Disclaimer: Check Chapter 1
Well everyone, here is the next chapter. Hope you enjoy.
A Game of Shadows Chapter 2: Down Under
The green-eyed, jet black haired boy, sleepily opened his eyes. He had just turned 11 eleven a few days ago, and so far, he felt no different than normal. Sirius still hadn't given him his gift, and he was acting all sneaky about it. It was really grinding of Harry's nerves. He spotted a spider scuttling across the wall, seeking a place where it could hide from potential danger. Harry sighed, flicked back the lightweight sheets, clambered out of bed, and sat on the edge of the bed. He took a few moments to right himself. Grumbling about the magical contact lenses he wore, he gingerly lowered himself to the timbered floor and ground out 100 reps of sit ups and pushups, before even bothering to get dressed.
After being told he looked scruffy by the magic mirror, he meandered downstairs of the modest apartment. He looked out over the Pacific Ocean, and admired the view from the breakfast bar. His godfather was already seated and reading the muggle newspaper, as he'd already discarded the wizarding one. Sirius peered over the paper at Harry, and looked him up and down, with an almost militaristic uniform inspection.
"Harry, we are going into the Avenue today, as I need to pick up some supplies" stated Sirius, while casually flipping the page.
Harry shrugged, not really caring, before whining "Do I have to change, Sirius? You know how much I hate having to disguise when in public."
Sirius glared, then smirked as he waited for his pseudo son to change his looks. He didn't have to wait long. Harry sighed will feigned annoyance, and started changing appearance. His black hair changed to a light brown, eyes widened and changed to an ocean blue. His face filled, with raising of the cheekbones, imitating the aristocratic look of the Black family, and his lightning bolt scar disappeared. He grew slightly taller, wincing as joints popped and stretched accordingly, and deepened his voice slightly, just to give the impression of a 14 year-old.
His custom-made clothes expanded with him, hugging his body slightly, before the black fabric smoothed against his chest, and the khaki cargo pants adjusted themselves. It still gave Harry the heebie-jeebies when he stared into the mirror after changing, looking at a face that wasn't really himself, but it was par for the course for metamorphmagi.
He sighed and turned to Sirius, miming 'Let's go'. Sirius dropped the paper, with ill hidden enthusiasm. Harry rolled his eyes. Bloody Sirius.
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It wasn't far for the duo to walk from their beachfront apartment at Burleigh Beach to Burleigh Headlands, where Mayers Avenue was. Harry had visited once before, with Sirius compaing the Avenue to a wizarding place back in England called Diagon Alley. According to Sirius, Mayers was a smaller, yet more upmarket wizarding shopping centre, than its British counterpart.
Harry was jerked from his daydreaming, and elbowed Sirius, none-to-gently, to stop him oogling a pair of scantily clad girls who were tanning on the beach. Sirius mock glared at Harry, then winked, completely ruining the stern effect.
They made their way to the magical avenue without any other major problems. They disappeared into a quaint looking cafe, which doubled as the entrance to the avenue, titled a rather simplistic name of The Beach Cafe. Although not dingy by any standards, it was small, homey bordering upon claustrophobic, hence the preference for takeaway. This suited the wizarding population of the Gold Coast fairly well. Muggles would not hang around the shop itself, and thus would not wonder about the disappearance of wizards and witches, who had entered the shop.
The actual entrance was an inconspicuous set of stairs that led to a block of toilets, situated directly beneath the cafe building. Instead of crossing the threshold into the toilets, wizards simply tapped the wall on the right 4 times in quick succession with their wands. Once the tapping was completed, a doorway was illuminated, with a silvery light and you stepped through, into the avenue beyond. Sirius was on a mission though, and powered through the cafe, not even giving the customers a second glance, and subsequently the entrance to the avenue, and led Harry straight to Jacob's Owls and Birds shop. Harry stopped opposite the main familiar store, Jenkin's Familiars, and gazed at the avenue. It was peculiar, with signs hanging off every possible area, with adverts plastered upon every wall.
Harry's eyes followed a singular road, which eventually split with a fork in the road, curving around a magnificent building. It reminded Harry of the Flatiron building in America, with less floors, but more austere. Harry glanced about, then launched himself into the owlery with reckless abandon. Sirius chuckled, followed him a more sedate pace, after also admiring the avenue, and later found him with a Powerful Owl sitting on his shoulder. Sirius did a double take.
"Harry, you may have two familiars of your own choice, as a birthday gift from me to you" said Sirius, while keeping a careful eye on the owl, who glared back, beadily, fixing Sirius with an intelligent gaze.
Harry's eyes lit up in childish delight "Well, Padfoot, I'd really like Hermes here," a mournful hoot of approval interrupted Harry, "and ummm, can I look in Jenkin's shop, please?"
"Yeah alright Harry, be quick though." Sirius replied, as he looked through the various owls on display. He ended up choosing a rather large Kookaburra kingfisher bird, so that he had a familiar for postal service. He laughed in his head as he thought of all the pranks he could play with a postal bird that was not an owl. Sirius christened the bird as Risus, due to his call that he is famous for.
Sirius slowly made his way over to Jenkin's Familiars, after stocking up on potion ingredients and a few rarer warding books, of course in different stores. He stopped next to Harry after finally being able to locate him again, who was browsing the snakes. Sirius frowned. It wasn't like he was really against getting a snake for Harry, if that is what he wanted, it's just snakes brought bad connotations and memories for Sirius, not to mention the wider wizarding population. He shrugged the feeling off, thinking 'What could possibly go wrong?'
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Naturally, everything decided to go wrong after that grand statement. Masked men in trench coats filed into the avenue and started casting, using their once-concealed wands, left, right and centre, targeting mainly stores, rather than people. Purple and orange spells were thrown everywhere by the individuals, who seemed hell bent on using spells that were best used against buildings. The individuals showed themselves to be thoughtful, as they targeted the supports of the quaint structures, and not the building face, itself, and the spells consumed each support, or were blown apart. Of course, this led to the stores collapsing, ruining stock and people alike.
Jenkin's hadn't been hit yet. Harry, completely oblivious to the goings on around him, was talking to a tan coloured magical fierce snake whose name was Wraith. The oblivious shop attendant ignored the danger in order to make the sale of the snake to Harry, who also seemed ignorant of the situation which was developing just beyond the glass windows of the shopfront. Sirius handed over the money to the attendant hurriedly, Harry lifted the snake out of its glass cage, just as the glass panes of the store exploded inward. Harry ducked behind the shelf, avoiding most of the glass, that now were sprinkled liberally on the ground around them.
"Harry," warned Sirius, "don't do anything, just leave it to others, there is no reason for us to partake in this. It could blow our cover. Unlikely, but still possible". Harry nodded in understanding. He crouched down and comforted Wraith, or was it Wraith comforting Harry, Sirius couldn't be sure. He sure as hell knew it wasn't Hermes, as the owl was smart enough to disappear before entering the pet shop. Either way, Sirius still had enough sense to overturn a table and crouch behind that. Risus had disappeared also. He didn't want either Harry or himself to explode into action, as it would attract undue attention to themselves, which they definitely didn't want.
Sirius peeked warily above the table to watch the local Law Enforcement agents put down the aggressors, amid taunts by the general public who were brazen enough to still be in the streets. The LE agents were finishing up arresting those responsible when an alarm started blaring from the local Gringotts branch. Sirius groaned as the alarm started cutting swaths through his head, causing a massive headache for him. Great. Within a few minutes, the alarms were shut off. Sirius gestured to Harry, who joined him behind the table. Sirius nodded to the attendant, before dashing out of the shop to the nearest safe apparition point. The LE agents, Sirius noted, were casting reparos everywhere, in an effort to put the avenue back to normal. Some shoppers were just starting up again, but finding some of the shops they wished to visit temporarily closed, they wandered off again. Both Harry and Sirius looked at each other in amazement, before Sirius side-apparated Harry to their apartment.
Sirius just shook his head and muttered "Australians." Harry snorted with half derision and half amusement. Only in Australia would you find wizards, and muggles alike, just able to shrug off fairly major incidents and continue with life like nothing happened, with nary a "She'll be right, mate". Sirius propped up his new warding book, and started casting Notice-me-not wards, owl mail wards and spell damage wards over the apartment, his paranoia of being discovered, heightened by the attack on the alley. Harry just sat and watched him.
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On the other side of the world
Dumbledore was in his heaven, leaning comfortably in his upholstered recliner, surrounded by his many silver instruments, books, Fawkes and of course, the ever present bowl of Lemon Drops. Fawkes squawked softly, as a portrait situated near the door to the Headmaster's office, alerted Dumbledore to a frenzied Minerva McGonagall standing outside his door. He gestured to the door allowing it to open slowly.
"Ahhh, Minerva, I was wondering when you'd be up next to visit me. Pray tell me, what has gotten you in such a tizz?" kindly said Dumbledore, peering at the Transfiguration Professor with something akin to worry. He sighed mentally. "Maybe a lemon drop?" he asked hopefully.
"Albus, as you know, I like to look over the magic quill when it is writing the addresses and names to the children who have an invite to the college" intoned McGonagall, referring to the magic Invitation quill, "and I happened to find this written, cast off in one of the piles, separated from the main body." Here she broke off, and slipped the envelope with parchment inside, to the wizened Headmaster. It read:
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,
Scotland
Extends invitation to:
Harry James Potter
Penthouse, Unknown location
To attend Britain's finest Magical School.
Inside the envelope, lay a parchment with green ink spread on it, detailing the acceptance method and how to get to the school. Albus spluttered.
"What cruel joke do you think this is?" he roared, "There is no Harry James Potter. He is deceased. He is an ex-person. He has gone to meet our maker". McGonagall actually took a step backwards, as she had never heard the Headmaster speak like that, even at the height of his powers after defeating Grindelwald. She let him rage. She waited for the outburst to dissipate, which it did, given enough time. Albus looked up, firstly looking at a dusty, silvered object that resembled the muggle rheostat, then to McGonagall.
"The wards never lie," he whispered reverently, "The wards have never lied."
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Remus tilted back on his plastic chair, in his own little cubicle, and stretched. There wasn't a day when he didn't think about James, Sirius, Lily and Harry. He wished he could simply quit his computer technician job and spend his time looking for Sirius and Harry. Deep in his heart, he knew he owed it to them to attempt to at least look for them. He turned back to the CRT monitor in front of him. God, how he hated squinting at the tiny screen. He chuckled, thinking if he had it bad, James and his glasses would've been far worse off.
He sighed. Although he bemoaned his job, he was, in fact, relieved that he had one. It had been hard for him to get a job after leaving Hogwarts, as he limited himself to the magical world, who scorned and spurned him for simply being a werewolf. After that October night, disappearing into the muggle world was almost a godsend. Of course, meeting with the traitor was not the highlight of the night, especially with the rat escaping. Remus thought he was too much of a coward to jump, but jump he did. Regardless, Moony turned his head back to the monitor.
Few minutes passed before he was gently tapped on the shoulder, bringing him out of his musings. His boss, a no nonsense sort of bloke, was standing and looking over the wolf's shoulder. Remus didn't mind, Bruce was just taking a hands on approach as a manager, and in Remus' opinion, actually doing a job, unlike most managers in the company. Remus knew Bruce was a squib, and also knew the last name of Smith was a complete fake, but the wolf never pushed to know his real name.
"Mr Lupin, as much as it pains me to say this, it seems like this company is losing a fine employee in you. Unfortunately, I have been instructed by a certain man to give you this letter. Attached was also a letter giving the company warning about you resigning." Moony frowned at Bruce's words. Bruce continued, misinterpreting Remus' look, "Don't worry, your wage for the next three months is being transferred to your bank account as we speak." Bruce lowered his voice. "I wouldn't wait to open the letter, but be precautious with it." Bruce walked away quickly, down the aisle, before vanishing from Remus' sight. He turned his attentions the regal looking letter. His breath hitched as he recognised the elegant writing, and the obvious magical use of parchment. 'Well, well, well. The magical world has use for me again does it?' mused the werewolf, chuckling softly to himself.