Entropy: Chapter 1
Brooklynight
Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter I wouldn't be writing fanfic.
"My parent died when I was a baby" replied Harry.
"I'm sorry to hear that" Ulan replied not actually having very much sympathy. It actually went in his favor.
"No, I like animals though" Harry continued providing an answer to the original question.
"As do I, you have any favorites?" asked Ulan thinking to himself how much longer he was going to be able to stand this conversation, 'talking to a kid I never met about animals' he thought disgusted with himself.
Ulan dismissed these thoughts knowing that if what he thought he was true then this kid was definitely worth the annoyance that he was causing him.
Harry seemed to think for a moment before responding to the question before finally saying, "I don't know I like many but I think that snakes are my favorite."
Harry surprised Ulan with his response; he would have assumed that a boy his age would have liked something more majestic, such as a lion or tiger. He even tries to refresh the story of how he ran into a polar bear when he was younger in his mind to try to amuse the kid. All he came up with as a response was: "Really, why is that?"
Harry shrugged in response but spoke after thinking it over for a minute. "I don't know I just like them."
"Really?" Ulan asked intrigued.
Harry nodded and sensing that the man seemed to be more curious then anything else he decided to tell him about his snake thing.
"Well one day," Harry began recalling the first time that he met a snake, "My aunt had me outside pruning her hedges and the shears that I was using to cut them fell on the ground, I bent down to pick them up and I saw that there was a snake next to them, I was afraid of it because one of the older kids in school had said that snakes can kill you so whispered at it to go away"
Harry was about to continue with his tale when he was interrupted by Ulan. "Why did you whisper?" asked Ulan thinking about the usual action. If he had seen a snake next to him when he was this kid's age he would have been screaming his head of.
"Well my teacher said that it was best to talk to animals in soft voices so I thought that was the right thing to do" Harry replied.
Ulan was impressed, while a minor accomplishment to him, he liked the idea that this boy knew how to keep his head straight in stressful situations.
"So anyway," Harry continued eager to tell his story to somebody that he though would listen. "After I told the snake to go away he seemed to listen because he went back into the brush but I was sure that I heard him tell me 'I will' then he said something weird"
'Well…' thought Ulan the kid being able to apparently being able to talk to snakes wasn't incredibly useful to him. While an interesting ability he knew that it came in several forms, only a few of them had any real use, of course if the kid had right form it would be incredible useful. He however had no way of determining that.
"What was weird" he asked hoping to gain more insight
"I don't really remember but the snake called me a name that I really don't remember" Harry replied.
This surprised Ulan as he knew that common snake that the boy was likely to have encountered rather must have encountered had no way of gaining insight into a person's mind.
For lack of better options, he asked "You remember what he said?"
Harry was surprised that this man cared so much about his story but didn't have a reason not to answer so he did. "Well, he called me future something, I don't remember what but I think that it started with something like ara or nara or something." Harry replied trying to remember the incident as well as he could.
Ulan was actually startled but kept his face impassive, he quickly collected his thoughts; there were many words that started like that. He thought that he probably was jumping to conclusions. However he didn't get to his current position by not being thorough so he asked. "Was this the only time that a snake gas spoken to you"
"Sort of" Harry replied unsure of how to say what he wanted to say next, "I tried talking to them but they never replied, they made sounds but it sounded like my uncle after he came had from a pub after being out all night, I knew they were talking but I couldn't catch any words"
"Did they respond to what you said?" Ulan asked hoping to get as much information out of the kid as he could.
"If I told them to go some were, or leave they would, but that's about it" Harry replied.
Ulan was pleased to hear that. He thought that the kid was telling the truth; of course the only way to actually tell was to enter the kid's mind yet that something that he couldn't do because of him being so young. Any attempt to would probably cause the kid permanent injury. That was unacceptable.
He was going to try to start another conversation with the kid but was interrupted by the flight attendant coming around with a food cart.
Ulan took his plastic covered food with not a small feeling of distaste. He wished that he could simply summon simply pull out some of the shrunken provision that he had under preservation charms in his pocket but to do that among this company wasn't advisable.
Resigning to the fact that he was going to have to feast on this delicacy he took the foil of the container which contained what the flight attendant told him was chicken. He wasn't so sure of course but didn't say anything. It was solely his fault that he was flying commercial today.
The private jet that was suppose to carry him left without him after waiting for him for an hour to pick up some VIP. Ulan wondered who could have been more important then him but it really didn't matter, the plane's captain knew better then to bump him unless it was a damn good reason.
During that time he was stuck in rush hour traffic after waking up to a rather poor day after a rather exciting morning.
He could have waited a few hours and gotten a private flight but that would have met that the man he was supposed to meet that evening was going to wait for. That would give the man an advantage during their negotiation, something that Ulan wasn't about to do. 'Better tell Black to see if he can talk some sense into the Russians about those Black Jacks,' he though in regards to his current jet shortage.
Fate had condemned him to his current assignment which was by no way unimportant but Ulan was damn sure that he sucked as much money out of his clients as possible.
Bringing a fork full of chicken and corn Ulan thought about the kid sitting next to him, their conversation had been enlightening, perhaps confusing was a better term.
If the boy had heard right the snake had called him an Arabis. That was would be strange, he knew a few people with that gift, those people however were few and far between and certainly weren't pitch by anybody onto commercial flights as children. The strange thing about that statement was the word future. That puzzled him, Araby was best described as a gifted ability, something that a person was born with, you either were or you weren't there wasn't any middle ground.
Of course the boy could have misheard; the snake could have said Narabis. That was relatively common ability, the ability to split one's focus an ability that most well schooled and successful duelists had. The word future still didn't fit.
Snakes simply didn't have the power to make accurate divinations. There was no way any fortune teller could predict if this boy had it in him to study and practice long and hard enough to master Naraby.
Either way the boy was certainly interesting. He seemed to be the type of person that his father and he by extension were looking for. Perhaps if he was lucky enough this child could help him fix a problem that has plagued him for the past five years.
He seemed to be intelligent for his age judging by the fact that he was reading, also he seemed to be able to carry on a conversation. The fact the child was orphaned also worked well for him. There were of course the relatives that the boy mentioned. However anybody that found it appropriate for a five year old child to work in sun obviously didn't care for the kid to much. Ulan figured that at most a few strategic memory charms would be necessary to simply make this child be forgotten.
Gathering up some more of the rather dry food that he was eating Ulan was suddenly jerked by what assumed to be a large amount of turbulence. Ulan's head to the side a few inches as were those of the majority of the passengers on the plane. Harry however had his nose pressed to the window when this happened and had his slammed into it.
Harry immediately grasped his head with both hands in pain. Ulan grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him around to see if he was hurt.
Luckily Harry was uninjured. The shock of the hit seemed to have disoriented him.
"Hey kid are you alright, can you hear me?" said Ulan looking the boy straight in the eyes.
He would have never expected what he saw.
He was by no means a master at the mind arts, they were never a field that attracted his attention or were particularly useful to him. He did have a basic understanding of them that served well enough for his customers. Normally children aren't easily readable since their minds are still evolving and rarely hold on to thoughts firmly enough for them to be of any use.
The shock of the bump seemed to have cleared Harry's mind of all though, Ulan expected to see emotion, pain, fear anything. What he saw was nothing. There was simply a vacant space in the child's mind.
Looking further into his eyes Ulan realizes that one's mind usually isn't vacant and this untrained child should be not exception.
And yet he saw nothing, no blackness, no light, perhaps what he saw was best compared to the feeling that many men have experienced right before succumbing to hypothermia, or more commonly falling asleep.
The only time that he knew of somebody to have nothing in their mind when they were in a deep coma, or dead but obviously this kid wasn't.
He must have been incredibly caught up in his thought because it was him who had his name being called by Harry.
"Ulan you okay?" Ulan shook himself back to the present and said, "I'm fine, thank you, I think that I might have hit my head a bit to." Ulan replied kindly
"Ok" Harry replied.
This insight into Harry's mind automatically pushed the kid up on Ulan's list of thing to get done. Originally he had planned to bring him up with his father when he came for Eli's fifth birthday party in a week. Now Ulan knew that he had to see his father as soon as possible despite them not being on best of term. 'Right after my meeting' he thought, his father was known to work late any way.
The rest of the flight was uneventful, the flight attendant came around as soon as the turbulence was over and asked Harry if he was alright, which he assured her that he was fine. Ulan did however accept the ice that she offered and let her examine his head. Harry wondered why he did that when he looked fine.
After the plane had landed Ulan was walking across the jet way following Harry into Fredrick Chopin International Airport. As they reached the baggage claim area Harry seemed to have spotted his relatives. He tugged on Ulan's sleeve and said, "Well that's my aunt and uncle down there, I should go."
In a uncharacteristically brash moment Ulan grabbed Harry hand and said, "It usually takes a while for them unload theses international flights, why don't we go see if we can find a bookstore, maybe we can find a book on snakes?"
"Ok," was the reply from Harry, but was soon followed by, "What about Uncle Vernon?"
Ulan looked in the direction of the boy's uncle and saw him rather impatiently tapping his foot on the baggage carousel while the women next to him struggled with a rather large child.
"Tell look perfectly occupied, I'm sure they wouldn't mind your absence for a few additional minutes, wouldn't you agree?"
"I don't think that they would," Harry replied dejectedly.
"Well then, let's go"
Ulan led Harry into the concourse of the airport which was located in front of the plaza where all of the customs clerks and border police sat. After some searching they came upon a typical airport book story.
On the front display stood a variety of the latest best sellers as well as the usual trash romance selection behind which were the histories for the traveler with few resources and a lot of time to kill.
Harry followed Ulan into the book store. Ulan seemed to be searching for the perfect book, ignoring whatever titles Harry had attempted to point out. Ulan's searches lead him further and further into the back of the book store. His finally seemed to conclude in a rather dark corner of the store, Ulan pointed to a particular spot on a shelf and said, "Harry, why don't you have a look, I think these books over here are just what we're looking for."
Harry walked over to where Ulan had been pointing and took a knee. Looking at the spine of a tomb he wasn't able to understand any of the words.
"Ulan what dose this sa…"
The felt was something sturdy strike the base of his skull.
AN: I didn't get as much done in this chapter as I would have liked but this seems like a logical place to break.
Naraby and Araby are concepts that will be developed latter in
Eli is Ulan's daughter who will play a role latter on.