Title: "One Plus One Equals One "
Rating: PG-13 for now, may go up to R later. Genfic.
Disclaimer: Honestly, I own nothing. Don't sue.
Summary: Daniel descended as a 11 years old Harry Potter…well, sort of.
Inspirited by Corwalch's "Two Shall Be As One", diverged as Daniel went back a bit further.
One Plus One Equals One
by novacarta
Y1: The Mayhem
Sending Dudley to sleep with a pill of painkiller, Vernon and Petunia Dursley finally settled into a well-deserved peaceful night after a long, stressful and tiring day. They had to rush their son Dudley to London for a surgery to remove the freaky pigtail from his bottom, and drove him to Smeltings School for the opening ceremony. They were 3 hours late and missed the opening ceremony, student registration and most part of the orientation. It was a pity to miss the opportunity showing his lovingly family to other parents, but Vernon managed to encourage the headmaster with a stack of cash to take good care of their precious son. He had a pretty well paid important job, an obedient and considerate wife, and a son growing up into a fine young fellow. Vernon Dursley was a contented man.
Until someone pounded on his door fiercely
Vernon bound down the stairs to the front door, and barked angrily as he swung it open. "Haven't you ever heard of a door bell? I installed it for a reason!" A glance at the visitors was enough to make his temper boiled further. An old geezer, a hag, and a greasy bat! How dare these people came and stained his house with their freakiness! "Leave now! Or I will call the police!"
"Now Mr. Dursley, such hostility is entirely unnecessary. I'm merely hoping for a civilized conversation regarding the child in your care."
Vernon recognized the old man of course. Dumberdoor, Bumblebee, or something. The old goat showed up from time to time to clean up after the abnormal boy, nagged at him for his treatment to the brat, and refused to take the boy back to their godforsaken world.
"The freak ran away a month ago!" Vernon snarled. "And if he dare show his face, I swear to God I will beat him to a bloody pulp for stealing my hard-earned money!"
"Surely you don't mean that…" The woman stared at him in astonishment. "Don't you care what's become of him?"
"I hope he's rotting in Hell! As long as you pay his funeral bill I don't care a bit!" Vernon barked out a cruel laugh and banged the door shut in their faces.
"Mr. Dursley, I must insist! I need to talk to your wife!" Dumbledore urged, frowning in impatience.
After a brief silence, the door was opened again. Petunia stood there stiffly, glaring at Dumbledore with wariness and anger,
"Petunia, thank you for meeting me. Might I…"
"Save your breath!" Petunia cut him off with a hiss. "As my husband told you, the boy left the day after he met your people, and the ungrateful brat stole fifty pounds from my drawer. We haven't heard from him since then."
"Have you notified the authority?" McGonagall asked.
"Of course not! We don't want to get dragged into your mess!" Petunia retorted coldly. "Now leave us alone! Your kind isn't welcome here!" She slammed the door shut with a note of finality.
"I told you!" McGonagall turned to Dumbledore angrily. "I told you they were the worst kind of muggles!"
"Not now, Professor. Please." Dumbledore sighed tiredly. "Severus, I need you to remain behind and search the house for cues under the cover of night. Meet us back in my office when you are done. I will see if Arabella knew anything." He exchanged a nod with the potion master and headed back to the house of one Arabella Figg, McGonagall had to jog after him to catch up his haste pace.
Mrs. Figg was waiting for them at the doorway as they reached the small house. "Can you now tell me what happened?" She crossed her arms, clearly irritated at them storming in and out without a proper explanation.
"Harry is missing, and no one know where he is. Arabella, did you notice Harry's absence during the last few weeks?" Dumbledore demanded. There was a note of accusation in his voice.
"Petunia told me she sent the boy to a summer camp, which I noted as "fishy" in my report." Mrs. Figg shot back. "The same report that I submitted to you two weeks ago! Shouldn't you have read it already?" She give him a long-suffering look as she headed back to the living room, apparently it was not the first time the headmaster ignored her reports. Sometimes she wondered why she bothered to put in so many details in her reports when Dumbledore obviously had no intention to interfere what happened in the No.4 Privet Drive.
"He is only eleven years old. Where could've he been for a whole month?" McGonagall sounded horrified.
"He needed money to live by himself." Dumbledore mused aloud. "Gringotts! He's got to visit there to make a withdraw." He headed for the fireplace, grabbed a handful of floo powder and threw it in. A greenish flame burst up. "Leaky Cauldron!" He stepped in and vanished.
McGonagall barely had time to say goodnight to Mrs. Figg before she too flooed to the Leading Cauldron. It was a slow night and the bar only had a few customers. Tom the bartender noticed her right away and greeted her with a toothless grin. "He's just passed through here." Tom told her. "Seem like he's in a hurry."
She thanked him and hurried into Diagon Alley. With the shops closed, the alley was mostly deserted, but the bank should still be open for another hour. When she ran into the bank, ignoring the disapproving glare from the goblin guard in the front door, she was shocked to find the headmaster having a heated argument with a goblin clerk.
"It is against our regulations to disclose any information regarding our customers!" the goblin clerk sneered. "Chief Warlock or not, you are not listed as the owner of vault 687, thus you have no authority over that vault and no say to goblin business, Wizard!"
"The vault owner is one of my students and he has been missing for a month. I need your information to deduce his whereabouts." Dumbledore clearly was getting more and more frustrated.
"Goblins do not deal with missing wizards." The goblin clerk snorted, "Go harass your aurors."
'At least it gave a good advice.' McGonagall thought dryly. She suggested the same once Hagrid confirmed that he failed to locate the missing Potter in the neighborhood, however Dumbledore rejected the idea straightaway and ordered to block outbound owls until next day. Not that Dumbledore had done anything wrong, as the law stated that a person only counted as "missing" when he or she disappeared for at least 24 hours.
"Could you at least tell me when did Harry Potter last visit your bank?" Dumbledore rubbed his temple to nurse his headache. "As the information has nothing to do with his vault, I believe it won't violate your regulation."
The goblin narrowed his eyes at him and said slowly. "Rules and regulations. We will abide by the treaty when and only if an official request is issued by the Ministry."
"Headmaster." McGonagall turned to Dumbledore. "Might be it's time to ask for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement?"
Albus Dumbledore didn't look pleased at all.
Whatever had tripped his alarm was gone before Daniel came out from the mindscape to the boy dorm. He scanned around warily. The fireplace at the far end of the room was burning slowly, covering everything with a golden glow and wavering shadow. Heavy curtains were drawn around those four-poster beds, but he could hear the boys snorting slightly and fast asleep. Everything seemed to be in order, yet something was nagging him.
Something was not right. He could almost smell the uneasiness in the cold air.
He gave his connection with Harry a quick check. The boy was still suffering tiredness from metal strain, but had recovered enough for Daniel to poke around a little bit. Daniel let himself float with the almost stagnant air and spreading out his sensation. An abrupt disturbance on the main staircase immediately got his attention. He rose, quickly and purposefully, up to the ceiling and through the heavy stones.
That's what disturbed his protection alarm, Daniel realized, and he also understood why as soon as he landed his eyes on the approaching figure. The man ran down the main staircase to the entrance hall and was heading toward the front door, his head bobbing funny as if the purple turban was too heavy for him to run steadily.
What's his name again? Daniel thought hard for a while. Ah yes, Professor Quirrell. Hagrid introduced the stammering man to Harry when they met in the Leaking Cauldron, but the man in front of him was very different from the man in Harry's memory. There was a familiar sense of wrongness radiated from him, or to be precise, from underneath the purple turban.
It prompted Daniel to act against him.
Quirrell tripped over something and fell flat on his face. A round shaped item rolled out from his palm, shining blood red under the candle light. Quirrell got back on his feet quickly and bent over to pick it up. However, before his finger could close around it, it vanished in thin air without a sound.
"Master, the stone's just disappear!" Quirrell cried.
"Damn! Dumbledore must have bind it with the castle!"
Daniel was startled when a muffed voice in the turban swore aloud, but it also confirmed his suspicion of a spiritual possession, especially as he recalled the same evil feeling he'd got during his confrontation with the wraith inside the mindscape.
"Quirrell, return to your room now." The voice proceeded to order his host around. "You need to figure out what spell he used and…AAAHHHH!" The voice and Quirrell let out a shrill scream at the same time, wrenching and lurching painfully on the floor.
Daniel frowned, released his grasp on the wraith reluctantly. This wraith had a much tighter hold of its host than the one he destroyed, and it obviously possessed a certain level of intelligence. Forcing it out of the man would also mean tearing the host in half, as the wraith had more or less super-glued itself to the man. He probably needed an exorcist or might be some holy water to get rid of it without killing the host.
"Ma…master?" Quirrell whispered shakily.
"Back to your room, NOW!" the voice barked.
Qurriell was at the top of the staircases when the front door opened with a loud bang. Dumbledore rushed in with a panic look on his face, but the expression turned blank once he saw the back of the fleeing man. The old man he drew his wand out to fling curses after curses to the man with agility beyond his old age. The fight only lasted a few second, as Quirrell slipped away before Dumbledore could catch him.
Daniel looked down at the "stone" in his palm, and a sudden inspiration hit him. He duplicated the stone and sent the copy to the top of the staircases, just in time for the Headmaster to recover it under the rubbles and blasted stairsteps.
'What was this fuss about a gou'ald control crystal anyway?' Daniel wondered.
Wizarding world seemed to be more complex than he originally thought.