Exit Stage Left
•• Daniel Doubled ••
§Parseltounge§
It was pretty dark by the time he'd gotten back to the Leaky Cauldron, mainly because he'd decided to 'muggle it' by catching a bus into London before walking the rest of the way to Charing Cross.
He wasn't exactly sure why he did it, other than the fact that he hated relying on magic too much (he exercised, unlike 96% of the magical population of Britain) and it was kind of strange to see the city without all the changes and updates that had been made to it by his time – hell, he didn't actually think it had changed all that much, but he'd been proven wrong before.
Wait a second. Was it even proper to call when he had come from 'his time'? It wasn't like he had a monopoly on living in that year – if anything, he'd label it 'Tosser's Time' because of how much Tommy seemed to have been enjoying his power trip.
Hmm. Actually, since (as far as he knew) he was the only one 'from the future' as it were, he would just call it 'his time' and not bother about the legitimacy or semantics of using such a label.
Daniel distractedly pushed open the door to the old pub, deciding that he'd been far too distractible lately; his thoughts had been trailing off on tangents, mostly about his past experiences and he had only just realised this. Hmm. It must be a side-effect of that time travel chanting/voodoo thingy.
Thanks, traitor/friends; the thing that he'd always wanted was to remember a lot of his mistakes and crazy past adventures while trying to remain inconspicuous and fit into… err, what year was it anyway?
Dammit.
He'd been more affected than he thought. He vaguely remembered asking Tom, but for the life of him couldn't recall it.
Some wizard/soldier thingy he was.
Damn. His thoughts were all muddled; he was actually appalled that he didn't notice the weird affect the travel had on his thoughts before now – they sure were all over the place, and had been all day, now that he thought about it. Hopefully after he got a bit of sleep his brain would correct itself.
Hopefully? Hey, he was an optimistic kinda guy… sometimes. Occasionally. Maybe.
Ok, so he just didn't want to deal with it via occlumency – as far as he was concerned, occlumency was an art concocted by an evil, evil demon and should never have been forced upon the minds of the innocent.
Yes, he really hated occlumency – with the passion of a thousand burning suns (plus one) – partly because he sucked at it and partly because it proved that he was in some ways a 'freak'. STOP. Thoughts. Dammit. Stupid weird side-effects of a stupid chanting-ritual thingy.
The Leaky Cauldron had a nice ambience; there were a few groups of wizards/witches scattered around, enjoying their meals, as well as the odd werewolf (not that it was obvious).
Even if the pub was a little on the 'medieval' side (what with candles as the main lighting source) it was still nice enough, especially now that he didn't have to be worried about being besieged by excitable people wanting to shake the hand of a famous person (or get a piece for bragging rights).
There was the fact that he was the only one there wearing 'muggle' clothes, meaning that he just about had the subtlety of a hippogriff dancing the can-can, but that didn't matter; he was used to being some kind of flame to their moth, and didn't care about their sideways condescending stares.
Bah! Really, he'd dealt with worse than that at the beginning of his first year, from his peers no-less. They also couldn't hold a candle to Snape. Or worse yet, McGonagall.
Daniel paused and looked over his shoulder nervously, just in case thinking her name could, in fact, summon her.
Fortunately, it looked like he was safe… this time.
Of course, that could have something to do with the fact that Minnie had no idea who he was at the moment, and thus wouldn't think it important to show up just to scare him.
Hey, wait a second!
Daniel hit himself over the head and muttered something unpleasant about stupid mind-muddling rituals before making his way over to the bar, where Tom (the bartender, not the dark dude) was currently positioned.
"Hey Tom!" Daniel greeted jovially, like he wasn't suffering from an over abundance of weird mind-ranting/reminiscing.
Tom looked a bit on the frazzled side, but still grinned when he saw the strange young man that had been unfortunately left naked in the middle of Diagon Alley early that morning. "Why, hello, Daniel. Feeling better now?"
Daniel caught the jibe at his earlier fabricated hangover-slash-naked stint and chuckled sheepishly, running a hand through his tangled hair (again), "Yes, much better thank-you. Anyway, I thought it was about time to get back here now that I got some money, not to mention I'd like something for dinner, my good man. How much do I owe you for the room and everything?"
Tom gave him the price and galleons exchanged hands, with Daniel including a tip 'for the extra help' that morning, before moving on to order some food. It wasn't too much later that he had a plate of something the old man had recommended, and he pulled up next to one of the wolves (coincidently) before digging into his meal.
The guy glanced at him weirdly for a moment before shrugging it off and going back to talk t his friends.
It was about then that the door from the direction of the Alley banged open and a pompous, chubby man strode in looking very self-important, with one of the kiss-arse types at his elbow, practically fawning over him with that 'you are greater than the invention of electricity' glint in his eyes. Or wands, since wizards wouldn't know electricity if they stumbled into a livewire.
Conversations trailed off for the moment it took for everyone to swing around and glance at the loud opening of the door before most conversations started back up again.
Daniel saw the glint in the pompous man's eyes that said he was an attention whore – thus the loud entrance – and scanned the faces of the others in the pub, seeing expressions varying from disgust to (unfortunately) that sheep-look of awe that some hold when meeting a 'famous' person, no matter how stupid they look in real life.
The pudgy man strode purposefully over to the barman and made a show of whispering instructions into his ear (even if, by the look on the faces closest to him, he was easily overheard) before he shooed the elbow-man away and was led away, in turn, by Tom to one of the private meeting rooms off to the side.
Unfortunately, that pompous, pudgy, self-important specimen was England's Minister of Magic, Cornelius 'bowler hat' Fudge.
Daniel grimaced and tried to ignore the fact that the majority of conversations were now focused on that stupid man, whether to call him derogatory names and scowl over his latest blunder or to *shudder* praise him.
It really didn't bear thinking about just where those people's brains had run off to.
A few moments after leading Fudge out of the room, Tom exited before hurrying over to the bar and gathering up a plate of various sweets along with bottles of firewhiskey and butterbeer, which he then took back into the room that Fudge was no doubt setting up to give the appearance that he was working hard.
There was something about this situation that tugged at Daniel's memory, and his eyebrows drew together as he frowned, wondering just what about this could possibly be familiar – after all, Fudge had cut and run even before the Tosser invaded the ministry, leaving it in more of a mess than usual before they could choose another minister.
The 'muggle' entrance of the pub opened, and his eyes travelled to it automatically scanning the entrant before going back to his food, but doing a double-take instead.
Standing there awkwardly in the doorway of the Leaky Cauldron, looking like a half-drowned cat with his hair plastered to his face and over-large clothes dragging down from the weight of water, no doubt from the rain outside, was no one other than Daniel's mini-me, Harry Potter.
With a trained eye Daniel, for the first time, saw how he appeared from another person's point of view and was frankly surprised that he'd been capable of moving about, let alone dragging the dead-weight of that trunk around like he remembered from his own little escape from the Dursley's before his Third year. This was an extremely bony 13-year-old, obviously without anywhere else to go.
He really looked rather pathetic, and Daniel wondered for a moment how anyone had wanted to be taught DADA by him in his 5th year, let alone do what he said while he looked like he'd just escaped from an orphanage. Harry looked like a strong breeze would bowl him over at any moment, yet Daniel remembered very clearly conning Remus into teaching him – that kid – to defend himself against nightmares such as dementors.
In all rights, the adults should have been giving him counselling and pumping him up with nutrient potions before he did what his skinny frame was threatening and just plain vanished away.
Of course, since that kid was him, it felt really weird to be objectively giving that assessment, but still! Tiny!
Tom rushed up to Daniel's mini-me and said something in a hushed voice that made poor Harry go white. He then beckoned Harry towards the room that Fudge now frequented and little Harry shuffled after the bartender, looking very much like a man going to the gallows.
To Daniel it was hilarious, in a that-was-me-but-now-isn't kind of way; especially because he knew Harry was going in there thinking he was getting expelled from Hogwarts for blowing up Marge. Heh, he should have gotten a medal for that particular act of accidental magic.
Ah, good times.
Of course Daniel may have felt guilty about taking enjoyment in how scared his mini-me was, but considering it had been him the first time (and technically was him now) he didn't.
He wasn't really surprised when no-one in the bar shouted 'Harry Potter!' when mini-me appeared, mainly because no one would connect the orphanage escapee with a boy-hero like 'Harry Potter'.
Really, 'Harry Potter' was more like a merchandise logo; a name attached to an unfortunate individual that wanted nothing to do with it.
Which was probably why Daniel had accepted his change in name so easily in the first place.
Really other people, normal people, would probably be appalled at the stripping of something so important, so integral to ones identity, but Daniel had built himself since childhood to be distant from 'Harry Potter'; it was just another label, one that he had not wanted to deal with and had almost been his undoing.
Daniel blinked and scowled again. Bloody stupid ritual thingy. It was really distracting him a lot.
He wasn't usually like this… much.
Maybe it had something to do with being in the past.
Perhaps
He was finished his meal by the time Harry was pulled out of his chat with Fudge and made to trail along behind Tom (like a little lost puppy) and up the staircase to a room that had no doubt been paid for by Fudge in his attempt to suck up to he Boy-Who-Lived.
Well, at least now Daniel knew it was 1993, and about a month before Hogwarts started back up.
Well, at least he didn't actually have to buy a Daily Propaganda to find out the year.
Daniel rolled his shoulders ignoring the soft cracks that issued as he did so before pulling himself to his feet and shuffling off to that same staircase.
He climbed it and found the room he had been issued, fishing out the key from his pocket he unlocked the door and stumbled in.
It was dark, but after a few steps the globe attached to the ceiling glowed white, lighting up the room.
It was nothing special; his trunk-room used the same method of lighting and he knew it to be powered by the room's occupant, leeching magic to work.
He pulled off his shirt and threw it away, feeling a little weird to not have a bag to stash somewhere thanks to those tattoos.
He would have gone to bed then, but something from the corner glinted and caught his eye.
Too used to impending assassination attempts (his average was three per week, which he was bizarrely proud of) and being on a hair-trigger, he approached it cautiously but rolled his eyes at his own foolishness as he discovered it was only a mirror, just like in every other guest room at the Cauldron.
But seeing the mirror there had not only triggered his deep-seated paranoia, but also reminded him that he didn't actually know what he looked like as 'Daniel Bennet', which roused his curiosity.
He was kind of let down when he saw himself. Same scars, bar the lightning one; same height (which was mercifully above average, thanks to his cheating with a (very painful) kinda-but-not-quite illegal growth potion over a few consecutive months) and he couldn't spot any changes in his face or anything.
Actually, the only change to his appearance was that his hair was now dark-brown, still messy and still going in different directions at different lengths. The other change was his eyes. Instead of the avada kedavra green eyes that he had boasted, they were now blue. Well, not a normal blue; they were that really pale blue that made them look like ice or made a person think of seeing a ghost (at least in the muggle world). They had the same slightly luminous quality that his eyes had held before, and there was no other colour to dilute the blue – no doubt they would be shocking at first glance, just as his eyes had been before once he'd gotten rid of the dorky glasses.
He didn't really know how he felt about that particular change. As a teenager, they had been his only tangible connection to the woman that had given him life. Of course, now he knew better; after seeing and comparing himself to a picture of James Potter, there were very noticeable differences that had probably not been commented on before because he'd only met people who had been trying to see his father in his features, and thus the instant 'you look like your father but' speech he'd gotten so many time in his youth.
Well, he supposed his was still young (especially compared to a wizarding lifespan) but mentally he felt older.
Well, there really was nothing for it; Hermione had made the change permanent and he'd learnt to be adaptable – he'd get over it.
It was actually kinda cool; he felt like he was some spy in a James Bond film or something – what with all the cool new stuff and changed name and appearance.
"Well, deary, you look very handsome, but don't you think it's about time to go to sleep now?"
Daniel jerked and cursed under his breath as he instinctively jumped away from the thrice damned mirror, eyeing it warily for a moment before scowling. "Stupid imprinted consciousness mirrors."
He huffed and waved a hand, conjuring a blanket which he used to cover the damn thing (they creeped him out) before he turned away from it and looked thoughtfully around the room, yawning.
He made a negligent gesture, erecting wards more through habit than necessity, before toeing off his shoes and slipping into the four poster bed.
«±ΰ±»
Yo guys :)
Well, this wasn't all I was planning to write for this chapter, but I decided that since I couldn't really bring myself to write the rest I'd just post it and people would be happy to get something to read.
Oh oh, did you know I've had someone cast aspersions on my mental state? Cos I have, and for some strange reason this makes me feel inordinately proud of myself. Of course, I have also had a picnic on my high school's roof, so I guess I should have expected it sooner or later :)
Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this, I love reviews (hint hint) and I will aspire t get the next chapter out ASAP (which knowing me could be anywhere in the region of a week from now to a few months, so don't hold your breath, ok?)
To all and sundry I say ciao,
skyflyte12