AN. I own no part of Harry Potter, fantastic beasts, or anything else that will be used in the making and writing of this story. The only thing I do own is my thoughts and ideas as I write this work or fiction. I hope others love and enjoy this story as much as I will enjoy writing is.
Beta'd by zandaino.
If anyone else is interested in being a beta let me know!
Chapter 1: Meeting the NifflepusIt was just an ordinary day with the sun beating down its beautiful golden rays, and the birds singing. Wizards and witches went about their business in Diagon Alley with shops bustling, and children wanting ice cream. Each of them admiring the many books about the adventures of the great Harry Potter!
They all idolized the boy who lived and wanted to grow up to be just like him, despite Potter being a kid like them. They begged their parents to buy the newest book of the savior of the magical world from You-Know-Who.
"Please, please, can't we have the newe-"
BOOOOOOM!
A roar of fire engulfed a shop a few buildings down, the flames spreading to nearby buildings as several adults drew their wands. With the cry of 'Aguamenti', water burst forward to quell the budding inferno. They saw a scrawny boy with glasses, wearing clothes that clearly didn't fit him, chasing a niffler. The small creature ran to another building and began to grab and steal every shiny object it saw.
Several women screamed as it latched onto them and tried to rip their jewelry off, stuffing it into its pouch. Jumping from jewelry case to case, grabbing everything it could get its hands on. The boy chasing it did everything he could to get the valuables back to the people it stole from. Desperately apologizing for being a 'freak' and promising to do everything he could to make everything better. Suddenly, it found a necklace with runes for a wind charm and went to stuff it with the rest of the pilfered jewelry. When the boy touched it, the rune activated from his magic and with a loud blast, another shop began to crumble.
This seemed to be how the other shop burst into flames. The fire was magical in origin and either came from a wand or from some jewelry with a fire enchantment.
Calls were made for Aurors and once they arrived, they apprehended the boy and his niffler. After the boy was escorted away they began to assist in repairing all the damage done to the alley.
…How this all came to pass…the answer begins about a week ago…
(Flashback 1 week before the events of destruction in Diagon Alley.)
Harry Potter was lying down in the grass outside the school playground, he slowly sighed as he closed his eyes and attempted to relax. This past week, the teachers of his school have had their jewelry and valuables vanish mysteriously. A woman recently engaged even had her ring stolen mid-class today. Naturally, his cousin Dudley used this as an excuse for more 'Harry Hunting.' He told Vernon and Petunia that he used his 'freak power' to steal them. A rumor began to circulate among the teachers that he was a kleptomaniac!
The result was the teachers giving him detention at the end of every day until he returned what he 'stole.' But he hasn't stolen a single thing ever… except maybe some extra crumbs when he could sneak it from the pans after he cooked for his relatives.
He opened his eyes when he heard his cousin near him laughing. Harry began to try and think of a way to run without getting in trouble for being a 'freak' with these crazy powers he apparently had. He hated them, it was because of them that he was beaten by his relatives! It was because of them that he wasn't fed! It was because of them that his life was a living hel-
He stopped that line of thought when a sudden pain erupted in his chest. Anytime he began to think like that and tried his best to contain this strange stuff; like his hair growing back, him vanishing and appearing on the roof to escape his cousin, his body healing from a bulldog biting and pulling his leg as he climbed a tree, would result in his body feeling like it was gonna burst from the inside out.
He slowly stood up and prepared to try and make his escape when he heard small whines coming from Dudley and his cronies' direction. He looked around them and saw they were throwing rocks at a very small creature. It looked like a platypus but covered in black spiky, yet smooth and fluffy fur. It looked extra small compared to Dudley and his friends. To call Dudley fat or obese was an understatement…a whale was slimmer than he is.
"Look at this freak of a creature, hahahahaha, it looks like it wants to be a beaver with its fur despite being a platypus. It's almost as much of a freak as my cousin Harry." He laughed as they continued to throw more rocks and harass the creature.
Harry slowly clenched his fists as he marched up to his cousin and stood in front of the poor animal.
"Leave it alone, Dudley." He said as he covered the animal to protect it from the bullying and harassment of Dudley and his cronies.
Dudley stood there, looking at his cousin with utter disgust. He was about to retort at the skinny runt about why he shouldn't interfere with his friends and his fun. However, he stopped short when he saw teachers watching with growing interest. He and his cronies backed off and left Harry alone with the poor animal.
Harry slowly bent down to pick up the small creature while it sniffed him. It looked up at him with teary eyes full of pain with a hint of curiosity. He took it to the edge of the forest on the border of the school grounds and set it down gently.
"There you go, friend. Try not to come back too close! Otherwise, Dudley may find you again!" He turned around and began to walk back to school only to look down and see the animal walking back with him.
He picked it back up and set it once again at the edge of the forest. He never broke eye contact with it as he walked backward.
"Staaaaay…staaaaay and turn around," He said. It stared back at him as he kept backing up.
Sitting on its butt and yawning slightly.
After Harry made it back to school, nothing else really happened. He was ridiculed for his "choice" of clothing, as usual. He stayed over for his detention, and once it was over, he walked out to get picked up by Vernon.
"GET THE HELL IN HERE ALREADY, FREAK!" He hollered out to Harry.
Harry got in and took the verbal abuse on how upset Vernon was that he had to waste his hard-earned money on gas to pick up a worthless little freak who couldn't behave like a normal person. He always had to have freak stuff happen to him. He was always ruining everything and losing them so much money on gas now.
Neither noticed the small furry platypus run at the car as fast as it could. It jumped onto the trunk and began to squeeze into the crack. Despite the creature being a somewhat chubby furry platypus. It was able to squeeze into the tiny thin cracks, smaller than the width of a pencil, to get into the trunk.
The Small furry platypus watched as its new master left him to go walk into a metal box. It was strange...It..the creature could sense the magic in the boy and bonded to him as a familiar. So why didn't the boy react? Why was he hiding and bottling his power up desperately? He had run to catch the metal box and squeeze inside cause he wanted to thank the boy. And what better way than to give it lots of shiny things?
It was a bit of a bumpy ride but he slowly climbed out of the cracks when he felt the ride come to a halt. It looked around seeing all the new houses that looked identical to each other. He climbed out into the darkening unfamiliar environment as he watched the boy get roughly shoved into the house the metal box stopped in front of.
He looked around at all the surroundings and saw some shiny jewelry in the windows and thought it would make wonderful gifts for the kind boy.
Unfortunately, the poor animal didn't realize how bad this kind action would actually be, and made drastic and unfortunate…or maybe it was a fortunate…sequence of events that would forevermore change the fate of the boy.
Harry slowly woke up to his uncle yelling at him from outside his cupboard. It had been a week since he saved the poor small furry platypus from Dudley, of which he was hit by his uncle and had his food taken away for the week for "ruining diddykins' fun". Dudley was torturing and hurting a small defenseless animal! How was that fun!?
He heard keys being used to unlock the locks and he quickly began to get up to prevent as much trouble for whatever this…"freakish power…..did again.
But when he got up he saw a bunch of gold and silver jewelry and rings fall off of him and all over the ground.
He stood in shock as he recognized the jewelry as his aunt's, his uncle's, and several neighbours' which had been reported stolen and missing for the last week.
His body went ice cold as he saw the door get wrenched open and saw what had gotten his uncle riled up. Apparently, some of the jewelry was underneath the door crack so someone from the outside could see them. And seeing a piece of stolen jewelry would obviously make one suspect the one inside was the thief.
"BOY! SO IT WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH THAT WE OFFER YOU OUR HOME! OUR FOOD! AND DUDLEY'S CLOTHES TO YOU! YOU ARE DEFINITELY A FREAK JUST LIKE THE REST OF YOUR KIND. YOU DECIDE YOU NEED TO STEAL FROM GOOD HONEST PEOPLE!"
Harry barely had any time to react before his arm was grabbed and he was yanked into the hall. His uncle dragged him towards the front door before opening it and tossing Harry out into the hot air outside.
"I didn't do it, Uncle Vernon!" He exclaimed only for him to be backhanded hard across the face.
"DON'T EVEN TRY TO LIE FREAK. THE EVIDENCE IS QUITE EVIDENT. TOMORROW YOU WILL RETURN EVERYTHING, AND YOU WILL BE SLEEPING OUTSIDE FOR THE NEXT WEEK!"
The small animal watched as the large overweight man abused his master. He had given his master lots of shiny things to make him happy and didn't understand why these people were so mean to him. He slowly thought back to the man who raised him. He had a wand that he would hold up to the road and a strange massive metal box would arrive. Maybe that could help master? As the small box took him to misery, so maybe the big metal box would take him to a happy place?
He slowly began to walk to a house that had some magical energy around it as well. Inside was a woman with a bunch of cats. He could sense magic from her fireplace from one of the times he came to take some shinies that were in her house.
He pushed against the door crack and squeezed his way inside. He slowly clambered in and ignored the cats hissing at him.
He began to waddle his way around trying to find the stuck that the man used to bring forth the big metal box. He made his way through the house ignoring the hisses and swipes of several cats until he came across the woman sitting in a rocking chair. She was reading a book with a moving hand holding a stick like he was looking for. "Seven household spells even a squib can do."
The small platypus knew what a squib was from hearing his past master talk to others. People from magical families who don't have much, or at all, magic. But if she had that book that definitely meant she had a stick somewhere in the house.
After some much roaming, he managed to find it and just as the woman noticed him. She made a dive for the animal but he jumped out of her way and waddled as quickly as he could for the locked door. Once there he squeezed back through and began running as fast as his little feet could.
He ran and ran and ran, once he made it to the yard of the bad people, the owner of the metal box, he began to look around while making noises to find his master.
The young eight year old sat in the garden, tears spilling down his face as he rubbed the aching red spot on his face.
"I really didn't do it though."
He whimpered out loud, as he sat there in the hot air wondering what to do next, and how to prove he was innocent…..which he remembered how they never listened to him so odds were they were never gonna believe him, he would hear weird whimper noises beside him and a something bumping against him.
He looked down and saw the platypus he had saved from Dudley, it was holding a small stick and was pushing it to him.
"What are you doing here little one? Did you wanna play fetch? How…how did you even get here to begin with?"
He asked, the little platypus insisting on giving him the stick. Upon taking it from it's mouth he felt a weird sensation coming from the stick. It was hot….and cold…as if it was saying that he shouldn't be the one holding it. It didn't make sense to him. How could a stick give such a sensation.
After taking it the small animal began to gesture and take him to the road, and him being curious followed it until they made it to the sidewalk. Once there the creature stood on its back legs and lifted a hand up as if it was holding a sword in the sky. The other hand was gesturing to his hand holding the stick. Harry not knowing what was happening, or how the creature could even do all this began to think it was a dream.
"Oh what the heck," he said as he did what the platypus wanted.
Upon doing it a loud bang was heard and a big triple decker bus all of a sudden appeared in the way. A lady around her mid thirties opened the door as she stepped out and looked at the pair.
"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Marene Hethersby, and I will be your conductor tonight." She said as she eyed the two.
Harry looked at her in confusion when she said the big triple decker was an 'emergency transport for witches and wizards.'
"What?" He asked. Prompting the woman to repeat herself before she took a look at the boy closely. Eyeing the rags on his body, the skinny arms, as well as the area they had appeared in for the young wizard.
"You must be a muggle born. You look a bit young to have a wand already…..hmmm….did you and your family have a fight about magic? Was there a bout of accidental magic? I know some muggles don't take kindly to magic….come on hop on. I'll take you to the leaky cauldron. I'll book you a room there and I'll take you back here tomorrow to see if they cooled off."
She said as she gently took the small boy's hand and guided him inside. She planned to pay for his trip and lodging due to the condition he was in. Her heart went to the poor boy as she could see how skinny his arms were, clearly showing a lack of food as well as some scarring…at least she was going to until the small animal pulled out a gem and began to tap her leg to hand it to her.
She bent down to collect it and it looked like a ruby. She turned to the little boy and showed it to him, deciding to try and find out how a muggleborn found this animal.
"Hey youngun how did you find a niffler by chance? They usually live underground and in mines. So how come you managed to find one near here?" She asked as the boy sat down on a bed just as the bus shot off like a rocket.
The beds began to move all over the bus. Harry grabbed ahold of the railings on the bed frames for dear life while the platypus…..niffler…..thing was screeching as the big bus always made it uncomfortable.
"Niffler, what's a niffler? I thought it was a platypus."
"A niffler is a small animal that burrows down into the ground and likes to find shiny objects. They can detect anything shiny and will try and take it….it's also really well behaved too. How long have you had it? How did you even train it so well?"
Harry shook his head confused. "I saved it from my cousin bullying it last week and hadn't seen it since. I didn't train it.""
Marene hummed in thought at that revelation. "In that case it probably belongs to someone and is lost. Maybe you can find the owner and diagon alley. He or she will probably reward you for finding their pet."
After that the ride continued I'm awkward silence. Harry had long since decided that this was just a dream, it had to be right? A big triple decker bus that appears out of nowhere, the missing jewellery, and a platypus…..niffler…..who could walk around and behave almost like a person, and finally the claiming of wizards and witches….he HAD to be dreaming! And this was reaffirmed to him when she announced they had arrived at their stop. The leaky cauldron, a small restaurant/inn for witches and wizards in London…..LONDON! how did they arrive in London so quickly! It had only been a few minutes.
By this point he was absolutely certain he was dreaming.
Marene helped him out of the bus and into the Leaky Cauldron. She introduced him to Tom, she never asked his name cause the less she knew of the boy the better. As she would assume the boy would want his privacy. She asked Tom to make him some food to eat as she went to gringots to get the Jewel exchanged.
It was a few minutes later when a plate with a spread of six thick slices of ham, scalloped potatoes, corn on the cob, and two muffins was put in front of him. A plate of roots was put on the table for the niffler.
Harry watched as the niffler began to eat while he sat looking at the food. Tom gestured for him to begin but Harry didn't budge. He wasn't used to this….was he allowed to eat it? He stared at it while his stomach growled insistently for him to begin. But he knew that he wasn't allowed to eat a plate of food, especially something like this! Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would knock his lights out or kick him out the house without food for a few days as punishment…..or both.
"Go on, eat up. Or would you like something else?" Tom said before Harry looked up at him in shock.
"R-really? I'm allowed to eat it? All of it?" He asked.
At Tom's nod he grabbed the fork and stabbed it down into the ham and brought it up to his mouth, he didn't even care to pick up the knife to cut it up into pieces, all manners were out the window as he was so hungry he couldn't care less. He grabbed it with his teeth and ripped a chunk off. Chewing desperately, the taste lit up his taste buds before he pulled the fork out and dug into some of the potatoes and eating them as well before going back for some ham.
He then grabbed the corn and picked it up to begin biting it off. Slowly tears began to spill down his cheeks as he was finally eating an actual meal and it tasted so good. 'if this is a dream…please don't let me wake up!'
Harry had managed to finish all his plate in a time that would have been a record for the leaky cauldron patrons. His stomach was aching full and it was around this time Marene was back.
She paid for Harry to have a room for 3 days and to be fed breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Harry's eyes mister up even more at this. 'please please please PLEASE don't let me wake up. I wanna stay here longer please!'
She took his hands and handed him some gold and silver coins. "There you go little one. Your nifflers ruby was worth quite a knut. There is 50 galleons and 10 sickles left there after I paid for the fee for Tom and for the knight bus fee. Have Tom show you how to get into diagon alley tomorrow and you can go shopping and get you some better clothes. And maybe tomorrow when it's day out you can find the nifflers owner."
"Stay safe youngun!" Marene said as she left.
Tom led Harry up to his room and said he would bring him breakfast of an omelette with ham, green peppers, and cheese with a side of hashbrowns for tomorrow. Harry gulped loudly and was drooling a bit from that despite being full of food. Tom closed the door leaving Harry alone as he laid down on the bed, the niffler clambering up and waddling into his chest before falling asleep.
"Please…god…if you exist…if I sleep please let me wake back up here and not at my relatives…please." He begged as his eyelids grew heavy as he drifted into the arms of Morpheus.
The next day, he woke up and reached for his glasses. Though as soon as he did they began to float and he immediately stopped and shoved what was doing it down inside. 'NO! no freakish things!' He thought in his head before pain erupted through him as the feeling was back. He began to grab and claw at his chest, intense pain racking through him…it felt as if something wanted out…no NEEDED out. He began to cry out in pain as it was hammering against him. It needed out. Out. Out! OUT! It began to slowly subside and retreat leaving Harry gasping when Tom knocked on the door delivering him the promised breakfast. With some more roots for the little creature to munch on. Along with some shiny wrappers which it grabbed in delight before shoving into a pouch.
Harry questioned him about this 'Diagon Alley" which prompted Tom to show him how to enter it.
"Tap the brick three up and two across," Harry muttered as he did so.
Once he did the bricks fell away and showed a massive road filled with shops of crazy things. Brooms that fly, ice cream that never melts, frogs that can sing songs, mice that do gymnastics as pets, candy that made your ears steam, potions to make you roar like a tiger, and so so much more.
"It…it really is like magic!" He exclaimed in joy.
Such a world of wonder and excitement as he passed window after window of magical items that had him intrigued and amazed. Practically shoving his face against the windows he passed to see everything. Such wonder and curious nature revealing itself in him.
The pain of something wanting to burst out of him slowly began to diminish more and more until it was just a fading echo of the pain that was within him.
He looked down to see the platy…niffler to see if it was still following him…only it was nowhere in sight, that is until he heard yelling inside the shop he was recently looking at. He turned around and saw the niffler running amok and shoving stuff he had been looking at into it's pouch. A man in a uniform chasing it around with a stick…wand pointing at it.
POV niffler:
It was having such a good morning. It had a nice stretch, some tasty roots the old human gave him a long with some shiny thingies he could have, to which he naturally took eagerly and shoved into his pouch.
He waddled after his master, wanting to be near and protect masters shinies from people who would wanna steal said shinies. He was glad master was feeling better than last night and had good. Though the spasms of pain a while ago got it scared. Was master sick? All that meant was he just had to follow close to make sure he could help master.
He waddled behind him quickly as they entered the magic and shiny street. He could sense his masters happiness and desire for the objects in the various windows. Should he take some for master to be happy?… … …yes of course he should. Master wanted to be happy and they're so shiny! So naturally that meant they were his after all anything shiny belongs to him, and all that was his was also belongs to master!
Without a second thought the niffler squeezed through the tiny crack in the store, running to several candies wrapped in shiny rappers and began to grab them and shove them into his pocket. Greedy handful after handful of pure shiny goodness stuffed into his pouch for his master. He heard an angry yell behind him and looked to see a massive man charging at him.
He quickly booked it and jumped off from the counter, making the man fall over it as he tried to cast a spell to bind him. The result was not so good, with the movements of the wand off it instead caused a curse to snap the counter and fall on the man, who promptly groaned and shoved the counter off of him.
The niffler turned to see his master running in to grab him both afraid and angry. The niffler realised why, Master must have been afraid the he would get hurt! And angry that he hadn't gotten enough! 'Don't worry master, I'll get more'.
This began a chase of the master and the large man behind him as he began to jump around and grab every last shiny he could see and shove into his pocket. He ran through people's legs, zigzagging through them to trip up the man. Jumping from shelf to shelf grabbing everything not nailed down. Then he looked up and saw a massive rectangle sized shiny that had the word "chocolate" on it. It was big! Bigger than masters arm! Master would definitely be pleased. It ran into a ladder to knock it over to waddle up it.
But it wasn't to be, as soon as he tried the master also knocked into it sending the mirror and him off course and instead they crashed on the window, master holding him tightly. He looked at master and saw his scared and panicked look and then heard a weird cracking sound.
Both the boy and niffler watched as a crack appeared in the glass. More cracking sounds as it spread slowly, them watching as it spread with each noise until it finally shattered and they tumbled into the street.
Niffler, free of masters hands, looked around and saw the man in uniform come out and start repairing the window before turning to look at them. The niffler bolted from the man and saw a shop of treasures. The sparkling circles humans wear around their neck, the small circles on their hands with shiny rocks. The little shiny stabby things they put in their ears. And it realises of course master wasn't happy with those shinies! The best shinies are treasure shinies! What better way to cheer master up as well as thank him for helping him from the scarry, massive, elephant human than with a bunch more treasure shinies. After all it was a treasure shiny that got him here to this place where Master was happy.
He ran to the door and jumped through the cracks as the candy shiny man slammed into the door. "Quick there is a niffler in here! It's gonna steal everything! Catch it!"
A bunch of humans now began to jump, cast spells, and grab at the niffler as it waddled around as fast as it could to stuff everything in its pouch. Eyeing everyone who got close to him with his round beady eyes.
When one of them got really close the creature jumped and launched itself at a locked glass case and squeezed itself through the tiny half a millimetre sized crack and cackled as they now needed to unlock it first to get to him. Giving him plenty of tiny to grabbed the neck circles, finger circles, and more that were littered about in the case.
"Someone please, we have to get it. Some of those have magical enchantments predone on them for customers to try out! Things could go really badly! We need to get it NOW!"
They opened the case and tried to grab the creature but it managed to squeeze away from them, slipping between their grasps. But as it ran away a ring it was about to slip inside its pouch was hit out of its fingers.
He saw master grab it but as soon as he did the air was filled magic and the rings runes activated in force as it was overloaded with a intense surge of strong magic. The runes on the ring turned red and a massive column of fire erupted catching the store on fire.
People began to scream as adjacent stores began to catch fire, screams for Aurors were called as they began to use spells to conjure water to put the flames out, people casting vigorous repairos to try and repair all the damages as the niffler ran to the next shiny thing it saw…but felt the ground leave his feet…his master had finally managed to catch him.
Flashback end
Harry gave out coughs as he clutched the platy… niffler tightly, refusing to let it go on another kleptomaniac spree. He looked up as the fires died down and saw he was standing in a semicircle of people all looking at him and the niffler. A lady with red hair and amber eyes approached him and flashed a badge to him.
"My name is Amelia Bones. I am the head of magical law enforcement and you, young man, if that niffler belongs to you, are in so mu-" she didn't get to finish as then the signs above the burnt buildings fell down and crashed to the ground with a thunderous rumble. Harry slowly looked behind him and gulped before turning back to face her. "...so much trouble."