Disclaimer: No, I do not own anything of the 'Harry Potter' universe, nor do I make any money from playing with the characters.
A/N: I have no idea how I found time to write this. Large quantities of either alcohol or coffee… or both, given my hectic work/time-off schedule. I'll refrain from commenting on what this chapter implies… I'm sure many of you will see the foreshadowing of both Harry's and Hermione's forthcoming personality development. Trust me when I say that some future event will give Harry a much-needed 'wake-up call.' You'll see! (Word Count: 3799)
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Chapter 8: A Lightening and a Darkening
Saturday, October 1st, 1988 6:03 PM
Hermione Granger wasn't a vain person. She seldom, if ever, cared what other people thought of her. She was used to the pranks, the snide remarks, and the jealousy of her fellow classmates over the unerringly superior grades she always managed to achieve through her hard work and tenacity.
She had never thought about her 'social standing' amongst her peers at school. All she had ever known was the omnipresent feeling that she was different than everyone around her… somewhat better than her peers, who seemed more concerned with 'who likes who' or 'who has better stuff' than what was truly important… namely, their studies.
Then that 'boy' appeared.
She had heard through the grapevine… albeit much later than all of the other students… well, she accidentally overheard the other girls talking about him while sitting in the girl's loo at school… that the boy who had visited her on that day was some sort of 'hottie…' whatever that meant…
It was true that he had given her a birthday present… even though it was a weird fictional book about an old Scottish castle that was created for the sole purpose of being a school for magic. It was true, the reading was interesting, insightful, and well presented, but it was still fantasy… but something about it… something about the whole circumstance… something…
"Mother?" called out Hermione as she approached the parlor where her parents usually resided after work.
"She'th in the thtudy upthtairth," replied her father with a slight but noticeable lisp. The man was sitting in the recliner before their recently purchased wide, projection-screen telly, watching his favorite re-run of 'Monty Python's Flying Circus.'
For the briefest instant, and for the first time that she could remember, Hermione distinctively noticed her father's severe overbite and his lisping speech, and for the first time in her life, she internally cursed the genetic code that was passed to her from him that subjected her to the monstrosity that was her retainer.
At that moment, her mother appeared at the top of the stairs and said, "Hullo, Hunny-Bunny… what's the Phrenetic Variable to a Quadratic Surd?"
"Twishe the shquare root of the originating Polythrentic Quentry," replied Hermione in an exasperated huff, "Thish ish jusht what I mean! Othersh shee me ash an animated adding machine!"
"Don't be silly, Nilly…" retorted her mother playfully, "an adding machine couldn't possibly differentiate between the phase differential within the Standard Deviation of the Non-Tequectonic and the Sub-transquential shift in…
"I want to loosh shome weight," said Hermione determinably.
Her mother froze mid-step near the bottom of the stairs and her father tore his eyes away from the telly for the first time that morning.
"Why would you want thomething like that, pumpkin?" asked her father, "You aren't fat, you're jutht healthy…"
"Yesh, I am fat!" replied Hermione adamantly, "and thish retainer ish making me the laughing shtock of the whole shchool!"
Her parents shared a knowing look, then her mother smiled at her sympathetically and said, "Listen, it's not how you look on the outside, but what kind of person you are on the inside… if you want to make true friends, you have to wait until someone gets to know you for you…
Hermione had the card that came along with the strange birthday present clutched within her hand as she stood defiantly before her parents, "It'sh very difficult to allow shomeone to get to know 'the real me' when they're conshtantly pulling pranksh on me! Nobody ish closhe to me becaushe nobody wantsh to get closhe to me!"
"Nobody, huh?" said her mother with a sly smile, "Well, there's at least one who seems to like you… how many times have you read that Pigwarts book now? It seems to me that was a nice, thoughtful gift for you."
Hermione couldn't tell, but both of her parents noticed the slight flush of pink that graced their daughter's cheeks.
"That wash probably a mishtake," said Hermione with a hint of sadness in her voice, "I don't know who he ish, and I haven't sheen him shince my birthday."
Her mother grinned knowingly and said, "But you're hoping to see him again, and that's why you want to lose some weight and get rid of that retainer, am I right?"
Even Hermione could now tell that she was blushing. She turned embarrassedly away and didn't bother to answer the obvious question.
"Well, you're supposed to wear the retainer for another year…"
Mrs. Granger couldn't miss the despairing look that washed across her daughter's face. She impishly paused for a moment before continuing, "but I suppose we could fit you with simple braces… it will take a bit longer to correct your overbite, but at least it will be a bit less obvious."
Hermione blinked a few times, hardly believing that her parents were actually willing to sacrifice what they took to be the fastest route to her dental health if favor of aesthetic appearances. Her surprised look magnified as her mother added…
"And if you're so adamant about shedding some of your baby fat, then starting tomorrow I'll have a diet set up for all of us… Lord knows I could stand to lose an inch or two from my hips, and your father's love handles could use a bit of skimming."
Mr. Granger was about to voice some sort of complaint, but his mouth snapped shut at the warning glare his wife sent him. The Granger matriarch was momentarily surprised by the sudden hug that was given by her excited daughter. She watched the young girl bounce up the stairs towards her bedroom in a better mood than she had seen in a very long time.
As soon as they heard Hermione's bedroom door click shut, Mr. Granger rather testily commented, "Ithn't she a tad young to be worried about her appearanth?"
Mrs. Granger looked to her now grumpy husband and said, "She likes him."
"She'th only nine yearth old…"
"and she's much more mature than her years," injected his wife. Mrs Granger sighed and said, "You know how cruel children can be to people who appear or sound different, don't you, dear?"
Mr. Granger's normally passive expression suddenly contorted into a pained grimace as his own memories of the teasing he endured as a child came to his mind. That was answer enough.
"Whoever that boy is, he has made a very devoted friend, whether he realized it or not," commented Mrs. Granger, "I do hope she meets him again… if he can bring about this much of a change in Hermione from a single encounter, I'm sure he could be instrumental in finally bringing her out of her shell."
Mr. Granger nodded as he said, "I'll bring her into the thurgery tomorrow and get the proper measurementh to fit a thet of bratheth for her. I'll order up a thet of thothe new graphite-compothite fittingth. Being white, they won't be tho notitheable…" and with a return of his grimace, he added, "At leatht with thothe, they can't teathe her with my old nickname, 'tinthel-teeth.'"
Mrs. Granger smiled and nodded in approval as she headed towards the kitchen to prepare their dinner. She knew the day would come where her daughter would begin to fret over her appearance… she just wished it wasn't so soon… it made her feel older than her thirty-one years.
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Sunday, October 16th, 1988 11:53 AM
"I'm at my wit's end!" said Jaana, almost in tears, "I just don't know what to do about him!"
"You say that all of this started about a month ago?" asked Cooley in his thick Jamaican accent as he looked out through the window at the young boy meditating on the grass beneath the elm tree in the back yard.
"Since the day he took off to Merlin-knows-where for over three hours. I was so angry with him for disappearing like that, but the look on his face when he returned… he looked so… so lost… I have no idea where he went, and he refused to tell me. I don't know what happened to him, but it's like he lost his pet or something… but…" Jaana let out a tired sigh and muttered, "…doesn't have a pet, and he really doesn't have any friends, besides Glyph and me. You know he can't be seen by anyone."
"How was he acting before then?"
"He was happy enough, or so I thought. All through August he was doing well with all the lessons I've been giving him. Maybe I pushed him too hard… expected too much from him."
"Nonsense," said Cooley, "If you have been following the schedule in the books I gave you, he should be receiving the same level of education as any wizard his age."
Jaana remained silent for a moment, looking guiltily away from her former healer trainer.
Cooley's eyes narrowed and he leaned towards her, "What have you been up to, Jaana?"
"Well… I might have added a few things to what the books suggested."
"Such as…?"
"Um… some basic spell theory, incantation pronunciation, some rudimentary training in runes… a bit of wand manipulation… and…"
"Good heavens, woman!" barked Cooley in astonishment, "You haven't given the child a wand, have you?"
"Of course not!" snapped Jaana, "He practices with a stick."
"I see… and what else?"
Jaana mumbled something as she looked at her shoes. She glanced up at his piercing hazel eyes and then sighed, "Potions… I've been training him in potions, too."
"You do mean that you've been training him in recognizing the quality of ingredients, reagent properties, methods of stirring, cauldron materials… Potions Theory, right?"
"Well… um… Yes, well… since before his birthday… then I bought him a potions kit for a gift, and began…"
"Are you daft, woman?" whispered Cooley intensely, although he was sure nobody was around to hear them, "You have the child brewing already?"
"He wanted me to teach him actual magic!" defended Jaana, "He's been begging me for a wand since I took him in… I had to do something! I know I can't teach him practical spells… but I do remember what it was like when I was his age. I knew I was responsible enough to learn magic discreetly, but mum and dad never let me. You know potion brewing can't be tracked or detected, and he seems more than mature enough to handle the responsibility… and he's Harry Potter! You know that they're going to expect 'The Boy Who Lived' to be some sort of prodigy. If he shows up at Hogwarts no better than a muggle, he's going to be mocked and ridiculed by the other students… and one certain Potions Professor… I just thought…"
Ray Cooley sighed as he said, "You Ravenclaws… always assuming that others can keep up with the workload you place upon yourselves. No wonder the child is stressed."
"But that's just it! He's not stressed! He's been picking up what I've been showing him with no trouble at all. Just last week, I explained a complex theory on the multiple attraction charm to him, and the next morning I saw him practicing the incantation with his stick… using the correct manipulations!"
"So the boy is a quick study?" asked Cooley with a knowing nod.
"But I hadn't taught the wand movements to him yet! It's as if he just knew how to do it!"
Cooley paused in thought and his eyes returned to the boy sitting in the back yard. It took him a moment to realize that Harry was no longer sitting in the fallen leaves under the elm tree, but was sitting in the middle of the fenced-in flower bed several meters to the right. He mentally shrugged and he was about to turn back to Jaana to say something when he saw Harry vanish.
"What the…" exclaimed Cooley as his eyes scanned the expansive back yard. It took him a few seconds to find the boy who was now in the same meditative sitting position, but was now on top of the gardening shed on the far side of the fenced in garden.
"What? What is it?" Jaana asked quickly as she heard the curious exclamation.
"Look at this, Jaana!" said Cooley in an accusing tone, "Have you been teaching him this, too?"
Jaana stepped to the window and followed Cooley's stare to where Harry was sitting on the shed's roof.
"How did he get up… oh my!"
Once again, Harry had disappeared. Jaana's eyes frantically scanned the area as she practically screamed in panic, "He's gone! He's been taken! I've got to…"
"There," said Cooley calmly as he pointed towards the grove of apple trees a few hundred meters away.
Jaana had to squint to see Harry's tiny form sitting motionlessly under one of the bare apple trees in the distance. An instant later, Harry disappeared again and silently reappeared just outside of the window, back under the elm tree where he had started.
"He's… he's Apparating!" yelled Jaana angrily as she fumbled with the window lock. In her panic, she totally forgot that she was a witch, "He's going to be the death of me yet! He's going to splinch himself and get us all caught!"
Cooley just smiled and drew his wand, unlocking and opening the window with a twist, swish, and flick.
"Harry!" yelled Jaana through the now opened window, "Don't you dare move, young man!"
Harry's eyes focused and he looked up to the open window. About ten seconds later, the back door flew open and a very upset Jaana stormed through the doorway.
As Jaana neared him, Harry instinctively cowered back and covered his head protectively with his arms. Jaana stopped short, the anger falling from her face and being replaced with a look of distress.
"Oh, no… no, Harry… I'm not going to hit you!"
Jaana walked the last few steps, knelt down beside him and wrapped Harry in a hug. Her breath caught as she felt the boy flinch as she touched him.
Jaana felt the wetness building under her eyelids as she felt his body trembling in her arms. In a calm voice, she whispered to him, "Harry, no matter what you do or how angry I may seem, I'd never, ever hit you!"
"W-what did I do wrong?" asked Harry haltingly.
"You were just Apparating around the yard!" said Jaana concernedly, "I don't know how you learned to Apparate, but it's very, very dangerous! If you splinch yourself, the Ministry will know right away and send a reversal squad out to find you… and you know what will happen if the Ministry finds out where you are…"
"But… I… I wasn't Apparating…" defended Harry.
Jaana pulled back a little to look at Harry's face and patiently said, "We were watching you through the window. We saw you Apparating… I saw you move from the roof of the shed over to the orchard, and then to under this tree."
"I wasn't Apparating…" repeated Harry, sounding a little more relaxed as he explained matter-of-factly, "I was Shifting. There is a difference, you know."
"And what difference would that be?" asked Cooley, who had just emerged from the doorway and overheard the last bit of the conversation.
Harry paused, seemingly thinking about the answer, and then said, "Well, I don't know much about Apparating… I've only done it twice, and both times accidentally… When you Apparate, you force yourself into another location. When you Shift, you just let yourself be where you want to go… it's hard to explain…"
"And where did you hear about this 'Shifting?'" asked Cooley.
"In my book!" stated Harry proudly, "It's got loads of information on magic… even more than the books that…" Harry suddenly went silent as he realized what he had just said.
A look of realization appeared on Jaana's face as she glanced at Cooley. Harry had told her earlier that he was reading his life's story in the book and never bothered to question him again about the book's content. She had assumed, given the apparent size of the book, that it only contained information about his life. Now she knew how he was getting the gist of what she had been teaching him so quickly, and seemed to know how to do some things even before she began teaching him about them. The book must contain some knowledge of advanced magic… maybe even Dark magic. She had never heard of 'Shifting,' and it was apparent that Cooley had no knowledge of it, either.
Jaana instantly became worried, and by the concerned look she saw on Cooley's face, it was clear that he was just as much so.
"Tell me, little man…" said Cooley to Harry in a placating tone, "what has this book of yours been teaching you other than this 'Shifting?'
Harry was young, but he wasn't stupid. He knew what he had let slip, and he certainly noticed the odd glances the adults were sending each other. He was afraid that they would take the book from him if he told them something they didn't want to hear… and that was something that he surely didn't want to happen. In the few short months that he had been in possession of the book, he had learned what the future held for him… as well as the entire world. His young mind didn't quite grasp the importance, the responsibility, or the danger involved in everything that should be done to avoid the path that the book had revealed… he just knew that his older self had tasked him to change the future, and had sent the tools he needed to do it. He couldn't allow those tools to be taken from him. He needed to learn all he could from the book. He needed a convincing lie, and pondered that thought for the briefest moment before realizing that lying was something he just couldn't do to Jaana.
Without hesitation, Harry silently vanished.
Both Jaana and Cooley jumped in surprise at Harry's sudden disappearance. The most surprising thing about it was that it was completely silent, almost as if he went invisible instead of Apparating. An instant later, Harry reappeared, sitting complacently in the exact same spot where he was before. He saw Jaana's eyes narrow.
"What did you just do?" asked Jaana suspiciously, even though she knew exactly what the sneaky young wizard had done.
"I'm sorry," said Harry solemnly, "I kinda know what you want to do, so I hid it where you'll never find it."
A cocky smile appeared on Jaana's face as she said in a nonchalant tone, "Oh, you put it in the secret compartment of the toy box in your room… You do realize that I'm the one who bought it for you, don't you?
Harry paled and his eyes widened. Before he could even think, Jaana vanished with a resounding snap, reappearing a moment later with Harry's book in her hands.
Harry reached out for the book in her arms, but she just shook her head and said, "I'm not trying to punish you… I just want to make sure that the information in this book won't get us caught. I've explained to you before that if our location is discovered, you'll be sent back to your uncle… is that something you really want?"
That thought made Harry visibly pause, something which Jaana could readily see in the boy's expression.
"If so, I'll bring you there right now and leave you on his doorstep," continued Jaana with a knowing look. She knew that she was manipulating the boy, and was feeling every bit as though she were Harry's older sister.
When Harry dropped his arms submissively, Jaana's voice softened as she said, "Look, I really do respect your privacy, but I also have to make sure you're kept safe. I don't know what happened to you last month when you went off on your little adventure, but you haven't been the same since you returned. Maybe if you told me where you went… what happened or who you saw… maybe I could help… I'm really not a wicked witch, you know, and you know that I'm on your side, no matter what… and I'm not all that old… I do understand a lot of what you're going through."
Harry remained silent, taking on the brooding manner he had adopted over the past month. Jaana's worried expression returned as she glanced inquisitively at the older healer.
Cooley looked between the two and thought for a moment before he whispered something into Jaana's ear.
Jaana sighed, and after a moment in her own thoughts, she said to Harry, "Listen, I don't really want to keep this book from you… I only worry that it might contain some dangerous information. I'll make a deal with you…"
Harry looked up with a depressed frown marring his youthful features to indicate he was listening.
"I'll hang onto the book for you, and whenever you want to read it, I'll bring it out for you, but you have to read it aloud to me. This way, you can still read all about yourself, and I can use it as a tool to help your vocabulary and reading skills… is that alright with you?"
Harry didn't like that 'deal' at all, but he couldn't immediately think of a way around it. He reluctantly nodded.
"Good," said Jaana in a relieved breath, "and another thing… no more 'Shifting' until I can determine if it's safe… and that the Ministry can't detect it. It would be a disaster if they found either of us."
Harry nodded once again and said, "I'm tired. I'd like to take a nap."
"But lunch is almost …"
The words hadn't even left Jaana's mouth as Harry silently vanished from the yard. An angry flush instantly appeared on Jaana's face, but then a small, apologetic voice came from the opened bedroom window on the second floor, "Sorry… I forgot… 'No Shifting.'"
A smile appeared on Cooley's face as he softly said to Jaana in a sigh, "Boys will be boys…"
"Well, that boy's going to be the death of me yet…" lamented Jaana tiredly, "I think I'm getting gray hairs!"
Cooley let out a deep laugh as he guided the harried young witch back into the house, saying mirthfully, "I think a cuppa Irish is just what you need."
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