Okay! Onto the next chapter!
This time, we get to introduce an original character, don't worry, no self inserting to be had!
This character is one that I've tailored to fit in as Harry's adoptive father, filling a separate role in the wizarding world that isn't ever touched on in the books.
I've seen stories where Harry runs to the Grangers, or gets adopted by the Weasleys. There are far too many stories that go "imma run away, Oop i'm a vampire, ooo voldy's dick looks scrumptious!"
Fuck that
Let's get on with my own spin on things.
—0—
The frame of the semi truck shuddered as the cargo within its trailer thrashed about.
"Keep it down Fleya! We're just going to Gringotts beast trading branch teh have your vaccines updated!"
A low groan echoed in from the trailer.
"I know, you don't like needles. Nor do you like car rides, but it's necessary teh make sure you don't get DDV! Give me a sec, we're passing by a muggle town."
Charles Fontaine Scortwit leaned over the steering wheel of his large vehicle, chuckling as he readjusted himself in the driver's seat.
"How ya feelin' Charlie boy?"
The red headed teen wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and gave the man a smile. "I've never traveled this long in a muggle transport sir. I'm sure I'll have to get more used to it for runs like these…"
The man in the driver's seat gave a grin. "That's the spirit! We're coming up to a town soon, so let me know if ya need a quick pit stop!"
The redhead nodded. "Thanks sir, but I'm fine for now. I'm eager to see how Gringotts handles ridgeback vaccinations."
"Aye. You brought your protective gear, right lad? It'll be up to you to calm Fleya down if she starts panickin'."
Charlie nodded. "I've got everything I need sir. By the way, the map says to make a left up ahead."
Scortwit slowed the truck down a bit in order to turn left, before picking up speed again after executing the turn.
"So, yeh ready teh be back in London?"
"The magic shops near the preserve are nice enough, but I've always had a special place in my heart for Diagon Alley." The redhead replied.
"Good on yeh! It's always nice teh have a place like that, and even better fer me if it's near the largest Gringotts branch! Maybe we could figger out a way to make the trip even easier
Charlie smiled. "I don't know sir, seeing the rest of the world does wonders for me… keeps my adventurous spirit alive."
"That it does Charlie-"
-WHUMP-
"The buggin' hell was that?" Scortwit put on the trucks flashers and pulled over on the shoulder of the highway.
"Let me help sir-"
"No Charlie boy, stay in the car. Just because we're by a town of muggles don't mean it ain't some magic creature, or a poacher that found our route."
The man unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed down from the truck, before pulling out a muggle flash light and turning it on.
The front of the truck had a few dents in it, and a splatter of blood was caked on the left headlight, which was now cracked.
Scortwit procured a long stick, roughly eleven inches in American measurements, and looked around nervously, before pointing the stick at the front of the truck. A few words were muttered, and the dent pulled itself away, leaving the truck back in perfect condition. The blood on the headlight vanished, wiped away by something unexplainable.
Scortwit hid the magic wand in the palm of his free hand and walked around behind the truck, searching for whatever he had hit. About ten meters from the back of the truck, in the center of the road, was a smear of blood roughly a meter long.
"Ah shit… must be under the fuckin' engine."
The wizard quickly put up a disillusionment charm and levitated the front of the truck upwards.
Beneath the carriage sat a bloodied lump of flesh. Scortwt could make out black hair and several broken limbs. The human child's body astounded him, especially because he had seen grown deer reduced to paste when his transport got moving.
A quick wave of his wand revealed that the child had somehow survived the bloody collision. Scortwit swore and began to do as much as he could to reverse the damage.
He quickly reset the child's limbs as best he could. How the hell was the child still breathing? Their neck was snapped at an eighty degree angle!
A series of hasty bone mending charms fixed the bone damage, but the child remained unconscious. The man shook his head and cast a stasis charm over them. With luck, they would be found by a medical provider, sometime around the next morning, when the charm wore off.
As the wizard turned to get back into his truck, he was stopped by something. A small whisper of a song echoed in the back of his mind.
When Scortwit looked upon the child again, he saw the glowing outline of a woman standing over them. The wizards eyes widened as the outline gestured to the child.
"Alana?"
The outline disappeared, leaving the wizard alone with the injured child.
Scortwit sighed, looking between the child and his truck. Letting out a string of grumbling profanities, the man walked over and scooped the child into his arms.
"Let's find you some help."
—0—
"Back so soon?"
Harry sighed as he looked once again out into the great absence of everything. The boy turned to see the skeleton, sitting with their legs crossed.
"Is this where I die?"
"Just like last time, it is not."
"Why?"
The skeleton tilted its head, the black pits of the skull eerily regarding the child before them.
"That remains to be seen."
The child blinked. "Can't you just let me go? Let me fall into this void or whatever. At least I'm free from that place, those things…"
"You need to understand, there is still more for you to do."
"And what am I supposed to do? My body doesn't even belong to me anymore!"
The skeleton took Harry's small hand in their own boney fingers. "A horcrux does not have a body, it is but a visitor. That fragment of soul cannot exist without your own soul, and its absence in turn could have dire consequences."
"Stupid freakishness and it's stupid effects…"
"It is not freakishness child. I know it will take time for you to understand that."
"Why do I feel this way?" The child looked up at the skeletons blank face.
"What do you feel?"
"I-I don't know… it's hot and bubbly, in my chest and my head. I want to act like Vernon, I want to hit something…"
"That is Anger. It is often seen as a negative emotion."
"And this other feeling? The emptiness? The weight in my chest that feels so heavy and yet something is missing?"
"Sadness and sorrow. They are normal emotions to feel, I assure you."
"I've never felt this way before…" The child spoke, looking down at his hands.
"That is thanks to your partner. A horcrux is dark magic. It lives off of madness and despair. It feeds off of negativity. No doubt it has thrived off of your own emotions, stealing them away from you."
Harry frowned. "But… that's not fair."
"Fair or unfair, it is what it is. This could be both a curse and a blessing you know."
"So I'm blessed not to feel like everyone else?" Harry snapped angrily.
The skeleton shook their head. "Not at all. Notice I said it is also a curse. On the one hand, you will have to learn for yourself how to get along with the soul fragment. You may learn how to live without some emotions, it will take time. But if you can learn to harness it, you may be able to twist others, or drain them of their own madness."
"And of course, just another thing to get used to… I was happy where I was you know."
"Maybe, but you haven't truly lived…"
"I lived. I slept and woke up. I endured. I did what was expected of me."
"And yet, you did not truly live."
Harry frowned as he stared at the skeleton. With a humph, he sat down and looked out into the vast expanse of nothing. After a few minutes passed, he spoke again. "I heard Petunia and Vernon one night, talking about religion and the works. They called it poppycock, said followers of faith were whackjobs… Vernon rambled on about… Buddhism? Their ideology was that life is suffering…"
The skeleton nodded. "There are indeed many mortals who share that line of thinking."
"Then how can you say that I haven't lived?"
The skeleton looked at the child that sat before them. He was already beginning to display wisdom beyond that of the normal ten year old. Perhaps it was an effect of his soul being unaged, or the effects of newly discovered rage and hatred… The skeleton nodded for a moment, before speaking again.
"Do you know the one true thing about life, what it is for all things that makes life… well, life?"
"I assume you're going to say something along the lines of love or family…"
"No. The thing that all living things have in common is death. Life has an end. All life must come to an end at one point or another."
"And? I was close enough to death to grasp it, was I not?" Harry looked at the skeleton.
"Yes and no. You see, the difference between you, Harry Potter, and a child who may have died in an accident, or a man who was stricken with illness. What makes their deaths have meaning, is the fact that they had something to lose. Because of that, their life also had meaning. People who have lived don't wish to go willingly to the next great adventure… they argue, they cry, but death comes all the same."
"What, so I have to find something worth dying for, in order to truly live?"
"Perhaps." The skeleton nodded. "Maybe when you find it, you won't be too keen with the idea of passing on, to the next world."
Harry sighed and looked back out into the void.
"Did something I say trouble you?"
"An answer…"
—0—
Charlie Weasley looked at the child who lay curled in the back seat of the semi truck. The area was more of a sleeping space for whenever Scortwit or he needed to rest during the drive, but it worked for housing the sleeping individual that Scortwit had scooped up from the road.
Their mass of damaged hair worried Charlie. He had seen what muggle products could do when not cleaned off properly, and the dry and scraggly patches of this kid's hair showed him that they had pretty much been bathed in the stuff without proper cleaning.
Charlie saw that the child was shivering, despite the decently warm air in the truck's carriage. The young man took out his wand and cast a warming charm over the child, feeling a bit of relief as the shivering calmed down.
"Charlie! We're at the edge of London! Get up here and help me pull on the doohickey."
Charlie squeezed out of the back and sat down in the passenger's seat, reaching up and grabbing a copper lever that was inset in the truck's ceiling.
"Pull down, three clicks to the left, got it? Hopefully they'll pick up the portkey request."
Charlie tugged the lever down and turned the end of the handle. The windshield of the truck pulsed with a magical glow, before a small projection of a strange creature appeared upon the dashboard.
It was short, with a balding head of silver hair and a hooked nose, which was decorated with a silver ring piercing. Gnarled ears were present upon the sides of its head, decorated with gold and silver jewelry, and as it spoke, one could see pointed teeth, like one might think a shark would have, in place of the regular human incisors, canines, and molars.
"This is Coppergash of the beast keeping division. State your business."
"Hey there Coppy! It's Scortwit. We've got a ridgeback for vaccinations."
The goblin nodded stoically. "Entry is granted. Activating mobile portkey in five seconds."
The projection went dark and a moment later, the entirety of the truck began to glow and shake. A fog poured through the streets of London, hiding the truck from view as it vanished into thin air.
Charlie grunted as the truck hit the uneven floor of the Gringotts beast keeping branch. Scortwit chuckled and drove the truck out of the portkey zone, slowing down and parking near a massive set of wooden doors.
The driver of the transport hopped down as a small gate at the foot of the two massive wooden doors opened, and the strange creature who had given them passage stepped out.
"Scortwit." The creature spoke.
"Coppy." Scortwit smirked.
"I told you that I don't enjoy your nicknames." The creature spoke, walking towards the back of the truck. "Hm? A new worker?"
Charlie opened his side of the truck and fell down into the cold floor of the cave. "Ow…"
Scortwit chuckled as the young man stood up. "Coppy, this is Charlie Weasley, my apprentice."
"Apprentice? Not like you to have a right hand." The creature spoke.
Scortwit shook his head. "I spotted him in the alley a few months ago. I could tell he has the gift."
Coppergash raised an eyebrow, before turning to Charlie. "Pleased to meet you. I am Lord Coppergash, head of beast keeping affairs here at Gringotts."
Charlie nodded and stretched, cracking his back. "My apologies… the ride here was rather long. It's nice to meet you Coppergash. I was a little surprised when sir Scortwit said we'd be driving to London from Romania. Especially since we have a chapter of Gringotts near the preserve."
Coppergash nodded. "Yes, well… our other goblin brethren are not as well versed with beasts as we are. Now, let's get a good look at this Ridgeback."
Scortwit led Coppergash around to the back of the truck and opened the trailer, allowing a fairly large creature to slither out from within and stand up on its thick scaled legs.
"Well well, another year for you madam Fleya? Don't worry, this'll all be taken care of in a snap."
The dragon gave a low groan as Charlie directed her into the room behind the large wooden doors.
"Now that your apprentice is gone, care to tell me why another human is in that transport?" Coppergash sneered.
Scortwit nodded and drew his wand, waving it through the air and causing a bundle of blankets to float from the carriage of the truck.
"By the seven gods of greed…" Coppergash breathed, running a gnarled hand over the forehead of the child. "I can barely feel any sense of life from this child… what happened?"
Scortwit looked down at the face of the runaway. "That's what I'd like to know as well. Is there any way to aid the child's healing? They have magic, and I feel as though they've barely been given a life to live."
Coppergash nodded, snapping his fingers and causing a panel of the cave wall to slide into the ground. "Through this hallway, we will take them to the healers. Hopefully someone there can give us some answers…"
—0—
And there's chapter six. I really enjoyed writing in Scortwit, he's a very well developed character that I've come up with, and his whole "brand" of magic is very interesting as well.
That will come about later in the story, when we get to have a few lessons between him and Harry. I'm honestly really excited for it, especially because through him, I get to work on Charlie Weasley, a character that wasn't really touched in the books. Yes, maybe he had a few scenes here and there, but he was just so bland, such an afterthought that it didn't even matter. Or at least, it felt that way to me.
Anyways here's the chapter. Adios