The Storytellers Collection: I hope you find lots of fast-paced fics with a lot of Merlin to read so you don't stay disappointed!
This story is really writing itself away from my outline and I'm left watching what it turns into with equal dread and enthusiasm.
In other news, Ms_Bartender on Ao3 checked my Japanese (thank you so much!) and said the term in the last chapter was fine, so it's staying.
To those that came here for my writing though, enjoy!
October 1st, 1988
Harry was starting to get tired of lunches and dinners. Not the food, he loved getting to eat as much as he wanted, but the ones with new people always made his belly feel weird and loopy, plus he didn't like the last people Mr Wright brought over to meet him so he had no idea what might happen this time. At least they were going to have lunch with the new people instead of inviting the people to visit them at home.
"Thirty-eight…forty-one…forty-four Eaton Square, here we are," Mr Wright announced as he parked in front of the white columns with the house number in the centre of them. All of the houses in the street were painted white on the outside with black doors and windows and Harry couldn't help but think it looked much less fun than Mr Wright's colourful neighbourhood. "Why the long face? We don't have to go if you really would rather not, y'know? I just figured… it bothers you, not being able to share magic with Hermione, and Chang has a daughter her age, you might feel better having a wixen friend closer to home."
"But Hermione's my best friend!" Harry crosses his arms, looking down at his swaying feet that don't quite reach the floor of the car.
"I'm not telling you to stop being friends with Hermione, just that having more friends could be good," Mr Wright explains and it does make him a bit less upset. He doesn't want to replace his friend. "If you don't like her, you don't have to see her again, she'll even be one year above you in Hogwarts."
"...fine," Harry can't help but smile just a bit at the proud grin Mr Wright gives him, still a little giddy at getting to choose things, and maybe he pushes a bit every now and then but Mr Wright had yet to yell or hit him.
"Great! Let's go say hi then," they leave the car once Mr Wright has the gift for their host in his hands and make their way to the door of number forty-four. Harry doesn't see a doorbell and figures that Mr Wright doesn't find one either since he uses the knocker to knock on it three times instead.
The door opens a moment later, though no one is behind it, as if it opened on its own by magic. Harry trades a look with Mr Wright and his guardian shrugs before walking in, Harry only a step behind. The room they walk into kind of matches the outside, with white walls and dark wooden floors, but there's a fireplace just to their right and a couple of coat hangers to the left, with a large, black wooden door just ahead of them, as if they haven't really gone into the house yet.
A popping sound makes both of them look to the right, eyes meeting a little creature half Harry's height with short, choppy brown hair and huge ears nearly the size of its skinny forearms and with large round eyes that took up nearly half of its face.
"Qiao takes yours coats, misters!" The creature exclaims in a squeaky voice that makes Harry think of babies and he steps back a little to hide behind Mr Wright.
"Uh- alright," Mr Wright shrugs off his coat before handing it to the little creature, who disappears in a pop after seeing Harry had no coat of his own.
"Please tell me you've read about house elves," an exasperated voice calls from the now open wooden door and Harry can only look at Ms Chang with confusion since he hadn't heard of house elves either, "come in, I'll find you a book on them later, just know you can call for Qiao or Kuai if you get lost or need something."
"Yes ma'am," Mr Wright mock salutes and Harry smiles a bit at how it makes Ms Chang roll her eyes before she turns around and guides them inside.
Stepping past the wooden door makes Harry have to blink a few times as he stares at the very large living room, the floors are still the same as the room before but the walls went from bright white to light brown and there's paintings spread around, some even moving. He barely even notices Mr Wright guiding him to the large cream-coloured couch, eyes wide and focused on a painting of a boat in a stormy sea on the wall behind it, the paint moving just like strong waves and even brightening when a steak of white makes it past the grey painted clouds almost like real lightning and he nearly expects to hear the thunder after it, feeling surprised when it doesn't come.
"I see you like my painting," an unknown male voice makes him take his eyes away from the struggling boat and look up at the man entering the room. He's got blond hair and blue eyes and looks nearly a head taller than Ms Chang, "that's in the South Pacific. Tiny little boat heading out of Chile, hoping to make it to New Zealand, nearly didn't get there in one piece, as you can see."
The five in the room watch as a large wave nearly swallows down the boat to the bottom of the canvas' painted sea before it surfaces once more, soaked but still holding on.
"You were in there?" Harry has to ask, looking between the man and the painting.
"Yup, I'm the reason we made it to shore, not that they know it," is the answer he gets, along with a wink, "Sorry, we haven't been introduced. I'm Christopher but feel free to call me Chris, any friends of my muse are friends of mine." he puts an arm around Ms Chang's waist in a hug.
"Right, now you've met, you can stop pestering me," Ms Chang pushes him away but Harry figures Mr Chris doesn't mind since he's still smiling.
"I may have bothered her a bit about meeting you," Mr Chris says and Harry realizes after a bit that he's talking to Mr Wright, "with how much she talks about you, I would think I had competition if it wasn't in the same tone she talks about our little Cho."
"Chris!" Ms Chang grabs Mr Chris' arms and pretty much pushes him out of the room to the sound of his laughter before coming back looking a little red in the cheeks, "ignore him, I just talk about cases, it's merely a sign of general incompetence that you happened to be the only one close to challenging. Don't go getting a big head, kid."
"I'll take the compliment," Mr Wright replies with a grin that has even Ms Chang smiling a bit, even if it's gone in a second.
"No compliments for someone who doesn't even know about house elves, I thought you'd been reading?" Harry watches as she scolds Mr Wright and leads him to a bookcase on the other end of the large living room, leaving him alone on the couch.
"Hi," he nearly falls off the couch when a small voice greets from right behind him but catches himself as he turns to see who spoke, "are you Harry Potter? Like in the books?"
"Those aren't real," Harry immediately responds, frowning a bit at the girl behind the couch. She's got her black hair up in a ponytail but it still looks really long, all straight and nothing like Hermione's brow fuzzy mess.
"Of course they are, I have two," she crosses her arms as she walks to the side of the couch.
"I mean- they didn't happen," Harry explains.
"...I know that, silly. It's why they're called stories not history books," she rolls her eyes and Harry realizes she looks just like Ms Chang if she shrunk a couple of times. Maybe there's a spell for that. "So, are you? I hope you are 'cause mama said Hary Potter was coming and if you're not him I might have to kick you out."
"I'm him- I mean, me. Nice to meet you?" He stumbles through the introduction, already feeling his cheeks heating up. He hasn't had to introduce himself yet unless it was in front of a class, the Dursleys and now Mr Wright always did that part.
"I'm Cho Chang, call me Cho," she smiled, arms uncrossing and falling to her sides so she could do a short bow.
"Um-" he hurried to his feet and bowed back, "call me Harry."
"Harry, do you like flying?" She asks, looking him up and down like it would tell her the answer.
"Never tried it," he admits.
"I can teach you! And then you can help me train to be a Seeker! You do know quidditch, right?" she doesn't even give him time to think of an answer before continuing, "I can teach you too, I need someone to play with and Sue is too much of a baby to fly, so if I teach you, you have to, right? It's called squid cocoa-something, mama said so."
Harry just stares at her, still taking in the rant and offer, and maybe she's not that different from Hermione, he realizes when the weird wording actually reminds him of some book of terms his best friend had made him read with her at Mr Wright's office.
"You mean quid pro quo?" he asks after a moment, still a little dazed.
"Yes, that! I teach you to fly, then you play with me, right?" She insists, and he can only nod. It can't be that bad, and he really wants to learn how to fly so playing a bit after he learns should be fine, right? "Great! Mama, we're going to the flying room!"
Harry's arm is suddenly grabbed and he's left to stumble after the girl dragging him out of the room, almost like when Hermione sees an interesting book in the school library and wants to show it to him.
Not too different at all.
"Flying room?" Michael looks up from the book that had been thrust into his hands to see a tiny version of Chang dragging his ward out of the room.
"They'll be fine," Chang waves a dismissive hand and pulls out another book, dropping it on his lap, "these four are the basics to wixen legalese. Well, the British counterpart at least, you're far from needing to learn about the ICW and foreign laws."
"Is this a yes to that apprenticeship?" He can't help but ask in a hopeful tone.
"Have you ever not jumped with two feet into any situation?" Chang asks, almost rhetorically if her exasperated tone is to be taken into account, "you're what, twenty-five? I've watched you throw yourself into every new situation like a brakeless train since Macfarlanes fished you straight out of law school. You just found out about an entire society hidden from the naked eye and took on the responsibility not only for a whole other human being but one with enough baggage to fill a bottomless trunk, and you want to immediately quit your job and enter an apprenticeship in magical law without even being sure if you'll get to keep the child? Is there a way to pencil in some thinking time into that busy calendar or are you just jumping from task to task in hopes of forgetting all about it?"
"I- " his mouth opens but he can't quite figure out what to say and ends up closing it, eyes falling from Chang's reproaching eyes and to the books on his lap. "I'm twenty-seven," he protests after a moment, but her words still sink into his mind and refuse to leave until he considers them.
Does she have a point?
It was hardly the first time he was called out for going at things too fast, even Sarah had recently kicked him out of the office for overworking himself, but… it was really all he knew to do. Since he was the strange adopted child of the eccentric actress and the failed director he'd been rushing through things, not out of any desire to be done faster but because a subject or the other just came to him, and the ones that didn't were quickly engraved into his mind just as easily. His freaky memory let him breeze through classes and it didn't change when he got to university as most people said it would, so he was hardly about to stop taking advantage of it, especially when it made his mum so proud to see him succeed in his chosen field, never mind that the reason he chose it was that his dad had taken nearly everything in the divorce. After her death, he just continued working harder and harder, there was hardly a reason to stop.
Michael remembered that finding out about magic felt somewhat like the way he took to Latin at school, or playing the piano. As if the knowledge just fit in, almost as if it should have been there already, like any of the other subjects he took to a bit too easily throughout his life. It felt natural to jump right into the thick of it, especially with Harry depending on him to make good choices for his wellbeing, and becoming more involved in the wixen community was just a natural step towards being allowed to keep Harry, since he was hardly about to keep his ward from the world he belonged in.
Why overthink it?
His feelings were always what led him forwards, sometimes to his detriment but more often on the right track, and if he felt like immersing himself in this new culture and taking a leap of faith, who was Chang to question it?
Besides my maybe future boss, that is.
"It's not a no, kid. Just a not yet," she adds after a moment, tone softer probably due to something she saw in his expression, though he had no idea what.
"It's just how I do things," Michael finally replies with a shrug, "I've thought about it, but thinking without acting only does so much. I'm good at the action part."
"I can tell," Chang sighs, but he can tell it's mostly for show. He hopes. "Well then, you better get to acting on having a working floo connection, don't think I forgot about it."
"Right, I did get a little sidetracked," he admits with a sheepish look, "there have been… developments."
"Anything I'd need to know?" she raises one brow, though he can tell she's curious.
"Attorney-client privilege?" Michael holds out his hand, having become more used to the quick vow after a couple of meetings with Chang and not wanting to write up a contract for each one.
"Fine," she takes his hand and twists her wand out of the forearm holster and into her palm, pointing it at their joined hands, "fideli verba nostra."
There's a small tingle that goes up his arm as he takes back his hand but it's still much more practical than one contract per meeting, even if she took a while to show him and was probably laughing at him in private, not that she didn't do it to his face too.
"Harry is a parselmouth," he tells her, and only thinks for another moment before adding, "and for some reason, I can also understand snakes."
"Wright… you'll never let things get boring, will you?" Chang shakes her head but he can tell she's hiding her surprise behind amusement.
"Boring is overrated," he quips with an unapologetic grin.
"Well, I'll tell you what," she pauses for a moment, looking as if she's considering something before continuing, "I believe this changes things."
Yeah, I didn't see this coming but guess it's happening now. I'd apologise for all the OCs but there are only so many times I can bring in a canon character as a plot device without it starting to look like a bit much. Besides, I like Ms Chang and her travelling, magical painter husband.
Little Cho Chang is a tiny quidditch-obsessed baby that becomes the Seeker for Ravenclaw in her second year and will let the position be pried from her cold dead hands... or when she graduates, whichever comes first.
fideli verba nostra translates to "faithful to our words" and is basically a privacy vow that makes attorney-client privilege a more literal thing in the magical world. Any words traded until the vow is undone are completely unintelligible to third parties and not able to be spoken of outside of the vow.
The house elves are named Qiăo (巧) which means skilful in chinese and Kuài (快) which means clever. Hopefully these are correct.