
Just then, Mrs. Weasley came galloping into view, her handbag swinging wildly in one hand, Ginny clinging to the other. "Oh, Harry—oh, my dear—you could have been anywhere—" she said. When she learned where Harry had ended up, she wrung Hagrid's hand, "Knockturn Alley! If you hadn't found him, Hagrid!"
He extracted himself from her saying, "Well, gotta be off. See you at Hogwarts!"
"It's nice seeing you again, Hermione," Brandon told her as they made their way to the wizarding bank.
"Guess who I saw at Borgin and Burkes," Harry told them as they climbed the marble steps to the tallest building in Diagon Alley, Brandon thought it was easily the most impressive bank he had ever seen.
"Who?" Ron asked.
"Malfoy and his father," Harry said.
"Did Lucius Malfoy buy anything?" Mr. Weasley asked sharply behind them, as they entered through a pair of burnished bronze doors."
"No, he was selling," Harry replied.
"So, he's worried," said Mr. Weasely with grim satisfaction.
They now faced a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief you've been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.
"Oh, I'd love to get Lucius Malfoy for something. . . ." Mr. Weasley continued.
"You be careful, Arthur," Mrs. Weasley told him sharply as they were all bowed into the bank by what appeard to be a goblin. It wore a guard's uniform of scarlet and gold and was about a head shorter than Brandon. He had a clever, swarthy face, a pointed beard, and, Brandon noticed, very long fingers and feet.
"That family's trouble. Don't go biting off more than you can chew," Mrs. Weasley continued.
Once through the doors, they found themselves in a vast marble hall. About a hundred goblins were sitting behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these.
"So you don't think I'm a match for Lucius Malfoy?" Mr. Weasley said somewhat indignantly, but was immediately distracted by the sight of Hermione's parents, standing nervously at the counter, waiting for Hermione to introduce them.
"But you're Muggles!" Mr. Weasley said delightedly. "What's that you've got there? Oh, you're exchanging Muggle money. Molly, look!" He pointed excitedly at the ten pound notes in Mr. Grangers' hand. "Brandon here has Muggle parents too! But I believe his mother gave him a checky-something to exchange for money!"
"Do you accept checks?" Mrs. Granger nervously asked one of the goblins behind the counter. Brandon noticed one his eyes looked dead and blind.
"For a higher exchange fee," said the goblin grumpily.
Meet you back here, "Ron said to Hermione and Brandon as He, Harry and the other Weasleys were led off to their underground vaults by another Gringotts goblin.
"Is it okay if Brandon stays here with you, until we get back?" Mrs. Weasley asked the Grangers.
"We'd be happy to watch over him," Mr. Granger said.
Brandon was a little disappointed that he wouldn't get to go underground and see the vaults, but he supposed that it couldn't be helped.
"Now let me see this check," said the goblin in front of him.
Immediately digging the check out of his pocket, Brandon presented it to the goblin gingerly, somewhat nervous under the piercing gaze of the creature's good eye.
"This looks to be in order," said the goblin after a moment. He then dug out a ledger and a pouch from under the counter and began weighing out some gold on a brass scale. "I suppose you'll want to use some of this to pay your tuition for your attendance at Hogwarts, Mr. Dursley? We can send it to the Hogwarts account immediately if you like?"
"Uh, yes please . . . Mr.—um—" Brandon began saying to the goblin, who wrote something down in the ledger
"White-eye," the goblin said gruffly, busying himself with weighing the gold.
How appropriate, Brandon thought to himself after a moment, though he didn't dare say the words out loud. He would never be so rude, especially to such a sinister looking character like White-eye.
"So," said Mrs. Granger after a moment, "You have non-magical parents as well?"
"Yes, ma'am," Brandon told her.
"What do your parents do for a living?" Mr. Granger asked.
"Well, Dad works in the office at Grunnings, while Mum stays at home and looks after the house," Brandon explained.
"Grunnings, the Drill company?" Hermione asked him.
Brandon learned that Hermione's parents were dentists, and had a pleasant conversation with them, while he waited for the Goblin to finish counting out the gold.
It didn't take too long, and before Brandon knew it, the creature handed him a medium sized leather pouch. He took it, and was so surprised by how much it weighed that he almost dropped it. He had never realized that real gold was so heavy.
"Thank you, sir," Brandon told the goblin with a bow like the guards at the door had given them all earlier. "Have a good day, Mr. White-eye."
"May your gold ever flow," replied the goblin, writing some more things down in the ledger.
When Harry and the Weasleys came back, they all left the bank, most and most everyone separated, agreeing that they would all meet up again at Flourish and Blotts in an hour. Mr. Weasley took the Grangers off to the Leaky Cauldron to share a drink; Fred and George ran off when they saw their friend from Hogwarts, Lee Jordan; Percy vaguely muttered something about needing a new quill; and Harry, Ron, and Hermione all took off down the cobbled street to find something to do, as most everything new that the second years would need could be purchased at Flourish and Blotts. This left Brandon with Ginny and Mrs. Weasley to go buy their basic miscellaneous supplies: cauldrons, scales, phials, and telescopes, as well as ink and parchment.
He had been too busy worrying about Harry when he'd been walking around in it before, but Brandon couldn't help but think how splendid the place truly was. The whole place was abuzz with activity. Witches and Wizards of every age made their way through the streets to buy anything and everything from potion ingredients and supplies at the apothecaries to broomsticks and Quidditch balls at the brooms shops.
When they went to get school robes, they split up so that Brandon could go to Madam Malkins and get new robes, while Ginny and Mrs. Weasley went to a secondhand robe shop. He felt a bit awkward about this, how his parents could afford to let him buy everything new when the Weasleys couldn't.
"Hogwarts dear?" asked a squat, smiling witch all dressed in mauve, she introduced herself as Madam Malkin and stood him up on a footstool with a long robe fitted onto him, which she began pinning up at the right length.
It took a lot less time than he thought it would. When she was finished, she took the pinned robes to a back room and brought out three finished sets of plain black robes, all in his size. She must have used magic to get done so quickly.
Brandon went ahead and bought his hat and cloak, as well as a pair of dragon hide gloves. When he had everything, he asked Madam Malkin if there was a dressing room, so that he could see what it looked like.
After putting everything on in the small room, he looked himself over in the mirror.
The robes felt and looked very foreign to him, but he figured that he looked good in them. He swept a hand through his windblown blonde hair and looked straight into his own ocean blue eyes, silently reassuring himself that he looked okay.
He noticed that he'd even gotten a little bit of a tan having been outside so much during the past week, practicing Quidditch with the Weasleys.
Satisfied, Brandon left Madam Malkin's, carrying all of his bags to meet up with everyone at Flourish and Blotts, as it had already been an hour.
A ways outside the magical bookstore, Brandon ran into Harry, Ron and Hermione.
"We can actually meet him!" Hermione was squealing. "I mean, he's written almost the whole booklist!"
Brandon looked at Flourish and Blotts and saw what Hermione was talking about, there was a large crowd outside the bookshop - mostly witches of an age with Mrs. Weasley—jostling outside the doors, trying to get in. A large banner stretched across the upper windows proclaimed the reason why:
GILDEROY LOCKHART
will be signing copies of his autobiogrophy
MAGICAL ME
today 12:30 pm to 4:30 pm
"That's just great," Brandon said irritably. "I was hopping to be able to enjoy a few quiet minutes in the bookstore before we left to browse through their selection.
This seemed to break Hermione's cheer a little bit; clearly she had wanted to be able to do the same.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione found The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 very quickly and went to join the rest of the Weasleys in the crowd, but Brandon still had a whole booklist to find, so he stayed away and perused the shelves, finding his schoolbooks one by one, until all he had left to get were the Lockhart books. He was rather thankful that the crowd was mostly gathered in a different section of the shop, or else he would really have a difficult time trying to navigate through all the people to find his books.
It was difficult, but for the most part, Brandon managed to block out the noise in the shop to skim through some of the books. He'd already read through Harry's textbooks quite a bit, so he didn't bother rereading his new copies. Bathilda Bagshot's A History of Magic didn't contain a whole lot beyond the nineteenth century, so Brandon grabbed ahold of a book entitled Modern Magical History, which he decided to buy after skimming through it a little.
He looked through several other books in the different sections, but didn't decide to buy very many. After all, from what Harry had told him, the library at Hogwarts was pretty extensive, and why buy a lot of books that he might never read again, when he could read them for free from the library?
When he was done, as well as the extra history book, he had found a book about the different species of dragons that went into a lot more detail than Newt Scamander's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, as well as containing information about extinct species, whereas Scamander only mentioned those that still existed. It also contained vivid, stunning, moving illustrations of each individual breed.
He also found an interesting looking book that was all about the goblins and their culture, which Brandon thought could be useful, considering that they guarded everyone's money in the wizarding world, essentially controlling almost the entirety of the world's magical wealth.
When Brandon went to find everyone again, carrying his small stack of books, he came across a very surprising sight. Hagrid was standing in between two wizards that looked like they'd just been in a fistfight, but what really made him do a double-take was that one of the two was Mr. Weasley. The other had long blond hair and a pointed face that might have been handsome if it weren't currently held in a sneer. When Brandon saw the boy standing behind him, who looked just like the elder in front of him, it clicked: these were the Malfoys.
"Here girl—take your book—it's the best your father can give you." He thrust an old looking book into Ginny's hands and stalked out of the shop with his son.
Brandon got the whole story from Harry: how Lockhart had dragged him to stand for photographs for the Daily Prophet, so that he could make the front page, and how Draco came to berate Harry for it, with Ron coming to his defense, nearly getting into a fistfight himself when the adults stepped in, Mr. Malfoy being every bit the "prat"—as Harry said—that Draco had been, making Mr. Weasley mad enough to jump him.
Mrs. Weasley was very cross with her husband as they left Flourish and Blotts, "A fine example to set for your children . . . brawling in a public . . . What Gilderoy Lockhart must've thought—"
"He was pleased," Fred commented. "Didn't you hear him as we left? He asked the bloke from the Prophet to try and work the fight into the report—said it was all about publicity—"
After that, all they needed to get was Brandon's and Ginny's wands. Mr. Weasley took all the other children to the Leaky Cauldron, once again talking animatedly with the Grangers, while Mrs. Weasley led them to a narrow, Shabby looking shop that read in peeling gold letters: Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.
As they opened the door into the shop, a tinkling bell rang somewhere deeper within, announcing their arrival. Brandon looked down the long aisles of shelves of neatly stacked, narrow boxes, and felt a chill run down his spine. Every part of this store seemed to tingle with magic, from the boxes to the dust to the silence itself.
After a moment, an old man came walking out from one of the aisles. His wide pale eyes shined like moons through the gloom of the place. "Good afternoon," he said. "I see we have another Weasley."
"Good afternoon, Mr. Ollivander," Mrs. Weasley told him.
"Molly Prewitt," Ollivander said. "English Oak with unicorn hair, ten and three quarter inches. A good wand for charm work."
Mrs. Weasley smiled warmly at him, "You never forget."
"What are your names," the elderly wand maker asked as he turned to Brandon and Ginny.
"Ginny Weasley," Ginny told him nervously.
"Brandon Dursley," Brandon answered.
Before either knew what was happening, Ollivander had pulled out a tape measure and began measuring Ginny, asking, "Which is your wand arm?" and, "Can you hold it out?" He did the same with Brandon.
"Every Ollivander wand has a core of powerful magical substance," the wandmaker told them, "We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail-feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, phoenixes, or dragons are quite the same. And really, you never get such good results with another wizard's wand. The wand must choose the witch or wizard, not the other way around."
He pulled a box from one of the nearest aisles and opened it, pulling out a long, thin wand, which he handed to Ginny, saying, "Here we are, mahogany with dragon heartstring, nine and three-quarter inches—Just take it and give it a wave."
Ginny took it and waved it about awkwardly, before Mr. Ollivander snatched it from her hand again. "No, that won't do," he said. He grabbed a spindly looking chair from the corner and lay the wand on top of it, before going back to grab another.
This one, he offered to Brandon, saying, "Hawthorn and phoenix tail-feather, twelve inches. Very swishy."
Brandon gave it a quick wave, but it too was quickly snatched from his hand.
Ollivander tried several more wands, alternating between the two of them the whole time that he did this, grabbing a different one every time, never letting either of his customers try the wand that the other just had. When Brandon asked him why, he replied, "If someone tries it again too soon, the wand could become confused."
After going through about a dozen wands apiece, Ginny finally got results when Ollivander brought out another wand, "Try this one, chestnut with unicorn hair, ten and a half inches—Nice and bendy."
When Ginny waved her wand, a flash of extra loud crackling sparks errupted from it in shades of Chudley Cannon orange and emerald green.
"Marvelous!" Ollivander said, and Mrs. Weasley clapped proudly. "Bravo, yes! Very good, indeed!"
Mrs. Weasley promptly paid the man with what looked to be her last bit of gold. Brandon hoped, for her family's sake, that Mr. Weasley still had some left over.
"I wonder what color my sparks will be," Brandon thought aloud. "Harry told me that his were red and gold."
"Oh, it's not always sparks, though that is the most common effect," Ollivander told him. "Sometimes it's a cool mist or a beam of light. But how do you know Harry Potter?"
"I'm his cousin, on his mother's side," Brandon explained. "Lily Evans was my aunt."
"You're a muggleborn too, then?" the wand maker asked him curiously.
"Yes sir."
"Interesting," Ollivander replied, retreating back into one of the aisles. After a moment, he brought out another wand for Brandon to try, and they began again. Finally, after going through a total of four dozen wands, Brandon found his wand.
"Let's try this one—Alder with dragon heartstring, twelve and a quarter inches, surprisingly swishy."
Brandon knew that this was the one the moment he touched the wood. He felt the warmth in his fingers. He waved it up into the air and a long, thin jet of flame errupted from the tip of the wand, starting blue at the tip, and turning yellow and orange as it got further away. The stream was almost two feet long.
"Oh-ho!" Ollivander exclaimed clapping, as Mrs. Weasley and Ginny did the same. "Very unusual effect! I would hazard a guess that you will find you have an acute natural affinity for pyromancy."
"What?" Brandon asked, not understanding.
"You will probably be very gifted with fire spells," Ollivander explained in simpler terms.
Once Brandon paid for his wand, he, Ginny and Mrs. Weasley all made off back to the Leaky Cauldron, where they took the Floo back to the Burrow.
Author's Notes: Well, what did you think? Leave a review! What house do you think Brandon will be sorted into?