The Houses Competition, Round 5- Horror on the Coast

House: Ravenclaw

Class: Divination

Category: Standard

Prompts Chosen: (Colour) blue; (Dialogue) "Are you sure we're meant to be here?"

Title/Link:

Fandom: HPVerse

Stacked with: THC; MC4A

Individual Challenge(s): Reader; Cinematic; Historics; Short Jog; Bucket Listing; Outer Limit; Crack Addict; Vial Collector; Fuzzy Socks; Zed Era; Outer; Dreamers; Redemption; Rainbow Connection; Magical MC; Hogwarts MC; Death Eater MC; Student MC; Watts

Word Count: 1921

Warnings/Trigger Warnings: minor discussions of canon war

Disclaimer/Author's Note: Y2K teens AU, angst disguised with crack/humor.

Beta: Ash Juillet, Queenie

Ron's concerned, "Are you sure we're meant to be here?" overlapped with Hermione's bristling, "Harry, you cannot film a magical location and put it on the internet!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Both of you chill, would you? Besides, this neighborhood is historically both magical and Muggle. And for all I know, Hermione, the camera will only detect what the Muggles can see." They were in the midst of their newly mandated eighth year of Hogwarts following the end of the war, and they had taken the afternoon off to "celebrate" Halloween.

"What's the onternet?" Ron asked.

"If we get caught, we are definitely getting expelled," Hermione grumbled. "Just because eighth years have the freedom to come and go, doesn't mean we have permission to trespass."

"Shh!" Harry shushed. He had his video camera on, the blue recording light indicating the film was rolling.

He saw his cousin up ahead, examining the abandoned house. Quicker now, the three approached him. "What's up, Big D?" Harry greeted.

Dudley and Harry had come to a mutual understanding of each other before Harry's year on the run. But when Dudley had started dating a girl who turned out to be a Muggleborn witch in hiding, Uncle Vernon had kicked him out. Harry had come to his rescue and they'd become closer during the year.

"I dunno what you're expecting to sneak into, Cous. All that's here is a statue or monument of some sort."

"What does it look like?"

Dudley looked at him incredulously. "What do you mean what does it look like? You're standing right in front of it too."

Harry shook his head. "It's been charmed. Seems the Muggles were disturbed by the house being left abandoned. And the Wixens haven't wanted to do anything with it. We see a blown up house."

Dudley eyed him strangely. "It's a statue: two people and a baby, made of gold and…maybe marble? With blue accents."

"That's it?" Harry asked disappointedly, shutting off the camera for the time.

"No, there's a plaque too. Blue lettering on marble. It says, "Here, we died so he could live, a light unto our world."

"I wish I could see it," Harry said solemnly.

Hermione moved closer to Harry, touching his arm in a gesture of comfort. "Maybe once you watch the footage, you'll be able to."

"I don't get it," Dudley admitted. "What is so important about this place?"

"This house, or this statue, depending on what a person sees, is where my parents, your aunt and uncle were murdered."

Dudley's eyes widened. "So, this statue is made to represent Aunt Lily and Uncle James. And you must be the baby."

Harry chuckled. "I don't know why everyone always makes me out to be like this cherub-faced infant. I was already a year old."

"Sounds cooler?" Dudley suggested. Harry shrugged.

"So, now what's the plan?" Ron asked anxiously.

"Hope you're okay with giving up some of your personal space, Big D," Harry said, removing his backpack and placing it on the ground in front of him. "Because we're urban exploring the magical way."

He squatted down and pulled out a wad of fabric. Ensuring the coast was clear of any passersby, he brandished his wand and whispered, "Engorgio." The wad of fabric grew in size. "These are invisibility cloaks. Not the real one, mind you, but they'll suffice for our purposes. Hermione and Ron, you'll share this one." Harry untangled a smaller wad from the larger bundle and passed it over to Hermione. "Dudley, you'll share one with me. And Malfoy and Neville can have the last one when they get here."

As if on cue, Neville spoke up from behind them, "Are you sure we're meant to be here?"

"You sound like Ron," Harry grumbled as the group exchanged greetings.

"But they aren't wrong, Harry," Hermione pointed out, trying to reason with him. "If we were meant to be here, the ministry wouldn't have disguised this place."

"Then if we aren't meant to be here, they shouldn't have left the place to rot in the first place," Malfoy argued back.

Draco Malfoy, the most unlikely addition to the group, had befriended Harry and Hermione over the summer. At risk of going to Azkaban, Hermione and Harry had seen it as an injustice that someone their age would be thrown in jail without a trial, and had spoken up on his behalf. They'd spent the better half of the summer planning out a defense for the ex-Death Eater, one that painted him as a victim, which had been enough to get him cleared of all charges, provided he participated in mandatory community service. But through all of that, Harry and Draco had become friends, realizing they had a lot more in common than either cared to admit.

Harry gestured toward Malfoy. "See? He gets it."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Are we going to stand here arguing or go in already?"

Ensuring once again that there were no passersby, they donned their cloaks in pairs.

Walking so closely together was never easy, especially not when only one person could see where they were. "Harry, we're going to collide with that bloody monument," Dudley whispered frantically.

"Relax. I wouldn't let you run into a wall. At least not without a briefing first." He chuckled at his own joke. "We're just walking up a path. Quite a charred one at that. Just keep close."

Up ahead was a red door, faded pink over the years, surrounded by walls covered in overgrowth. As happens to most abandoned things, the house had been taken over by nature. Suddenly, Harry felt a tingle up his spine, and the air around shimmered blue. They'd crossed the barrier of the concealment charm.

"I suppose that giant gaping hole in the roof is where the curse rebounded?" Malfoy asked, removing his cloak now that he and Neville were across.

"Bloody hell!" Dudley exclaimed as he pulled his head out of the cloak he shared with Harry. "Pretty sure I can see what you lot are seeing now."

"You should be able to, yes. We just passed through the concealment charm. Amazing that's all they bothered to do," Hermione grumbled as she emerged from her cloak.

"You're surprised, Granger?" Malfoy asked.

"I shouldn't be. If the past few years hasn't taught me the ministry is just a talking head, nothing will."

Neville had been mostly quiet so far, but now he spoke up. "Not to offend anyone, but why is he here?" he asked, pointing to Dudley.

Harry shrugged. "Now that he's not a prick like his parents, we're bros." Hermione rolled her eyes. "Also, he's my second pair of eyes."

As he spoke, he was opening up his camera again. "Let's heal some trauma and do some filming."

The light on the camera turned blue. "Welcome back to my channel, Scarheads! It's Halloween and you know what that means. No tricks or treats for this orphaned mage. Instead, I've brought some friends with me to do some urban exploring." He turned the camera around. "Say hi, friends."

Hermione stepped away from the group. "I want no part of this."

Draco moved closer to the camera in Hermione's place. "Hi, friends!"

"This is Draco, resident arsehole. We hated each other most of our lives, but war has a funny way of bringing people together." He panned over to Dudley. "And of course, you already know my cousin, Dudley. Also used to be an arsehole, but his dad kicked him out for having a girlfriend like me, so here we are, true brothers now. And he's with me today to be my Muggle-Vision."

Harry turned the camera back to himself. "But this isn't any ordinary abandoned building. This is where my parents were murdered by a soulless madman 17 years ago today. So we're going to be doing some exploring because this house hasn't been touched by humans for as long as it's been abandoned."

He turned around and then aimed the camera at the house. "You saw a bit behind me, but this is where we are. It's horribly overgrown, which I knew from when I was here last Christmas. But you can see, there's a huge hole over there. That would have been my room, and it's where my parents were killed trying to defend me. But I had the protection of love, so I didn't die. Apparently the roof got blown off, though."

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed. "You cannot talk about this and post it on the internet! It's a clear violation of the Statute of Secrecy."

"Ya, but what is the onternet?" Ron asked. Neville and Malfoy nodded their agreement to the question.

"You don't know what the internet is?" Dudley asked. "It's…well, I don't know how to explain it really, but you can use it to connect with anyone in the world. And it's instant."

Neville's eyes widened. "So…Harry is talking to people all over the world right now? With that camera?"

"No, the camera isn't instant. I still have to upload the footage and edit it. You know, to scrap the bits like this conversation that aren't fun to watch. But then I'll upload it later for other people to watch."

"But you're talking about wizarding secrets," Hermione insisted. "You're going to get in trouble."

"It's not a violation of the Statute of Secrecy if the ministry doesn't know about it. They wouldn't know what to do with a computer if it jumped in their face and started talking to them. Besides, I haven't mentioned magic once."

"Nobody actually believes Harry is a wizard, Hermione. They think he's just some elaborate story teller," Dudley reassured.

"And you know this, how?" Though Harry was more than willing to trust his cousin, Hermione was still hesitant at times.

"I'm subscribed to his YouTube channel. You should see some of the comments on his videos. People think Harry just makes up crazy metaphors for normal things. Or Muggle things, I guess."

Harry turned the camera back to himself. "Let's go in, shall we?"

He started the walk up to the house. "Well, are you coming?" He called back to his friends.

He tried the door handle, but it was locked. "Gotta magic my way in then," he muttered, shutting his camera. The blue light blinked, indicating the film was paused. He pulled out his wand again and pointed it toward the door. "Alohomora."

Harry held his breath as the lock clicked. Beyond the fun of filming, Harry was really here for closure. What really happened to his parents had always been so elusive to him. He could never have a clear picture of his parents, just pieces from everyone who ever knew them, like a puzzle that could never be fully complete. But this cottage could fill in another of those missing pieces.

His internet videos were just a way to explore his past, his heritage, from a safe distance. This character he shared with the world could take the trauma head on while he examined it from a distance. And he'd been anxious to come back ever since his first visit during the war, when he'd realized the property had been left abandoned.

Hermione stepped forward, catching his hesitation, and taking his hand. "You don't post as yourself, do you?" she whispered, realization dawning. "These videos you're making…You're just an actor playing a character."

He nodded.

"If this is something you need to do, we're here for you."

Harry took a deep breath and turned the knob.