Chapter 3: Visitors

"But Daaaaad, why did I have to come?"

Daphne and Xander Greengrass were sitting in the kitchen of a small house on Privet Drive. They were currently waiting for the rest of the household to come down for breakfast.

"Because, princess, the Auror corps stationed me here to monitor everything after that incident with the knight bus. Apparently, there's some VIP living in…"

"But why did I have to come?" The girl interrupted her father. She had been put out with their current accommodations for nearly the whole week they had already been there, her father having taken over another auror's observation post. "Astoria and I could have just stayed at the manor, worked on our reading, fly a little. It's so boring here, everything is full of muggles and we don't know any other kids." Daphne continued with a pout that had her father chuckle inwardly.

"Well, first of all, don't interrupt me! Your mother wanted to come, and we couldn't just leave you home alone, now, could we. And no, the house-elves are no sufficient supervision for weeks on end. And I also wanted to spend some time with my lovely little daughter before she goes off to Hogwarts. Sadly, I haven't seen her these last few days…" he finished with a small grin and quite a bit of sarcasm in his voice.

"And if you want to meet other kids, you'll have to start leaving the house. Or you could go to the library, it could benefit you to get to know a little more about muggles, you know. They are often blatantly ignorant to all things magic, but also quite ingenious at times."

All further conversation was cut off by a little, blonde ball of energy noisily making her way down the stairs, all the while screaming: "GOOD MORNING DAD, GOOD MORNING DAPHNE!" Daphne's little sister Astoria had obviously decided to come down for breakfast. Following her down the stairs was their mother, Eleanor Greengrass. The Greengrass women all shared a few things in appearance: First of all, the bright blonde, nearly white hair was a dead giveaway of their familial ties. Second of all, their faces all shared a certain quality, although no one could ever really say what it was. Besides this "certain quality" the faces of Daphne on one side and Astoria and their mother on the other side looked quite different. While Astoria had inherited her mother's round, gentle face, cute nose and brown eyes, her sister Daphne had taken more to her father's slightly angular, yet still pretty looks, including his normal sized but very pointed nose and the steel-blue eyes.

Sitting down, the two newcomers warily eyed those already seated, clearly seeing signs of the argument they had interrupted. Reading the slight discomfort in his wife and younger daughter's posture, Xander said: "We just had a little disagreement about our current living situation." Daphne managed to hide her snort behind a cough, knowing full well how much her mother hated that particular exclamation of displeasure. To further mask it, she started talking: "I've decided to look at the library around here. Tori, you wanna come?" she asked her younger sister, absolutely expecting the answer she got: "Nah, just dusty old books. I'm gonna play with Leo!" Leo the family cat had thankfully been allowed to come with them, otherwise their temporary exile in the muggle world would have been even worse.

With their plans made, the family started breakfast with Xander resuming the tradition of reading from the Daily Prophet: "Gringotts. With notice of four days, the goblins of Gringotts have declared new security measures, effective from 1st July. These new measures include…"

But Daphne, considering she really did not care about security measures in Gringotts, toned him out. Instead, she started day-dreaming about something she had wanted with an increasing abandon over the last few months: A new friend, preferably someone without the old preconceptions about hr "Slytherin-Family", who was not out for money or connections. She had noticed these things happening the first time when she was around eight; the children from the Slytherin-families, or rather their parents, were always hell bent on becoming friends with her, oldest child of one of the Sacred 28. The children from other families on the other hand, had always been a little wary of her. This all annoyed her not only a little.

"...Hogwarts acceptance letters are to be sent out shortly." This sentence woke her up from her day-dreaming as her father read it from the paper. "So it is time?" she asked her father to which he just nodded his head and shrugged his right shoulder, as if saying "seems so". This finally got her excited. This fall she would finally go to Hogwarts, she would finally get her own wand and learn all the cool spells there were, not just from books but from actual teachers. And she would be allowed to actually do the spells, so no more having to nick her mother's wand if she wanted to turn the colour of Leo's whiskers or something like that.

But despite all her excitement, there was also something that frightened her about Hogwarts: Slytherin House. She was pretty sure she would be a snake, as her family had been for generations. Still, this did not mean she liked being put into housing with a number of future dark wizards, especially considering her father's position as an Auror, a hunter of dark wizards and other criminal elements.

With these conflicting emotions in her mind, she finished her breakfast and started on her way towards the library.

Harry woke up to a silent hissing next to his bed, a sound which before the last three days would have had him on the next high object he could reach. Now, however the sound meant breakfast. Over the passing of the days since the 24th Harry and Ouroboros had come to an arrangement for their daily schedule. In the morning the snake would deliver a rabbit for Harry to prepare as food for the day with Ouroboros curled up close to the stove, thoroughly enjoying the warmth radiating when Harry was cooking. They would then start to clean their little "flat" bit by bit, starting in the kitchen on the first day and quickly continuing to bedroom, bathroom and now, on the fourth day the lab.

This particular room fascinated Harry immensely. He still hadn't entered it except from the incident with the heling potion. But now it was time to do so, and he was positively giddy with excitement. As far as someone with healing broken ribs could be considered giddy anyway. In keeping with their plan, the two of them moved to the lab after Harry's breakfast (the snake, as it turned out, would only eat again in about a week). The lab was as dusted over as the rest of the hideaway had been before they had cleaned it, so Harry picked up the rather inadequate cleaning supplies he had found and started cleaning while the Ouroboros lay curled up on the ground, napping on and off, sometimes hissing little encouragements.

His cleaning took until nearly noon and Harry decided to take another bite to eat from the still rather bland cooked rabbit. Afterwards he moved towards the library and started reading a randomly picked book, this particular day it was something called Quidditch through the Ages.

"Whatever the hell Quidditch might be…" he mused and started reading.

Daphne reached the library around mid-morning. She had started off early, but had been side-tracked more times than she could count. "Dad was right," she thought" they really do have fascinating ideas." She pretty much behaved like the excited child she was, running after a car and a bike, watching in awe as a muggle with a lawnmower made his way through a front lawn, beaming with glee as she made her way through a muggle supermarket, her pockets stuffed with muggle candy she paid with the muggle money her father had given to her "in case of emergency".

Finally stepping through the door of the library, she was shocked at how different it looked than the one she had known all her life in Greengrass-Manor. The books in here were neither dusty nor very old. Most of them looked admittedly shabby, but still a little shiny and way less heavy than some of the thick tomes in her family's library. Her curiosity piqued, she started rifling through the stacks for adolescents. After a little looking around, she just picked one randomly. What she ended up with was a book named The Never-ending Story, featuring a little boy and an empress, a dragon and the possibility of the world ending. It was a story with many things that reminded her of the wizarding world, but still so distinctly different; Daphne loved it.

"As if dragons could talk…" she mumbled after putting the book away, having grown tired of it. After several hours of reading it was now mid-afternoon and she decided to have another look around the library before making her way back to her family's temporary home for supper. She had just reached a distant and quiet corner of the library with a few chairs in between to bookshelves, when something struck her as odd: One of the shelves seemed a bit translucent almost like mist.

"I wonder if…" she mumbled, before she extended her arm and touched… nothing. The shelf was not only translucent, but somehow she could go through it as well. "Well now I'm interested" she thought and stepped through.

Behind the "shelf" was another part of the library, looking distinctly more similar to the library in Greengrass-Manor than the rest of it. She could make out potions books, healing almanacs, history books and charms works, all of them curiously interspersed with muggle books Daphne was sure were missing from the muggle section of the library. Passing a herbology section she saw a rare book on Scandinavian plants her mother had been searching for years. Deciding she wanted to at least take a look at it, she took the old tome from the shelf and started looking a place to sit down.

She found a group of armchairs near the back of the wizarding section, one of them facing away from her. Making her way around the chairs, she let the book fall down and out of her mouth came a short shriek.

She was not as alone as she had thought, because that armchair was taken.

Harry awoke from a fitful sleep to a thud and a shriek. Panic rising in him he opened his eyes and dove behind the chair, awaiting a blow to come. It never came.

Slowly, he looked over the armrest of the armchair and his eyes took in a young girl about his age. She was rather petite, with bright blonde hair and steel-blue eyes. Her angular face showed shock, surprise and a few other emotions he could not quite make out.

After a few moments she seemed to be gathering her wits about herself and her rigid posture loosened. At just that point Ouroboros silently slithered close behind the girl and suddenly, without any warning, coiled around her small frame from behind. Another shriek exited her mouth as she was slowly suffocated.

"Ouroboros, release her!" Harry immediately ordered the snake, worried about how much this small body could take. "Ssspeaker, are you sssure? Ssshe could be dangerousss."

"Yes Ouroboros, now."

Still hissing a little in defiance, the snake loosened its grip on the girl and let her free, still remaining alert to anything she could try to hurt who he started to feel of as his human.

The young girl now had a gobsmacked expression on her pretty face, clearly a little overwhelmed with what was happening around her. "You're a parselmouth." She more told him than asked.

"I'm a what?"

"A parselmouth, you can talk to snakes." She started getting excited. This boy somehow fascinated her somehow, although she really was not sure if she wanted to know where these bruises came from.

"Oh, is that what it is called? Well, I guess I am…" He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm Harry, by the way."

"Daphne, nice to meet you."

"You, too."

"Sooooo…" A thousand questions seemed to be in her mind, each of them clearly readable on her face: "Who gave you those bruises, how come you sleep in here, what's with the snake, what about this place …" But she only let herself utter one thing, seeming to know he would not react well to being questioned right now: "Sorry I startled you there. I was a little surprised to find you here. I know this room is only accessible to magic folks. Didn't know about anyone else living here…" She trailed off, her face getting a little red, although Harry had no Idea why exactly.

"Well, I came here kind of recently, you know. Didn't go out very much up 'til now. Actually, I have not left this library for days…" Now it was his turn to trail off. Did he really want her to know that much about him? He had no idea about her after all. But still, he had a certain feeling about her, telling him she could be trusted. And with years of gouging the Dursleys' mood he had developed rather acute senses of mood and personality. "I won't tell her everything, just that I ran away and that I can't go out. And I'll show her around. But not more, at least for now." He decided in the debate with himself.

"Daphne, you can't tell anyone I'm here. I ran away from somewhere and don't want to be fou…"

"I won't tell anyone you're here, I swear. Did you get those bruises there?" She immediately regretted her insensitive question, as much was clear from her expression when taking in his face closing off immediately. "I'm sorry you don't have to answer, of course." She spoke very quickly now and adopted a soothing tone. "Would you show me around this library?"

At this question, Harry's face lit up a little under the still prominent bruises.

"Oh, it's way more than just a library!" Now a little smirk graced his features.

Professor McGonagall was pacing around in her office at Hogwarts. She was waiting for a very important floo-call from Arthur Weasley regarding their planned excursion to Little Whinging that was to take place later the same day. It was now early July and therefore time to get the Hogwarts acceptance letters to the muggleborn and muggleraised magical children to give them enough time to come to grips with their gift before the dead-line for replies on the 31st.

All of a sudden, a chime went off and the flames in her fireplace became a brilliant green, showing the face of Arthur Weasley.

"Oh, hello Arthur, I've been waiting for your call."

"Hello Minerva, yes even in school I wasn't the most punctual one, wasn't I. You do remember, don't you?" He quipped, chuckling at the nervousness clearly showing on the usually stoic professor's face.

"Yes, Arthur I do remember. Now let us get to business. When will you be able to go to Surrey?"

"Well, Molly is taking the kids out this afternoon, and I'll make a half day at the office. Does around three sound okay to you?" He spoke, still sounding a little amused to the old professor. Now suddenly his tone changed to dead serious, something rarely seen or rather heard in him: "Minerva, are you alright? You seem to be quite agitated about this visit, is there more to it than I know?"

Now this was a tough question, because not even Minerva McGonagall could answer it, not even when she asked it herself. Remembering the Dursleys from the time she had watched them in her animagus form, she had a bad feeling about what she would find. Yet, Albus had assured her everything was going fine; the wards were fine so Harry was safe. Still, she was worried there was a danger not from the outside, but from the inside of these wards. Resolving herself to speak again she said: "I am just not quite sure what we will find there. I've watched these people for quite some time ten years ago. I know Albus says Harry is fine, but I just don't know if he is looking at the right danger."

"Hmm. I guess we can only find out about it this afternoon. But I am now more sure than ever that going together and not alone is a good idea" Came Arthur's solemn reply.

"Yes, I suppose that is true. I won't stop worrying though until we see him well and here in Hogwarts. Shall I pick you up at the Ministry at three then?"

"That would be acceptable. I will see you then, Minerva" Arthur finished and his head vanished from the fire while Professor McGonagall resumed her pacing, again asking herself if she had been too easily mollified by Albus' words.

At the same time in Surrey, Harry and Daphne were both sitting in the armchairs in the magical library; Ouroboros curled up in front of the fireplace, enjoying the warmth. Over the last few days, Daphne had helped Harry make the place a little more liveable, getting him some more food, a few matches to light the fireplace and even some necessities for everyday life. She still did not know who he was running from and she had no intention to ask. In return, Harry had told her a bit about the place he had found by such a lucky accident. He had told her about the journal of Kenneth Jones, as well as about his probable fate. Now he was telling her about the book he had found on his family's history.

"You know, it's about my family I think. It has my name in it at least. It's called The Potter Legacy and really…" He had no opportunity to say anymore as he was interrupted most loudly by Daphne as he said this: "By Merlin's underpants, you're Harry Potter!" she exclaimed and taking in his confused expression she continued: "The-boy-who-lived? You survived Vou-know-who? Although I don't see your scar anywhere under that bruise…" She ended before she could say more, a little shaken by her own outburst and worried of making him close off to her again. She did not know him that well, but she really liked him, he seemed so unburdened by prejudice. And, just as important, she could tell he liked her to.

"I have literally no idea what you're talking about" he answered her, interrupting her thoughts on the matter. This baffled Daphne all the more. Knowing it was there she could now see the legendary lightning scar under the bruises on his face, so he clearly was the Harry Potter and he did not know anything about the-boy-who lived? This was nearly incomprehensible to her and she really didn't feel up to telling him about how his parents had been murdered. She also knew he deserved to know. "Here goes nothing" she thought, steeling herself for what would clearly be a difficult talk.

"Harry, do you know about He-who must not-be-named?" She asked with quite some trepidation. She very much wanted to not have to tell him about the Dark Lord.

"You mean Voldemort?" Daphne flinched at the name but quickly collected herself at least she would not have to tell about him.

"I'll tell you the story as my mother told it to me, okay?" Upon his silent, tense nod, Daphne took a calming breath and started to talk.

"Many years ago, he-who-must-not-be-named was very powerful. He and his followers waged war on the wizarding world, determined to topple the government and then subjugate the muggles. I don't really know why, though" she answered his questioning glance. "Anyway, dad calls those "the dark times", rarely talks about it. He was neutral during the war, I think it was to protect mom and later me and my sister. He told me it was hard to trust people, he would not risk anything to openly oppose him" she said, suddenly worried Harry would hold her father's inaction against her, considering what the war had taken from him.

"With the war having raged more than a decade, no one really had any hope left. But this is where you come into play; mom told me this story the first when I was five years old: Apparently, your parents had defied you-know-who one too many times, so he came after them and killed them. And that's when the miracle happened; for some reason, no one really knows why, He tried to kill you too, but his curse rebounded and killed him instead…" Daphne finished, absolute silence claiming the room for a while. "Now every child in our world knows your name, because you're Harry Potter, the-boy-who-lived…" again becoming silent, Daphne averted her eyes from Harry's face, she could not bear the feeling of watching the anguish on his face as she finished the story. When she raised her eyes again to look at him again, his expression had changed dramatically: instead of silent anguish, his face now showed rage, unrestrained burning rage.

"THEY TOLD ME IT WAS A CAR ACCIDENT! MY PARENTS WERE MURDERED BY A MADMAN AND THEY TOLD ME IT WAS A CAR ACCIDENT" he raged and Daphne could see magic flaring up around him. Fearing for an outburst of accidental magic she did something she had not had the bravery to do before: She went over to him and hugged him tightly.

As Daphne grabbed him, Harry immediately went rigid, so she started stroking his back and whispering to him: "Shhh, it's okay you're safe, I'm here for you…" and other such words, all in a soothing tone. At some point the snake she now knew as Ouroboros also came over and started to coil his way up around Harry and, by extension, Daphne.

After a few minutes in this rather unusual group hug Harry started to let some of the tension flow out of him and started to hug her back. Another couple minutes later she noticed her shoulder getting wet and realized Harry was now holding onto her for dear life, crying about who knew how many worries. Still hugging him tightly and after the snake had slithered down to the ground, she maneuvered them both over to the largest armchair, which could easily accommodate the both of them, and sat down on it, with Harry still hanging on to her tightly. Many minutes later, he loosened his grip on her and Daphne realized he had fallen asleep. Only a few more seconds passed until the emotional exhaustion got to her, too, and she followed him into Morpheus' waiting arms.

It was five minutes to three when Minerva McGonagall exited the floo in the Ministry of Magic, taking in the atrium and the fountain she so despised.

"I've met centaurs, and they definitely do not look at wizards like this, neither do goblins." She scoffed internally while waiting for Arthur Weasley to appear. This event she had been waiting for happened exactly 15 minutes later, which made the stern transfiguration mistress give the man walking towards her in an idle pace a menacing glare.

"Hello, Minerva. I thought we had cleared this thing about me and punctuality?" he greeted her, only to receive another pointed look. "I'm sorry; there was an incident with a number of cars charmed to go berserk when someone in the vicinity broke any rules of traffic. We have five muggles in St. Mungo's right now, and a whole squad of obliviators on the ground to clear it up, even the aurors got involved, it's a right mess, that is."

This somewhat soothed Minerva, knowing how serious he took his work even his coming ten minutes late was a miracle. "No need to apologize Arthur, I know you take you job seriously. And thank you for trying to cheer me up, although that would be quite impossible at this point. Come on then, take my arm, I believe you haven't been to the Dursleys'?" After both of them had transfigured their clothes to some nice muggle attire, Arthur took Minerva's arm and with a spin and a pop they disapparated to a silent spot near Privet Drive.

With a pop they appeared in the quiet back-alley behind a supermarket, directly next to a dumpster containing still packed food that had crossed its best before. Making their way out of the alley, they took in their surroundings, the neat lawns, tidy streets and almost depressingly boring, uniformal houses. A few minutes later, they reached the front lawn of Privet Drive Number Four, which was unusually dry and brown, while the flowerbeds seemed to be flowing over with weeds, as if no one had taken the time to take care of either recently.

Stepping up to the front-door, Minerva activated the door-bell while Arthur watched intently, obviously quite fascinated. Hearing silent cursing from behind the door, they both adapted their work personas of stern professor and ministry official, respectively. The door opened and a rather horsish looking woman Minerva recognized as Petunia Dursley, sister of Lily Potter, appeared in front of them.

"What do you want, showing up here unannounced?" She asked in a rather rude tone.

In her most level voice, Minerva started to answer: "My name is Professor Minerva McGonagall, I am a teacher at…" but was immediately interrupted by Petunia, who had now adopted a sneer as if she was faced with something intensely repugnant.

"Oh, I know who you are Professor" the last word dripped in venom. "You teach at that school for freaks. You here for the brat?"

"Yes, we are. Let me introduce myself, I am Arthur Weasley, an official from the Ministry of Mag…"

"Don't say this word here! Although I really do hate to disappoint you" here her tone said differently "the boy is not here. He left some time ago, after he was punished for one of his bouts of freakishness." She now looked at the witch and the wizard in front of her with loathing, as well as some beginning trepidation.

"Might I ask, what this "punishment", after which Mr. Potter left, entailed?" Professor McGonagall, because it was now her, and not Minerva, asked, trying hard to stay calm while she remembered the countless times she had worried about something like this.

"My husband gave him the belt, and quite rightly so, and then the fists. All of it very much deserved, I assure you. He passed out, so my son put him in his cupboard, he was in the way on the floor." At that point both Professor McGonagall and Mr. Weasley had problems refraining from hexing the horrible person in front of them. Working hard to keep her anger in check and out of her voice McGonagall now asked the woman: "And might that have been?"

"Must have been some two weeks now, ungrateful brat…"

"So you're telling me, a child left, your sister's son, no less, in your care has been missing for two weeks now, probably hurt, and you did not bother to look for him, to file a report with the police?" Cold fury started showing on her face and in her voice, prompting Arthur to take over.

"We will be back. Should you be hiding Mr. Potter from the authorities, be prepared to face severe consequences. Furthermore, with what I heard from you now, be prepared to receive a visit from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Magical Child Protective Services in the near future. I hereby declare an investigation on you, everything you say from now on can and will be used against you in a court of law." He played out these formalities almost without emotion, internally seething and grieving for the boy. Without another word they turned away, leaving behind a stunned and furious Petunia.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Arthur turned towards Minerva and, with a completely stunned look on his face, watched a single tear streak down her cheek. "Arthur, I sentenced him to that… I was there when Albus left him here. I should have been more insistent. I never should have…" she trailed off, no words able to express the dread she now felt, the sorrow and regret.

Now, pure fear enveloped her mind as another possible outcome of this turn of events became clear to her. In a little voice much more fitting to a frightened little girl than to the rigid Professor who was now using it she spoke: "Arthur, what if… What if he's…" She could not bring herself to finish the sentence.

"Calm down, Minerva." Arthur now spoke to her in as calming a voice as he could manage. "I happen to know there's an auror posted in the area after that breach of secrecy with the knight bus. We'll ask if they've seen anything."

AN: Wow, this was not easy to write, at least emotionally, yet the words just kept coming. Hope you all enjoy, and please do leave a review.

alexandertheII