Harry and the Pirates, Chapter 02

East is East, and West is West

by Technomad

September 1, 1991, Platform 9 ¾, King's Cross Station, London, England

Harry Potter looked around himself. Dudley, beside him, was busy reassuring his new pet. His new cat, Pixie, had not been happy at being put in a kitty carrier, and was letting the world know about it. Dudley reached into the carrier and scratched her behind the ears, and her wails of discontent turned into a deep, rumbling purr of happiness. The cat was a pure affection sponge, and would shamelessly try to make friends with anybody who looked like they had a soft lap and a good hand for petting.

It had been a bewildering few weeks for the boys, since Professor McGonagall had been back to Thailand to collect them. Since she couldn't "apparate," whatever that meant, with both of them, that meant that they were going to be forced to use what she called "Muggle contraptions." The boys had flown many times before, but never so far, at least not that they could remember. When they had come out to Singapore with Petunia, they both had been not much more than babies. "You were both so cute, the stewardesses all wanted to adopt you," Petunia had said, smiling at the memory.

Before they left, they had been called in for a private talk with Balalaika. The only other person in the room was Professor McGonagall. Looking down at them, her trademark army greatcoat around her shoulders, Balalaika had said: "Boys, I never expected to find myself believing in magic, but the mark of a good soldier is to always deal with reality as it is, not as one would wish it to be. Battle plans always change in the presence of the enemy, for the enemy, dirty dog that he is, has plans of his own that do not involve your victory."

"Yes, ma'am," the boys chorussed. When Balalaika said something, what she said was always well worth listening to. She had also made that particular point to them before, and they had found that she was exactly right.

Balalaika gave them a stern look. "Professor McGonagall and Petunia have both said that it is permitted for me to see your school reports. I expect to see stellar grades and exemplary behavior from both of you, panyamayu?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Balalaika was always soft-spoken and polite herself, even when killing or ordering someone killed, and did not like or willingly tolerate boorish behavior in others. She was also a great believer in education. Every one of her employees was expected to improve his or her mind on a regular basis. "The mind," she was in the habit of saying, "is the most powerful weapon of all."

With that out of the way, Balalaika smiled at the boys. "That said, Petunia and I also want to see regular letters. And I can say that Roanapur won't be the same with you away. Come back to us safely, boys!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Balalaika dismissed them, and as she turned away, Harry thought that her eyes looked suspiciously bright. He figured it was probably a trick of the light in her office. Balalaika did not ever cry.

OOO

Petunia, on the other hand, did. She clung to both boys in the Don Mueang International Airport terminal, her slender body shaking with sobs. "Oh, I'll miss you both so very much! Please don't forget to write!"

"We'll write to you, Mum," Dudley said, holding his mother close, a slightly helpless expression on his face. Dudley was very protective of his mother, and seeing her in distress tore at him. "And we promise to stay out of trouble."

"Professor McGonagall says that the bad man who killed my real mum and dad is gone, Aunt Petunia," Harry said, also holding his aunt tightly. "There shouldn't be any problems. And we'll write to you and tell you about everything we do. I'm sorry that you felt so left-out when my real mum went away to school." Since Professor McGonagall's first visit, Aunt Petunia had been much more forthcoming about the past than she ever had been before, and while Harry often wondered what his real mum and dad had been like, he couldn't help a frisson of anger at his mum for being mean to her sister.

"Oh, it's time to board the plane! Goodbye, boys!" With that, Petunia let them both go, and turned away, weeping, as Professor McGonagall herded them into the line to board their airplane.

OOO

Britain had been a whirl of incredible, alien activity. Professor McGonagall had taken them to a small pub called the "Leaky Cauldron," where she had shown them that, with tapping the right bricks in the right pattern with one's wand, one could make the brick wall in the back open up to reveal a wonderful, hidden world of witches and wizards.

Harry had been bewildered by his celebrity, but Professor McGonagall had warned him that he was famous for something he couldn't remember doing, and between her and Dudley, who was not above using his martial arts skill to detach people who got grabby when Harry couldn't do so himself, they got through the crowd in the pub and into Diagon Alley.

In some ways, it was very reminiscent of a Roanapur marketplace, but the goods on offer, and the people thronging the street, were wildly different. Harry and Dudley craned around, trying to take in everything at once. Their first stop was at a bank, run by strange small people whom Professor McGonagall called "goblins," to change the money orders they'd been given in Thailand for wizarding money. They were delighted with the wizarding coins; real gold, they knew, was valuable!

Then they had to be fitted out with robes. While they waited, the blond boy being fitted out saw them and struck up a conversation.

"You for Hogwarts, too?" Harry nodded, firmly suppressing the urge to tell him that no, he and his cousin were planning to rob a bank, and needed Hogwarts robes to confuse everybody. He was quite aware of being in a new, and unfamiliar environment, and, for a second, felt terribly homesick for safe, familiar Roanapur. "My name's Malfoy. Draco Malfoy." The boy seemed to think that they should recognize the name, but it meant nothing to Harry.

"My name's Dursley. Dudley Dursley," said Dudley, taking the lead in the conversation. "This is my cousin Harry. Where are you from?"

"Wiltshire. My family has a manor there. Where did you grow up? I've not seen either of you about."

"We grew up in Asia. Singapore, at first, and later on, Thailand." Harry had found that mentioning Roanapur often had unexpected effects on people, and while it amused him, he was still treading cautiously until he felt sure of his footing. He stepped gently on Dudley's foot to signal him to keep quiet. Dudley quietly nodded; in negotiations, he let Harry take the lead as a rule.

"What house are you hoping for?" Draco seemed to be more curious than anything else. "I'm going to be in Slytherin. All my family are."

"We don't know. Why do you want Slytherin so badly?" Harry and Dudley had heard about the House system from Professor McGonagall, but she hadn't been too forthcoming about the Houses' characteristics, saying that she didn't want to prejudice them before they got to Hogwarts.

"Why, Slytherin House is the best house at Hogwarts! A lot of the top movers-and-shakers in the Ministry came from there, as well as many wizards and witches who made history with their innovations!" Draco launched into a passionate sales pitch. "If you want to be the best wizard you can possibly be, Slytherin's the only real choice! Oh, Ravenclaws tend to think that they're the best, but they get so lost in their books that they forget the real world exists! And Gryffindor's full of maniacs with no sense whatsoever! Hufflepuff…YOWCH!" Draco jumped as the witch who was pinning up his new robes stuck a pin in him. "Be careful, there!"

"Sorry, dear!" From the look the witch gave Draco, Harry thought she wasn't one bit sorry. He figured that she'd been at Hogwarts herself, and was likely a Hufflepuff, or a Gryffindor. Privately, while he thought that Slytherin sounded intriguing, he thought he'd keep an open mind about Houses.

OOO

Once they were aboard the train, Harry and Dudley quickly found a compartment. Sitting down across from each other, they grinned.

"Going to be strange, not seeing Mum for so long," Dudley commented. Harry nodded.

"Not to mention Balalaika. Wonder what she'd think of this weather?" British weather had been a revelation to both boys, one they felt they could have done happily without. They were used to tropical warmth, and even though summer lingered, British and Thai summers were not at all comparable.

"She's Russian, remember? From what I remember, Russia's even colder than this. This would be like Old Home Week for her." Dudley looked out as the train started to move. "And away we go, off on our own. I've got to admit, it's kind of scary. At this Hogwarts place, we can't count on Balalaika or Hotel Moscow to be there for us if we need help."

"But we have each other." Just as Harry said that, the compartment door opened, and a red-haired boy about their age with a slightly hunted expression on his face peered in. "Oh. Mind if I join you? I need someplace safe to be for a while. My brothers are bored." From his manner, his brothers' boredom was Not A Good Thing.

"Sure, there's plenty of room, isn't there, Dudley?" Dudley nodded and smiled. In Roanapur, it was always well to assume that anybody you met was worth, at least, polite treatment. Some of the unlikeliest people had powerful allies or friends, and disrespect to them could earn one a free ticket to the harbor bottom. "I'm Harry Potter, and this is my cousin Dudley Dursley."

"Pleased to meet you both. I'm Ron Weasley. Are you the Harry Potter?" Harry sighed. His new fame was already starting to lose its novelty. He pulled aside the hair over his forehead, displaying the famous scar left by the evil wizard. Ron's blue eyes went very wide, as he leaned a little closer to see it more clearly. "Wicked!"

Right about then, the door opened again, and Draco Malfoy stood there, with two burly boys standing side-by-side behind him. He looked around. "They say that Harry Potter's in this compartment. Are you him?" he asked Harry. Harry nodded wearily.

"Yes, I'm 'him,' Draco. Come on in, and gape your fill. By the way, mind introducing your two friends?" Harry gestured. "Ron Weasley, this is Draco Malfoy. The Draco Malfoy. Draco, this is Ron Weasley."

Draco and his two companions sat down, rather crowding the little compartment. "Pleased to meet you. These are Vince Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, friends of mine. You didn't tell me you were Harry Potter back in Diagon Alley," he accused.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You never asked me. Besides, what is merely being Harry Potter, as opposed to being the Draco Malfoy?" Dudley and Ron both grinned. After a tense few seconds, Draco grinned too. One of Draco's two companions snickered.

"Sorry about that. I do sometimes come across as a bit too full of myself. Mum says it's something I get from Dad, while Dad swears up and down that it's more like Mum. So, what's Thailand like?"

"You're from Thailand? But you both look so normal!" Ron looked from Harry to Dudley and back, his eyes wide, as though he expected them to transform into something any second.

"We grew up in Thailand, mostly, but we're as English as you are. Both of our parents were English, but after my parents, and Dudley's dad, died, his mum took us out East and we've been there ever since." Harry explained. "And Thais are as normal as anybody else. Not that that means much, around here!"

Draco looked at him blankly, then began to laugh. Ron, Vince, Greg and Dudley joined in the laughter, and soon all the boys were talking, the ice well and truly broken.

Some time later, the train was well on its way north, passing through an epic thunderstorm, when the door opened again. A bushy-haired girl poked her head in, with a rather timid-looking boy out in the corridor behind her.

"Excuse me, but have you seen a toad? Neville, here, lost his."

Everybody shook their heads. Just then, the train gave a jerk, and the girl stumbled into their compartment. "Uh, hi. I'm Hermione Granger. Who are all of you?"

Draco took the lead. "I'm Draco Malfoy…" he saw the gleam in Harry's eyes, and visibly refrained from adding "the Draco Malfoy," and went on: "This is Greg Goyle, this is Vince Crabbe, the redhead is Ron Weasley, the other blond is Dudley Dursley, and last but never least, this is Harry Potter."

"Harry Potter? The one in all the books?" Hermione's eyes went wide as saucers. "You're famous!"

"Yes, for something I don't remember doing, or know how I did, or even if I did it," Harry replied, rolling his eyes. "I didn't even know about the magical world until Professor McGonagall came to tell me about it. Dudley, here, and I are cousins, and we grew up together, in Singapore and Thailand."

"Really? What an experience that would be! I've never been out of England, even to Scotland! What houses are you hoping for? I want Gryffindor, because Professor Dumbledore was there…"

Draco broke in, the light of passion in his eyes. "Why in the world would you want Gryffindor, when Slytherin's right there? Slytherin's the house that produces the real world-shakers! Most of the Ministry of Magic bigshots were in Slytherin back in the day, and a lot of the wizards and witches who really made things happen, too! You want to make something of yourself? You want to be the best? Slytherin's the place to be!"

Dudley leaned over to Harry, and commented in a low voice: "Heaven help us all if Draco ever discovers an evangelical religion." Harry laughed quietly, as the train barrelled on through the storm, heading northward.

END Chapter 02