Harry Potter and the Unwanted Ticket.
A twist at the end of Harry's first trip to Diagon Alley with Hagrid.
Chapter 2: Back at the beginning. Harry 1 Dumbledore 0
I don't own the Harry Potter verse. Just playing.
Summary: A twist at the end of Harry's first trip to Diagon Alley with Hagrid. As they approach the Leaky Cauldron to leave Diagon Alley, Hagrid decides to present Harry with his gold ticket to the Hogwarts Express, while Harry was really expecting to go directly to Hogwarts with Hagrid now. Harry asks a different question.
And that changes everything. HHr NLLL T for Characters deaths.
20/12/21 Beta by alix33. Thank you.
- Harry Potter and the Unwanted Ticket. -
Meanwhile.
….But this time Harry wasn't sitting on the chimney as he discovered he had landed with a wooden thud on old rug on the floor of a very small room in the dark.
Then he smelt a familiar odour, a metallic smell, like a copper coin.
"Drat!" Harry cursed his luck. "It couldn't be!"
But it was.
In the tiny dark room that Harry now found himself in. He wondered how on earth he got here. He remembered that he was determined to find a safe place to hide from the former friendly half-giant.
He tried to stand up only to whack his head on the bottom of some stairs and with dread he confirmed where he was.
"Drat!" He fumed. "My life must be so pathetic if the only place I think is safe is my cupboard under the stairs."
He reached out in the dark to turn on his single miserable light and there were the spiders crawling over the few miserable reminders of his miserable lost childhood with the birthday cake he had drawn for himself on the wall.
"Happy birthday, Harry." He whispered to himself as he remembered the day of freedom and hope he had had. Only for it all to come crashing down because of the great Albus Dumbledore.
"Double Drat!" Harry fumed as he pushed open the unlocked door. "I will be damned to spend another birthday in here!"
He paused to hear if the Dursleys were home.
The house was silent.
Harry decided to go to his new smallest bedroom and to work out his options. He walked past the living room and saw that it was still full of unopened Acceptance Letters addressed to him. He shook his head. Whichever idiot had sent all those letters seemed to deliberately want to upset the Dursleys. And an upset Dursley meant punishment for Harry. He had sneaking suspicion that this idiot was this fool Dumbledore.
So, he went to the kitchen and made himself some sandwiches as he thought that he was already in so much trouble that making some sandwiches wouldn't make any difference and he wouldn't be locked away on an empty stomach. He made some extra sandwiches as he didn't know how long he would be locked away.
He went to his bedroom to eat and as he looked out of his bedroom window, he noticed that there was a tiny white bird holding a big heavy box heading towards him.
As the bird got closer, Harry recognised that it was his snowy owl, Hedwig, and she was carrying his school trunk. He didn't know how his owl could carry such a heavy trunk but he opened his window as wide as it could go which wasn't very much as his uncle had fitted stops to prevent him from escaping through the window.
He realised that the open window was far too small and his school trunk would never fit through that gap. So he desperately tried to wave the owl off but his Snowy owl seems to be determined where she was going.
As the determined owl got closer, he closed his eyes as he didn't want to see his owl smash into the window and kill herself.
But there was no bang on the window.
But there was a gentle thud on the floor.
Harry opened his eyes to see his snowy owl standing proudly on his heavy school trunk in the middle of his small bedroom.
"How on earth did you fit through that tiny opening, Hedwig?" An amazed Harry asked as he hugged his owl.
Hedwig winked and leant her head to one side as if to say. 'Magic! Magical Mail Owls can shrink packages to fit through tiny openings. After all, the mail must go through.'
"Oh?" Harry was surprised to have understood his owl.
Harry cheerfully shared his sandwiches with his only friend, Hedwig, as they noticed another owl flying their way. The younger snowy owl flew in the window and dropped the small brown paper package tied up with string on Harry trunk and landed to greet Hedwig.
Hedwig happily wrapped a wing around the small snowy owl and hugged him. She looked a Harry as if to introduce her son, 'Louis'.
Harry reached out to pat the young snowy owl, as he said. "Hello, Louis."
The three friends sat down on the bed to work out what to do next as Harry shared a drink of water and all the sandwiches he had made including the extra ones that he was going to hide from his relatives in case he was locked away again.
When they had finished the sandwiches, Harry turned to his companions and said. "I think that we need to get rid of all the Acceptance Letters that are in the house."
Hedwig nodded as if to say, 'I concur.' and turned to look at her son, Louis, and tilted her head and pointed her wing to the open door.
The young snowy owl nodded and flew out through the open bedroom door and down to the living room.
"What will he do?" Harry asked.
Hedwig nodded her head and flapped her wings as if to say. 'They are letters and he is a Magical Mail Owl. So he will deliver them.'
"But some are addressed to the cupboard under stairs?"
Hedwig tilted her head and raised one eyebrow as if to say. 'Then he will deliver them to the cupboard under stairs.'
"But how will they all fit? There must be thousands of them."
Hedwig winked and tilted head to the other side, and raised the other eyebrow as if to say. 'Magic! Just don't open the cupboard or the magic will unshrink them and that won't be pretty.'
"Oh?" Harry realised. "But some of the letters are addressed to this bedroom."
Hedwig smirked as she turned head almost one hundred and eighty degrees as if to say. 'Well, Louis is smart enough to return those letters to the senderand you may have noticed that there are a lot of Magical Mail Owls standing by waiting to take your response back to Hogwarts. They can also help him.'
Harry chuckled. "Well I hope the sender is not so foolish as to open the door to wherever the letters are returned to."
Harry and Hedwig share a chuckle of what could happen.
"I think this Dumbledore that Hagrid likes so much, is a bit of a troublemaker and loves to interfere in the business of others. I thought Uncle Vernon was going to kill me when all those owls and letters kept arriving."
Hedwig spat on the floor at the mention of the headmaster's name.
"I concur." Harry continued. "So how does an owl become a Magical Mail Owl?"
Hedwig looked straight into Harry's eyes and he felt a connection and a little voice in the back of his head. "Well young master."
"Harry, Hedwig." He automatically replied.
The little voice continued. "Well, Harry. We are bred by a wizard and if we have the temperament and intelligence for the important role. We are trained and our skin is inscribed with ancient runes to give us magical abilities. There are runes on our talons to make anything we grab weightless and able to resize to fit through small entrances." Hedwig showed her leg and Harry could just see the tiny strange black symbols on her talons.
The little voice continued. "There are runes on our wings to make us magically fast and strong with endurance. There are runes on our head to navigate, sense people to find and to read. My breeder was trying to enhance me to speak but the best he could do was a communication rune that required direct eye contact."
"Oh?"
The little voice continued. "Plus you are a powerful wizard, Harry, and we bonded so I became your familiar."
"Oh? Wow." Harry was amazed at what went into become a Magical Mail Owl.
The little voice continued. "My breeder told me that I was the most intelligent owl he had ever breed and kept me to continue my advanced training while my brothers, sisters and children were trained to be Magical Mail Owls and sold to Eeylops to find good homes."
"Oh, that's a little sad to lose your family." Harry considered.
"That's life, we can't all be wizards and some wizards don't value anything that cost them nothing."
"Oh, I know what you mean."
The little voice continued. "Anyway we are all connected through love and they found good families of their own that love them. I see them all the time and we help each other."
"Oh?" Harry felt better that Hedwig's family was connected by love. "And Hagrid bought you this morning?"
The little voice continued. "There is an Eeylops Owl Emporium & Magical Menagerie in Diagon Alley, but Hagrid didn't buy me. My breeder met him outside and gave me directly to the half-giant to give to you."
"Oh?" Harry thought. "You are the first gift anyone has ever given me and your breeder prepared you especially for me."
The little voice chuckled. "Yes. My advanced training was to read all the first year textbooks as my breeder thought you would need someone to help you catch up."
"Oh, well I really need that. So, who is your breeder?" Harry asked as he realised how much he needed to learn.
"A wizard that goes by the name, Moony!" The little voice replied.
"Moony? That sounds familiar." Harry wondered.
"Yeah, it is an odd name for someone who absolutely hates the moon. Always howling at it." The little voice smirked.
"Oh?" Harry chuckled, thinking he had missed something. "I would like to meet him one day."
"I am sure you will. Everyone wants to meet my little man."
Harry chuckled as he remembered at what happened in the Leakey Cauldron that morning as Hedwig looked around the room and noticed how different it was from the rest of the house that was full of expensive furniture. While this bedroom only had a broken bed, old threadbare sheets, an old rug, broken furniture and a huge pile of broken toys in the corner.
Sadly the little voice continued. "Pardon me for saying, Harry, but it really doesn't look like you are a part of this family."
"I'm not. Dumbledore dumped on the Dursleys' doorstep after my parents died and I was never welcomed into the family. I didn't know I was a wizard but somehow my aunt and uncle knew and tried to beat the magic out of me," Harry replied.
The little voice continued. "They didn't treat you well and yet you tried to make things better by getting all those Acceptance Letters removed. While this Dumbledore seemed to enjoy abusing magic and sending thousands of letters and he would have known how much that would upset the Dursleys and how much it would affect you."
"Yeah, I am not impressed with the headmaster." Harry agreed.
The little voice continued. "And yet you cared about the Dursleys. You're a special kind of different, Harry. Why are you like this?"
Harry thought for a moment. "Well, when I was younger, I tried hard to please my aunt but nothing I did was any good, and Dudley would cause trouble and I would get the blame and be locked away in my cupboard under the stairs. I felt alone and unloved but then I noticed a spider slowly weave its web. I saw how much care it took and how beautiful the web looked. And she did all that in the hope of catching some food to feed her young. And the care, beauty and hope that I saw made me feel happy. While all the things Dudley got ended up destroyed, my uncle and aunt were always complaining about other stupid people, and they were never happy or satisfied. I felt sorry for them, while I found joy and happiness in all the beauty and hope that surrounds us. Being positive and caring I suppose helped to reduce the abuse."
The little voice continued. "You are very mature and intelligent for your age, Harry."
"Well I had to grow up quickly and never thought I would survive but now I know it was my magic that kept me alive." Harry replied sadly.
The little voice continued. "Well, what should we do now, Harry?"
Harry chuckled and inadvertently broke eye contact with Hedwig, as he thought about what to do now.
"Well, Hagrid gave Dudley a cute little pig tail and I think I might be able to make amends with the Dursleys if I learn how to remove the magical tail."
Hedwig nodded as if to say, 'I concur.' and flew over to Harry's school trunk. He watched in wonder as Hedwig touched the lock with one of her razor-sharp talons and opened the trunk. Then she gently sorted through the textbooks until she found A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch. She carefully picked the textbook up in her talons and flew it across the room to the bed next to Harry.
"It is going to take a little time to get used to the fact that you can read, Hedwig." Harry said as she gave him a tilt of her head. "Oh? Right all Magical Mail Owl need to be able to read addresses, so of course they know how to read."
Hedwig smirked as she opened the book to the appendixes at the back and flipped the pages until she found the page she was looking for. The general counterspell, Finite Incantatem.
"Finite Incantatem." Harry read. "The general counterspell to undo magical transfigurations. This is brilliant, Hedwig. I would have never found that counterspell in the back of the book. You would think that they would have put that at the beginning."
Hedwig tilted her head as if to say. 'It was written by a wizard. They are not very logical and never clean up their messes, they just vanish the mess away, so what did you expect.'
"Well I have to stay alive so I can go to Hogwarts to discover my heritage but I am not looking forward to meeting this Albus Dumbledore." Harry said and Hedwig sadly agreed but still spat on the floor at the mention of the-headmaster-who-must-not-be-named.
Harry carefully read the section on the counterspell, how to pronounce it and the wand movements of point and twist back anticlockwise, as a cheerful Louis flew back into the room.
"Finished already, Louis?" Harry asked as the young owl puffed out his chest, and Hedwig gave that look that said. 'What did you expect, he is my son and he had a lot of help from his friends.'
Harry chuckled with his new best friends.
- Harry Potter and the Unwanted Ticket. -
While far the north, a massive parliament of Magical Mail Owls were just exiting the Headmaster's Tower after cramming the last of the returned Hogwarts Acceptance Letters in the Grand Office of the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Just in time for a certain manipulative headmaster who was returning to his grand Headmaster's office after sharing afternoon tea in the Great Hall with some of the staff who had already returned to the castle to prepare for the new school year. There was a spring in his step as he was in a happy mood for his plans, manipulations and schemes were coming together nicely as they should, and everyone will see how great the Leader of the Light is.
The impressive stone Gargoyle guarding the revolving staircase to his office automatically stood aside and allowed the headmaster passage. He stepped on the revolving staircase and it automatically rose up to the awe-inspiring grand entrance door made of ancient solid oak. He loved all the automation he had magically added to the grand entrance of his grand office. The Gargoyle, the revolving staircase and now his automatic opening grand entrance ancient oak door. It was all to impress other lesser wizards with his greatness.
So it came as a complete surprised that he walked straight into his automatic opening grand oak door and painfully broke his crooked nose. For his automatic opening grand oak door had sadly failed to automatically open.
The annoyed and disappointed headmaster tried the polished gold door handle and it turned to unlock the door but there was obviously something behind the grand oak door that was preventing it from opening.
So, the disappointed headmaster took out his fabled Elder wand and healed his broken nose. Then with a grand gesture, banished the uncooperative grand oak door.
That was a big mistake for what was behind the door magically unshrunk, auto-duplicated and exploded like dropping a bucket of Mentos into the Prefects bath full of his favourite Muggle drink, Coca-Cola. The mass of off white parchment Acceptance Letters with green ink exploded right in front of the foolish headmaster, and gave him a thousand parchment cuts as they broke his crooked nose again while he was blown back down the revolving staircase and painfully landed across the top of the impressive stone Gargoyle. The off white avalanche buried the arrogant fool under a mountain of Hogwarts Acceptance Letters all addressed in green ink with the headmaster's loopy writing to a Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, Number four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.
While in the grand Headmaster's office, the explosion of the suddenly liberated off white parchment Acceptance Letters with green ink had destroyed all of the headmaster's knick-knacks, doodads, doohickeys, doojiggers and thingamabob collectibles including a phoenix stand that had ancient runes on it to restrict the movements a particular phoenix and certain very important silver doodads he had made to monitor the health and location of a certain famous boy.
Professor McGonagall heard the noise of the explosion as the castle shook, and rushed to aid the fallen buried headmaster with the other staff that had already returned to the castle. She stopped when she saw the mountain of returned Hogwarts Acceptance Letters and cursed when she saw that they were all addressed to Harry Potter and listed his precise top secret hidden address.
"Damn fool! What was he thinking? I told him they were the worst sort of Muggles. How did he expect them to react when he abuses magic like this." She cursed as something broke in her mind at thought that the headmaster had abused magic. Then she was even more angry when she realised the old fool had just wasted ten years supply of parchment for the future Hogwarts Acceptance Letters.
"Damn fool to waste all that parchment on his damn muggins tomfoolery and shenanigans! We can't use second hand parchment and we will have to replace the lot. I am going to dock the damn fool's pay! And instruct the house-elves to use the wasted parchment as toilet paper for the old fool!"
Pomona and Filius were shocked to see the waste as the headmaster could never find the Galleons to fund necessary repairs or replacements or their pet projects to help the students. So they didn't feel the need to be gentle.
They managed to dig the old fool out and took him to the hospital ward where he was in a magical coma for two weeks.
Minerva was angry of the waste and abuse of the old fool, and that freed her of blindly following of every word he said. She found the Hogwarts Accounts and docked the headmaster a year's salary. She was shocked how much the old fool had paid himself as well as pocketing Professor Binns' salary for fifty years. With the headmaster living for free in the castle, that meant that he had spent a lot of gold on colourful clothes or special undisclosed personal projects. Undisclosed projects that will now go unfunded. So she found so much gold that she was able to fund the repairs to the castle, replacement of all the old school brooms with twenty Cleansweep 7 and twenty Comet 260, and with her Scottish thrift she got a nice discount. Filius got his dueling platform and Pomona got two new greenhouses.
The castle house-elves tried to remove the letters. But as they removed some, others would unshrink to fill the gap. For House-elf magic was different to Magical Mail Owl magic and the Geminio curse the headmaster had placed on the acceptance letters before he sent them, was being supercharged by the magic of the castle and had multiplied the Acceptance Letters to infinity and beyond.
It took a week but the house-elves found a place to store all the returned Acceptance Letters and finally cleared the Headmaster's office. All the house-elves had strict instructions to never open the door to the headmaster's private chamber. Unfortunately many things had been damaged or destroyed far too much for the house-elves to repair, and Fawkes and the Sorting Hat were nowhere to be seen.
And they never found the headmaster's fabled Elder Wand as he had been devastatingly defeated, and it too was now free of the headmaster's manipulations. For it is true that it is the wand that chooses its wizard and the Elder Wand never chose the Manipulative Old Fool. The fabled Elder Wand disappeared to travel to its rightful master.
A rightful master who was a scion of the Peverell Family and had happened to ask nicely for a rather powerful Magical Mail Owl to deliver or return some rather abusive junk mail. A lot of which was undeliverable and returned to sender with the help of many friends.
- Harry Potter and the Unwanted Ticket. -
Meanwhile, in the smallest bedroom in a butter box house south of London.
Harry was carefully focused as he studied the chapter for the General Counterspell, and didn't hear the front door open as the Dursleys returned home. They were very happy to see a letter free home. Aunt Petunia went into the kitchen and made a late afternoon lunch for a starving Uncle Vernon and Dudley Sweetums Dinky Duddydums. It had been a very long day.
Going over the chapter once again, Harry felt confident to try the counterspell. He searched his trunk for his new wand, only to find that there were now two wands in his trunk. His new wand from Mr Ollivander, and a very ancient looking wand that was long and thin and very straight with a series of knobbly ridges along its length. He waved his hand over the second wand and could feel the magic it contained. He picked it up and the room was filled with light as he felt it bond to him far stronger than his first wand.
Harry had a confident smile as he held the ancient wand and stood in front of the mirror to practice. He didn't see the smirk on Hedwig's face as she and Louis moved out the range of any reflected magic.
After three practice wand movements of point and twist back anticlockwise, Harry was reassured to try a practice go. Pointing the ancient wand at the mirror and also inadvertently at his own reflection, he said in a loud clear confident voice.
"FINITE INCANTATEM!"
Harry watched his first attempt of real magic as a bright white light came out of the ancient wand and hit the mirror. Then to his surprise the white light was reflected directly back at him and he dropped the ancient wand as he whispered.
"Oh! Bloody! Hell!"
The white light engulfed him and fed off his magic as it became exceedingly bright and filled the room. Harry flinched in enormous pain as the light reached his scar.
And everything went black!
Again!
- Harry Potter and the Unwanted Ticket. -
Thank you for reading.
- Harry Potter and the Unwanted Ticket. -