Chapter 2: You Can Always Go Home Again – right?

Earth

London, England

Little Whinging, Surrey

4 Privet Drive

First thing Harry was aware of when he came to was that he was on a hard, stone surface and looking up at an overcast sky. The next few things all came in a rush.

The air stank, the clouds overhead were not storms or even the outer rim of storms, but a mix of natural clouds and artificial emissions, and he was right outside a house of a kind he had never seen before. The street he was on actually held over a dozen other identical houses. Getting to his feet, he noticed a few other details, each building was numbered, and he was in front of number four, and that there were regularly spaced lamp posts... but they weren't light or fire lacrima. They actually looked like clear blown glass put atop metal poles!

Having no clue as to what city, or even what country he was in right at the moment, Harry decided to err on the side of caution and decided to locate the nearest magic guild and work out everything else from there.

One of the lesser known advantages that comes from being a master of Gate magic is by the point you are a master of it, you have to know pretty much where everything around you is at all times, including people, animals and buildings. Therefore, integrated into the magic and spells that are part of that magic is the capability to sense magic and structures and people and so on and so forth, but only while actually using the Gate. Therefore, when Harry vanished from the doorstep of 4 Privet Drive for the second time in his life, he instantly tracked down and reappeared a moment later at the largest and nearest concentration of wizards.

AKA; Diagon Alley, London, England.

"Uh... OK, not exactly what I expected," Harry scratched his head, looking at the wall of an alley. Turning around, he saw the back entrance of what looked to be a bar or pub of some kind. Seeing only the one option, he went into the pub.

The sign was written in a script that Harry hadn't seen for over three years; English. It said "The Leaky Cauldron", and once inside he could see why. The place was a dive and all the windows were covered to keep people on the outside from seeing in. There was a large fireplace and wall candles and a candle chandelier hanging above for illumination, and everything looked no less than one hundred years old, floors, walls and furniture included. There was a small crowd inside of all manner of characters. Harry ignored most of them and went up to the balding, nearly-toothless proprietor behind the bar. At least he hoped he was the proprietor, Harry was just guessing since most people seemed to be looking at him like he owned the place.

Taking a seat at the bar, Harry waited patiently and listened in on the language that was being used. Yep, English. It took him a while to identify it, but finally narrowed it down to a British accent with a variety of dialects being tossed about, also all British in origin.

Harry was never so grateful to have been dragged around from world to world with Azulong before now. He was doubly grateful for the education the ancient dragon afforded him, making sure that he could fluently speak and write and otherwise communicate clearly in every world they went to, as well as every country in Earthland back home. It hadn't taken him long to realize he was on another world, though it would take him longer to figure out how it had happened and how to reverse it, but having been to more than three hundred different worlds by the time he was six years old, he knew how to recognize the signs by now.

It's also why the Master had gotten him to learn Archive magic shortly after joining Fairy Tail, because while he could speak and read and write in every language, and use Gate and Storm Dragon Slayer magic, he actually knew or understood very little about anything else. He learned everything he knew about history, finances, politics... and pretty much everything from Archived information. It's also why he was so poor with it. Because everything he had Archived was so very BORING!

Everything else, he learned from the others in the guild. Such as how to get information at a bar.

"Excuse me," said Harry in English to the barkeep.

"Hm? Oh, hello there. What can Old Tom do for you today?" he asked the young boy in goggles.

"Where am I? Where is the nearest Magic Guild? Who is the proprietor here? Where is the nearest representative to the Magic Council? I have some urgent matters to take care of and I require their assistance." Of course, he had learned how to get information at a bar mostly from Erza.

"Direct lil' thing, ain't ya?" Old Tom laughed. "Where's yer mum 'n dad, kid?"

Harry clenched his fist and blue sparks began to emerge as the temperature in the whole building dropped about three degrees. "Either dead or missing," Harry replied with a toothy smile. "Where am I? Where is the nearest Magic Guild? Who is the proprietor here? Where is the nearest representative to the Magic Council?" Harry, unlike Erza, believed in giving people more than just once chance to answer questions. Albeit, he only gave most people exactly one extra chance, so it wasn't much different in the end.

"Uh, I-I'm Old Tom, the p-pro-prop-eye... I own the place," he finally answered.

Harry frowned and the sparks got bigger.

"Yer in the Leaky Cauldron, just outside Diagon Alley, just off Charing Cross in London, England!" he said in a rush. "Don't know nuthin bout no guild, and the only Magic Council I know of is the Ministry of Magic and they're over near East London, about a block away from Saint Mungo's!"

Harry's frown deepened, but his hand stopped sparking.

Before he could ask another question, a Great Horned Owl flew down and dropped a letter off right in front of Harry. It then perched somewhere in the rafters.

"Hm," Harry read the envelope and casually noted it had his full name and detailed location on it, even which stool he was sitting on at the bar, before tearing it open and flipping through what looked like an acceptance letter to some other Guild called Hog Warts of all things. And people made fun of his own guild because it had the word fairy in its name.

Harry lit a spark between two of his fingers and lit the letter on fire. He then ate the fire in front of Old Tom and everyone there. He burped out some smoke and then took a glass of water sitting on the bar and drank it in one gulp.

Finally, finished with his small snack, he asked Old Tom, "How do I get into this... alley you were talking about? I appeared in the alleyway behind this establishment, but I highly doubt that alone is called whatever you call that alley place of yours."

"Uh, you just have to tap the bricks with your wand..." Old Tom started to say, but the young lad's incredulous look had him offering, "Why don't I just go ahead and open it for you?"

"Thank you for your kind offer. I accept," Harry jumped down and lead the way. Tom felt it would be wise not to keep the volatile lad waiting. And hopefully somebody would get a hold of the Auror's sooner rather than later. Pulling out his computer tablet, the very same gift from Azulong, Harry activated his Archive magic.

A few hours later, Harry had thoroughly explored Diagon Alley and pushed his Archive magic to the uttermost limits with all the new information he'd come across. There was no central Archive link to connect to unfortunately, so he'd had to do it the hard way, by Scanning.

Scanning involved at least a peripherally active participation on his part in absorbing the information, meaning he had to use his eyes and ears and couldn't just wave his hands like more experienced Archivists could. He'd come across a couple of book stores and avoided going in them until last, and was glad he did so because both were larger on the inside than they looked on the outside, and every available space was filled with books.

Although that Invisible Book of Invisibility was quite a read. He may have to see about adding a fourth branch of magic to his repertoire.

Unfortunately none of what he had managed to add to his Archive was going to be able to help him get back to Fairy Tail. It would seem that every magic user on this world was a Holder Type, and it was considered myth and legend for any that would use magic without these so called "wands" they all wave about. Harry, of course, immediately saw hundreds of ways they used magic that had nothing to do with a wand, but they were all quite insistent about it. They also all kept calling him some kind of slur word he didn't recognize at all. Muddle or something like that. He ignored them and continued seeking a way to get back home.

Scotland

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

"ALBUS!" Professor Minerva McGonagall shouted, running into the office of her employer. Well, as much as she ran in the first place. Regardless, it was much quicker than she normally moved.

"Minerva, my dear, whatever is the matter?" Albus Dumbledore questioned when his Deputy Headmistress burst in, out of breath and still shouting.

"LOOK! Found him! Potter! List!" she shouted between gasping lungfuls of breath. In her hands was the Hogwarts School Registrar, the list of all student names and addresses for sending out their Hogwarts Letters for the next school year.

At the name Potter, Dumbledore was immediately on his feet and had snatched the Registrar out of McGonagall's hands before she'd finished shouting. Looking for himself, he was not disappointed, in fact he saw the first glimmer of hope that he'd had in more than 10 years. They had found Harry Potter at last!

"Finally, Minerva, I have found him. I have found Harry Potter, at last," the old man actually sighed with relief and the Transfiguration Teacher could see seemingly years of weight come off of the Headmaster like morning mist under the sun's rays. "I must go to him at once. Before he disappears from us yet again. I'm off Minerva! I'm off to Diagon Alley!"

Leaky Cauldron

So far, Harry had found nothing in this magical community that would help him in getting home. He'd spent the early part of the day (it had been after lunch so he couldn't say morning) going all over and through the magical shopping district, had even barged right in to the goblin bank at the end of the street there and attempted to barter some cooperation. IE, he promised to stop breaking stuff if they promised to help him. They'd given him a bunch of 'Vaults' but assured him that, despite whatever myths existed about goblins, travel between worlds was not something they could do.

He'd accepted the vaults and even inspected them. One was filled with a bunch of family heirlooms, books, and trunks full of all kinds of interesting stuff plus some gold, the other was filled only with gold. Harry Archived all the books with his Tablet and thanks to one of those trunks already there, packed all the interesting stuff into it, and he meant all of it, and then the trunk shrunk itself down to the size of a food can, which he then pocketed. After seeing that he would get no help from this land's magic community, Harry turned his attention to the commoner side of things.

He went straight to the largest library in the city and set about Archiving everything there. While there in the Library, his Tablet informed him that there was something similar to a Central Archive Link available. A bit of investigation told him that it was called the "Inter Net", which he actually recognized somewhat from the few Digital Worlds his father had taken him to in the past. He attempted to download this Inter Net, but unlike all the data he could Scan from books and other sources, there was just way too much information for him to just stream through his Tablet and into his own Magical Archive. So, he tried to Compress and download it that way.

Once all the information had been compressed, Harry discovered that he'd really only retained about one quarter of what he'd attempted to Archive. And most of that was just raw data, unfiltered information from a variety of sources that would take him years to sort through and index. Depressed at his pathetic skills with Archive, especially as he found it so necessary all of a sudden, Harry had returned to the Leaky Cauldron and requested a room for the night. Hopefully it would only be one night.

Once in his room, he set about doing something he was supposed to be doing at least once a day, but had only been managing probably once a week to once a month. Which was sorting through all the information he had Archived, and then doing the magical equivalent of a Defrag and filing it in an easy-to-access recovery system. Some information could even be outright deleted. For example, everything pertaining to the word 'muggle'. Oh, and all the porn he'd gotten from the internet too.

He'd finally learned what that meant, enough to figure out that nobody who used it the way they were using it knew what it meant. If they did, well there would probably be some embarrassment on the side of the one using the term, and a war started by those it was being used on.

When he had finished, he discovered he could now retain all the information that he could let his Tablet do the auto-indexing and it wouldn't take a couple lifetimes to complete, just several hours. Thankfully those hours could be spent by him by getting some rest. It had been a long day after all, what with starting the day off with an S-Class job, a bunch of long range Gates, dealing with Erza and Mirajane, defeating a nearly-Dark Guild, and then all his running about since waking up on that doorstep in that weird neighborhood.

Shaking his head to clear the dark thoughts from his mind, he turned his attention back to his Tablet.

There wasn't a lot Harry could do with his Archive. Oh, he could do the basics, he'd learned enough to be able to do that, no problem. He could Download, Upload, Scan, and Search, same as any Archivist. Not to mention communicate with other Wizards telepathically and treat their brains as computer terminals. His one weakness was that he couldn't use the hard light constructs, or do any of the computing in his head. He had to rely on his PC Tablet and use it the same way a Holder Type Wizard used a wand or other magical focus.

With his Tablet, he could do just about anything that any Archivist could do really. But the true masters of Archive Magic could do so much more with information it was scary at times. Some of them, if they had Archived all the information available about a style of magic, could actually use that magic the same as if it were theirs, and without having to spend years studying it the way most others would!

Harry, if he were being truly honest and not self-depreciating about it, was about average with his Archive magic. He could do the basics, and he could retain and save a lot of information in his Archive... if he kept up with his maintenance that is. And he could also do one or two "Experienced" things, not advanced, not by a long shot, but some things that were more than just the basics.

For example, what he was doing now, was creating a Program, specifically a Search & Discover program, that would sort through all the information he had Archived, and would Archive in the future, and identify anything relevant and then produce a result of its findings when it completed. But again, he had to use his Tablet in order to use Archive magic at all. Without his Tablet, he would not be able to so much as open a program. At the moment however, he was programming it to search for any means possible of getting back to Fairy Tail.

So far, no luck.

Still, that did not mean he was giving up hope, and it turned out that thanks to those vaults of his, and the gold inside, he got a lot more than just a room at the Leaky Cauldron. In his search for answers, he'd come across a pet store. And in that pet store was something that he never thought he'd see the likes of again. It was a large egg.

An egg very similar to the one Happy was hatched out of. Only where Happy's egg was blue and white swirls, this one was green lightning bolts on a yellow shell. At least, it had been yellow, making the proprietor of the pet store think it was either a golden egg, or a dead dragon egg. Harry bought it anyway, and the moment the egg was in his hands, the shell changed to a pearly white, still with green lightning bolts running across it of course. Harry had taken the egg back to his room and was currently sitting next to it, keeping himself occupied until it hatched. Idly, he wondered if it was going to be a cat like Happy, or maybe he finally had found a dragon egg?

Well, if he had, it would probably be one of the local dragons then. He'd heard them in his searching before. Wild beasts, with barely any minds to speak of, at least not when compared with the dragons Harry had grown up being around. Azulong wouldn't even bother trying to talk to the dragons of this world, of that Harry was sure, so he wasn't even going to bother going to them for clues on where Azulong would be now.

The egg beside him rattled a bit. He put his hand on top of it and it stilled. He pulsed some of his magic through it. Lightning magic, but only enough to warm it and give the creature inside some pleasant tingles. The rattling increased for a bit, but quickly settled. Harry, familiar with the sensation of this particular magic effect, just smiled and wrapped the blankets around it a little tighter.

A few moments later, there was a knock on his door. Harry ignored it and finished the last few lines of his Search spell and then vanished the magical screen construct he'd been using. The knock came again less than ten seconds later, and then again, less than two heartbeats after that.

With a sigh, Harry got to his feet, whispering to the egg, "Stay put. I'll get the door."

He opened it just as the person on the other side was raising his hand to knock yet again. Giving the visitor a once over, he glared at the old man with the long silver beard and hair and long weird looking robes, and snapped at him, "Occupied," before slamming the door in his face.

He smirked and waited for seven heartbeats before opening the door, again, just as the old man was raising his hand to knock one more time. "Still occupied," he snapped and slammed it shut again.

"Mister Potter!" the old man called through the door. "My name is Albus Dumbledore! I must speak with you regarding something incredibly important!"

Harry blinked, and then pulled open a screen on his Tablet, accessing his Archive and pulled up everything he had on Albus Dumbledore. He wasn't impressed with what he read in just the first few lines, as it read the same as the resume of any person on the Council of Magic. He did not like any of those old fossils.

He skimmed the rest of the basics and by the time he was halfway through he was pretty certain he knew what he was dealing with. Getting to the end of his current Archive on the wizard, he'd found nothing to discount his first impression. Taking a deep breath, he put himself in what he liked to call his "Magic Council" frame of mind. Then he opened the door in a rush and shouted at the old man, "WHAT?"

Taken aback, Dumbledore actually retreated from the younger mage at first, before quickly marshaling his resolve and taking a step forward, opening his mouth to speak. Harry interrupted him.

"You're from that guild that sent me a letter earlier today, aren't you? Hog Wort something or other," he said, his eyes squinting mistrustfully beneath his goggles. "Well, I hate to break it to you like this, and believe me I really do as I would rather be using my Storm Dragon Talons to make sure the message took, but I'm already in the red with the Magic Council about collateral damage as it is, so I'll just use words instead. I'm already part of another guild. I'm not leaving them for yours, and I have no interest in whatever it is you are offering. I'm a Fairy Tail Wizard, as you understand the term. Now please leave before I change my mind about collateral damage." He started to slam the door shut again, but Dumbledore's first words actually gave him pause.

"I knew your parents!"

Harry slowly opened the door once more, giving the hinges a break, before speaking very slowly and softly, his eyes glaring at the old wizard in apparent anger.

"My biological parents were killed when I was a baby. My father, adoptive yes, but still my father, rescued me from the doorstep of, the kindest words he used were 'human monsters' who lived on a world that I would gladly never set my eyes or feet upon. Now just to be clear, I have a family. Fairy Tail is my family. And as soon as I can figure out how I got here, I'll likewise be finding a way back to them. And I am not interested in whatever distractions you may have set up for me here. Now..."

"This is that world, Mister Potter. You have finally returned home," Dumbledore interrupted him. "To the home of your parents. Of your destiny. We have much to..."

"I already figured that out when I came to on the same doorstep my father rescued me from, nitwit," Harry snapped angrily at the wizard, keeping him on the defensive. "I'm just grateful that they either never noticed, or weren't there to try and imprison me there with the, and correct me if I'm wrong, but since I smelled it and my nose never lies I know I'm not wrong, the blood wards that were still waiting to be charged all around that entire structure? I may not have been educated from this world, but from what I know of magic, and that's more than you think I know, blood wards are only good for three things. Imprisonment, enslavement, and manipulation. I could name half a dozen different types of magic protections that would do whatever excuses you're about to give me a hundred times better than whatever blood wards you, and yeah I'm sure it's you, set up at that place. Now. Please leave, I am busy and do not wish to be disturbed."

Harry slammed the door shut in the old man's face and did not open it again.

The old man, on the other hand, did. Brandishing a gnarled and blackened stick at him, he then shot a number of spells at him in the form of jets of light. Harry dodged the red ones and used hastily formed icy wind shield to block or deflect the other ones with a short cry of "Arashiryu no Fubuki!". He made sure nothing got passed him to hit the egg still laying on his bed.

When the old man stopped shooting spells at him, apparently thinking they were at a standoff, Harry glared angrily at the wizard. "Big mistake," he growled before Dumbledore could say anything. Taking a deep breath, a silver-blue magic circle appeared beneath his feet as he held up both fists to his mouth and in-canted, "Arashiryu no HOKO!"

Before he knew what hit him, Dumbledore was blasted back out of the room, and then through the wall into the next one, and then through that wall and out of the building into the heart of Diagon Alley, where he crashed most painfully into the side of Gringott's wall beside their front door, doing quite some damage to it upon impact. It was only the man's rapid response in creating a Protego shield that had saved his live.

"Hn," Harry sniffed and slammed the door shut again, ignoring the hole in the wall right next to it.

Hilton Resort, London

One Week Later

Harry was relaxing in peace and quiet, the egg at his side almost sighing in content as it was snuggled in amidst a mountain of pillows and blankets under a specially ordered heat lamp. Harry was definitely of the opinion that the goblins of Gringotts were worth knowing, as they were the ones who set him up in such swanky digs.

There was a rapid knock at the door. Harry sighed, exasperated, after having heard the person coming from a long way off. Reluctantly, he got up and went over to the door, wrapped up in one of the hotel bath robes, and opened it very slowly.

"You just don't know when to give up do you?" Harry grumbled to his visitor.

"Mister Potter, I..." Dumbledore started to say, but was interrupted once again.

"I've been told that any damages Gringotts has to pay to this hotel are going to come out of the Dumbledore vaults, rather than my own. I even got them to put it in writing after I decided I wanted to stay here for a while until I figure out a way to get home. You know they've got an indoor pool and spa?"

"..." Dumbledore stewed for a few moments, but when he was certain he wouldn't lose his temper any further, he spoke slowly and fully expecting to be interrupted again. "Mister Potter, may I please come in so we may discuss some urgent matters?"

"Hm," Harry tapped his chin thoughtfully, and then smiled brightly at the old man and said cheerily, "No." He then slammed the door in his face once again.

"Then I am afraid you leave me no choice, Mister Potter," Dumbledore screamed through the door. He pulled out his wand and lifted it, preparing to incant a powerful spell that would remove all obstacles from his path to bringing Harry Potter back into the fold, back under his control, and get the plans he'd prepared more than a decade past rolling once more.

The door suddenly flew open and Harry Potter stepped out. He closed the door behind him and then jovially walked past Dumbledore and went down the hallway towards the lifts. At no point did he even glance sideways at the powerful old wizard that had been preparing to use magic against him, in fact the younger wizard completely ignored him as though he were not even there.

Stunned by this casual dismissal, Dumbledore lowered his wand and hurried after the young Mister Potter. He reached the corner before the older wizard could catch up, and when Dumbledore did finally make the corner, he saw no sign of Harry Potter, nor anywhere he could have gone. All the doors were closed and there had been no sound of one opening or closing. Turning back around, Dumbledore saw Harry at the complete other end of the hall, walking towards the lifts from the other side apparently. Harry paused and waved mockingly at Dumbledore before turning the corner at that other end.

Dumbledore fumed. He'd been tricked! And by such a simple illusion spell!

Still fuming, Dumbledore pulled out his wand once more and incanted, "Point Me Harry Potter!" The Elder Wand lifted itself up off his hand and spun about once in either direction before pointing... behind him? In the direction he'd first seen Harry going?

"Ah, yes, of course, invisibility," Dumbledore accepted this explanation easily enough. Grabbing his wand, he quickly spun about and set off to track Harry down once more.

Just outside the hotel, Dumbledore found Harry leaning up against the side of the building... across the street. Of course by the time Dumbledore made it across said street, Harry was no longer there, and there were throngs of people all around, so using any sort of magic was out of the question. Out of nowhere, he felt a poke in his lower backside. He spun around quickly and found his quarry just standing there staring impatiently at him.

"You have fifteen minutes to convince me to listen to you. Seeing as I can't get rid of you, I may as well hear you out. If only to get you to stop saying the same things over and over again," said Harry. He gestured and then started to walk away, "Come on. Walk as we talk. What do you want with me?"

Dumbledore nervously glanced around them at all the muggles walking past.

"Come on, old man," Harry waved impatiently, "If you're worried about people overhearing us talking about 'magic', this is London. Believe me, I've only been here a week or so, and I have heard far stranger conversations than the one we're about to have."

Reluctantly, Dumbledore had to admit the truth in that.

Keeping up with Harry's rapid and youthful pace was no trouble for the Defeater of Grindelwald, although he soon became concerned that the time limit imposed on him might very well expire before he'd fully made his case. He began speaking as quickly as he could.

"A number of years ago, there was a dark wizard who called himself Lord Voldemort. He quickly gathered a rather strong following of supposedly like-minded individuals. They are today known as Death Eaters. They claimed to be enforcing their beliefs of blood purity among our race, to ensure magical potency or some such rot. I knew better however. It was all about power. And I suppose more than a bit of avarice. At least on the Death Eaters' parts. Voldemort however..."

Harry couldn't help but notice the dark look in the old wizard's eyes, there was no twinkle at all.

"Voldemort is... was a mad dog. He is incredibly intelligent, and he proved himself a strategic force to be reckoned with more than once. But while he gave his followers the same line he gave everyone else, I could see the truth of it. He just liked hurting people, and controlling them, and he was also quite a bit lazy I suppose. If he were a muggle, I'm fairly certain he would be one of those criminal masterminds you read about that has a hand in every pie, but always likes to kill his victims himself rather than let someone else do it."

"Is? You think he's still alive?" Harry interrupted.

Dumbledore nodded.

"It wasn't going to happen any time soon, but when the prophecy was heard... Voldemort was on the verge of toppling the Ministry. I do not know if he managed to plan out exactly what he was going to do, if he was going to take over or not, or maybe put in some figurehead so he could remain in the shadows, but if you had not stopped him then, if Voldemort had not been vanquished the night he killed your parents and tried to kill you, I fully believe that our world would be quite a different place today."

"I didn't do a thing," Harry stated.

"But that's just it, my boy," Dumbledore pleaded with the younger wizard. "You have no scope of how truly terrible things were at the time. Our government was a year, perhaps less from surrendering to these terrorists. And then overnight, everyone knew he'd gone to kill you and everyone he had ever sought to kill was dead. But you didn't die, and he disappeared. You cut the head off the snake, Harry, and gave people hope!"

"Let me repeat myself, since it doesn't seem to be getting through," Harry growled, "I! Didn't! Do ANYTHING! I was a baby, barely a year old! Yeah, he tried to kill me and couldn't. So what? That doesn't make me special, that makes me lucky! And an orphan!"

"Your scar says otherwise," Dumbledore pointed out.

Harry frowned and wouldn't look at the old man anymore.

"You were hit by the Death Curse," Dumbledore told him. "It rebounded off of you and struck him down. But I do not believe Voldemort would leave things to chance. I have reason to believe that he still walks this world. Perhaps not in the same form he once held, but I do not believe him to be dead. And... There is a prophecy."

"Which I fulfilled," Harry snapped, still not looking at him.

"Not entirely," the old wizard countered.

"Prophecies are open to interpretation," Harry snapped, reciting from his Archive. "I hereby decree this prophecy has been fulfilled according to my interpretation. If this dark wizard is still about and he comes across my path or even tries to take me down, I'll take him down instead that much I will promise you. But I'm not going to spend the rest of my life waiting and preparing for one stinking fight. I've got loads other fights to look forward to besides."

Dumbledore blinked, not expecting that attitude at all.

"Anything else? Or are we done?" Harry asked as they stopped at a crosswalk light that was currently red.

The Headmaster of Hogwarts sighed, deflating somewhat, and finally made his offer. "I would... like it if you would accept the offer to attend Hogwarts, Harry. Your parents..."

"Apparently put in their will that I was to be left on a doorstep in the middle of the night right after I was orphaned," Harry sarcastically retorted, ignoring all the looks they were getting from the people milling around them.

"Ah, no," Dumbledore nervously glanced about them at the looks they were receiving. "That... uh, that was my doing. A-against your parents wishes."

Harry slowly turned and faced the old man, who truly looked it at that moment in time. He crossed his arms, his blue and silver jacket bunching around his shoulders, making him look surprisingly intimidating. "Excuse me?"

"I-you-well," Dumbledore stuttered nervously, unable to meet the child's eyes. "I needed to protect you... and you needed to go to a blood relative, of Lily's, your mother's blood... well, you see I..." he stopped talking when Harry angrily put up his hand.

"Get somebody else to do your dirty work, Dumbledore," Harry growled up into the man's face, "because I am done dealing with you. I see you again after this," slowly Harry's body rose off the ground until he was eye to eye with the old wizard, "I will kill you where you stand."

The light changed. Harry dropped back to the ground and walked off, leaving Albus Dumbledore standing there on the sidewalk, everyone around giving the old man disgusted looks and giving him a wide berth. He did not follow Harry any further. Instead, he turned around, turned down a blind alley and disappeared.

To Be Continued...