Obligatory Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any character, story element or plot item originally published in the Harry Potter books or movies that I may refer to in this story. I'm merely playing in the sandbox.
Author's note: Welcome back, dear reader, to another of my random ideas that I don't know what else to do with.
So, after that, how about a palate cleanser?
Pomona Sprout stretched and grumbled as she sat at the unfamiliar desk. "I'd rather be down in my office." She shook her head, but new the complaint was moot. She has to be here. The letters can only be sent from the Deputy Headmistress's desk. The window she had was the one they letters left from and went to on return. With the current Deputy Headmistress sick with the flu and down for at least the next week and quarantined, She had volunteered.
She took a sip of the tea beside her, then looked again at the stack of letters. "How do you do it, Minerva?" She straightened again, reaching for the next one. They had been written by an auto quill. She set each and tapped it with a wand and a magical seal, causing the parchment to fold and seal. Each was set aside into a basket to set by the window. From there, she had no idea how they were distributed. This process had been in place for five hundred years.
She reached one and paused. Harry Potter's name stood out to her and she wondered what this would bring to the magical world. "May it be good things for us and you, wherever you are.
Harry sat outside. Dudley was on a day trip with one of his friends, Petunia was at tea with friends and his uncle was somewhere. Harry decided he didn't care where the man was. He leaned back and watched the sky. A dark speck careened through the air and then seemed to circle before descending. He sat up and saw an owl landing on the slide he leaned against.
"What are you doing up during the day?"
The owl barked, then raised a leg. It held a letter.
"I…a letter?"
He wasn't sure what surprised him more, that an owl was carrying a letter or that it had his name on it. The address, too, was concerning. Whoever sent it knew that he lived in the cupboard. "They said it was to be a secret."
For a brief moment, something made him look around, wondering if unseen eyes were on him. He opened the strange red seal and opened the letter. After reading for a moment, he frowned. "Is this some kind of joke?"
After a long moment of the owl staring at him, he realized that he wasn't going to get an answer. "This is a lot of work to prank someone. I didn't even know you can train an owl." He wondered. "I don't have an owl to reply with."
The owl barked once and held it's leg out, the leather strap hanging loosely where he'd untied the letter. "One second… I think I have a pencil."
Digging in his pockets, he found a small worn pencil, barely the length of his little finger. "Just a second." Soon, he completed writing a brief response at the bottom of the letter, then folded it back carefully and tied it to the waiting owl. "Thank you."
The owl bobbed its head, then flew off. Harry shook his head. "Magic. Next thing someone will say is that someone cares what happens to me." He laid back on the slide and wondered how long before he'd have to go back and work on cooking dinner for them.
Pomona flipped through the replied, filing them based on attending, not attending, or not understanding the letter. The last were filed for a visit from a staff member. She idly pictured sending Severus to a Muggle home, then snorted. Finally, she reached one that had made her pause in her relatively mechanical movements.
"Dear Mr. Dumbledore, I'm not sure what kind of joke this is, but I don't think my aunt and uncle will go for it. They would be happy to send me away, but since this isn't real, I'd just come back and be a burden again. Harry."
She reread the words slowly, then set it aside. She needed to finish the others, then get the boxes on their way. After a few minutes, letters sorted and sent to file by two house elves, she sat back holding the parchment. The pencil scratching was difficult to read if not for her experience. Most muggle born ended up in her House due to their fear and the automatic rejection by the purebloods on the train. She wished they didn't have to ride that to Hogwarts every year, but tradition.
She dug through Minerva's drawer and found a bottle. Tipping a single finger of the liquid into a shot glass, she sipped it and enjoyed the pleasant warmth. A few things came to mind with the text and none of them helped settle her nerves, even with the assistance.
Standing, she folded the parchment and slipped it into a robe pocket. She flooed Albus, deciding she didn't feel like climbing into his office. That twinkle of his made her skin crawl at times. "Headmaster, I'm going for a walk. Letters are filed and completed. I'll have a list of the muggle visits necessary soon."
"Any unusual instances?"
"Nothing unexpected."
She saw the flare of a twinkle and for a moment thought of Severus's scowl. Albus's head seemed to shift and she kept the image in her mind, recognizing a passive scan. As she bid him a good night, the image still firmly in place, she cut the connection and swore at him in her thoughts. She was glad she hadn't read the boy's letter out loud.
Harry sat in the cupboard, frowning. He had burned dinner the night before. He was almost glad to have not eaten or drank since lunch yesterday. If he had, being locked in here would be a mess. One I'd have to clean. He sighed.
There was a thundering overhead and he ducked down, wondering again if the floor would cave in. "At least I wouldn't be here anymore." He covered his mouth swiftly, hoping that they hadn't heard. He was both afraid of the punishment and that one of them would take the idea as a suggestion.
He wasn't sure what he was hearing. Dudley had yelled something, Petunia gave a shrill cry and Vernon's roar was pretty pronounced, but it was all muffled by the stairs and the walls around him. He just hoped that whatever it was, they'd forget him. Soon, there was silence, the yelling stopped and he froze again hearing steps on the stairs. They were not familiar. Who is in here?
After a moment, two voices were near his cupboard. He saw the lock shake once, then again and snap free. As the door opened, he pushed away.
Pomona stepped into the house as Amelia Bones and two Aurors, all three in plain clothes to not stand out in the muggle neighborhood, had shattered that illusion by silencing and stunning three of the occupants of the house. After a moment, the three called out to each other saying they could find no sign of the fourth supposed member.
Pomona looked at the photos on the walls and scowled. "Supposed fits. Where are photos of Harry?" All were of the fat spoiled child who had cried when his mother was pushed out of the way by Vernon, then louder until silenced and stunned following his parents.
Amelia walked in "Pomona, he's supposed to be here. We can even detect a fourth person here, not counting us."
"There's no way to make that more directed?"
"No, we've tried…"
Pomona sighed and considered some of the worst cases she'd read about before. She walked into the kitchen and sat down. Her gaze had been drawn to a foot stool by the stove. It had been pushed out of the way but was clearly used.
"Neither adult would have needed that." Pomona gestured.
"No. I can't imagine he could have cooked without setting his apron on fire, his stomach would be over the stove." Amelia stood in the doorway
Pomona looked around the room, still seeing no signs of Harry Potter until she stopped on a cabinet. She gestured, not able to speak.
"Why would you lock a closet under the stairs."
"The envelope said…but I thought it had glitched out. One child this year had an envelope addressed to the tallest oak tree at an address. Turns out she is an avid climber."
"That was Hannah." Amelia had started to smile, then shook her head. "I don't think…" She squared her shoulders, then stepped forward. A flick of the wand caused the lock to shift, then release. She started to open it, then paused as Pomona got down and knelt before the door. "Hello?" She opened the door slowly.
Inside was a very underfed eleven year old, looking more like a nine or ten year old. He cowered back, but Pomona clearly could see the green eyes and lightning scar that she knew he would have. She never knew where the information came from about the scar, but everyone knew from the papers. The papers never saw this coming.
"Ameila, we need to call a healer. Not Poppy. She's too close to Dumbledore."
"I know a guy, very trusted. My brother's nephew will keep his mouth shut or I'll tan his hide the way I used to."
The phrasing caused the boy to cringe and Pomona made a wave off gesture behind her. "Hush now, Harry, no one is going to do that to anyone." Pomona took a second to look back and glare at Amelia. "Can you come out so we can talk?"
A/N: So, I'm finishing editing on Trials and working on a new project which doesn't have a name yet. This one is going to be a bit darker, so I wanted to write something nice.
I can't help but feel that Harry latched on to the friends he made because they were the only friends he'd ever made or since a long time before. This isn't to say that they're bad friends. I've recently been hearing comparisons of book Ron to movie Ron and been reminded that book Ron wasn't so…that. Same with Hermione being a bit different.
I do tend to like Harry being in Hufflepuff as opposed to Gryffindor because of that. It sems to me that he would need that level of loyalty to survive what he's been put through in seven books. Anyway, hope you think the idea is fun, it may be part of something larger in the future. Have a wonderful day and, until next time, try to make something around you a bit better. You can't change the world, but you can make the first of a series of small changes to make things better. That's been on my mind this week.