Chapter 2: A Nighttime Picnic
On Earth, far away from the dimension that held the lands of the Enchanted Forest, there was a rather plain house in Surrey, England. The house was mostly unremarkable. Granted, most of the houses in that neighborhood looked unremarkable. This particular house, Number 4, seemed to be the most unremarkable of the lot. Well, until one looked on the inside as despite (most) of the residents' assertion, things were decidedly not normal. For it was not normal for a child to be locked in the boot cupboard under the stairs.
Harry Potter, as if sensing that the universe had turned its attention toward him, blinked and pulled himself out of his mind scape. Since he couldn't sleep, he had taken to retreating into his mind and meditating on nights where he didn't want to risk the Dursleys by sneaking out of his 'room'. Not that a cupboard under the stairs was a proper room. Even he knew better than that.
He sat there thinking about the latest unusual 'dream'. Since he was 3 these 'dreams' had happened, except Harry doubted that they were actually dreams. They always seemed to play out much more like memories even if the perspective tended to shift oddly. He had been wondering for years why he was viewing Count Dracula's memories. Tonight, he finally had the last few clues he needed to figure it out.
As odd as it was, Harry had concluded that he was Count Dracula. It would explain why he could see at night regardless of how much light there was. It also explained why he didn't need to sleep and his healing factor. It explained the odd, gothic castle in his head and as the memories continued to play, the beings who wandered around its halls. With this last bit, he had an explanation as to why he wasn't a pile of ash if was a vampire. It also explained the dark clouds that formed a barrier around Dracula's/his castle. Those clouds were the same ones that made up the Dark Curse.
He still wasn't sure how he also had the memories of a dark wizard. Those were kind of fuzzy like his mind hadn't wanted to focus on those till it had sorted through his memories. Until now the dark wizard's memories had all been shoved in the castle's overpopulated dungeon and catacombs (Harry had a sneaking suspicion that when Dracula drank people, he also got their knowledge. He couldn't think of another reason for knowing French and Greek). Truthfully, Harry was perfectly happy to keep the dark wizard's memories down there for now. Those memories just felt…unclean.
Confident that his relatives were asleep, he blended into the shadows and emerged outside his locked cupboard door. For a moment he considered sneaking food out of the fridge, but he remembered that Petunia had gotten better at keeping track of what was left and knew that Dudley was too lazy to swipe the food unless it was a dessert. So, he decided to go without. He instead shadow-walked to the backyard and then proceeded to slip around the front. He'd have better luck getting food from the dumpster behind the pizza place that was a few blocks away. He could just shadow-walk there, but he wanted to stretch his legs for a moment. It was odd but some days he needed food less than just the ability to get out of that house and go places for a moment.
He decided to take a trip to the park. It wasn't often that anyone was able to use it without Dudley's gang bothering them and he wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to swing for a bit. One of the powers he had seen from Dracula's memories was the ability to fly both in bat form and out of it. It was one of the few he had feelings of longing for, and swinging was a way to blunt the edge of that craving for a bit.
He was surprised to see a man wander into the park after he'd been swinging for about half an hour. The man had the longest beard that Harry had ever seen (including his memories as Dracula). He was wearing a comfortable and very colorful dress shirt, black slacks and a tweed jacket. He set a picnic basket down on the table and with a piece of wood in his hand, he cast a few charms to discreetly repair things in the immediate area. The man frowned as he caused some of the trash to disappear.
"Care to join me, Mr. Potter," asked the man when he noticed Harry looking.
"You seem to have me at a disadvantage," Harry began using the stalling tactics he'd seen from his Dracula memories.
"I honestly forgot we haven't been properly introduced yet though to be fair it is quite beyond my normal bedtime. Luckily, I just got back from a meeting in Japan so I'm still operating off their time zone. I am Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Chief Warlock of the British Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and perhaps most importantly at the moment, the bearer of a basket of sandwiches and those delightful fizzy colas. Come have a seat. I daresay I've been given much more food than I can handle."
There did seem to be a literal buffet of sandwiches and sandwich adjacent dishes as well as a selection of colas. While Harry was a bit wary, he was still hungry. So, he sat down across from the man and helped himself to a couple of sandwiches and a bottle of Coca-Cola.
"I prefer 7-Up and Sprite myself but there is something to be said for an old-fashioned bottle of Coca-Cola that's made with real sugar," continued Dumbledore, "As far as sandwiches go, we've got your standard Bacon Lettuce and Tomato, Turkey, Italian Club, and your traditional ham sandwich for the cold sandwiches. For the warm sandwiches, we've got Philly Cheesesteak, Meatball Marinara and a rather nice brisket sandwich recipe I found the last time I had a meeting in Texas…well except for the mayo that they insist on putting on it. Can't say I understand that when they already drench the thing in barbecue sauce. Now, I imagine you have questions.
"The obvious one, of course, is how did I know who you are? Now, I could give you a long waffling spiel about how once you've been an educator for as long as I have, you get to be able to recognize your future students before you even meet them even if all you have to go off of is a name. I could say that you look like your father with your mother's eyes…which now that I think about it isn't quite true. Your general build admittedly leans toward your father, but the facial resemblance is superficial. If you were to style your hair differently and change the color, you'd look more like your mother but with your father's nose and eye placement," he shook his head slightly, "Disregarding the tangent, the true answer is that I cheated. When I left you at the Dursleys, I applied several spells that would take effect whenever you left the house regardless of how you exited the house. Since I recognize the spells on you, I must conclude that you are Mr. Harry Potter."
"What spells?"
"A targeted notice-me-not charm that would prevent any people who you would think of as strangers that have or would have hostile intent from recognizing you. That's the primary one. A very complex one to figure out but sadly not without a few flaws that I'm sure you've discovered."
"Once I know them, they can spot me even with their hostile intentions."
"Precisely, remind me to give 5 points to whatever House you wind up in come September. Any others?"
"Someone could always point me out to them whether intentionally or accidentally. I could run into them and dispel the spell that way. If what they see matches a general description of someone they're looking for they might not bother confirming my identity and just act on the off chance that I might be the person they're looking for."
"Very good Mr. Potter. Yes, those are all weaknesses of that particular charm. I also put an enchantment that is based off that nifty Secrecy Ritual they have in the United States. It makes anything you do that looks like Magic appear to be whatever non-magical phenomenon that the person watching it finds the most plausible. It also works on electronic devices. The last enchantment was an emergency transport charm that would take you to a private healing wing if your vitals dropped to a certain level or if certain spells were shot anywhere near you."
Dumbledore paused and took a sip of his own cola, his preferred Sprite.
"Now, the next question is likely why did I leave you at the Dursleys," he paused long enough to see Harry nod, "With the war happening in the magical community at the time, placing you with any magical family was risky. So, I opted to decrease that risk by leaving you in the non-magical world, where the people who would want to hurt you for reasons you couldn't control, wouldn't be able to find you. Honestly, had your maternal grandparents been alive, I would have rather left you with them. Unfortunately, they passed as a result of a drunk driver and Petunia was the only option left.
"This of course leads to a secondary question, why did I not take you away from the Dursleys once the war was fully over especially when it became clear that Petunia is for lack of a better phrase, a jealous spiteful bitch," Harry was honestly shocked to hear Dumbledore curse, "This is where we encounter one of the truly vile inventions of humanity; politics. As Chief Warlock, I sealed your parents' will so that your parents' enemies couldn't just start going down a list and killing people in the hope of finding where you were. Unfortunately, unsealing it can either be done at a full Wizengamot session or at Gringotts by joint request of both myself and yourself. The first wasn't an option because many of the enemies managed to bribe their way back into respectable society after pleading, but not proving that they were subjected to mind control magics. The second wasn't an option as family heirs must wait until they are 11 years old just to be able to request to view the will and sadly you just turned 11 roughly 30 minutes ago. If I attempted to move you without going through your parents' will first, I could then legally be brought up on kidnapping charges for exceeding my wartime powers and open it up so that some of those people who play fast and loose with their money could take custody of you. You might wind up with someone good, or you might wind up with one of the 'mind controlled' people. I could not afford to take that risk and frankly I don't fancy going to jail. The Geneva Convention is sadly one of those things that Wizarding Britain doesn't even know of so our jail is little better than a concentration camp.
"So, once we are both fed and watered, we'll head to Gringotts to rectify the situation…or at least attempt to. I'll admit that I do not know what exactly is in your parents' will as I wasn't a witness to it or if I was a witness my memory was removed for security reasons. Your parents were quite unwilling to really trust anyone outside of a very small group of your father's friends. Sadly, all three of them have been…missing for lack of a better collective verb. Any other questions?"
"Not that I don't appreciate the explanations, but why are you telling me all this?"
"Partly because I think you deserve to know and mainly because despite your body's physical age, you are mature enough to truly comprehend the information. Part of that is unfortunately due to your upbringing. Abused children tend to mature faster mentally as a survival mechanism. The other part is that one of the nifty enchantments on my glasses allows me to see specific magical enchantments, curses and presences. While I'll admit to being relieved to not see certain magic on you that I had suspected might be there when I left you at the Dursleys, I do see Magic that should not be there. This Magic is far older than your body and from the looks of it, mine. Do you have any ideas as to how you picked up such Magic, Mr. Potter?"
"What do you know about reincarnation, Headmaster Dumbledore?"
About an hour later, Harry had finished his story.
"Quite extraordinary! Partial reincarnation, sentient curses, extraplanar translocation, all of it beggars belief yet your tale has the remarkable ring of truth to it. Stories like that are why I got into academia so I could not only research magical phenomenon but share it with the world," He scowled for a moment before his smile reappeared, "You'll want to be very careful who you tell about such things, Mr. Potter. The Department of Mysteries has an unhealthy curiosity and a disturbing lack of morals when it comes to satisfying it."
With a flick of his wand, Dumbledore packed up the remains of the picnic.
"Well, Mr. Potter, we'd best be off. I sadly won't be able to take you shopping for your supplies myself, but I can help put you on the right foot with Gringotts. Word to the wise, don't mention Tolkien to them or within their hearing. They are rather annoyed at that portrayal and will viciously gouge anyone who dares to mention it."