Harry Prewett and the Case of Inadvertent Illegal Time Travel
Chapter Six: The Dangers of Shopping
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter
Author's Note: First off I'd just like to thank every one who Reviewed, Alerted or Favorited, you guys are all superfreakingawesome! Now on to the important parts...
The three of them appeared in the alley behind the Leakey Cauldron with a sharp double crack. Since Violet's wand was doubling as a hair pin and Harry didn't have one yet Dorea took out her wand and tapped the appropriate stone to allow them access to the shopping district hidden in plain sight.
Harry grinned happily as the bricks shifted into the archway that revealed the familiar rows of shops and bustling of the crowd. Of course the crowds were quite frankly ridiculous, it was after all the summer rush, there were students everywhere mobbing friends, trying to carry mass amounts of books, quills and parchment and the normal gathering of eleven year old boys and other Quidditch enthusiasts outside the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies.
"Come on, we're not going to get anything done just standing here," Dorea said looking a bit like a cross between a dragon and a drill sergeant as she marched towards the nearest shop which happened to be Madam Malkins.
"Don't we have to go to the bank?" asked Harry as he and Violet tried to keep up.
"Oh no, we have accounts with most of the stores in Diagon Alley, and I keep some muggle money in my purse, we'll be fine to skip those lines today,"
"What do you mean you have an account with the stores?" asked Harry.
"Well, as a family that has been customers since the Alley opened who are also known to have er...a rather comfortable financial status, we are allowed to simply sign off our purchases and the shopkeepers get the money transferred directly into their Vault from the bank at the end of the work week,"
"Oh, so you have a tab," said Harry with a raised eyebrow.
"Precisely," laughed Violet.
"Are you coming? Or is the new plan to linger in the street all day?" demanded Dorea from the doorway of the robe shop scowling and tapping her foot impatiently.
Harry rolled his eyes but jogged the rest of the way up to the store. A plump young witch with curly blond hair and a nice smile was waiting with Dorea.
"Felicia, this is my nephew Harry, he needs one of everything," Dorea said.
Harry raised an eyebrow and resisted the urge to salute at Dorea's militant tone of voice. Instead he turned and tried to smile charmingly at the witch.
"I'm kind of new at this, so go easy on me alright?"
A very female smile crossed Felicia's face.
"Sorry Mr. Charming Pants, not going to happen, but you'll love me for it one day," she said dragging him into a private dressing area he'd never known existed.
Bemusedly Harry mounted the small stool there and allowed the magical measuring tape to slither all over his body. Felicia was as brisk and impersonal and Harry had a feeling that Collette would have approved at the swift way she pinned and hemmed a set of Gryffindor robes for him all the while directing the stack of white button downs, striped ties and black trousers. He had just enough time to notice that he still wasn't used to his new reflection and that the Hogwarts robes hadn't really changed in twenty years.
Then he was instructed to put his arms out at the side and stand like that. Stand like that he did for about a half an hour while Felicia whisked robe after, bloody robe over his shoulders, it got the yea or nay from the three women in the room and then was either hemmed or discarded. For someone who hadn't ever owned robes beyond his one pair of dress robes and the ones he had for school he was a little bit alarmed at the amount of money Dorea and Violet were spending on him to get one in what seemed like every single style and colour. By the end of it though he was way too tired to muster up even a shred of protest.
Moving up towards the cash Felicia gave him a sympathetic 'Atta Boy pat on the back and then began ringing up and bagging their purchases. Violet shrunk them and put them into one smaller bag to make it manageable to carry and handed it to Harry. The Felicia handed Dorea a small white card with a lump in the bottom right corner. Dorea scribbled the final total, a number, and her signature and then pressed a ring Harry hadn't noticed she'd been wearing into the lump. The ring left the perfect impression of a wand and a sword crossed across a sun.
Violet put a hand on his shoulder and held out the small bag full of shrunken robes. He smiled tiredly and accepted the bag before following the two women out of the shop.
The same thing happened in the other shops, but Harry knew what kind of pace to expect from Dorea now so if he wanted something in addition to what she'd picked out he slipped it into the pile without comment and tried to keep up. Now he understood why normal guys didn't like shopping, they probably went with crazy women.
Dorea made a couple of short detours to the smaller apothecaries and Harry decided knowing her profession he didn't want to know what she was picking up.
The one place he'd put his foot down and said they absolutely had to slow down and let him make the decision was in the trunk shop where he'd spent a good twenty minutes getting fitted for a shoulder rig like Dorea's and another holster he could fasten to the waist band of his pants or pretty much any limb. The woman had tapped her foot impatiently the entire time her eyes following him like a hawk follows a mouse while Violet patiently flipped through a ten year old magazine in the waiting area.
Finally they came to the most important stop on the itinerary, Ollivander's. This was the stop Harry was most worried about. He knew his wand was here holly and phoenix feather, Voldemort's brother wand, but he didn't know if he should take it, if it would even have him or if it was destined for James and Lily's son. Of course Harry intended to make sure that Voldemort and whoever their son ended up being weren't in any way connected, he wasn't clear on how he was going to manage this but that was a problem for another day. If he took the wand, would that mean the future would be completely changed? And if he didn't, did that mean that everything he did here to change things was pointless? Harry bit his lip and tried to stave off the impending Thinking-About-Time-Travel headache by returning to the task at hand.
"Would you mind waiting for me here?" he asked.
If Ollivander did his little brother wand to Voldemort speech he didn't want either of his Aunts to know or worry about it, and besides which he'd always felt that receiving a wand was a private moment.
"Not at all Harry," Violet said.
Dorea opened her mouth to protest and without batting an eyelash Violet stood on her foot.
"Ow! Violet!"
"Go on Harry, we'll just sit by the fountain and let Dorea rest her feet,"
Harry waited until he was out of Dorea's earshot before chuckling. The wand shop was just as it had been in Harry's first year, filled with dust motes floating in the single ray of weak sunshine and with the hushed reverent air of an ancient library. The shelves were filled with boxes that didn't seem to be organized in any particular way and there was a small rickety chair and a small dusty front desk.
"Hello?" Harry called.
He knew Ollivander was in here somewhere, lurking and watching. Harry had the sneaking suspicion the old wand maker liked scaring the pants off of his customers and appearing mysterious and omniscient. So he waited patiently listening hard.
"I take it you are a young Mr. Prewett then?" said Ollivander emerging from the stacks and fixing him with a piercing silver stare.
Ollivander was just as Harry remembered him. It was as if the man was timeless, and Harry still thought he was creepy.
"Yes, sir, Harry Prewett,"
"Your father would be Gregorius Prewett then, yes, I can see him in you now. It seems like only yesterday he was in here buying his first wand, 13 ½ inches, poplar, with a dragon heartstring core. As I recall it was quite bendy, and excellent wand for working with and against powerful beasts, though I hear it didn't save him,"
"No sir,"
"You're rather too old for this to be your first one though, you're perhaps thirteen?"
"I just turned fifteen, sir, and yes my old wand got trampled when I was working with hippogriffs and with...everything I haven't had the time to replace it. My Aunt says you're the best wand maker bar none,"
"Flattery will get you everywhere Mr. Prewett. Very well, what was your first wand comprised of and where do your strengths in magic lay?"
"It was 12 ¾ inches, yew and phoenix feather," Harry lied, "And I'm best in defence but no slouch in Charms and Transfiguration either,"
Ollivander hmmed and nodded to himself. Pulling a few options off the walls closest to the cash and then disappearing deep into the stacks and appearing with a few more dustier boxes. There were six boxes in total.
"I would suspect the match for you Mr. Prewett is in one of these boxes. Try this one, 13 inches yew and dragon heartstring,"
Harry gave it a careful swish and flick, kicking up a whole mess load of dust motes but doing little else. Ollivander snatched it from his grasp and shoved another wand at him.
"12 ½ inches, ebony and phoenix feather,"
This was produced a few faint sparks but Harry could tell this wasn't the one and handed it back before Ollivander could actually snatch it out of his hands. Harry tried two more wands each with the same issue, almost but not quite right. Then Harry's hand closed around the familiar handle of his own wand, warmth spread up through his finger tips to the rest of his body and with a small smile and a swish of the wand a shower of gold and silver sparkles rained down glinting in the sunlight and disappearing before they hit the floor.
"There, I think we've found a match. That is a powerful wand Mr. Prewett, use it well and wisely," advised Ollivander as Harry paid the necessary five galleons and tucked it into the small of his back where he'd fastened his new holster on a slight angle.
Harry thanked Ollivander and then hurried out of the shop before the man could change his mind and start up with the doom and gloom prophecies.
"How did it go?" asked Violet.
"I got my old wand back," Harry said with a smile.
"That's wonderful," Violet said smiling happily.
"Alright, that's all we have for the Alley, let's get back into London so we can get the muggle part of this outing over with as quickly as possible," Dorea said.
"Are you always this uptight when you go shopping?" Harry asked.
"I don't like crowds, the faster we get out of here the better, if you ask me," Dorea said standing up.
"Dorea you didn't have to come if you didn't want to," Violet said gently linking an arm through hers and doing the same with Harry.
"I wanted to, I promise I'm not usually this jumpy in the Alley but it just feels like someone's watching us and it's making me a bit..."
"Cranky?" Violet suggested.
"Yeah, let's go with that,"
Harry glanced up and down the street, trying to spot who was watching them. Now that Dorea had said something Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He'd been in mortal danger enough times in his life to know the feeling. The wind picked up slightly carrying a chill in the air. Their arms were still linked.
"Apparate, right now," Harry ordered seriously.
"Harry -"
"Now!" he snapped.
He felt a slight push but it subsided quickly and they were still walking in Diagon Alley.
"I can't!" gasped Violet.
"Anti-apparation wards," Dorea said softly her face going pale.
"Right," said Harry nodding to himself, "Wands out, we're heading for the Leaky," he said drawing his own wand.
Dorea and Violet did the same and with a muttered word, Violet shrunk their heels into nothing and had her hair neatly braided and out of her face.
"Shouldn't we try to warn them something's wrong?" asked Violet as the three of them jogged as fast as they could through the crowds.
"They already know," Harry said pointing out nervous white faced looking people who blurred slightly as they tried to apparate and were turned back by the wards.
Somewhere in the crowd a little girl started crying.
"Attention: Please make your way to the nearest floo, there have been unauthorized anti-apparation wards erected around the Alley and the Auror corps in on its way, in the mean time return to your homes,"
The voice that boomed out across the Alley was very familiar and Harry wasn't surprised to find he recognized the forty-something wizard despite the fact that he had both eyes and legs and his face, while scarred, didn't look like someone with only the vaguest idea what a human face ought to look like had carved it. Mad-Eye Moody was standing on some shop keep's table with his wand at his throat dressed in his customary brown leather coat and glaring suspiciously at the crowds below.
Harry didn't relax per se but he feel some of the panic subside to manageable levels. Moody was pretty much the best Auror that ever lived, half the cells in Azkaban were filled because of him and he was loyal to Dumbledore and not above screwing the rules and doing what needed to be done. He was pretty much Harry's idol if you took away some of the scarring and rampant paranoia.
"Alright, you heard the man, let's get out of here before the bad guys arrive," Harry said moving towards Fortescue's.
Florian Fortescue the History buff that had helped Harry with his homework one year was standing in the doorway looking very pale and very young and herding people single file into the shop. Harry steered them that way. Too late, the sky had gone dark and was thick with roiling clouds. Then there was a flash and the Dark Mark bathed the street in an eerie green glow. People began screaming and panicking in earnest.
"Oh dear goddess," whispered Violet.
The air had turned frigid and Harry could see his own breath. He looked up. Sure enough, flanked by two humanoid figures on brooms were a lot of dementors about a hundred if he was guessing correctly.
"Shit!" Harry cursed as they began to descend and any semblance of order was lost as the fear and panic jacked up to new levels.
He didn't know if there were going to be more Death Eaters coming than the two sent to put up the wards and the Mark but he did know that the Dementors were bad enough and he had the means to help. He took a deep breath.
"You two get behind me!" barked Dorea before he could, "Expecto Patronum!"
A magnificent silvery eagle soared out of her wand and into the incoming cloud of Dementors. In the back of his mind he could hear his Mum start screaming but he shook his head and focused. He had found a family, a family that accepted him for what he was; he would never have to go back to the Dursley's again. He let the realization fill him with the same giddy happiness it had two years ago when for two blissful hours he'd though Sirius was going to be able to do the same.
"Expecto Patronum!" he bellowed.
Prongs leapt from his wand and charged the dementors head on flashing brightly as it drove them back. The dementors began shrieking with rage as they were forced away from their prey. Behind him he heard Violet muttering.
"EVERYONE WITH A CORPOREAL PATRONUS CAST IT NOW! EVERYONE ELSE GET TO THE FLOO, CHILDREN FIRST!" Violet ordered her magically magnified orders echoing of the stones of the Alley.
The panicking crowd seemed to pull itself together just a little and a few more silvery shapes joined Harry and Dorea's driving the dementors off.
"Get down!" shouted Harry tackling Violet to the ground as a jet of green light crashed into the ground where she'd just been standing like some kind of bizarre lightning.
Automatically Harry shot a stunning spell back the way the green light had come and the masked figure on the broom tumbled out of the air and hit the cobblestones not too far away with a sickening crack.
"I-incarcerous!" squeaked Violet her chains ensuring the Death Eater wouldn't be moving anytime soon.
Harry scanned the sky for the other Death Eater, and got clipped with a slashing curse as he found out the other Death Eater had already landed and had brought friends.
Before the Death Eater could catch him of guard again Harry rolled to one side got to his feet and moved toward the figure in black robes rather than away. A quick tripping jinx followed by a spell he'd learned from Neville had the Death Eater attached to the ground with the vines growing out of a planter in front of a shop. He then stunned and petrified the bastard for good measure and jogged back over to where Violet was standing with her wand in a white knuckled grip.
"Harry! Oh gods you're bleeding!"
"Aunt Violet, are you alright?"
"I'm fine, just bruises, what's going on?"
"Death Eaters, where's Aunt Dorea?"
"Slasio!" snarled a female voice to their left.
Harry looked up in time to watch the wand arm fall off Dorea's attacker.
"Harry look out!" shouted Violet.
Harry whipped around, "Bombarda!" he cried.
The Death Eater screamed as his ribs were broken and he was thrown back about twenty feet.
"Oh gods," Violet murmured.
"Are you two alright?" Dorea demanded, her hair was tangled her eyes wild and her dress slit up to mid-thigh on the one side, she was using her wand to hold her Patronus and had somehow acquired another with which to curse Death Eaters.
"Fine," Harry answered wiping the blood out of his eyes.
"Kid!" bellowed Moody as he elbowed his way through the crowd skidding to a stop beside them, "We need your Patronus up there, I'll cover you!"
Harry nodded as he watched the beads of sweat stream down Dorea's face.
"Expecto Patronum!" he screamed again at top volume.
It helped him concentrate.
The silver stag once again joined the fray, the other Patroni not having been able to do much more than hold them off. Harry couldn't really blame them, not everyone discovered their corporeal Patronus and their ability to ward off a hundred dementors at the same time.
This time when Prongs charged them the dementors flew higher shrieking and scattering as the Patroni chased them farther away. The sky lightened back to a sullen drizzly grey and people in the streets began to cheer.
Harry dropped his wand and in the sky the bright silver ball of light that was his Patronus dissipated. Not bothering to stand on ceremony Harry and Dorea plopped into heaps on the ground. Harry assumed the Death Eaters remaining had all seen their fellows captured and killed and had fled before the Aurors arrived. The multiple cracks and the sight and sound of Moody bellowing orders to a team of men and women in sturdy brown militant looking robes let Harry know the Aurors had arrived and probably managed to get the anti-apparation wards down. People began disapparating left right and centre fleeing with their families to anywhere else.
Violet flung her arms around Harry unexpectedly and cried a bit into his shoulder but he was way too wiped to anything but pat her back and let her.
Once Moody had the Aurors organized he returned to their little huddle on the ground.
"Anyone need a medi-witch?" he asked looking them over critically.
"No, thank you Alastor, just some rest and chocolate," Dorea answered wearily.
"You sure?" he asked looking pointedly as Harry.
Harry cast a quick aguamenti to wash his face.
"See? Just a graze," he said pushing his wet hair back from his face to show off the thin red line on his forehead.
Moody grunted. He turned to Dorea.
"You're Potter's missus, the one who can cook,"
Dorea nodded.
"You've got one talented kid here, ma'am, takes some guts to send those things packing, and I'm not just talking about the dementors," he said.
"Thanks," Harry said, "There's a trick to it, maybe I'll tell you some time,"
"Do that, Potter, I look forward to it," Moody said ruffling his hair with a grin that was more of a grimace.
"Prewett actually," Violet said sniffing, "He's my nephew,"
"Good sense runs in the family, then. Don't worry about the bastards that hit the dirt, we've got them in custody, you're safe enough," Moody said.
He didn't say goodbye, just grunted, nodded at each of them, and moved back to bellowing orders.
"Um excuse me?" said a tentative voice.
Harry, Dorea, and Violet all raised their heads to see Florian Fortescue standing in front of them. He was younger than Harry had thought. Maybe sixteen or just turned seventeen. He held out three of the most massive chocolate ice cream cones they'd ever seen.
"We saw what you did, to help everyone, and well," Florian shrugged, "Heroes deserve a reward," he said holding out the tray.
"Thanks, I'm Harry by the way,"
"Florian, good to meet you," he said shaking his hand with a grin.
"Kind of crappy circumstances, but same here,"
Dorea and Violet couldn't help it they started laughing. Florian raised an eyebrow.
"Ignore them, they're clearly insane," Harry said haughtily taking a delicate lick of his ice cream and feeling immediately better.
"Harry, darling, you've got a bit of blood right there," Dorea said as if it were spinach in his teeth.
All three of them started laughing at that comment and Harry felt the same giddy rush at the realization that once again he'd survived mortal danger that he was sure was causing most of the hilarity and couldn't stop his own laugh from burbling up and out of his chest, washing the last of the lingering cold chill of the dementors from his bones.
AN: See action and heroism!
Not sure if I should have made Harry the saviour of the day but he did do the exact same thing with less help when he was thirteen so I figured it was a realistic situation. Tell me if I'm wrong.
Due to popular vote and my own inclinations, Harry will work on his animagus form by himself rather that waiting on inclusion. For those of you interested in what his form might end up being I have a few ideas of my own but feel free to weigh in.
I've also had a question about Harry's status as a horcrux and his Voldie-Visions, to which I'll say as of now I'm inclined to keep him a Horcrux but I don't know if he'll recieve visions, as for the prophecy aspects I've got them covered and that's all I'm saying about that!
Please continue sending me your thoughts on pairings for Harry.
As always your reviews and comments always make me smile and give me the ideas and inspiration that push me forward!