Chapter 200

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of JK Rowling's or Criminal Minds fabulous characters. I do however own this story; I wrote it and I do NOT give permission for anyone to post it anywhere else. If you want to share it post a link.

Harry arrived at his waiting spot near the edge of the gangway, under his invisibility cloak with all his other worldly possessions shrunk into his pockets about an hour before they allowed passengers to start to board, he was surprised to see that the gangway was actually already in place and open for arrivals and watched cautiously as several people, some in uniform and others in casual clothing, made their way onto the boat after showing their ID to the staff members set up to check in arrivals. After watching a few arrivals, he moved to follow the next pair, managing to slip past the check in desk and make it onto the boat without anyone noticing him.

He moved away from the gangplank following the still enthusiastically chatting staff and found his way into a staff change room. He quickly closed his eyes as the pair of women changed into their waiting uniforms then followed them to one of the dining areas where they began to set up for High Tea to celebrate embarking. The doors had shut behind them so he was trapped in the room unless he wanted someone to notice the doors opening and closing by themselves so he tried to stay out of their way as his stomach rumbled a little at the smell of the food but he quickly realised that he couldn't risk being the first to take anything from the pristine bain-maries. He wished that he could get into the kitchen where there no doubt would be some pastries and scones that hadn't made the cut to lay out or some other snacks of some kind for the staff.

He knew that the boat would not set sail for hours and he sat himself down in the corner wishing he had had enough time alone to get a book out to read. Eventually, people started to trickle in and take a seat at the tables looking out at the dock. Harry looked them over carefully, assessing their clothing choices wanting to know how to transfigure his clothes to look to fit in but he soon realised that he was going to stand out like a sore thumb in this group. There was nobody near his age in the room, he wouldn't even pass for a son of most of them, grandson maybe, but this didn't seem to be somewhere you'd take a grandson who should be in school at this time of year. Perhaps he'd made a mistake in staying on to help Seamus' dad instead of catching the August cruise.

Hoping that there were younger people elsewhere on the boat, he started planning what to do if there weren't, he was fairly sure he could match their clothing styles, conjure a walking stick and use a colour charm to grey his hair, but he hadn't researched any spells that would make him look that much older and he only had enough aging potion in his trunk to make him seem like a man in his thirties for about 12 hours, and even that age would still stand out too much among this group. It was going to be a very long and difficult week if he had to spend most of his time either in his tent or under his invisibility cloak.

There was a thrum through the floor from the engines and the few people standing quickly took a seat before the boat began to move away from the dock. Harry was sitting away from the windows but he was able to watch Southampton slide out of view between the chairs and table legs. The movement had been fairly smooth but Harry felt relieved as he realised that a lot of these people were unsteady on their feet at the best of times and perhaps that's why they had come to sit down rather than standing at the railing to watch the departure like people did on the telly. There probably were younger people up on deck. Hopefully, at least some his age. He was hungry and thirsty and the scones and jam and fresh orange juice looked delicious, but he didn't dare leave the safety of his invisibility cloak so he experimented with transfiguring his clothes into black dress slacks and a burgundy button down shirt that he thought most people in the room would find unobjectionable while he waited impatiently for the buffet area to be deserted enough for him to sneak one, or for someone to leave so he could follow them out of the room. He wished that he had a mirror to check his outfit from all angles but it seemed to look alright, what he could see of it.

Harry managed to sneak a couple of scones from the buffet before someone decided to go and find their cabin, he caught up with them as they were looking bewildered at the map they'd been given and whipped off his cloak and offered to help, anything to get close enough to her lanyard to make a decent fake one and his hands on the map so he could conjure himself an exact copy.

"You're too young to be working here, have you travelled on this ship before? Where's your boarding pass?" the elderly lady said uncertainly.

"I'm David Evans, this is my first trip on the QE2 too, but I'm good with maps and you looked to be having a bit of trouble. I didn't mean to offend you," Harry said politely, transfiguring the napkin in his pocket into a boarding pass, that he hoped was similar enough to her own, and pulling it out to show her.

The lady relaxed and held out the map "Edith Swanley, I'm in Stateroom 11. 083"

Harry quickly scanned the map while he slid his hand into his pocket and made a magical copy from the envelope Spencer's latest letter had arrived in.

"Okay, that's Deck 11, mid-forward so you want to go up the lifts next to staircase B, this way," Harry said taking charge, and leading her to the lifts in question, he knew that the more familiar he became with the ship the more chances he had of finding hiding spots around the place. Once he showed her onto the lift he pulled out his new copy of the map and started looking for somewhere to hide away, he noticed the library and headed there to check it out. It wasn't open until tomorrow but donning his cloak in the loo opposite soon took care of that, and it seemed a good place to spend part of his day, and there were computers with internet access on them so he quickly logged onto his email and sent Spencer a message telling him that he'd made it onto the ship and they'd left Southampton and that he'd contact him later. He was too keyed up to spend time waiting for a reply or sitting and reading and he still had to find the Kings Court Buffet and Britannia Restaurant which served free meals, and work out a way that he could get a meal without drawing attention to the fact he was on his own.

He also had to find a place to sleep, or hopefully a place he could put up his tent. He wished there was a way to tell if any of the staterooms were empty but from the crowds of people that he could see moving about the ship looked fairly full. It was such a huge boat that he'd thought it would be easy but there seemed to be people everywhere he looked and the places that were quiet during the day had advertisements for evening events and other activities for days they were at sea. There wasn't any space large enough for his tent that would be out of the way in any of the areas he could get to and he didn't want to risk trying to sneak in and out of the engine spaces. He doubted that there'd be space anywhere else, even with the huge ship he could see that there was no wasted space and the staff areas were efficiently designed to use every foot of space they had. There were some nice comfy chairs in the library where he could curl up under his invisibility cloak and be reasonably sure he wasn't in the way, but unless he could unlock the doors with magic without getting caught, he'd have to miss dinner to be there in time to be locked in there for the night, and he'd be stuck inside without access to a toilet until the door was unlocked the next day. There was also the issue of security cameras which was likely considering the value of some of the books and avoiding the cleaners when they came in to dust and vacuum, which he was sure they'd do while the library was closed.

Harry was pleased to see that there were some younger people on board Even though there didn't appear to be anyone his age, which wasn't that surprising since he should've been at school, there were some families with primary school aged children, or bored older teenagers, perhaps on their gap year between school and university. After the equivalent of four years at boarding school counting the summer's in time dilation he was no longer small enough for his age to pass as a primary student himself, though he still didn't look old enough to be on board on his own either which would be a problem at dinner when there would be only so many times he could be seen sitting on his own before someone raised the alarm about an unaccompanied minor and the staff realised he was a stowaway. Perhaps he could change his appearance that it looked like he was several different teenagers but then if he was caught, would they expect him to be able to help them find the others? Would he be in more trouble when they couldn't find them?

He checked out the deck, the lounge chairs were comfortable though he knew it would probably be too cool to sleep out there at night, he checked out the various pools and changing areas, finding that the indoor pool at the top of the boat was the only change room with showers. It was in the area restricted to the people from the more expensive cabins so he'd have to be careful when he used them, the staff would be on the lookout for those that didn't belong in that area. No matter how he transfigured his clothing, once he had his shirt off, the scars on his body and the callouses on his hands, were evidence of a hard life of manual labour, not the sort of thing someone who came from the type of money that could afford those cabins at his age would have lived. It was a pity, the loungers in that pool area under the glass might be warm enough to sleep on too. He used the mirror in there to try out various looks, he wasn't big enough to pass for a young adult but he thought he would make a decent shrunken elderly man if he could cast an effective glamour charm to age his face and hair, the most important thing though was not to look at all like Harry Potter, in case he was caught. He didn't want his picture ending up in the paper as someone trying to illegally emigrate to the USA. He thought that the Cruise company would be far less likely to publicise a successful adult stowaway than an unaccompanied minor. He transfigured his fake wand into a walking stick, which would at least give him a weapon if he were attacked, though he had no intentions of attacking anyone more than he needed to be able to get out of sight and don his invisibility cloak. Looking elderly and slightly frail should give him enough of an element of surprise if he had to make a break for it. He hoped that he wouldn't need to, it would be much more difficult to find places to sleep if the staff were looking for an offender, even if he was able to completely change his age and appearance.

Harry went back to the library and logged onto his email to let Spencer know that he'd managed to get something to eat and was okay so far, though he was beginning to doubt that he'd find a place to put up his tent for more than an hour or two, if that. He was surprised to find a short message waiting for him. It was the wrong time of day for Spencer to be in the library.

To:

From:

Dear Harry,

I must have just missed you, I wanted to wish you luck. Sorry I couldn't get on to chat yesterday, there were a lot of activities on because it was the day the freshmen choose their house, and there are welcoming parties and education sessions about the house and house rules.

I'm waiting anxiously to hear how you went. I keep telling myself that not hearing from you again is a good sign, I'm sure if you hadn't managed to board the ship you would've gone back to the library and let me know. Unless of course you were caught and are being held for questioning, or arrested. I don't think that they would arrest you so much as try to find your family if you are caught and since I'm sure absolutely nothing they could find in your bag would have any reference to your Aunt and Uncle or the town they live in, I guess they could be waiting for a social worker to find you a place to stay for the night.

Anyway, I'm still hoping that you weren't caught and are on your way here. I'm looking forward to your arrival.

I took your advice and talked to Brioni, or Bri as she prefers to be called. You were right she is shy and lonely and was grateful that I wasn't scared off by her dragon of a guardian, as she calls her. The guardian, Ms Corbin, was disapproving of me sitting down and making conversation with Bri without introducing myself to her and asking for permission. Bri told me that she was hired by her grandfather as a compromise to avoid being forced to attend classes by correspondence until she was eighteen. She isn't particularly happy with his choice, when she agreed to having a guardian she was hoping that it would be someone that actually wanted to study the courses she was taking so they'd have something in common and who wasn't too much older than the rest of the students who could help her to fit in, not somebody who makes it harder. She thanked me for sitting and talking to her and wasn't concerned about what other people would say about her sitting with a TA for one of her classes, particularly as we are about the same age and it was better than sitting alone with her guardian all the time as if she wasn't allowed to talk to other students.

Yes Batman and Superman both have legends that are growing over time, Superman as he learns more science and develops new technology and Batman gets stronger and stronger. I guess that as people got used to them both, the writers made them stronger to keep them seeming to be amazing to their audience. I wondered whether Batman could be based on a wizard, or written by a wizard, or more likely that one of his team of writers might be a wizard. He's encountered magic, but he can't cast it or circumvent it at all, which is something that a witch or wizard would want nonmagical people to think about their heroes. Superman is too grounded in science and technology with his gadgets to be a wizard.

Ironically Superman is actually afraid of bats. I wonder why the writers made that decision.

Your friend always

Spencer

-o0o-

Spencer waited anxiously for a reply. He was tempted to keep sending Harry random messages even though he knew that Harry would reply to let him know what was going on as soon as he could regardless of whether Spencer had sent him a message or not. He tried to concentrate on his reading but this was one of the rare occasions that he couldn't find a book that would hold his interest. Unfortunately, he had mandatory labs this morning that he couldn't miss. He was tempted to call out sick but he didn't want to waste money and time finding a doctor who was willing to write him a pass, so he couldn't sit by the computer waiting to hear from Harry. He reluctantly logged off and went to class, where for the first time ever his lack of attention was noticeable to the lecturers and his fellow students. That didn't mean that his brain didn't record the information, or that he wasn't able to answer the questions that an annoyed professor threw at him at the end of the class, which then annoyed the students sitting near him that were aware he'd been distracted throughout the entire class.

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