Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to the authors, producers, and companies with whom the material in question is affiliated.
A/N: Important changes in this chapter as of 4/11/16.
Chapter Four – Shopping Takes Too Much Effort
Compared to the previous day, Diagon Alley seemed almost tame, and he found himself gushing about the experience to his grandmother when she met them for breakfast in the Leaky Cauldron. The surprise on her weathered face at his exuberance slid into delight while she listened to her grandson's account.
"Thank you for inviting Neville along for your birthday Mr Potter, Doctor and Rose," Madam Longbottom said once he'd finished. "It sounds as if you went through quite a lot of trouble to entertain him."
"Not at all," Rose assured her with an affectionate ruffle of Neville's hair. "He ought to have been Jemmy's brother, so of course we'd want him along. I hope we can do it again next year."
"Perhaps we shall have to arrange a visit to our winter house in Switzerland, then," Augusta said graciously. "There's a wonderful dragon reserve not far from the chateau, and I daresay the house has stood empty long enough."
"Ooh, that'd be lovely," the Doctor hummed.
"Real dragons?" Jenny asked, eyes wide.
The old woman gave the little girl a playful smile.
"Swedish Short Snouts, Norwegian Ridgebacks, and Finnish Seawürms, if I remember correctly."
Jenny peppered her parents and Augusta with questions on magical creatures for the rest of breakfast, after which she demanded to be taken to Gringotts so she could see a dragon for herself. The Doctor, curious after Harry's encounter with Norbert the baby Norwegian Ridgeback, eagerly obliged.
"Gussie?" Rose asked as she glanced up the alley toward the bank.
"No, I think I'll visit my club for a nice sherry, if Neville and Harry want to go it alone."
The boys reassured her of that very quickly.
"Very well then," Madam Longbottom said decisively. "We shall meet at Flourish and Blotts at two."
With everyone in agreement, and the Doctor, Rose and Jenny off to see a dragon, Harry set off with Neville toward Madam Malkin's. Both of boys could see a long stretch of ankle when they donned their school robes.
"I'm so glad its just books and a top-off for standard supplies this year," Harry said as they ducked inside the shop. "I think my trunk would have weighed half a tonne without those feather-light charms last year."
"I don't really understand why they make us take everything home, you know?" Neville commented as he shrugged on his Hogwarts robe. "They could let us keep our cauldrons and most of our books at school, not to mention most of our supplies. It's not like we change rooms or anything."
A tape measure began flying around him of its own volition, a grease pencil hanging from the mirror noting the measurements on the glass.
"Homework, remember?" Harry said wryly. "Most people don't do it until the week before we get back."
"I still think there ought to be a better way to do it," Neville insisted. "Not everyone can afford feather-light charms or do them properly, and books are really dear."
"You're probably right, but I bet it's the way it is because of some stodgy old board member."
"That's it for you two," Madam Malkin interrupted with an indulgent smile. "Just leave your robes and cloaks with me, dears, and I'll have them finished by the time you're done shopping."
"Thank you," Harry said, handing his uniforms over.
"I'll debit your accounts, boys. Have a good time, now, and be safe."
"Yes ma'am," they said together.
Harry looked down the street and eyed their lists. A queue of mostly witches had formed outside Flourish and Blotts, which as yet remained with doors unopened. The boys eyed each other warily.
"Quills and parchment?" Harry suggested. "I want to buy some metal nibs."
"Great idea."
In an effort to while away the time before they had to brave the crowd at the bookseller's, the boys replenished their supplies with notebooks, folios and bottles of fadeless colour-change ink (a tap of the wand to switch from black, to green, to blue, to red, and back again) on top of their parchment and quills. Afterward, they strolled to the sweets shop, Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, and the apothecary. They still determined it wasn't close enough to two (and the crowd hadn't dwindled enough) for them to try finding their books, so, in need of a distraction they went into the Magical Menagerie on a lark.
Hedwig and Sir Wibbly would both be cross with him when he came home, Harry decided. The odour of magical animals hung heavy in the air, and if he could smell it, Hedwig and Jenny's kneezle would definitely notice. Neville eyed a tank full of fat, glowing horse flies as they buzzed around in helical patterns.
"The sign says they'll make whatever eats them glow. Do you think I should get some for Trevor?"
Harry pursed his lips.
"Might make him easier to find when he tries to make a break for it, again," he suggested. "You should make his middle name 'Houdini' for the escapes he's made. I mean, what sort of amphibian can get around four copies of Hogwarts a History?"
Neville laughed and picked one of the faintly buzzing cartons from the shelf.
"I've got no idea. Maybe I ought to get him a glass terrarium. He might be slipping through the bars of his cage."
"Maybe he's more magical than he lets on," Harry mused.
Neville gave the shopkeeper five knuts for the flies. She dropped them in the till without looking at either of them and turned the page of her novel.
"What about you? Anything catch your eye?" he asked.
Harry's gaze flickered to a tiny case in the window display, where a little snake with iridescent blue scales sunned itself in a placid coil. It was only about four inches long, at most, and thinner than the shaft of a quill. Its tiny rounded head raised a scant quarter-inch to turn and stare with little black eyes to meet Harry's gaze.
"Oh," Neville shivered a little.
He did not like snakes. One had tried to eat Trevor over the summer, and it was all he could do to levitate it away.
"I couldn't take it to school, though," Harry said wistfully. "She's just really cute."
Neville grimaced and shuffled his feet.
"Well… Technically you're not disallowed a second pet, so long as you're not careless about it. It's one of those rules they don't enforce unless someone causes problems."
Harry eyed the little snake thoughtfully. She sat up a little taller. Coiled as she was, she only stood about an inch high.
"D'you think I should?"
"If your parents won't mind, and you want her." Neville shrugged and pointed to the sign. "I think Iridescent Bluescales are used for potions ingredients, otherwise."
Harry met pretty blue snake's beady-eyed stare and grinned.
"That settles it, then."
They left the store with the snake's little belljar, a box of live crickets to feed her, and Neville's carton of flies just after the clock turned a quarter 'till two. The snake, dubbed 'Kilat' ('lightning,' in Malaysian, for her speed and country of origin), curled happily inside Harry's breast pocket and hissed happily about the warmth and joy of leaving the house of predators.
The post owls, apparently, did not respect the shopkeepers' desire to keep Kilat alive, and had often attempted to eat her when left unattended.
"What did you do?" asked Harry in an undertone so quiet it sounded like he was breathing through his teeth.
"I bit the owl, of courssse. Not enough to kill it, but it learned not to be ssso bold."
"So you're venomous?"
"Only enough to kill mice and insssects and to protect myssself. It only caussses temporary pain in larger thingsss – At leassst, until I am bigger."
"How big can you get?"
"My mother was as long as you are tall, but ssshe was very aged. Mossst of usss do not live that long," Kilat said in a near silent hiss.
"What is she saying?" Neville asked.
"She's a baby, still. Her mum was as long as we're tall."
The Gryffindor grimaced.
"Great."
Harry clapped him on the shoulder.
"No worries. It'll be ages by the time she gets that big. And she's really quite sweet."
They reached the crowded front door to the bookseller quickly enough despite their rambling pace. To the boys' shared dismay, the crowd gathered before the store had only grown since they last saw it. Men and women both clamoured to fit through the narrow doors beneath a banner spanning the upper floor windows:
Meet GILDEROY LOCKHART in the flesh – Book signing for new release, MAGICAL ME today 12:30 – 4:30 p.m.
"Brilliant," Neville muttered dully. "My gran always says he's a clay galleon if ever there was one."
"Clay galleon?" Harry quirked a brow. "Meaning he's more hair than brains?"
Neville didn't get a chance to respond. It became nearly impossible to hear each other, let alone stay together, as they tried to wind their way through the mad throng crowding in the too-small main floor. They had no trouble finding their books, however. Standard Book of Spells: Grade Two and two sets of Gilderoy Lockhart's complete works sailed into their arms as soon as they found an adequately unobserved spot behind one of the taller bookshelves. Both boys made faces at the grinning, winking face staring at them from the covers. Making it to the register proved harder.
"Do you think Gran and your parents will be able to find us in this?" Neville shouted as they squeezed between two particularly excitable witches.
Harry deftly ducked an elbow.
"Doubt it! We should just pay and wait outside."
"Ow!" Neville shouted.
A wizard in wrinkled linen robes and a tattered hat shoved Neville in his haste to snap a photo of the elaborately dressed wizard seated on the dais in the centre of the shop. Harry caught him just before he could topple a column of precariously stacked books and sent a glare at the photographer.
"Oi, watch it! You could hurt someone!"
"Shut it, you, it's for the Prophet."
"That's no excuse for being a berk," Harry snapped.
He turned to help Neville gather up his spilled books, but someone's hand clamped down hard on his bicep and yanked him backwards.
"Dear Lord! It's Harry Potter!"
The crowd parted and the cacophony faded to a faint, whispering hum. Harry felt his face and ears burn as a blonde wizard bodily dragged him to the pedestal to growing applause. A flash and a purple cloud of smoke momentarily blinded him while Gilderoy Lockhart forcibly shook his right hand.
"Big smile, Harry, my boy," the author said through his own blindingly bright smile. "Together we'll make the front page."
Harry's brain reengaged as he coughed away the last of the smoke. The photographer raised his camera again.
"Excuse me," he nearly shouted over the din.
Every eye turned to the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry breathed in slowly and with the best impression of Professor Snape he could muster, stared coldly at his impromptu audience.
"Who do you think you are?" he demanded, turning his attention back to Lockhart. "You can't just grab people going about their day. I don't even know you."
The fastidiously groomed and colour-coordinated wizard only beamed brighter, though his right eye twitched. He reached out as if to pull Harry into a one-armed hug, and the Slytherin stepped back.
"Harry! Don't be melodramatic, my boy. Bad form, you know–"
People had begun whispering. Lockhart's smile flickered just a moment, and the boy sneered.
"Bad form?" he said coolly. "Your photographer bowled over my friend – which neither of you apologised for, by the way – and you manhandled me for the sake of a photo-op, and I'm not being accommodating enough for you?"
The murmurs got a little louder. Several of people previously queuing for autographs sent confused looks at one another and the suddenly unsure wizard. Harry tried not to grin. Pete Tyler had given him quite a lot of coaching on how to handle a forced media confrontation, and he intended to put those hours to good use. The bruise he felt growing on his left arm demanded as much.
"Now, now, my boy," Lockhart tried again. "I simply wished to shake your hand–"
"I'm not your boy," Harry interrupted. "And I don't want my photo taken. I'm just a kid. You can't just grab me and haul me around like I'm your pet monkey. If I were petty, I'd call an auror and charge you with assault, but since I've been taught to give people the benefit of the doubt – not to mention, I'd rather get back to my day – I'll settle for an apology."
The wizard shifted and huffed.
"Well, I don't see-"
Several people began to grumble as Harry's words sank in.
"I know he's famous, but that's The-Boy-Who-Lived."
"He's right. If he were my boy, I'd give the man a smack."
"Just what does he think he's playing at?"
"You should be ashamed, you overgrown peacock!"
A few others echoed the sentiment. It didn't take long until they were shouting at him in earnest. Lockhart shrunk under their fury, unable to manage more than a few half-formed stammers.
"N-now see here–" he tried.
Someone threw a crumpled up poster at him. Harry wisely stepped off the little stage to rejoin Neville, who gaped at the spectacle with wide eyes.
"You can't treat The-Boy-Who-Lived that way!" a woman shouted.
"Harassing someone for your vanity-"
"I didn't–" Lockhart shouted.
"Prat!"
"…owe that poor boy–"
"…should be ashamed–"
"I… I–"
Their growing indignation, the heat of the cramped shop, and the patrons' likely aching feet quickly spurred them to frenzy, and debris began flying heavily from every quarter.
"Please, ladies, gentlemen! Please!" a very harassed looking wizard with a manager's badge shouted.
The boys wove through the much larger bodies toward the register, both laughing while Lockhart, shielding himself with a copy of Magical Me and clutching at his photographer's cloak, pushed his way toward the exit.
The manager finally gave up and whistled shrilly. The painful noise did what his raspy voice could not.
By inches, he restored order to the upset queue, but by then, Harry and Neville had already made it to the counter. Neville handed him back his books (which had fallen out of his arms upon his unwilling ascent to the dais), with a bemused grin.
"That was wicked," he hummed. "I'm sure Draco will be proud when you tell him. You handled that like a politician."
Harry laughed.
"You should see how Granddad does it. Besides, he's a berk. I hope he's a good writer, at least, or classes are going to drag this year."
Neville frowned as he handed over his gold.
"What do you mean?"
"Based on that shambles, who else would make us all buy his complete works for one class?" Harry answered drily.
They paid without further incident, but even without the book signing hindering their progress, the usual back-to-school crowd slowed their exit considerably. After several failed attempts at a direct route to the door, the boys decided on an alternate exit. Slipping past the spaces made by oblivious witches, wizards, and their kids, the boys found the back of the shop, where a narrow staircase half-obscured by books led up to the first floor.
"This place isn't even that big," Neville huffed in disbelief. "How can there be so many people in here?"
"Someone – Oof! – Got lazy," Harry grunted, squeezing behind a particularly solid wizard.
"Excuse me–"
They found a clearing among the bodies, bookshelves, and teetering towers of tomes. Harry straightened as he recognized the owner of the bland, deep voice. A dignified man with shoulder-length, platinum blonde hair and piercing grey eyes nodded slightly at them both in greeting.
"May I offer my assistance? It's a shame to say most people are too…" The man's lips mouth unpleasantly. "Shall we say, uncouth, to recognize when they stand in the way of their betters, regardless of relative height. Hopefully, they'll know come to recognize you faster as you age."
Harry regarded the man neutrally. He recognised him from Draco's family photo at school, but even if he hadn't, the imposing wizard looked and walked quite a lot like his friend.
"I'm sorry, Sir," Harry said. "I don't think I've had the pleasure of an introduction. Are you Mr Malfoy? Only, Draco resembles you very closely."
The man's thin lips pressed curled into a smile. Harry instantly thought of a shark.
"My son's told me a lot about you, Mr Potter. The pleasure is all mine."
They shook hands. Harry tried to relax the tense set of his shoulders, and Neville shifted beside him nervously.
"How is Draco, Sir?"
"About somewhere, I'm sure. He's getting his books. Since it's unlikely you'll gain any height without the assistance of an aging potion, shall I escort you downstairs?" he offered, dismissing Harry's question. "I believe I saw Madam Longbottom at the café across the way."
Harry thanked him and gestured for the man to lead the way before glancing back at Neville.
"Do you see Draco?" he mouthed.
The boy shook his head slightly.
"Harry! Neville!"
Fred and George Weasley, solidly built fourth-year beaters for Gryffindor (and self-styled semi-professional troublemakers), muscled their way through the throng toward them, casting cautious glances at the sneering Mr Malfoy as they approached. Harry couldn't help but feel relieved at the sight of them. After a year of finding the Slytherin common room by sense, he easily discerned what he now understood as a wizard's signature, and Malfoy's wasn't kind. It smelled of snow and tasted of burnt pine. It curled against his and Neville's magic like creeping fog: insidious, chilling, and impossible to ward against.
"Red hair, complexions of the oft-afield," Malfoy observed aloud. "Attire of questionable origin and age-"
The twins glared at the man fearlessly.
"Of course. You must be Weasley spawn. Is there something you wanted? I was escorting Mr Potter and Mr Longbottom to their guardians."
Harry cut across the twins' answer, which promised to be vitriolic in nature if he judged by their reddened ears, before they could give it.
"Actually, Sir, I'd told Fred and George we'd meet up before we left," Harry said in a rush. "I forgot in all the fuss earlier. Thanks for your assistance, though."
He nudged Neville to walk past the Malfoy patriarch who stared down at them coolly.
"As you wish, Mr Potter. I'm sure your first-hand judgment of these–" He paused and smirked around the word he undoubtedly wanted to say. "–Delightful folk supersedes my own. If you won't reconsider-."
It might have ended there, but before the twins could shoulder a path through the crowd for the smaller boys, a tall, balding redhead in well-worn robes and a slightly lumpy, hand-knitted jumper strolled over. He grinned as his kind eyes found the soon to be second-years. Harry had never met him, but the resemblance to his sons quickly identified him as Arthur Weasley, his mum's previous boss. Ron Weasley and a girl with equally flaming hair followed in his wake.
The former glared at Harry. He had never quite forgiven Harry's Slytherin sorting. The latter, Ginny, if Harry remembered correctly, clutched a dented cauldron overflowing with very shabby second-hand books and did her best to make herself look smaller at her father and brothers' side.
"Harry, Neville," Mr Weasley greeted warmly. "There you are. I just saw your mum and Madam Longbottom outside. I told them I'd fetch you out for them."
"Th-Thanks, Mr Weasley," Neville managed. "We were just telling Mr Malfoy–"
"Malfoy?"
Mr Weasley looked up, and his pleasant disposition evaporated. The lines in his face stood out as his smile tightened into a tense grimace.
"Lucius," he said by way of cool greeting.
"Arthur," the statuesque blonde drawled, smirking. "My, you look exhausted. I do hope the Ministry's paying you overtime what with all those late-night raids."
He raised a white eyebrow and plucked a very worn, dog-eared, stained copy of Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling from Giny's collection. The girl flinched at his proximity, to which Fred and George reacted by flanking their father and shielding their sister in one aggressive motion.
"Then again, perhaps not," he sneered. "Tell me, what is the point of your disgraces against wizardry if they don't even pay you for your efforts?"
Mr Weasley's mouth thinned into a white line in his reddening face as he put one hand each on the twins' shoulders. Both had twitched as if to attack the man.
"Obviously, we have very different ideas of what disgraces a wizard," he ground out.
Harry tugged Neville back slightly until they stood just behind the twins. He could smell and taste the crackle of magic building between the wizards, and he really didn't want to get between them if they started flinging hexes. As nice as he thought the Weasleys were based on the twins and the slightly uptight Percy, he recognized a shared temper to rival his grandmum Jackie's.
"Indeed," Lucius sneered at Mrs Weasley, who watched anxiously beside a bookshelf nearby. "Yet, I shouldn't be surprised, really. After all, how much farther can you fall when you make the only surviving descendent of the Prewett line a common brood mare? You might have found yourselves better off if you had her ply her trade elsewhere-"
Like a dying filament in an incandescent light bulb, the tension snapped with a sharp tinge of ozone, and Harry yanked the girl out of the way as Mr Weasley, the twins, and Ron tackled Malfoy into a bookcase. The cauldron clattered across the floor, and patrons jumped out of the way of the flailing limbs and falling books.
"Don't you ever talk about my wife!" Mr Weasley snarled.
Fred, George and Ron's contributions to the dialogue were far less genteel.
"Boys! Arthur!" Mrs Weasley shrilly yelled. "Stop this at once!"
They kept on, though, and Harry felt fairly certain they wouldn't stop until Malfoy resembled a bit of rare meat.
"You okay?" Neville asked the redheaded girl as she stared at the chaos with wide brown eyes.
She nodded.
"Want help with your books?" he offered.
Harry looked down. The cauldron had spilled its contents all over the place. He ducked and snatched up two volumes before the swaying crowd, or Mrs Weasley (who was attempting to extricate her husband and children from the fight by applying liberal stinging hexes), could inadvertently trample them.
"Here," Harry grunted, passing the books to Neville, who had just righted the cauldron. "You're Ginny, right?" he asked the girl, who had chased down two other books before they could be scattered by the stampede.
"Yes," she squeaked. "Thanks for helping. Sorry about them."
"They're boys," Harry shrugged.
Neville frowned at him.
"We're boys."
"Someday, we'll get into a fight over something stupid, too. I just hope we have the sense not to do it in front of witnesses."
"Sometimes, Harry, you scare me," Neville sighed.
"Arthur Weasley, stop right this second or you shall sleep in the sitting room for a month," Mrs Weasley tried again. "Arthur!"
"Please! Gentlemen!" an assistant shouted.
The press began screaming around them as they knocked over teetering stacks of books and overburdened bookshelves.
"Ow!"
"Watch out!"
"Gerroff me you git!"
It was quickly devolving into a brawl not unlike ones Harry had seen in movies.
Harry ducked low, his arms over his head to protect himself from the falling tomes, and squinted through the dust and bodies. Kilat hissed at him in fear and frustration from his pocket. He patted the writhing lump in light reassurance.
"We can get out over there," he shouted over his shoulder. "Coming, Nev, Ginny?"
The other two nodded eagerly.
"Stick close!"
He screwed up his face and tried to corral his frayed emotions, then expelled a long breath. He focused, and the struggling mass of robes and limbs shot apart just enough to allow fairly thin adults or three normal sized children to pass unhindered. Harry felt Neville grab onto his cloak as he led the way out of the rapidly deteriorating store, their purchases clutched tightly to their chests.
"Neville!"
The boys and Ginny sighed in relief as Augusta Longbottom came into view.
"What on Earth is going on? Tell me this instant," she demanded, her face devoid of good humour.
The stuffed vulture perched on her hat teetered angrily, and Harry fought the adrenaline-inspired impulse to laugh at its bobbing head.
"My dad and Mr Malfoy are fighting," Ginny explained, her cheeks flaming. "He was saying stuff about my mum."
"Foolish man," Augusta grumbled. "Molly's well equipped to handle herself. He coddles her too much. Did you know, young Weasley, your mother won two international duelling championships before she graduated Hogwarts?"
"Really?" the girl squeaked. "She never said."
Harry and Neville slumped into the café chairs recently abandoned by curious spectators and set their shopping down.
"Where are Mum and Dad?" he asked as he drew Kilat from his pocket.
The brilliant blue snake coiled around his thumb and squeezed appreciatively. She felt very glad to be away from the noise and potentially squashing objects. When he looked back at Augusta, her face had taken on a determined, hard look.
"Up the street picking up your robes with darling Jenny. They didn't know how long you'd be in the bookstore and thought it best to make sure we got them before we left.
"Now," she said, turning back to Ginny. "I think we are in need of a little order, are we not?"
"Yes, please," Neville groaned. "The last hour has been mad."
"I shall like a more detailed explanation later, young man," his grandmother assured him. "But for now, let's remind those silly people how proper British wizards and witches behave."
The boys and Ginny watched in appreciation as the Longbottom matriarch adjusted the lay of her hunter green suit, rolled back the sleeves of her dark red over-robe, drew her wand, and marched into the fray with her hat tilted jauntily on her white hair. What several shop clerks and countless fully-grown witches and wizards had failed to do, Augusta accomplished with two cannon blasts and a widespread immobilising charm.
"That is quite enough of that, thank you," she boomed in her sternest voice.
"Mr Hurst," she said in a lower tone, addressing the harassed looking manager frozen with his hands pulling at his candyfloss hair. "You may bill Mr Malfoy for the expense of fixing your shop, seeing as he instigated this unworthy debacle."
Even from across the alley, Harry could spot the glint of murder in the frozen Malfoy's eyes.
"Now, I am removing the Weasleys from this mess, and you may all go about your merry way. I hope you all feel ashamed of yourselves. You are grown men and women, wizards and witches all, and you panic at a few falling books? It is no wonder the Dark Lord nearly won."
She then proceeded to free the Weasleys from her spell. Harry would have laughed at their expressions if he wasn't feeling so tired, already. The twins and Ron were faintly smug, having upheld their family honour. Mr Weasley, though humble before his wife's ire, stood taller than when he entered the fight. Mrs Weasley, panicked as she was, nearly missed the fact Ginny had escaped the chaos with Harry and Neville, and spent five minutes searching through the frozen patrons before Augusta could calm her enough to inform her on the child's location. Ever sensible, Augusta corralled Mr and Mrs Weasley in assisting in rudimentary cleanup of the twice-riled shoppers. They walked through Flourish and Blotts conducting triage, identifying children, the injured, and the extremely elderly for re-mobilisation before the other still figures. The boys made polite but tired conversation with Ginny, who seemed to jump at the slightest sound after so frightening an experience. Neville had managed to calm her with quiet advice for his favourite subject when Harry heard a soft cough. He turned and grinned at the sound's origin.
"Draco!" he called in relief, sitting up quickly to greet the boy who had unobtrusively made his way to their table from the sluggishly correcting shop.
His robes were wrinkled, and his hair stuck up, but he seemed relatively unscathed.
"I'm so sorry, I thought your dad was lying about you being in there or I would have told Madam Longbottom. You all right?"
"Yes," the pale blonde assured him, straightening his robes with sharp, practiced tugs and gestures. "I'd only just gotten back to find my father, actually, but I saw what happened."
He smoothed his coif back into order and turned to Ginny, who stared wide-eyed and anxious between the boys.
"I actually wanted to apologize, Miss Weasley," he said formally. "I didn't hear what he said, but I can imagine. Anyway, I saw this fall out of your cauldron and thought you might want it back."
The boy held out a black leather diary, and Ginny frowned in confusion.
"Th-Thanks taking the effort," she stammered. "Sorry about my family, too. The boys don't do well with their tempers. Mum's always telling them."
Draco nodded his acknowledgement and gave his friends a wry smile.
"I'd better go," he sighed. "Mother's waiting for me at the Leaky Cauldron, and I had better go prepare her for the impending rant."
Harry made a sympathetic sound and clasped the boy in a manly, one-armed hug.
"Write me, yeah? Or see if you can find your communicator, and call Mum or Dad with it. Mine's gone missing, and they haven't been able to make me a new one, yet. Or write Daph, and she'll write me."
The other boy nodded in a way Harry took to mean he would try and quickly retreated down the street. Neville frowned and nudged the Slytherin's elbow. Harry shrugged, and his friend sighed.
"You think he'll tell us on the train?"
"Dunno," Harry hummed. "We're dorm-mates and the most I've heard him open up about home was when he first joined us in the tree house."
By the time the Weasleys and Augusta had finished returning order to the bookshop and shaken off the dually angry and grateful Mr Hurst, Harry felt very glad to retreat home with his mum, dad, and sister after hasty but happy goodbyes to the Longbottoms.
"Going to tell us what happened?" the Doctor asked once they settled in for dinner that evening.
"Tomorrow?" Harry pleaded. "I did adopt a snake, though."
Kilat poked her head out of the neck of Harry's shirt, where he'd transfigured small hidden pocket. She tasted the air and hummed her approval to him.
"Wow," Jenny gushed. "She's really pretty."
The snake preened.
"I'm fairly certain that species is poisonous, isn't it?" the Doctor frowned, his gaze a little distant as he recalled the exact source of that information.
"Not lethal, just painful if she gets you," Harry clarified. "But she's promised not to bite anyone I approve of."
"Fine with me, then," Rose smiled. "Jenny's right. She's gorgeous."
Kilat fairly wriggled with delight.
"I enjoy your nessst matesss. They have great tassste," she hissed.
"You say that now, but we're all a bit mad."
"I don't know what you mean, human boy. Please feed me a nice, fat cricket when you take me to my new nessst."
Sir Wibbly made his appearance at that moment. The orange, flat-faced cat hopped up into Jenny's lap and peered over the top of the table at Harry and his new companion.
"Excellent. A predator. When were you going to tell me about him?" Kilat complained, her mood switching rapidly.
Her scales sparked a little.
"Sir Wibbly won't eat you," Harry sighed in exasperation.
At least, he thought the cat didn't seem too upset with him.
"He's a kneezle. He knows the difference between intelligent life, threats, and prey. Trust me, that look doesn't mean you're in the latter two categories."
"And what of the owl I sssmell?"
"Even smarter."
Sir Wibbly hissed in protest and sent Harry a positively piercing glare.
The snake laughed. Harry groaned. His family continued eating dinner as if multi-species conversations happened at every meal.
1 September 2013
August passed in a blur. Rose and the Doctor had already furnished their Hogwarts living quarters, but there were still the last minute things. While Jenny felt nothing but excitement at the prospect of living in a castle year-round, possibly until she graduated from Hogwarts herself, Harry felt mixed emotions. He had dragged his feet throughout the gradual move. He knew he was being sentimental, but they had lived together in their Sutton home since after Jenny was born. Memories of Christmases, birthdays, and impromptu parties swam to the surface of his mind with every item he packed away. He felt like he'd spent ages cataloguing which things held the most value to him, and still, a whole list of tasks and questions remained for him to process.
1) Pick the colour palette for your room.
2) Pets' room? Yes, no, or specific to primary caregiver? (Underline Preference)
3) Choose books/games/keepsakes.
4) Pack wizarding wardrobe for easy access.
5) Double-check bedroom for all the above things.
6) Triple-check bedroom.
7) Lock windows and draw blinds.
8) Charge and activate stasis charm rune array.
It was a fairly short list, but item three posed certain issues. Eventually, though, Harry muddled through. He looked around his bedroom appraisingly and wondered briefly at the ingenuity of expanded, de-weighted spaces. A good third of his considerable library lay within his everything-trunk, along with the majority of his board games. After brief consideration, he also packed the gaming console Tony bought him for his birthday with the intention of modifying it with the Doctor's assistance. So it was that mid-August, he joined in the mad relay of goods through their sitting room fireplace, which the Doctor had temporarily connected to the network for just this purpose. Fortunately, he had also altered it to behave more like a doorway and less like a vacuum cleaner, so the process took less time and fewer bruises than Harry thought it would.
The room he would henceforth use for school holidays came together in shades of pale, soothing greens and light silvery greys with a hint of deep blue thrown in. Hedwig got a special owl recovery and launch spot nestled in the eaves over their great room, while Kilat and Sir Wibbly elected to sleep with their chosen humans. The Hogwarts elves happily managed his wardrobe with magic, and he applied the finishing touches with a few framed photographs for his and a stuffed black dog for his bedside table. The chewed, many-times mended plush toy briefly caused him a pang of nostalgia as he positioned it on the mahogany tabletop. He'd left it at home last year, unwilling to endure the ribbing of his dorm-mates, and he found himself happy to have it nearer even if he hadn't slept or played with the thing since he was seven or so.
The family officially took up residence in the newly remodelled apartments on the twenty-second, closed down the floos to and from the Gallop, slid easily into life at Hogwarts and the village. The Doctor and Rose spent their days at the school, preparing for term. Harry finished his summer homework and quizzed Jenny on magical creatures and herbology, which she enjoyed very much and seemed to have a knack for. Their days ended with flights over Hogsmeade on their brooms (once the Doctor tweaked Jenny's to go as high as she wanted and to trigger an automatic sticking charm at heights greater than six feet from the ground).
The little girl loved it. She made fast friends with the other children in Hogsmeade, and when Harry was busy running, studying, or practicing duelling with Professor Snape, she got to discover Hogwarts. She flew as often as her mum and dad let her, and explored as often as Hagrid or one of the many other staff members were free to accompany her.
For his part, Harry found himself discovering a rather different aspect of the magical institution he never thought he would. Hogwarts had a wholly different effect on him with classes not yet in session. He wandered the empty hallways and their ancient, whispering portraits with a newly kindled sense of wonder. Without the thousand-some students running about the place, the vaulted ceilings seemed to soar higher overhead, the tapestries seemed richer, and the stone became a study in colour. Where once the masonry faded behind flashes and bangs and movement, he spotted signs of wear: a scorch mark from a misaimed hex, lichen or algae where damp had taken hold, and ancient cracks that sprawled like veins across every surface. He reached out his fingers, and he could feel the untold and half-forgotten stories clinging to the ancient place. Merlin had walked those halls over a thousand years prior. Some of the ghosts likely knew him.
"I don't think it's fair," Harry mused one night.
He and the Doctor lay in plush sleeping bags on top of the astronomy tower, both gazing at the stars, both soaking up the feel of their distance and the enormity of space around them.
"What's not?" his dad murmured back.
"So few people get to see this place. So few people know what the world's capable of, and here we are, just basking in it," the boy elaborated. "Wizards don't have to worry about cancer, for example. Hunger, even for the poor, isn't a problem so long as they've got a wand. I just-"
"Time Lords had the same problem, you know," the Doctor said gently. "Our explorers made their way across time and space, and along with the beauty and the wonder came sadness and loss. Slavery, poverty, famine..."
"What did you do?"
The time traveller scoffed and rolled over to grin crinkle-eyed at his son.
"I broke all the rules, when I could. But then-" he sighed, running a hand through his tousled hair. "Great power comes with greater responsibility. People make horrible decisions in ignorance that there's no going back from, and even if I could make it better, I couldn't always make it right. But… Once in a while, once in a very great while, a stroke of brilliance would gift me with the opportunity to save everyone, and no one died. I lived for those moments, son, but they fill a teaspoon when you compare them to the rest. I've done terrible things without knowing it. I imagine the other me is still doing everything he can to be good and still mucking it up just as bad as I did. Maybe worse. Who knows?"
Harry considered the Doctor's wistful words for a long while. He focused on the pulsing majesty of the castle's magic, on the beauty of the sparkling stars, unmarred by artificial lights, and on the fluttery sound of wind through the forest just beyond the grounds' border.
"What happens if the Statute of Secrecy's broken?" he finally asked.
"What do you think?"
The twelve-year-old stared at the ever-bright Jupiter, and soon caught himself looking for Sirius, his godfather's namesake. He fixed his gaze on the glowing speck of distantly burning fusion.
"We're capable of so much good," he whispered. "As a species, I mean. I want to believe we'd come together and make Earth a better place, but I know some people are hateful, and petty, and wilfully ignorant. I don't know how anyone could guarantee those people wouldn't ruin things for everyone."
The Doctor hummed thoughtfully, and Harry relaxed as his long fingers ruffled his hair.
"You're so clever," he praised. "I'm sure you'll figure out the answer someday, and a lot faster than I did."
"Thanks, Dad."
They returned to stargazing until the altitude and wind began cutting through their warming charms, and regretfully vanished the conjured sleeping bags. Harry stretched tiredly, yawning, only to find himself clutched in a tight hug.
"Dad-" he complained.
"You're never too old for hugs, my boy," the Doctor laughed, completely ignoring Harry's wriggling attempts at escape. "Just-"
He sighed, and his son stilled at the strain in the Doctor's voice.
"Just keep this in mind, all right?" he said softly. "You can't blame yourself for wanting to do good. Your mum taught me that. You also have to take full responsibility for everything you do while trying to do good. There are places in the universe where I'm hated and condemned, and they're not all wrong to feel that way. It's more important, I think, to be a good person."
Harry did not quite understand, but he accepted the advice, anyway, and stored it for future reference.
In addition to his rediscovery of the castle itself, the boy also came to the startling conclusion his teachers weren't single-faceted enforcers of order and distributors of knowledge. In abstract, of course, he had acknowledged their mortality. He'd assumed they had lives outside of what they presented to their students, but knowing a thing and knowing it were wholly different experiences. In less than a week before September first, Harry learned so much about his professors that it felt odd to him, somehow. He couldn't quite identify why.
Flitwick, for example, revealed a mischievous side to himself that frankly awed the boy. On a particularly warm and drowsy day, Jenny coaxed him into starting a water balloon fight. When the ammunition finally lay reduced to tiny shreds of multicoloured rubber across the lawns, only Professor Snape and Trelawney remained un-doused solely because he refused to leave the shelter of the castle's walls, and she could not hear the cries of indignation and amusement from her tower.
Even Professor McGonagall sported a mad gleam in her eye and the splotchy robes of a warrior.
Professor Dumbledore had opted for an ancient-looking swimming costume that resembled long underwear, and also bore the signs of the most-targeted among them. Harry spotted bits of balloon clinging to his long whiskers.
He couldn't consolidate the image with what he knew to be true about the Grand Sorcerer, who held responsibility for the majority of his life's difficulties.
And although even Jenny couldn't convince him to play with them on the grounds, Rose successfully coerced Severus Snape into joining them for tea and biscuits nearly every other day. It wasn't that he didn't get along with the professor. On the contrary, Harry very much respected the man and appreciated his guidance and assistance over the past year, but seeing the dour man smile without a hint of sarcasm to the expression deeply disturbed him.
It all made Harry's head hurt a bit.
So when confronted with the prospect of riding all day on the Hogwarts Express to school when he officially lived in the castle, he felt the last of his processing power evaporate.
"But why?" he insisted a little desperately. "It makes no sense whatsoever!"
"Security, student safety, and tradition, I imagine," the Doctor said in his most posh voice. "I'll drop you at the station after I get Jenny to school. Pack your uniform and a lunch in your school bag and leave your trunk with us. We'll have… Cuddie?"
Harry nodded.
"Deliver it to your dormitory," he finished. "Ah, and Tony made you a lovely little pouch to carry Kilat in."
Harry absently slipped the rather pretty wool-lined drawstring leather pouch over his head and tucked it under his robes. Kilat hissed happily when he lowered her into it.
"Very warm," she said appreciatively.
The morning of the first dawned brilliantly bright and warm. Jenny, who had wanted to go out and ride her broom attempted to argue her cause while her brother held an argument with Sir Wibbly, who desperately wanted to ride the train.
"I've already got Kilat, and Hedwig's staying here. It's going to be noisy, crowded, and full of careless teenagers. I don't know why you're getting so huffy."
The orange part-kneazle gave him a withering glare and meowed stubbornly.
Harry groaned and stared at the ceiling.
"Have you asked Mum and Dad?"
Sir Wibbly twitched his bottlebrush tail irritably.
"Well, if you already asked them, and they said no, why'd you ask me?"
The cat turned its back on him and walked off with its nose held in the air. Harry sighed and went back to eating breakfast.
At eight thirty with school bag in hand, the second-year met the Doctor in their modest sitting room in front of the fireplace.
"Ready?" he asked, looking his son over.
Harry nodded.
"Rose, Jenny, we're off!" he called through the house.
"See you soon, Harry!"
"You'd better come flying with me this weekend, Harry!" Jenny shouted.
"Alright," the Doctor said, waving his son forward. "Platform 9 ¾. Wait for me when you get there."
Harry stepped into the green flames and a moment later, felt sure he'd gotten whiplash. Unfortunately, the Doctor's alterations could not be applied to the castle's secure one-way floos. His head spun momentarily, while the platform buzzed with the usual rush of activity around him. Harry gulped air after he finished coughing ash and hitched his bag a little higher on his back. Everywhere, he saw families bidding goodbye to their children. The Doctor shot out of the floo a moment later to gave him a hug and clasp his shoulder.
"Got everything?"
"Yeah."
"Have some spending money, too?"
Harry nodded.
"Alright. I'll see you in a few hours. Off you go."
The Slytherin boarded the train after helping some struggling first years and set off to find Hermione's compartment, since she always arrived earliest to any occasion out of all of their friends. He looked in nearly all the compartments until he came to the last in the second carriage from the end.
"Hi," he said a little anticlimactically even as he beamed about.
He was the last to arrive: Hermione, Daphne, Draco, Blaise, Tracy, Hannah, Susan and Neville sat inside the largest compartment he'd seen on the train aside from the prefects' carriages at the front. The standard carriage held seven adjacent compartments, which in turn contained facing seating for eight very thin people in addition to a foldaway tabletop.
This compartment, however, stretched half again longer than the standard ones. A wide bench of blue velvet spanned the space beneath a wide window in addition to the regular seating to the left and right, where Hannah, Susan and Hermione chatted together. Draco, Tracy and Neville occupied the opposite, the first two speaking lowly, and the latter reading a copy of Herbologist's Monthly. Daphne and Blaise had already begun a game of exploding snap on one of the three coffee tables standing about the room. In all, Harry though it a vast improvement to the cramped trip home earlier that summer.
"Where's your trunk?" Hermione asked, helpfully sliding the door closed behind him.
"Already at the castle."
The Hufflepuff threw her arms around Harry's neck as soon as he tucked his bag into the overhead wrack.
"Force of habit," she resumed in response to their unfinished dialogue. "How are they liking their quarters? Tell me everything about your summer. Did you and Neville really have a picnic in a tropical rainforest? What did you think of your essays?"
"Let him sit down, at least," Daphne said lightly with a roll of her eyes. "One would think you haven't written all summer."
Harry threw himself happily onto the bench beneath the window. Susan's owl, perched on the wrack overhead, eyed him disapprovingly for causing the polished brass bars shudder. He thought it resembled its mistress's guardian and wondered whether Madam Bones had picked it out for that very reason.
"Did you ever figure out what that was?" Hermione continued undeterred. "Your post problems, that is."
Harry nodded.
"Yeah. It's complicated. An overprotective elf was trying to convince me in a roundabout way to stay home from Hogwarts this year," he said drily. "It was sweet of him, but a bit frustrating."
"That sounds bad," Neville groaned. "I pretty much forgot all about that since you called. I was really hoping for a nice, quiet year."
Draco snorted and waggled his perfectly groomed brows suggestively.
"Don't count on it. Harry Potter's whole life seems to be one horrid scramble of unseemly excitement. He can't even go into a store without causing a riot."
His friend shoved his shoulder lightly and sighed.
"Prior to last year, 'unseemly excitement' was a lot of fun. No evil wizards, no life-threatening obstacles. Just extraterrestrials and laughing in the face of widely accepted physics."
Hermione huffed at the last while the others brushed off their mild confusion. Most of the wizard-raised in his acquaintance had learned long ago not to question Harry's assertions if they didn't want what they held as truth rudely inverted. Most waited to reach a certain frame of mind before inquiring after the fantastical things he spewed.
"Anyway," Susan laughed before anyone could break that rule. "We never did hear what was really in there. Don't you think the story's overdue?"
Daphne, Draco, Hermione, Neville and Harry all avoided making eye contact.
"We don't have the slightest idea what you're on about, Bones," Daphne said primly. "Why ever would you think we didn't fight a dragon?"
"That's just a rumour. How would they even fit a dragon?" Blaise huffed doubtfully. "You can't put one in a magically enlarged space and you certainly can't shrink one."
"You're assuming it was a full grown, dragon, though," Draco suggested with a smirk.
The others of the Corridor Quintet (so called by the rest of them) shared a look and succumbed to uncontrollable giggles.